Improvements after 3.5

[Psion]

Obviously I can only speak from my small xp but never it felt to me that adding swift & immediate actions would have had any benefit. There could be some specific case that doesn't come to my mind tho.

Swift actions, if you think about it, have been in the game since D&D 3e was released. Quicken spell was the most notable early version, but ever since then, we've had to tack on some clunky verbage about how you can only do one "special significant" free action a turn.

Swift action is just giving those things a name an preventing you from doing a bunch of clunky citations and preventing the possible confusion when someone has a modestly different way of phrasing such effects.

You might say that more than anything else, it's an editorial convenience. But it is one that has helped in communication between designers and players, as well as preventing a bunch of rules loopholes and baffling situations.

(Now I just hope they can kill this whole "attack vs. attack action" thing that is the one major remaining editorial and rules consistency thorn in my butt.)

 

[jmucchiello]

Yes, but that doesn't necessarily make them "core" or even "usable" by other companies. I don't use psionics and I realized that Swift and Immediate actions were mentioned in, among other things, the Miniature's Handbook and Complete Adventurer (for the Ninja class).

There are a lot of game mechanics that WotC uses in their books (even the same idea across multiple books) that aren't considered core and they are also not part of the SRD.

Did you read my post above? They are in the SRD. They just aren't in a place one would think to look for them: http://www.wizards.com/d20/files/v35/PowerOverview.rtf

 

[The Shaman]

This may blow the Shaman's mind, but I almost wish that they do away with Free Actions and replace it with just swift and immediate ones.

*BOOM*

*splattersplattersplattersplatter KLUNK*

I can appreciate a good tactical game as much as anyone, but when there's a point at which I spend more time thinking about the rules than the action, that's when I check out. I personally haven't encountered situations where I've needed more complex rules for determining what character can do in a round.

I thought eliminating partial actions was a big step forward - to me swift and immediate actions are a step right back again.

 

[Shade]

Well, the only real rules change has been to add Swift and Immediate actions. Everything else has been refinement of presentation (though I admit that refining Skills usage borders on a rules change). And these new actions are just an attempt to codify what has otherwise been included in the individual descriptions of powers and spells. Take, as the classic example, the Featherfall spell. Its casting time is a free action, but it isn't really a free action as generally described, since it can be used outside of your own turn. Now that's a nice effect - and necessary for the spell to have a 'useful' effect - but it has to be written specially for that spell, and the same again for any other spell or ability that ought to be usable the same way. So instead we create the 'Immediate' action, describe that once, and then say 'Casting Time: 1 Immediate action'.

The Swift action just codifies that Free Action which you can only take one of in a round. Rather than having each time to say, as with Quickened spells, that it's a free action, but you can use it only once per round, instead you can say 'Swift action'. This also handles the interactions betweeen different abilities that are all 'use as a free action, but only once per round'. The latter needs to say whether or not the actions of different types can be combined, whilst it is built into the definition of Swift actions.

As Complete Adventurer demonstrates, codifying this requirement allows you yo open up and create new powers and spells which use this tool. It's not that they couldn't be written without the Swift/Immediate action, but it does make it clearer, by putting a rules effect into general rules, rather than buried in a power or spell description. Are these changes essential? Of course not - we got along without them okay. It's just that with them, I can create a game with more options, for just a little work.

Well put! It's like making the dazed and dazzled conditions rather than rewriting the same effects in numerous spells. I wish they'd do more of this. I really wish evasion, uncanny dodge, rage, and sneak attack would just be put in a generally glossary so they don't have to be rewritten in some form in the ever-increasing number of monsters and prestige classes that have 'em. Sure, you can say "see rogue description", but if these abilities are so common, shouldn't the class description default to the glossary? A minor nitpick.

 

[Particle_Man]

Personally, I think that the Warlock should be made core. If there is not enough room in the phb, the sorceror can be tossed overboard.

 

[Archade]

Agreed! The Warlock is what the sorcerer should have been -- someone with innate magical abilities should have them as spell-like abilities, not as spells identical to a wizard ...

 

[Angel Tarragon]

I think it is great that this is happening. It means a quicker and more efficient way to play/GM a session of DnD!

 

[Timeboxer]

I thought eliminating partial actions was a big step forward - to me swift and immediate actions are a step right back again.

I have to admit that this is a point of view I don't understand. Much in the same way that the elimination of partial actions was less a rules change than it was a rules recasting, swift and immediate actions are so as well -- they simply give a name to a certain idea that already existed before. I find it weird to suggest that giving something a name somehow makes things more complex.

 

[Psion]

Well the "formats" aren't really any new rules, just alternate ways of presenting existing rules.

I think it's fair to say they are improvements.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

I think it's fair to say they are improvements.

I think thats the universal agreement.