Swift & Immediate actions

[HeapThaumaturgist]

I think they're fine, really. Different, but fine.

My cleric, as a battle-cleric, makes a heavier use of the Swift and Immediate type spells. Specifically a couple Close Wounds on hand and a Delay Death.

Delay Death came in handy once ... Immediate action, character targeted cannot die from HP loss for 1min/lvl. I keep that on hand all the time now.

For clerics, it means that we can do character maintenance from a distance. Delay Death doesn't really change whether or not the party wins a fight ... it eats a 4th level slot and removes the general game hassle of having somebody raised or replaced.

Personally, I like them. They're not so good that I'm replacing everything with Immediate or Swift spells. No where near that good. My 13th caster level cleric carries 2 Close Wounds and 1 Delay Death ... 3 slots out of a bucketload of slots. I figure, if they were broken, I'd be arguing with myself to take something else, but there's no unconcious press to fill more slots with them. They have their use, along with Bear's Endurance and Bull's Strength and Freedom of Movement, etc etc.

--fje

 

[KarinsDad]

It is true that Haste allowed you to cast any combination of spells you wanted, so it could be a bit more potent. However, the beneifits described above more than make up for this fact, especially if you consider that many of the swift spells are exactly the ones that a caster would want to cast when hasted.

In 3E, a spell caster could get off three spells per round with Haste, two normal and one quickened.

3.5 Swift / Immediate spells do not gain anywhere near that level of abuse.


I also think they are great for Clerics. He does not have to be a walking bandaid anymore. He can melee fight (or do a variety of other actions) and still do minor heals in the same round.

They are a perfect cure for the "Clerics spend a lot of their standard actions healing in combat (boring), hence, the player does not have as much fun" syndrome.

They are great for minimizing this problem with the design of the game system.