Does Celerity make the game better or worse?

[Pippin]

Hi playground.

As far as the tactical part of 3.5e is concerned, would you say that Celerity (PH II) made combat more interesting or more chaotic?

[pabelfly]

I am not a fan of the spell. It's too powerful to be able to have a standard action early, even if you can't/don't bypass the immnity to daze that the spell typically gives you.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

I think the design is bad. Causing the caster to become Dazed, which there are plenty of ways to dodge that drawback, was a bad choice. Making it just say that the caster can't take any actions until the end of their next turn would have made it better balanced. The Anticipatory Strike psionic power in Complete Psionic is better designed IMO.

The idea behind Celerity was doing something now instead of later, but all it actually accomplishes is breaking action economy by doing something now and still doing something on your own turn. I think in its current state, it makes the game worse. All it really does is make builds that can cast it and overcome the dazed condition stronger, further widening the gap between casters and non-casters.

Edit: Also keep in mind that you can't use immediate actions when flat-footed. It doesn't even allow you to act sooner in the fight, it just lets you go sooner on the second and subsequent rounds.

[King of Nowhere]

i am against anything that violates action economy.
the game already tends towards rocket tag at high optimization. going first gives a huge advantage. if those going first also get to take multiple actions, then whoever wins initiative kills all opposition before they get to act.

[Darg]

If you make the daze unmitigable it doesn't harm things. Heck, I'm considering bringing back 3.0 haste/slow with some slight nerfs to make it more fair between martials and casters. I like the flavor and I think it would be a nice addition for high level martial play enabling movement and full attacks for everyone without caster dips.

Interestingly, slow was buffed between 3.0 and 3.5. Both effectively stagger, but 3.0 only has -2 penalties while 3.5 has -1 penalties and also makes you move at half speed.

[Thirdtwin]

I'm not the biggest fan, no. I don’t hate initiative shenanigans per se but making it daze you is just asking for somebody to run around looking for daze immunity and suddenly becoming twice as active. (And yes, I gave Celerity-likes to the homebrew Fighter I made, including the daze loophole, but that was mostly out of a "good for the goose, good for the gander" mindset.) If I had my druthers Celerity would eat your later action without a way to resist it. And even then they're really just kind of spotlight stealers. Oh, you thought you were going to have your turn but it was I, Dio! You probably already have an at least passable init score as a wizard so it's just going even firster somehow in normal rounds, and in surprise rounds it doesn't even work (as Biffoniacus_Furiou noted already).

[Pippin]

On the other hand: even if you are able to mitigate the daze effect, you still consume your swift action of your next turn, so you can't have another immediate action before quite some time. You're much more vulnerable at this point, which makes playing more strategic and careful. During combat, you're constantly wondering: is this predicament that I'm about to take, so bad that I should really burn my immediate action?

[Biggus]

i am against anything that violates action economy.
the game already tends towards rocket tag at high optimization. going first gives a huge advantage. if those going first also get to take multiple actions, then whoever wins initiative kills all opposition before they get to act.

This. And even with more moderate optimization the game tends towards rocket tag at high levels. Also, it's bad design because it gives casters an unassailable advantage over melee warriors: they charge you, you move/teleport out of their range, they don't get to attack you, there's absolutely nothing they can do about it.