Swift spell as Standard Action?

[Musrum]

Yeah, but that would be more or less in relation to ambiguous questions, such as "Can I Cleave off of an AoO?" There is no rule saying you can't, but there is nothing that specifically says you can. Going by pure RAW you can.

In this case, the only place in RAW that specificlly mentions trading one Action type for another, is You can always take a move action in place of a standard action. In this case, WotC allows us to replace a greater action type (standard) with a lesser one (move). And by lesser/greater, all I mean is, you can do more with a Standard Action than you can with a Move Action. But what people seem to want to do is the opposite, trade a lesser action (swift) with a greater one (standard). Again, you can do more with a Standard Action than you can with a Swift Action.

No. What people are advocating is doing a similar thing (not opposite): trade a Standard Action for a Swift Action.

It is interesting to note that following RAW, you cannot Ready a Swift Action. How does that make sense?

 

[KarinsDad]

It is interesting to note that following RAW, you cannot Ready a Swift Action. How does that make sense?

The issue here is that:

1) Swift Actions are not part of core and
2) When they were added, the designers did not add in all of the rules that should pertain to them.

Immediate and Swift actions are a wart add on and like all add ons, they do not necessarily have all of the rules needed for them in their simple little paragraph descriptions.

Personally, I think that any character should be able to ready any type of action except a full action (free, swift, immediate, move, or standard).

 

[FireLance]

So, let's see. One of the reasons why certain actions are swift actions is because WotC does not want to allow you to do certain things more than once a round (usually spells since the majority of the swift actions are spells). I would say that, IF you allowed a Standard Action in place of a Swift Action, then you also do not get your normal Swift Action for that round. This allows people to do what they want (use a Standard Action in place of a Swift Action) and keeps Swift Actions in line, by allowing that particular action only be used 1/round.

The other related, but significantly different perspective, is that WotC does not want to allow a character to do certain things more than twice a round, usually cast a spell, since before the swift action was codified, casting a Quickened spell was the only free action in the core rules that could not be used more than once per round, and feather fall explicitly stated that it was like a Quickened spell and counted towards the limit of one Quickened spell per round.

It all depends on whether you see the limit of one swift action per round as an end in itself, or as simply a means towards the actual end of no more than two spells per round (swift or otherwise).

 

[Artoomis]

The other related, but significantly different perspective, is that WotC does not want to allow a character to do certain things more than twice a round, usually cast a spell, since before the swift action was codified, casting a Quickened spell was the only free action in the core rules that could not be used more than once per round, and feather fall explicitly stated that it was like a Quickened spell and counted towards the limit of one Quickened spell per round.

It all depends on whether you see the limit of one swift action per round as an end in itself, or as simply a means towards the actual end of no more than two spells per round (swift or otherwise).

That's how I see it - a way to allow a second spell in a round, but ONLY one extra spell in a round.

 

[Hypersmurf]

It is interesting to note that following RAW, you cannot Ready a Swift Action. How does that make sense?

It could be argued.

You can ready a standard action, a move action, or a free action.

and

You can take a swift action any time you would normally be allowed to take a free action.

-Hyp.

 

[Musrum]

It could be argued.

You can ready a standard action, a move action, or a free action.

and

You can take a swift action any time you would normally be allowed to take a free action.

-Hyp.

And then a pendant could argue that "normally" here does not apply to "special" initiative actions like Ready.

===================================

It is interesting to look back at 3.0 Quicken (the daddy of the Swift Action).

In the old FAQ there was a question about Automatic Quicken (Epic Feat).

According to RAW, if you had Auto Quicken on your 3rd (and below) level spells you could cast a 3rd and a 9th level spell in one round, but not a 1st and a 1st level spell.

The patch in the FAQ is that you can choose to apply the Quicken Metamagic at Casting time.

Auto Quicken represents the extreme example of why the "Only ever one Swift Action" is stupid.
The FAQ patches the feat, not the Action rule-set because that is how patching works (change the minimum required).
And, although the patch fixes 98% of the problem with this Feat, there is still the issue that you have to provoke an AoO to get your second spell off.
If you where getting full value for the Feat you would expect to be able to shoot off 2 low level spells without provoking.

The real issue with the patch is it does nothing to address the underlying problem.

"A Standard Action can be used to perform and Move Action and/or a Swift Action" does the job without having to hand wave a new "Apply a Metamagic Feat to a prepared spell at casting time" mechanic.

 

[Marshall]

Where does reason draw this distinction between "Move takes longer than free (or swift)" and "Standard takes longer than free (or swift)", so as to show us that this is... reasonable?

-Hyp.

Because the rules allow you to use a standard action to take a move-equivalent action. The question, and its not covered anywhere in the rules, is "Can you use a standard action to take a Swift Action?"

Since we know we can use a standard to take a free, and since a swift is just a free that you only get one of each round, we should be able to use a standard to get a swift.

Besides, IIRC, the rule isnt that you cant do two swift actions in a round, its that you only have one swift action 'slot' each round.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Besides, IIRC, the rule isnt that you cant do two swift actions in a round, its that you only have one swift action 'slot' each round.

"However, you can perform only a single swift action per turn, regardless of what other actions you take."

-Hyp.

 

[Mytiope]

RAW are pretty clear. But the "why" isn't. We all want to know the "why"... we want an explanation. We want rules that make sense.

TIME isn't a reasonable explanation for getting only one Swift (or Immediate) Action per round... since they take so little TIME. Which is also why TIME alone isn't a reasonable explanation for being able to use your Standard Action for another one -- you should get way more than one. So there's something else going on. I'm going to call that something else EFFORT. I don't think it's critical to actually define EFFORT... but it includes such concepts as concentration, mental energy, focus, blah, blah, etc.

So, a character has a limited amout of TIME and EFFORT in a round. Any reasonable discussion around these rules has to include both EFFORT and TIME.

We already know (roughly) how much TIME the various actions take up. So the remaining question is how much EFFORT a Swift Action takes compared to a Standard Action.

Option A) If you think a Swift Action takes more EFFORT than a Standard Action, then that's your explanation why you can't use a second Swift Action in place of your Standard Action. You don't have enough EFFORT left for the round.

I can see Option A making sense, and it would explain the RAW -- it takes a lot of EFFORT to cast those spells (or use those abilities, etc.) in such a short period of TIME.

Option B) If you think a Swift Action takes the same EFFORT as a Standard Action, then that's your explanation why you can use your Standard Action to take another Swift Action.

I think Option B works just fine. It's an adequate explanation that doesn't seem to screw with game balance much at all.

Option C) If you think a Swift Action takes less EFFORT than a Standard Action, then that can explain why you can use your Standard Action to take another Swift Action.

Option C will probably lead to trouble, since you'll then need to decide "how much" less EFFORT it take. If it's only 1/2 the EFFORT, can I do 2? 1/3, 1/4, 1/5, etc.

For those of you wondering about Move Actions... they deserve the same discussion of TIME and EFFORT. The TIME component for Move Actions is pretty well established; and I'd personally say they can take at most minimal EFFORT.

So... mull that over. I'm curious if it will help the discussion.

Personally, I like thinking about it this way, which would let you use a Standard Action to do something that would normally take either a Move Action or Swift/Immediate Action.
Free Action: 0% TIME, 0% EFFORT
Swift/Immediate Action: 0% TIME, 50% EFFORT
Move Action: 50% TIME, 0% EFFORT
Standard Action: 50% TIME, 50% EFFORT

 

[Artoomis]

There is one, and only one, possibly reasonable explanation for why one cannot take a second Swift Action in a round in the place of Stanard Action (other than the fact that the rules only let you take one Swift Action in a round - this is about the "why" of that).

Game balance.

Nothing else even comes close to making any sense. Even Game Balance is a pretty darn weak argument.

You could, of course, take ONE Swift Action in the place of a Standard Action - because you could simply choose to take your Swift Action at that time and forgoe your Standard Action.

Bottom line: It makes no sense. There is NO strong argument on why this is the rule. Nonetheless, it is the rule, even if nonsensical.

Every argument about WHY this is a good rule seems to start from the presumption that is MUST be a good rule and then defends it from there.

Ah, well. So be it.

I predict that at some point in the future WotC will state that it is prefectly fine to take a second Swift (or Immediate) Action if, and only if, you take it is place of your Standard Action.

Of course that would generally defeat the purpose of such actions, but in rare circumstances it would be a good thing for the character.