Housrule: Taking (standard) actions during movement

[Mr Booze]

I'm thinking about introducing the houserule, that standard actions can be taken during the movement. So if your movement is 30 feet, you can move 15 feet, cast burning hands, and move 15 feet back.

Would this break the game? Who would benefit the most?

[OldTrees1]

It helps melee and magic but helps magic more.

It replaces Spring Attack, Ride by Attack, Flyby Attack (and at least 1 more I forget at this time).

It also can result in the goblin congo line: 12 goblins are in the next room. On their turn they 1 by 1 enter the hall, attack, and return to the room. Although with Combat Reflexes that will not be as one sided as it is in 5E.


Honestly I would go for it but with a few amendments:
1) Full Attacks are Standard Actions (and can be subdivided across the movement)
2) The list of actions you can trade an iterative attack for increases
3) Rule on the congo line. How much is allowed, where is the boundary line.

So while Magic will use it to stay 15+ ft further away,
Melee can use it to dash forward, throwing a lever as they jump onto a rotating bridge, cut a rope as the bridge rotates, and still hit the bandit chief.

[BowStreetRunner]

Have you considered limiting it to moving half your normal speed while performing another action? This leaves some of the move-and-act feats still useful for moving at full speed, and also leaves the move-only action as a viable option for someone looking to 'go the distance'.

[Necroticplague]

question: what would you do with all the 'spring attack', 'flyby attack', 'shot on the run' and similar feats that exist to allow for options like this?

Anyway, to try and conjecture: It wouldn't break the game. nothing that applies to everyone really can. However,, since this action paradigm allows for moving in and out of cover, it benefits those who have ranged attack farm more than it does melee ones. As a result, using readied actions to deal with that will become more important as well.

[ace rooster]

Maybe include a penalty for doing so. -4 to hit, and -4 to CL is one I like. Spring attack can have it's prereqs removed, and just remove the penalty to hit. Then include feats "mobile caster" and improved to reduce the CL penalty by 2 each.

For the love of all PCs, don't make full attacks a standard action. Dragons, bears, and ghouls do not need the effect of pounce. :smalleek: It looks like you are giving melee something nice, but you are simplifying their gameplay in a way that benefits melee monsters more. You are effectively getting rid of the full attack option, while upping the power of standard attacks in a way that favours monsters. Getting close to monsters becomes more dangerous, so melee becomes even less viable.

It definitely benefits standard action users more than full round users. A caster gets no benefit from not using a move action, so as standard they can either start or end their movement out of line of effect if they want to cast. With this variant, they can do both, rendering them far more difficult to counter. You need to ready actions to hit them, which can just be wasted actions if they are not popping out each round. Archers can do this too, but generally benefit from full attacking.

[Mr Booze]

The intention is to make combat, especially in close quarters, less static and more interesting. My players are relatively new and not into min-maxing.



It also can result in the goblin congo line: 12 goblins are in the next room. On their turn they 1 by 1 enter the hall, attack, and return to the room. Although with Combat Reflexes that will not be as one sided as it is in 5E.

Honestly I would go for it but with a few amendments:
1) Full Attacks are Standard Actions (and can be subdivided across the movement)
2) The list of actions you can trade an iterative attack for increases
3) Rule on the congo line. How much is allowed, where is the boundary line.

So while Magic will use it to stay 15+ ft further away,
Melee can use it to dash forward, throwing a lever as they jump onto a rotating bridge, cut a rope as the bridge rotates, and still hit the bandit chief.

I don't think the full attack would be that great. The congo line thing is true though.


Have you considered limiting it to moving half your normal speed while performing another action? This leaves some of the move-and-act feats still useful for moving at full speed, and also leaves the move-only action as a viable option for someone looking to 'go the distance'.

This would probably make the congo line more difficult. since they can't occupy the same space after the have finished their movement.


question: what would you do with all the 'spring attack', 'flyby attack', 'shot on the run' and similar feats that exist to allow for options like this?

So far noone has taken such a feat. They would be obsolete I guess, except when I would use BowStreetRunners limiting option, then the would take this limit away.

[OldTrees1]

I don't think the full attack would be that great. The congo line thing is true though.

The full attack is to account for the caster bias. While multiple attacks/actions that replace attacks per round do not measure up to a single Standard action spell, it is closer than 1 action/non spell Standard Action.

[TheFurith]

Would this break the game? Who would benefit the most?

Having played many games where a characters movement speed was the amount of ground they could cover in a round regardless of how they broke it up between actions, I can say no, it doesn't break the game. But we also had every space a person moved while threatened would trigger AoO unless it was your one five foot step. So you could run around the battlefield attacking different people, but you'd get shredded for doing it.

[Deophaun]

But we also had every space a person moved while threatened would trigger AoO unless it was your one five foot step. So you could run around the battlefield attacking different people, but you'd get shredded for doing it.
No one took ranks in Tumble?

[TheFurith]

No one took ranks in Tumble?

The people I play with tend to go the more heavily armored approach for melee, so not a lot of tumbling going on.