Spring Attack and Charge?

[Ranger REG]

I guess D&D 3.75e should have:

1. Clearly-defined categories of actions: immediate action (free, not your turn), swift action (free, your turn only), short action (what is now called "move-equivalent action"), standard action, and long action (what is now called "full-round action"). This section of the PHB should have the word "category" in it many, many times so that word will stick in peoples' minds when they read it. These are categories, not actions!

That's way too many action types to remember. If C&C hasn't separate XP charts, I'd be jumping over.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

That's way too many action types to remember. If C&C hasn't separate XP charts, I'd be jumping over.

A fair point but...

Putting aside the various flavors of free action, if you did not already memorize that list everything that Hyp said above would be complete gibberish to you. Implicitly you are already using the concepts of "short action" (Move action), "medium action", and "long action" (full round action) already.

The other little actions can be temporarily grouped under the catchall of Free Action (or similar name) until they need to be defined.

Standard action and full round action are very unfortunate choices of terminology as used by D&D. Very confusing.

Now that I have written the above, I think that is the right approach.
(1) standard turn = short action + medium action (+ free actions)
(2) full turn = long action (+ free actions)

That is actually pretty clear. I can write this up in a straightforward manner with clear charts and leave free action undefined, just use a simple example or two to illustrate the idea, and put the free actions in a separate section.

I would add "quick action" as a new type of free action.
swift action: only one per round
quick action: no hard limit, but the DM may impose common sense as he sees fit (the old free action)
immediate: may be invoked during someone else's turn, no hard limit, but the DM may impose common sense as he sees fit