Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mytiope" data-source="post: 3111107" data-attributes="member: 45887">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% EFFORTSwift/Immediate Action: 0% TIME, 50% EFFORTMove Action: 50% TIME, 0% EFFORTStandard Action: 50% TIME, 50% EFFORT</blockquote>

Verification