Two swift actions in one round

[Darklone]

Yupp. I have to admit though that most swift spells in my games have been quickened ones... so the ones I happened to check out yet wouldn't be a problem. Someone with time and the SC wanna check it out?

 

[kreynolds]

There was a list of swift/immediate spells posted here. That might be a good start. I'll see if I can take a look at some of them today too.

http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=29613

 

[RangerWickett]

I once had it pointed out to me that an epic spellcaster who took Automatic Quicken Spell 3 times ends up only able to cast 1 spell per round, because all his spells are swift, and he just. can't. spend. more. time. casting. them.

 

[Mistwell]

For those curious...I was interested in being able to cast the spell Inspirational Boost (a swift action spell from Spell Compendium that increases your Inspire Courage by +1/+1) and a Badge of Courage (a swift action item from Magic Item Compendium that increases your Inspire Courage by +1/+1). It seemed silly to me that I could not technically use both in the same round, because each is a swift action.

Maybe I can talk my DM into letting me craft a Badge of Courage that triggers as a a move-action instead of a swift action, at the same cost.

 

[Jhaelen]

I have a feeling it wouldn't be a good idea to allow changing a standard action into a second swift action. While I cannot give an example that would be obviously broken, I believe it's an important part of the balancing that there is no way to gain two swift actions.

Having two swift actions in a round also means that you could take an immediate action during another's turn and still have a swift action available on your own turn. I'm not sure I like this...

 

[Artoomis]

I have a feeling it wouldn't be a good idea to allow changing a standard action into a second swift action. While I cannot give an example that would be obviously broken, I believe it's an important part of the balancing that there is no way to gain two swift actions.

Having two swift actions in a round also means that you could take an immediate action during another's turn and still have a swift action available on your own turn. I'm not sure I like this...

Wow - this is pretty backwards.

I think you meant:

"I have a feeling it wouldn't be a good idea to allow taking a second swift action in the place of a standard action."

I would have no problem, with it at all. I think it works well, and, in some cases, it is really dumb to not allow it. With the caveat, of course, that it is treated as a standard action - that is, it does not avoid provoking an AoO the way a Swift Action does.

It seems very silly, for example, to do a Swift Action and a Move action and not take any Standard Action and yet have used up your Swift/Immediate Action for the round. Makes no sense at all.

You do NOT end up being allowed to take two Swift Actions in a round. You do end up being able to take two actions, one of which is a Standard Action that is eligible to be a Swift Action - which is a different way of thinking about Swift/Immediate Actions.

I think it is best to think about these three action types as a hiearchy.

All of them may be taken as Standard Actions.
A smaller set of them may be taken as Swift Actions, if you have yet taken a Swift Action or an Immediate Action.
An even smaller set may be taken as Immediate Actions, if you have not yet taken a Swift Action or another Immeidate Action.

 

[Squire James]

My "standard response" would be that doing something that requires another swift action can be done as a standard action. If the second swift action is not terribly "actiony" - like activating a defensive magic item or effect - I might be persuaded to let it be a move action. As for a third swift action, just say no (someone's really trying to abuse the rules if he want to do 3 of these in a turn).

Even then, I would forbid certain combinations of actions if I see a hole in the rules.

 

[IanB]

I have a feeling it wouldn't be a good idea to allow changing a standard action into a second swift action. While I cannot give an example that would be obviously broken, I believe it's an important part of the balancing that there is no way to gain two swift actions.

Having two swift actions in a round also means that you could take an immediate action during another's turn and still have a swift action available on your own turn. I'm not sure I like this...

I think you are misunderstanding what Mistwell is looking for. He's not looking for a way to actually take a 2nd swift action; he wants a way to perform something that is *normally* a swift action as a *standard* action.

 

[Michael Silverbane]

I would have no problem, with it at all. I think it works well, and, in some cases, it is really dumb to not allow it. With the caveat, of course, that it is treated as a standard action - that is, it does not avoid provoking an AoO the way a Swift Action does.

This is pretty much how my houserule for this situation works. You can use a standard action to perform what is normally a swift action, but if it does not provoke attacks of opportunity due to being a swift action, it still provokes, since it is no longer swift.

There has yet to be a situation that has come up that I think would merit banning (though I don't ban much, so that may not be a good indicator for some of you).

Later
silver

 

[Mistwell]

I have a feeling it wouldn't be a good idea to allow changing a standard action into a second swift action. While I cannot give an example that would be obviously broken, I believe it's an important part of the balancing that there is no way to gain two swift actions.

Having two swift actions in a round also means that you could take an immediate action during another's turn and still have a swift action available on your own turn. I'm not sure I like this...

Nobody is talking about two swift actions in a round, or turning a standard action into a swift action, or an immediate action and a swift action.

We are talking about taking LONGER to do a swift action. So turning a swift action into a move action or standard action.