Swift and Immediate Actions?

[ThoughtfulOwl]

So they made a separate action mechanic to [re]explain how one feat works? Was the explaination in the feat description itself not good enough?

And they made a separate action mechanic to [re]explain how one spell works? Was the explaination in the spell description itself not good enough?

Isn't this just a little unnecessary? What's next? Will they come up with a name to describe the action of the extra attack you get from Cleave?

Quasqueton

What FireLance said; free actions are "in your turn only, no hard limit"; in the core rules, the only two exceptions are (A) quickened spells and (B) Feather Fall and can be stated only once (under the Quicken Spell feat and FF spell description, respectively).

With the Miniature's Handbook, the designers started toying with spells with a built-in free action casting time, as well as free action uses of class abilities that ought to be limited; exception A wasn't a single instance anymore and revriting the clause under each of these would have been impratical, so they named it Swift Action in order to have a single definition to refer to. Exception B still stood alone.

Likewise, when the XPH came along not only they reused (and reprinted) the Swift action, but also expanded the concept of reactive powers; now it was the turn of B to become too widespread, so they called it Immediate Action.

Later they were reprinted in those books that used the concepts, like the feat section of MMIII, Complete Arcane and AFAIK Complete Adventurer.

 

[Klaus]

Other Swift and Immediate actions have started popping up.

For instance, Instantaneous Rage lets you fly into a rage as an immediate action (it just doesn't use this term because these actions weren't being called out when CW came out).