Swift spell as Standard Action?

[MarkB]

Why would I be insulted by your opinion? That would be silly. It's not like you said I was stupid or some personal insult like that.

On the other hand, the argument in favor of allowing one to use a Standard Action to cast a Swift Action spell is really a simple common sense one.

It comes down to: why not? You lose a Standard Action and in it's place use a Swift Action. That's generally a losing proposition, but in certain cirtcumstances could be to the advantage of the character.

It seems like common sense would say to allow it, and thus I look for any reasons NOT to allow it.

But then, it seems like common sense would allow you to take over half a dozen Swift actions per round, so long as you took no other actions - after all, there's plenty of time. Why, other than for purely arbitrary reasons on your part, is your suggestion common sense but this one not?

 

[Artoomis]

There's no evidence to support that when the creators wrote "However, you can perform only a single swift action per turn, regardless of what other actions you take", the intent of the creators was "However, you can perform only a single swift action per turn, regardless of what other actions you take"?

-Hyp.

Nope. That's the rule, not the intent of the rule.

 

[Artoomis]

But then, it seems like common sense would allow you to take over half a dozen Swift actions per round, so long as you took no other actions - after all, there's plenty of time. Why, other than for purely arbitrary reasons on your part, is your suggestion common sense but this one not?

Because common sense is applied within the bounds of the round/action system.

1. You may cast most spells as a Standard Action.
2. Certain Spells may be cast as a Swift Action, allowing Standard Action spells to STILL be cast in the same round.

In that case, why should a Swift Action spell not be usable in the place of a Standard Action spell? It seems like it should be.

 

[KarinsDad]

We are talking about the second quickened spell. Of course it doesn't provoke AoO, per the RAW, because you can't cast it at all!

That is pretty much the epitome of 'less usefull'!

Actually, we were talking about Quickened spells in general which do not have an AoO and hence are more useful than normal spells.

Having the option of using two of them is a single round has more utility than using just one and a normal spell.


If you are going to switch gears in mid-response, please let us know so we can put on crash helmets.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Nope. That's the rule, not the intent of the rule.

To assume that the two are not the same seems rather dismissive of the writers' communication skills.

-Hyp.

 

[MarkB]

Because common sense is applied within the bounds of the round/action system.

1. You may cast most spells as a Standard Action.
2. Certain Spells may be cast as a Swift Action, allowing Standard Action spells to STILL be cast in the same round.

In that case, why should a Swift Action spell not be usable in the place of a Standard Action spell? It seems like it should be.

And yet, it explicitly isn't. The rule Hyp quotes is specific - regardless of what else you do, you only get one Swift action.

Beyond applying metamagic, you don't get to alter a spell's casting time. You can't cast a standard-action spell as a 1-round-casting-time spell, and you can't cast a Swift spell as a standard-action spell. They're just not built that way.

 

[Artoomis]

And yet, it explicitly isn't. The rule Hyp quotes is specific - regardless of what else you do, you only get one Swift action.

Beyond applying metamagic, you don't get to alter a spell's casting time. You can't cast a standard-action spell as a 1-round-casting-time spell, and you can't cast a Swift spell as a standard-action spell. They're just not built that way.

But now you are back to saying "because it's the rule." That's not much of a reason.

 

[Artoomis]

To assume that the two are not the same seems rather dismissive of the writers' communication skills.

-Hyp.

No, not really. Rules and laws are written very much the same way. Many, many times a law is passed that states both the law and the intent - so that there is guidance for interpretation later.

In this case no intent is present, only the rule itself. We can parse the laguage to decide how it works, but that does not help us with divining the intent the designers had with this rule.

 

[MarkB]

But now you are back to saying "because it's the rule." That's not much of a reason.

But neither is "because this is what I wish the rule was", which is what your argument amounts to. You call it 'common sense', but it's not really any more sensible than the rule as written, because it still relies upon purely arbitrary boundaries.

 

[demadog]

Sorry, for coming in late to the discussion, but I've found it quite interesting.

It seems to me that allowing the actions to be defined only in terms of time is central to the issue. If we say that swift actions take 1 unit of time and standard actions take 2 units of time, then why couldn't we do a swift actions as a standard action? Really, it seems to make sense. However, what if time is not the only variable? What if there is something else at work behind the scenes?

Lets introduce another variable called effort, for example. Then lets say that doing a swift action cost 1 unit of time and 3 units of effort, a move action costs 2 units of time and 0 units of effort, and doing standard action cost 2 units of time but only 2 units of effort. Now we can see how these types of actions cannot so easily be substituted for one another. Also, makes sense now why you cannot use a move action to attack.

I realize that these number smight not add up if you start totalling effort and time each round, then divide it back up, but I was never really that good at math. Anyway the theory seems to stand that there are likely more variables at play in the definition of a round then simply time. Therefore, allowing the RAW to remain seems the best bet to me.