Swift and Immediate actions and modifying the action economy

[Aotrs Commander]

So, some once again, idle musing.

What would be the ramifications of:

a) Decoupling Immediate actions from Swift actions (i.e., you could make one Immediate and one Swift action per round)

b) In addition to a, make Immediate actions use up one attack of opportunity per round (with a limitation that you cannot use the same Immediate action more than once per round.)

c) In addition to a, make Immediate actions use up one attack of opportunity per round (with a limitation that once you make an Immediate action, you can only expend another AoO to make that Immediate action again if it is triggered)



Obviously, Immediate spells are of a concern, though that could be simply limited by maintaining "only two spells per round" we effectively already have, or just allow it, on the basis most Immediate spells are triggered.



I'm giving it some idle though, on the basis that there are now many, many triggers for Immediate actions and many, many swift actions (and I'm not sure we ever remember to negate the Swift action) and I am starting to think that perhaps the opportunity cost having it all loaded onto one might be a little much weighing.



Good idea? Bad idea? (Neutral idea...?)

[martixy]

a) is fine. I have it behind a feat in my game.
b) and c) if I understand correctly, create an equivalence between Immediate actions and AoOs. I'm not quite sure it'd play out, but I have a sneaky feeling it will punish martials more than casters. In the sense that casters rarely ever get more than one AoO per round, but those of the martials who invest in Combat Reflexes now have an additional drain on that resource. Also immediate actions require no provocation, so you'd have to be real careful with wording or you might end up with CR-focused builds essentially making full-attacks out of turn at their whim.

Me, I do a) using a feat and allow action trade-down (e.g. standard>move>swift/immediate).

[Aotrs Commander]

a) is fine. I have it behind a feat in my game.
b) and c) if I understand correctly, create an equivalence between Immediate actions and AoOs. I'm not quite sure it'd play out, but I have a sneaky feeling it will punish martials more than casters. In the sense that casters rarely ever get more than one AoO per round, but those of the martials who invest in Combat Reflexes now have an additional drain on that resource. Also immediate actions require no provocation, so you'd have to be real careful with wording or you might end up with CR-focused builds essentially making full-attacks out of turn at their whim.

Me, I do a) using a feat and allow action trade-down (e.g. standard>move>swift/immediate).


Now, see, that's interesting, because I thought it would be the opposite - casters, as you say, aren't likely to get more than one AoO per round anyway, so it wouldn't likely functionally make much difference (especially if you stopped them using CR to be able to cast more spells), but I figured that it would likely help the martials (the one with Combat Reflexes) on the basis now they only get one Immediate action plus AoOs, whereas they would then have the option to use more Immediates (granted, it would cost them one AoO per round, but only if they have any actions to use). I was sort of thinking that a lot of the immediate actions I've seen (from class features for martials) were reactions to stuff like "when opponent does, x, you can take an immediate action to y." Which, if the character was focussed around that sort of thing (rather than just straight damage dealing via AoO, where they'd be making the oppotunity cost of of using it verses attacking), you would have thought would have been preferable.

That said, I do recall reading some "full attack a immediate action" abilities, which you might have to put a limit of "not more than once per round" on.

[martixy]

I forgot half the argument, in that martials have less abilities to use on immediate actions, but it they had enough impactful ones, creating this equivalence would end up being a boon to that type of build.

[heavyfuel]

Martial Initiators, which - in my opinion - are way too strong in Pathfinder, will love this rule.

The only thing that makes them absolutely ot dominate combat is the action economy. A LOT of things are tied to swift/immediate actions.

Plus, Dex builds, which - in my opinion again - are also way too strong in PF will get to break the Action Economy with 5+ immediate actions per round.

Bad rule for Pathfinder. Letter A by itself might be okay, but expect any non-caster non-POW character to suck even harder.

[Thunder999]

Casters would absolutely take combat reflexes and a decent dex if we used those rules. They don't do it now because AoOs are mostly useless to them, but if they suddenly because more immediate action spells they'd be very, very valuable. Cast multiple defensive spells like windy escape and emergency force sphere per round.

[Psyren]

We stick with the immediate on your turn = swift, as well as an actual swift on your turn doesn't interfere with using an immediate after your turn. All of this is how it works by RAW currently.

Where we break from RAW is that we usually don't enforce the "your immediate this round used up the next round's swift" rule, largely because we can't be bothered to keep track of that for a bunch of different combatants. It wasn't like a codified houserule or anything, it just naturally worked out that way - but it hasn't hurt anything either.

[Aotrs Commander]

I forgot half the argument, in that martials have less abilities to use on immediate actions, but it they had enough impactful ones, creating this equivalence would end up being a boon to that type of build.


Martial Initiators, which - in my opinion - are way too strong in Pathfinder, will love this rule.

The only thing that makes them absolutely ot dominate combat is the action economy. A LOT of things are tied to swift/immediate actions.

Plus, Dex builds, which - in my opinion again - are also way too strong in PF will get to break the Action Economy with 5+ immediate actions per round.

Bad rule for Pathfinder. Letter A by itself might be okay, but expect any non-caster non-POW character to suck even harder.


Casters would absolutely take combat reflexes and a decent dex if we used those rules. They don't do it now because AoOs are mostly useless to them, but if they suddenly because more immediate action spells they'd be very, very valuable. Cast multiple defensive spells like windy escape and emergency force sphere per round.

I think were I going to do this, I would absolutely forbid casters from casting more than one immediate action, certainly.

I haven't implemented Path of War (as right now I don't feel like I want to go through and entirely update ToB to match), but point also noted.

(One supposes you could simply add spells/powers/maneouvres to the "one more than one per round," if you wanted to that route, though.)




We stick with the immediate on your turn = swift, as well as an actual swift on your turn doesn't interfere with using an immediate after your turn. All of this is how it works by RAW currently.

Where we break from RAW is that we usually don't enforce the "your immediate this round used up the next round's swift" rule, largely because we can't be bothered to keep track of that for a bunch of different combatants. It wasn't like a codified houserule or anything, it just naturally worked out that way - but it hasn't hurt anything either.

I think we've likely been tacitly playing this way, since I'm not sure we ever remember about that (and, we have, like, seven-eight player parties).



So what I take away from this is that it's probably okay to (offically) unlock Swift from Immediate (perhaps with a note to say "you can use a Swift action to take an Immediate action on your turn" for clarity), but if I want to open up some more of the class features/feats/abilities that are "as an immediate action," I might be better served to manually go through and change the less powerful ones to "in place of an AoO," (I ran across a couple of these while I was doing The Rules Revision, and remembering which prompted some of the idle thought) and evaluate on a case-by-case basis, rather than making a blanket change.

[martixy]

Where we break from RAW is that we usually don't enforce the "your immediate this round used up the next round's swift" rule, largely because we can't be bothered to keep track of that for a bunch of different combatants. It wasn't like a codified houserule or anything, it just naturally worked out that way - but it hasn't hurt anything either.

This has always been a stupid rule people in or group didn't understand or forgot.
We say your round begins on your turn. And swift==immediate. It means if you use your swift this turn, you don't have an immediate to use until your next turn. Unless you get the decouple feat.

[Xervous]

Without much context on the state of PO PF1 could someone more knowledgeable explain where DEX builds shake out vs. STR? The snippets I've heard leaned somewhat towards STR as expected given PF1's roots in 3.5e and the utter dominance of STR there. But again that's just snippets, possibly outdated snippets given all the content that has been released since I last glanced at the topic.

[Eldonauran]

I've simply reflavored immediate actions and AoO's to PF2e-like "reactions". You only get one "reaction" a turn, unless you invest in Combat Reflexes, and then only to make more AoO's (therefore, no more "immediate" actions spells/abilities beyond the one per turn). This works well sine I've adopted the 3-action system from Unchained, but retained swift actions once per turn. I've had no complaints or issues.

We don't use 3rd party material, so... not an issue.

[heavyfuel]

Without much context on the state of PO PF1 could someone more knowledgeable explain where DEX builds shake out vs. STR? The snippets I've heard leaned somewhat towards STR as expected given PF1's roots in 3.5e and the utter dominance of STR there. But again that's just snippets, possibly outdated snippets given all the content that has been released since I last glanced at the topic.

In 3.5 Str is superior damage-wise because it's pretty hard to get Dex to damage, and even harder to get damage increases, whereas Str gets you Power Attack and all the goodies associated with it (namely Shock Trooper and Leap Attack).

However, in PF it's ridiculously easy to get Dex to dmg, and then POW also introduced Piranha Strike, which is basically Power Attack for light weapons. So now you can have this uber-ability that applies its bonus to Initiative, AC, Reflex, CMB, CMD, actually useful skills, attack, AND damage.

The only upside of Str is a higher damage dice, which is almost nothing.

[Aotrs Commander]

In 3.5 Str is superior damage-wise because it's pretty hard to get Dex to damage, and even harder to get damage increases, whereas Str gets you Power Attack and all the goodies associated with it (namely Shock Trooper and Leap Attack).

However, in PF it's ridiculously easy to get Dex to dmg, and then POW also introduced Piranha Strike, which is basically Power Attack for light weapons. So now you can have this uber-ability that applies its bonus to Initiative, AC, Reflex, CMB, CMD, actually useful skills, attack, AND damage.

The only upside of Str is a higher damage dice, which is almost nothing.

Hmm... Drifting enitrely off my original point, but that is a valid point I'd not considered when cheerfully adding all PF the Dex-to-damage abilities into my houserules (and equally cheerfully dipping three levels of rogue into my monk in PFKM...)

That ought to be addressed a bit, I feel - but that is much simjpler said than done. (Perhaps specifying that if you are adding Dex to damage instead of Str, it is treated as precision damage or maybe specify that it only replaces your Str bonus, so if you have a penalty from Str, it still applies?) Or perhaps some feats which allow the reverse, though I'm not sure there is any logic to use there that would make sense. MAYBE you could rationalise Str to regular AC instead of Dex or to fort saves (?), (and allow a double-dib into CMD) but it's hard to grock how being strong would make you harder to physically contact (touch AC), whereas damage is much easier to conceive of as coming from a non-physical force.

(I mean 4E let you do things like apply whatever modifier you liked to attack and damage, as aside from the hilarious joke that thus when the wizard hits you it smarts (because he has high Int ahahahaha!), there wasn't a huge amount of logic to it, anymore than being smarter made you harder to hit - sure it meant the stats had some alternatives gamistly, but like a lot of 4E, there was a lot of ludonarrative dissonance.)

I mean, if you take out the Dex-to-damage, Dex is STILL better than Str in all those other regards.



I mean, the problem is conceptually, Dex, being speed and reaction and all the rest of it IS just straight better than Str (being strong), because of the way the stats are assembled, because Strength inherently conceptually applies to a limited number of things.

I think to really fix the issue, you would have to break entirely from having strength as a primary stat AT ALL (because it has too much of a narrow conceptual focus), and replace it with something like (to crib an idea from Pillars of Eternity) Might (which is specifically pertaining to damage, and unlike PoE, remember to ensure that it is NOT flavoured and physical strength and perhaps be thought of as "applied strength" and being a combination of aim etc.). And then make stuff like the ability to exert force to break things and carrying capacity a derived statistic from something else (maybe Con for the latter, with some degree of [whatever stat you make that covers co-ordination]). But you're up against the wall of hoew complex you want to make things.

The abortive attempt I made at my own RPG had Strength, Reaction, Speed AND Dexterity, and even with all that, Reaction was STILL arguably the king stat, because it applied to both attack and defense, because funnily enough, something that means you can react faster than the other guy is it just inherently better. (In the same way that concentration of force is inherently better, and why in strat games it's so hard to make doomstacks not be the ultimate answer, because you're fighting the uphill battle that, tactically, they ARE.)



Edit: I 'spose one option would be to do a Rolemaster on it, which means you never add a straight stat modifer to something, you take an average of two or three. If you made bonus on attack and damage rolls somethng like the average of Str/Str/Dex and weapon finesse/dex-to-damage only made that Str/Dex/Dex, you would migitate it a bit.

But, y'know, much as I love RM, at the point you are having to look at going to that level is the point you're starting to struggle with the broad abstractions that D&D is based on (but, to be fair, RM struggles in a lot of ways in the inverse to D&D with its "one roll for attack which determines damage" as well).



Edit edit: An idle check on what RMing it would do to my currently existant PFKM party suggests it would certainly migitate the numbers, but of course, merely adds MAD to the noncasters.


Though one thought, because I couldn't actually get to PFKM without it coming up, is that at the very least, I think there should be a feat that says "when appliying your Strength bonus to your CMB, if your strength bonus is equal to or greater than (say) 4 (or 5 or 6 or something) times the number of size classes your opponent is larger than you, you ignore the size limitations on your combat manevers. You do not gain the benefit of this feat if you apply an ability modifier other than strength to your CMB." I.e., if you have, like, super strength, maybe you CAN bull rush that elephant. I mean, it's something, right...?