Things to do with swift/immediate actions

[OgreBattle]

What should these not-standard, not-movement, not-free actions do? They were initially added to the game for magic users that kept on getting 'free actions', and for magic item activation. TGD homebrew has come up with some interesting uses of swift actions tho:


Fighter: used for rerolls and activating feats, immediate action 5ft step and foil action, gets more swift actions as he levels up
Monk: use to activate stances
Samurai: Immediate action to use AoO
Barbarian: immediate action rage
Knight: Make challenges, generate damage reduction, immediate action to take a hit for a friend
Paladin: set auras, swift spells at level 9+
Legendary Strategist: Can take an immediate action without losing next round's swift action, immediate action to give ally a reroll or an enemy a reroll or negate a fear effect for his crew

Assassin: swift action spell-likes after level 11+
Thief-Acrobat: Nothing
Jester: distract foes, removing Dex bonus to defenses or lowering their attack roll
Ninja-Pirate: level 10+ swift action to critical hit and debuff a dude

Uttercold Assault Necromancer: Make a scary charge with your crew, immediate action to buff your crew
Stranger with Burning Eyes: immediate to possess another body when their current one dies
Boneblade Reaper: Cast necromancy as a rider to hitting with your boneblade
Death King: Make a scary stare at one guy, short range phantasmal killadude
Demon Samurai: Make a scary face

Conduit: immediate action to affix their movement relative to another creature so they're always the same distance apart moving in the same direction, immediate action to intimidate people when a loud noise is made, teleport
Initiate of the Black Tower: swift action to steal someone elses summoning attempt
Celestial Beacon: Turn on/off their glowiness, generate holy fireshields, immediate action generate a holy sunburst
Seer of the Tempest: Gust of Wind as a swift then immediate action at later levels

Feats
Combat Looting: Take stuff from people you're grappling
Command: rally troops with a swift action
2WFighting: Feint with swift action
Expert Tactician: Feint with immediate action
Elusive Target: immediate to redirect an attack to something else in range, immediate to make an attack automatically miss



Overall it seems like swift actions are there to enhance standard actions, with the occasional defensive oriented immediate action or an upgrade to immediate action for a swift action. Sometimes it comes up as 'this would be a standard action X levels ago' ability such as "Make a scary face and scare people".

I like the swift/immediate action design space as it gives you a simple "if I use an immediate I won't get a swift my coming turn" choice to make. You only get 1 (unless you get more from your class) so it also helps to prevent dipping for ultimate stacked power.

Do you think more abilities in D&D should be swift/immediate actions? If so, what kind of abilities fit?

[Kaelik]

Well looking at my classes:

Cold Dude: swift action coat the ground in ice after level 7 (because coating ground is not level appropriate at that point) or heal himself for his level in damage.

Force Potentate: Swift action can be used to maintain shards of pain and move it around, or can be used to remove a magic effect. I especially like the swift action magic removal, because swift actions cannot be used to counterspell. Gets a second swift action late in life.

Elemental Siphon: uses swift actions to fast channel, or to switch wardings/forms which are elemental stacnes basically, But he eventually has 4 of those active and a swift changes only one.

StormLord: gust of wind as immediate action, later wind wall as immediate as well, and telekinesis as a swift action.

Shadowcaster: At level 14 swift action shadow teleportation. Though honestly, he can use that swift action summon a block ability from level 3. So he will probably do that or a better swift action conjuration/evocation spell.

[Vebyast]

One of my two forays into actually doing my own homebrew used swift/immediate actions, five-foot steps, and attacks of opportunity as resources that could be used on other people's turns. For example, one ability the class had let it retarget nearby spell AoEs by spending attacks of opportunity, and another ability let it make five-foot steps at basically any time; the idea was that if someone tried to nuke the party from ambush you'd zoom in and bounce it right back at them.

The class was, unfortunately, shit.

[hogarth]

Do you think more abilities in D&D should be swift/immediate actions? If so, what kind of abilities fit?

I certainly don't think they should follow the Pathfinder model, at any rate. Pathfinder has many offensive enhancements that require a swift action to activate, but since you only get one swift action per round most of those abilities are wasted. For instance, a Drunken Master monk can use a ki point as a swift action to do +1d6 damage, but a monk is almost always better off using a swift action ki point for an extra attack so what's the point?

EDIT: Another way to put it -- if you're turning an ability that would have been a free action or a permanent ability in 3E into something that requires a swift action, then you're making the game worse, not better.

[OgreBattle]

For instance, a Drunken Master monk can use a ki point as a swift action to do +1d6 damage, but a monk is almost always better off using a swift action ki point for an extra attack so what's the point?

EDIT: Another way to put it -- if you're turning an ability that would have been a free action or a permanent ability in 3E into something that requires a swift action, then you're making the game worse, not better.

I'm thinking that actions like "+1d6 damage" are best left in as free-action riders to other things you spend actions on, like hitting with attacks.

and another ability let it make five-foot steps at basically any time; the idea was that if someone tried to nuke the party from ambush you'd zoom in and bounce it right back at them.

What happens if the enemy has the same ability, how do you handle action order resolution

[tussock]

In general, things being immediate actions at all is terrible. AoO don't even need them, attacks which active characters suffer in passing can be a thing that happen without a roll from anyone but the active character, if that. If you want to counter someone's spell, do it on your next turn, or load them up on spell failure chance on your previous one.

Interrupting people isn't just rude, it's really fucking slow and argument-prone and eventually destroys the game. Don't do it.



Swift actions are a thing where you get sick of saying things are part of some other action, or free-but-only-once-per-round, or whatever, because one action and a move sometimes isn't enough for things that shouldn't really be "free" or "not an action".

So Improved Grapple should be a swift action, and drawing a weapon, and quickened spells, and commanding a pet or controllable spell, and Melf's Minute Meteors, and a sword/crossbow of speed or a hasted attack. Realistically, most things that are Move actions in 3e should be swift. But most of what you do with it should be nothing, because usually just one action is sufficiently loaded with dice and numbers to get on everyone's nerves eventually. Don't give PCs or monsters something "normal" to give up to use their cool situational or limited-use swift action. Just like you don't gain anything for not moving (everyone knows full attacks are a standard action now, right?).


Though, if words are to mean things, you could probably have a "stance" for not moving. Like Power Stance or Defensive Stance. If nothing else because fiddly things with weird bonus types should always have an action cost.

[OgreBattle]

So Improved Grapple should be a swift action, and drawing a weapon, and quickened spells, and commanding a pet or controllable spell, and Melf's Minute Meteors, and a sword/crossbow of speed or a hasted attack. Realistically, most things that are Move actions in 3e should be swift.

Any more move action examples you can think of?

[tussock]

It's easier on my recall if all the Move category is about movement of some kind, and all legwork happens in the Move category. So dodging in place, staying on a mount, sitting on a goblin, the 5'-step. All of Climbing and Tumbling and Balancing and Jumping and Charge/Running movement and so on are a Move. Overrun and Bullrush are Moves. Improved Trip should turn the trip action into a Move, legsweep.

I think it's a fine place to put all your miscellaneous combat modifiers too, but really only in a better game than 3e (where you need to stack that shit just to keep up with the monsters).



I like to think of it as such:
[*]Action: what you're doing with your hands and eyes.
[*]Move: where your hips are going at the same time.
[*]Focus: a problem you can solve by yelling at it, even silently at yourself.

So a second wind is your Focus for a round, using an action point takes Focus, major bonuses or extra actions or action denial from magic items or spells require Focus, and giving new orders to pets, mounts, charmed critters, and so on is Focus. The Warlord would be all about Focus (so would a lot of 4e powers, "get over here" and "bring it on" type stuff). Diplomacy and Bluff and Intimidate are obviously all talky-work, so Focus.



But that's just me and my non-standard terminology. Swift Actions are really there to limit abuses of the action economy, so should only be used for things that are extra actions in some way. A lot of stuff in 3e is only a Move action because ... they hate Fighters. Drawing a Weapon? Free, don't even make it swift. Quickdraw becomes Iajutsu.

Only the cream of the crop feats like Whirlwind and Great Cleave really want consideration for Swift action status, to prevent infinite attack chains with a bag of rats.