D&D 3E/3.5 [3.5] Quick Draw as an Immediate Action?

DumbPaladin · Jun 3, 2010

I'm playing a 3.5 game, with swift & immediate actions both in effect. Recently, after my cohort disarmed a drow, on my turn I moved past the drow (assuming he no longer threatened any square and I could do so safely) to charge a priestess, and the DM informed me that the drow was drawing a weapon (via Quick Draw) and now threatened the squares I was passing through, so I was now provoking an AoO.

Basically, the DM seems to be leaning towards changing Quick Draw to an immediate action, rather than leaving it as a free action. My question is: can anyone give me any reasons I can tell him as to why this would be a BAD idea? Or how this could be broken? I'd like to try and convince him this isn't the way to go. (If it is, I really need Quick Draw stat.)

Or, conversely, can anyone point out somewhere that indicates Quick Draw is now supposed to be an immediate action?

Thanks!

--D.P.

parinho7 · Jun 3, 2010

maybe he had the sudden draw skill trick from complete scoundrel

Dandu · Jun 3, 2010

If Quickdraw was an immediate action, you could do it when it was not your turn.

Quick Draw is best off as a free action on your turn. Not Swift, not immediate.

StreamOfTheSky · Jun 3, 2010

The number one reason it's a bad idea: It completely invalidates every high level "thrower" build. Ever. Ever.

You can only take one immediate action per round. Good luck grabbing half a dozen daggers to chuck with your Two Weapon Fighting full attack!

You could also point out that he'd be in a way making Quick Draw WORSE than not having the feat -- if you have +1 BAB, by RAW you can draw a weapon as a free action as a part of your move action while moving.

You seem to think it'd be overpowered if he made the change. My perspective is if you needed an immediate action use Quick Draw, he'd actually be severely weakening it.

DumbPaladin · Jun 3, 2010

I think I need to clarify. Not surprising, since this is my first post here...

Quick Draw is still a free action you can take on your turn, in his thinking, so that aspect of the RAW feat wording didn't change. What changed is that monsters seem to apparently now have the ability to Quick Draw a weapon into their hand when it's NOT their turn, which makes it an Immediate Action.

So I guess, technically, it's now a Free Action and an Immediate Action, depending on which use is better for you.

Obviously, the DM can make his own house rules, and I pointed out that all the PCs with Quick Draw would need to have this power too, and he had no problem with that.

But somehow, I'm thinking this could actually be really bad and unbalancing -- and I'm looking for keener minds than mine to point out what I'm missing. The only thing I can think of is this makes the Disarm action incredibly useless, since you can't actually ever disarm a person who has Quick Draw if they can whip a new weapon out whenever they wish (even when it's not their turn).

But are there any other downsides or ways this unbalances the game, or breaks certain types of builds? Anything?

StreamOfTheSky · Jun 3, 2010

DumbPaladin said:
But somehow, I'm thinking this could actually be really bad and unbalancing -- and I'm looking for keener minds than mine to point out what I'm missing. The only thing I can think of is this makes the Disarm action incredibly useless, since you can't actually ever disarm a person who has Quick Draw if they can whip a new weapon out whenever they wish (even when it's not their turn).

Well...it'd work once. Again, you only get one immediate action per round. You can disarm in place of any melee attack, so once you have multiple attacks, you could still leave someone disarmed, though it would make things more difficult for a disarmer at low levels.

I'm not sure if it would unbalance the game, it would have some effects, though. If the DM allows a creature to free action drop a weapon when its not its turn, you could have a case where the creature is holding a reach weapon and then drops it and immediate action draws a close range weapon to get an AoO he'd otherwise be denied (or vice versa, if he drops a close weapon for a reach weapon). But...you can already pull similar feats off by having improved Unarmed Strike or equipping spiked gauntlets. So that's probably not even an issue.

I'm not too familar with the Iajutsu Focus skill (attack as you draw a weapon and deal bonus dice damage, sort of like sneak attack) from Oriental Adventures. But I'd venture that if the DM allows that skill in his game, you'd find the most blatant abuses of his houserule occur with synergy with that skill.

DumbPaladin · Jun 7, 2010

Thanks for the assistance. My DM and I have worked out a solution and determined that it's best not to alter Quick Draw in any way.

StreamOfTheSky · Jun 7, 2010

Well, that's a shame. It's a pretty weak feat.

I altered it differently, though. I let it allow you to draw anything that would normally take a move action to do so (like, say...anything at al in a Heward's Handy Haversack...) as a free action. Makes the feat a lot more useful to many other characters other than throwing characters.
I also gave it a "synergy" with Weapon Focus -- for any weapon with which you have Weapon Focus, Quickdraw allows you to also sheathe the weapon as a free action.

DumbPaladin · Jun 17, 2010

I think that's a pretty generous change to Quick Draw, re: sheathing, but only to weapons you have Weapon Focus in. I like it.

The major objection I had to allowing Quick Draw to be done as an immediate action (when desired) was, as I said, that it'd make disarming someone pretty pointless unless they ONLY had one weapon ... and the cohort I was given by the DM excels at that. You'd also have to now assume that any unarmed created COULD be armed and make sure you never moved over 5 feet within range of such a creature ... that can get difficult after all.

But mostly, I couldn't wrap my mind around the fact that the feat could essentially change from being a Free Action to an Immediate Action depending upon the intent of the character ... there just aren't any other feats that do that.