Can i willingly take more time to cast a spell?

[Nimloth]

Can you ready an action to cast the 2nd swift spell or take a 2nd swift action?
Does the "1 swift action per turn" rule trump the "ready an action" rule?

Oddly, this is also being discuss on the WOTC forums;
Can you switch a SA or Move-action for a Swift Action? - Wizards Community

 

[frankthedm]

Can you explain how it's unbalanced to allow a swift action in place of a standard action?

Because that is part of the limitation of the swift spells. One per round. It can be a life and death difference as shown here. A character living when they ought to have died is an incredibly powerful change. Of the top of my head this notably powers up Swift invisibility and swift fly. Both are nice, but you can't get both off in the same round.

Duskblades get a butt load of spells, a lot of them swift. Anything that can let them burn through them faster should be given careful consideration.

 

[irdeggman]

Well lads the event was that : i had only 10 points of life left and in front of me was a barbarian... I had done quick cast using a spell (swift action) but if i did not use something such as invisibility i would have died in the next round and duskblade cannot learn invisibility but only swift invisibility. That was the fact ! (i know i could have done better things than quick casting but anyway)

So instead of survival - which would have been the choice of swift invisibility you chose something else (I am assuming it was a damage type of spell that failed to fell the opponent - but it is a moot point since it wasn't an escape/survival spell).

Choice made - potential survival versus almost certain suvival.

 

[Shin Okada]

I do feel that 3e swift/immediate actions was balanced around the assumption that you could only use 1 each round, and there was no way of trading down (unlike 4e).

For whatever it is worth, the arcane spellsurge spell (dragon magic) seems to reinforce this point (that you cannot voluntarily opt to increase a spell's casting time).

Seconded. Allowing to cast a swift action spell with other action type will cause a lot of troubles unless a playgroup is restricting only core rule books or so.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Because that is part of the limitation of the swift spells.

Begging the question.

It can be a life and death difference as shown here.

So can anything. That doesn't make it unbalanced.

Of the top of my head this notably powers up Swift invisibility and swift fly.

How?

Duskblades get a butt load of spells, a lot of them swift. Anything that can let them burn through them faster should be given careful consideration.

Most duskblade spells are designed to be used with attacks, right? Especially the swift ones. So how does letting them use a swift spell in place of a standard action unbalance things, given that they will then not be attacking?

You've made a decent argument for not allowing multiple swift actions in a round with no tradeoff, but you've made no argument for not allowing a swift action in place of a standard action.

 

[Runestar]

On further consideration, I think it should still be okay to allow a 2nd swift action in place of a standard action (but definitely not a move action).

Consider this scenario.

A wizard can normally cast a standard action spell and a quickened spell in the same round. Thus, if he was left with just a magic missile spell and a quickened magic missile, he could unleash both on his foe with no issues.

Conversely, if the wizard was left with 2 quickened magic missiles, by RAW, he can only cast one. It seems unfairly limiting, considering that he is expending more resources anyways.

 

[irdeggman]

On further consideration, I think it should still be okay to allow a 2nd swift action in place of a standard action (but definitely not a move action).

This clearly falls into the house-rules category, regardless of whether or not it makes sense. I am not being accusatory just trying to frame this (and other) responses in the proper context.

It does not answer (per RAW) the OP's question about whether or not he could do what he tried to.

By the RAW I think everyone (well mostly) has the opinion that per RAW you can not substitute a swift action for a standard one. There is debate however on whether "allowing" it to be done would cause a game imbalance.

 

[Shin Okada]

A wizard can normally cast a standard action spell and a quickened spell in the same round. Thus, if he was left with just a magic missile spell and a quickened magic missile, he could unleash both on his foe with no issues.

Conversely, if the wizard was left with 2 quickened magic missiles, by RAW, he can only cast one. It seems unfairly limiting, considering that he is expending more resources anyways.

In that case, that is the consequence of the mage's fault. He could prepare one 5th-level spell and a quickened magic missile but he didn't. And it is likely that he did not use quickened spells efficiently, if his only spells left are two quickened magic missile spells.

 

[Runestar]

This clearly falls into the house-rules category, regardless of whether or not it makes sense. I am not being accusatory just trying to frame this (and other) responses in the proper context.

Yes, I am aware of that. I probably should have clarified that but I thought it was fairly evident, considering the impasse we are currently at.

The issue here is that the rules (even the rules compendium) is very vague in this aspect. Unlike 4e, which explicitly makes provisions for trading down your actions to get more swift actions, 3e simply states that you may only perform 1 swift action each round, and nothing about what one might do to obtain more swift actions.

Thus, this can be construed to mean either one of 2 things - you can trade down, and the designers simply neglected to clarify this (perhaps they deemed it too common-sensical?), or it cannot be done (hence the lack of any rules pertaining to this). Only problem is that there is no way of telling just which is which here.

I don't think regurgitating the rules is going to do anyone any good here, so I suppose the next best thing is to debate about whether it would be game-breaking to allow such a houserule.

This is more annoying than one may realize. For instance, a warblade who has initiated a counter prior to his current turn cannot refresh his maneuvers (unless he uses adaptive style) because the swift action he requires has already been used as an immediate action earlier on.

 

[Shin Okada]

This is more annoying than one may realize. For instance, a warblade who has initiated a counter prior to his current turn cannot refresh his maneuvers (unless he uses adaptive style) because the swift action he requires has already been used as an immediate action earlier on.

Yes, that will be annoying for the player of the warbled. But IMHO, that immediate/swift action limitation is intentionally made for game-balance.

And of course, various abilities in Bo9S are made those restrictions in mind. You don't need to make those abilities any stronger.