Hustle?

[kmdietri]

The Hustle power from the XPH allows an extra Move action:

You gain an additional move action in the current round.

No in the rules of the game articles on the WotC website it says this:

Move Action: An action that (for game purposes) takes the same amount of time as moving your speed.

So with hustle you get an extra move equivilent action?

 

[Anax]

The Hustle power from the XPH allows an extra Move action:

So with hustle you get an extra move equivilent action?

There's no such thing as a move equivalent action in 3.5. Instead, there are move actions. So yes, you can do an extra thing that you could do if you had only a move action. For example: move, draw your weapon, etc.

 

[Corlon]

now why'd they have to go and redefine move equivalent action with move action?

is there a difference?

 

[Thanee]

You get a Move Action, which you can either use to actually move or to perform an action, which costs one Move Action to perform, like standing up or drawing/sheathing a weapon.

Bye
Thanee

 

[RigaMortus]

now why'd they have to go and redefine move equivalent action with move action?

is there a difference?

They didn't redefine it, they reworded it.

 

[Anax]

They didn't redefine it, they reworded it.

Yup--and as for why, it was part of an overarching rewording of all of the action rules--the breakdown into "full round action", "partial action", "standard action", "move equivalent action" etc. was a bit confusing. The new breakdown is just this:

Standard Action (e.g. attack, cast a normal spell, etc.)
Move Action (e.g. move your speed, sheathe a weapon, stand up from prone, etc.)
Full-Round Action (e.g. full attack, run, withdraw, charge, 1 round skill, etc.)
Free Action (e.g. drop an item, quickened spell, prepare spell components, etc.)

In a combat round, you may choose *either* to take a standard action and a move action, *or* to take a full round action. And you may always take a move action in place of a standard action. Special effects say things like "On the surprise round you may take a standard action" or "You gain a move action."

In the old system:

Standard Action (e.g. attack and move, cast a spell and move, charge*, double move, etc.)
Full-Round Action (e.g. full attack, run, withdraw, etc.)
Move-Equivalent Action (e.g. stand from prone, draw a weapon, etc.)
Free Action (e.g. drop an item, quickened spell, etc.)
Partial Action (e.g. attack, cast a spell--*usually* standard action without move.)

In a combat round, you may take either a standard or a full round action. It's *almost* the same, but the breakdown is more complicated. And you get into issues like "If I have a partial and a move-equivalent because of some spell/feat/etc. can I use them to take a full round action?"

So: the new breakdown is simpler. Mostly equivalent, but clearer in terms of exactly what is allowed when, and easier to describe up-front. ("You get *either* a full round action or a standard action and a move action." is just plain simpler than "You get *either* a full round action or a standard action, and a standard action is one of these. Oh, and you can use a move-equivalent instead of moving in your standard action. Oh, and when you take a partial action, you can do most of the things you can do with a partial action, only without the move part.")

One example of what's clearer in 3.5 would be: If someone is slowed, they get only a standard action *or* a move action each round. If they have Hustle, they could use it to gain an extra move action. Can they then take a full-round action, since they have a standard and a move action? No, they cannot--a standard and a move action do not add together to form a full-round action, they're an alternative choice. Slow has removed that choice.

(* Oh, and charge is "special" in that you can't replace the move part of the standard with a move equivalent, and you move double speed. So, in short, the new breakdown restates the old rules in a slightly different way that requires less in the way of exceptions. I *do* think they should also fold some of the ideas from the XPH into the core, specifically:

Swift Action: Casting a quickened spell or power or the like is a Swift Action. These may only be taken on your turn, and you may only use one of them per turn. Note that quickened spells are not described as Swift Actions, but instead there's an exception in the spell casting rules that says "Even though a quickened spell is a Free Action, you can only cast one quickened spell per turn." And then the XPH rules for Swift Action say that using a Swift Action also counts as casting a quickened spell.

Immediate Action: Casting a spell or power as a reaction (like Feather Fall or Catfall.) Unlike a Free Action, you can do this even when it's not your turn. Note that Feather Fall doesn't actually get described as an Immediate Action, but rather has a special exception that you can cast it as a reaction even when it's not your turn.

I think the intent here is pretty clear--and it's much clearer than the exceptions in the current non-XPH rules. Most likely, they didn't think about these exceptions and how to make them clearer until they were working on the XPH, and had to deal with "Quickened powers are constrained together with quickened spells, but the original quickened spell rules didn't cover this in their exception" and "We want to have a fairly large number of powers that can be cast as reactions, but every existing act-on-another's-turn action is an exception."

Anyway, clearing up murky areas is always a good thing.