How is the Full-Round Action intended?


Rules Questions


4 people marked this as FAQ candidate.

The rules are pretty clear about the way Full-Round-Actions work. What is not so clear is, if the way they work is the way they are intended.

There is one specific case (there are a few more. i don't want to list them all), that lets me and others asume that the wording of the rule might not be the spirit of the rule.

Full-Round Action wrote:
A full-round action requires an entire round to complete. Thus, it can't be coupled with a standard or a move action, though if it does not involve moving any distance, you can take a 5-foot step.
Amazing Initiative (Ex) wrote:
At 2nd tier, you gain a bonus on initiative checks equal to your mythic tier. In addition, as a free action on your turn, you can expend one use of mythic power to take an additional standard action during that turn. This additional standard action can't be used to cast a spell. You can't gain an extra action in this way more than once per round.

Per the rules it is not possible to do a Full-Round Action and a Standart or Move Action on the same turn. It just isn't, no matter how many Actions you have. This greatly diminishes any effect an Ability like Amazing Initiative could have. Additionally most options for this ability are already contained (often in an improved way) in the First Tier special Abilities of the Mythic classes.

That said, do you think the letter of the rule about Full-Round-Actions is the spirit of it? Or are the two distinct? And if they are distinct, what is the rules true spirit?

/edit
if you, like me, would like an official statement as well as a discussion, dont forget to faq-flag ;)


I'd say full round actions continue to prevent any additional actions.

Full-round action is a distinct type of action, neither standard or move. Amazing Initiative says you get an additional standard action. If you take a full round action, you never take a standard and thus you can't have an additional one.

The other interpretation is simply to follow the description of full-round action, specifically this part - "it can't be coupled with a standard or a move action".

Edit - Furthermore, it makes sense thematically. Amazing Initiative's primary bonus is an increased initiative, which correlates to acting sooner in a fight. So the idea is to act first, move, attack, spend a mythic point, attack a second time. Cast spell, move, attack (basically like using a Quickened version of the spell when you cast with your normal standard then use the mythic power to get a second non-casting action).

Sovereign Court

Two standard actions is still pretty extreme.


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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Specific overrides general.

Amazing Initiative overrides the normal limit on actions per turn.

Further "additional" in this case means "in addition to whatever normal actions". It is not limited to only when you use a standard action.

Bear in mind that this is with respect to a set of rules which includes a Tier 1 power that renders you completely immune to all forms of perception for the duration of a second level spell at no cost in mythic power. Blindsight, Tremorsense, True Seeing, all useless, no stealth check required. Heck, it even shuts down discern location.

But even ignoring that, nothing in the full-round action rule prevents amazing initiative from working because specific overrides general.


In the old 3.5 it was specified that a full round action expended your normal standard plus move, thus allowing you tu use any extra action as you saw fit.

Since the spirit of pathfinder was to only apport changes where needed and just copy paste the rest, one may infere that this change in wording was not casual, but specifically intended to intend that a full round action eats up your entire round, without regard to how many action actually compose your round.

Shadow Lodge

This is a mythic ability we are talking about here. A lot of mythic abilities, especially ones that require the use of mythic power, break or bend the standard rules of play. These characters are supposed to be able to do things that most others can't by design.


Chemlak wrote:
Specific overrides general.

This is one of the most obvious and at the same time weirdest rules in the game. what part exactly is the more specific part?

Quote:
In addition, as a free action on your turn, you can expend one use of mythic power to take an additional standard action during that turn.

I'd say specific beats general like this: you can usually only take 1 standart action. This specific rule lets you take 2. That doesn't mean that you can take standart actions alongside fullround actions. I think the letter of the rule is quite clear. But im not really interrested in the letter ;) this is about the intention.

right now i tend to think that it is indeed intended to work like you said, also i have no evidence to support it, just my speculation. The fullround action is a core concept of the game, made long before the implementation of the mythic rules. I just looked it up and the wording in 3.5e was pretty much the same (also my copy is german its pretty much exactly the same as in pathfinder english). So the fullroundaction rule is not only a lot older then mythic rules, it is also a lot older then pathfinder. it was written with the intentions of 3.5. from 3.0 to 3.5 they changed the action economy alot. especially the way haste works. stacking multiple additional attacks became increasingly difficult. this rule made sure there was no oversight. fullround is fullround, it takes a full round. but pathfinder is different then 3.5. We have pathfinder chroniclers give other partymembers additional actions. we have the quickrunners shirt, transforming a swift into a moveaction, we got mythic and thats just the first 3 that came to my mind. if i think about it in 3.5 there is only the marshal that comes to mind (one of the most broken classes in the game), but in pathfinder it's not uncommon to have more then 1 move and 1 standart per turn.
this is why i am currently under the impression that the letter of the rule is indeed old and the spirit may be more on the line of 1full = 1move+1standart


I'm solid in the camp of mythic rules subvert normal rules. The rule of Amazing Init is more specific and therefore trumps the restriction mentioned in the Full-round action description.


anthonydido wrote:
This is a mythic ability we are talking about here.

maybe i was a bit unclear in my topic. this is in fact not about a mythic ability, the entire point of this thread is about the spirit of a core game rule. the mythic ability is just one example of many

unfortunately i cannot edit my first post since i already go answers, but the topic of the thread should have given it away ;)


Dekalinder wrote:
In the old 3.5 it was specified that a full round action expended your normal standard plus move, thus allowing you tu use any extra action as you saw fit.

can you quote the exact passage? unfortunately my copy is in german and if i translate the passage from mine it is pretty much exactly the phrase pathfinder uses


in the case of things like Amazing Initiative and other such abilities, the standard action in the effect is taken WITHIN the free action used to use it. the rules are very clear that you can use a free action with a full-round action, so this is entirely legal. the same goes for anything like the quick runners shirt where you are granted a move action as a swift action. swift actions can also be taken with a full-round actions, so again, perfectly viable. the problem is that the wording of these specific rules are difficult to understand because they refer to two different actions in their summery. the activating action is the one you are actually taking, the other action listed (such as with amazing initiative's "standard action") is listed that way so that the reader knows what options he has available within the free action he is taking. the ability does NOT take two different actions to use, nothing that i know of in the game uses two separate actions to use unless specifically worded like "You may use two x actions to...".


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Grishnackh wrote:
Chemlak wrote:
Specific overrides general.

This is one of the most obvious and at the same time weirdest rules in the game. what part exactly is the more specific part?

The more specific part is the part that applies in the fewer circumstances.

So, in this particular case, we have a general rule (you can't take standard or move actions in a turn in which you use a full-round action) that applies to everyone, everywhere, all the time. Then we have a specific rule (spend a mythic point to get a standard action), which only applies to mythic characters, with 2 or more mythic tiers, who have a mythic point to spend, who choose to spend it to use this ability. It doesn't get a lot more specific than that.

Quote:


Quote:
In addition, as a free action on your turn, you can expend one use of mythic power to take an additional standard action during that turn.
I'd say specific beats general like this: you can usually only take 1 standart action. This specific rule lets you take 2. That doesn't mean that you can take standart actions alongside fullround actions.

Not my read at all. You can normally take a standard and a move action, or a full-round action. This specific rule lets you get a standard action in addition to your normal actions. There is nothing in the text which suggests to me that it only applies when you have taken a standard action. The ability doesn't care what other actions you take. It gives you an additional standard action (it adds a standard action to the actions you can take in a turn).

Quote:

I think the letter of the rule is quite clear. But im not really interrested in the letter ;) this is about the intention.

right now i tend to think that it is indeed intended to work like you said, also i have no evidence to support it, just my speculation. The fullround action is a core concept of the game, made long before the implementation of the mythic rules. I just looked it up and the wording in 3.5e was pretty much the same (also my copy is german its pretty much exactly the same as in pathfinder english). So the fullroundaction rule is not only a lot older then mythic rules, it is also a lot older then pathfinder. it was written with the intentions of 3.5. from 3.0 to 3.5 they changed the action economy alot. especially the way haste works. stacking multiple additional attacks became increasingly difficult. this rule made sure there was no oversight. fullround is fullround, it takes a full round. but pathfinder is different then 3.5. We have pathfinder chroniclers give other partymembers additional actions. we have the quickrunners shirt, transforming a swift into a moveaction, we got mythic and thats just the first 3 that came to my mind. if i think about it in 3.5 there is only the marshal that comes to mind (one of the most broken classes in the game), but in pathfinder it's not uncommon to have more then 1 move and 1 standart per turn.
this is why i am currently under the impression that the letter of the rule is indeed old and the spirit may be more on...

I still think that the letter is fine, because it doesn't matter what the full-round action rules say. They are the general case. If you have a specific ability that lets you alter or bypass that rule, you can do so.


Ascalaphus wrote:
Two standard actions is still pretty extreme.

Not when they're pretty explicitly limited to "An attack or a very specific subset of class abilities".

You can't cast a spell with it, which a strict interpretation of rules out scrolls, wands, magic items that cast spells x/day, SLAs, etc. so your options are very limited as to what you can do with it as any class.

If you can't full attack and take an extra Standard with it, it is an ability no class will ever use with any degree of frequency, because on the whole it would make them weaker than if they had NOT used their super Mythic ability. Which seems odd for an ability that everyone gets, and is supposed to make you more powerful.

Silver Crusade

The combat chapter tells you how the basic rules work.

Then, just about every feat, special ability, spell and magic item lets you break those rules in the specific ways written.

The text is clarifying that you get either standard+move or full-round, not both! It does not, nor is it intended, to forever prevent any later feat, special ability, spell or magic item from giving you an extra action to spend.

If you were to understand the text as disallowing any possible mix of move+FR or standard+FR...why? Why would these possible future combinations have so bothered the original 3rd ed writer (Monte Cooke) that he would pre-empively torpedo them...while still allowing two full-round actions? That is not credible.

In the 3.5 Magic Item Compendium there is an item called the Belt of Battle. It has 3 charges per day: 1 charge gives you an extra move action, 2 charges an extra standard action, 3 charges an extra full-round action. Are we to believe that the combat chapter prevents you from combining the magically granted extra move and standard actions with whatever full-round action you have available, while still allowing you to have two full-round actions?

The Travel Devotion feat allows you to move your speed as a swift action. "Thus", it says, "Thus, you can move your speed and then take a full-round action, or move and take two other actions (2 moves or standard+move)." It's spelling out that the natural consequence of being able to move your speed as a swift action leaves you your usual complement of actions which you can take.

The feat also notes that you can't take a 5-foot step in the same round that you use this feat to move. But doesn't the combat chapter say that you can't move more than 5-feet when you take a full-attack? Yes...normally. That's what the combat chapter does; it tells you how the round 'normally' works, so that future feats, special abilities, spells and magic items change this 'normal' to whatever 'specific' is set forth in that feat, special ability, spell or magic item.


I've always viewed the action economy as follows:

1) You have 6 seconds in a round, in which all participants perform their allotted actions.

2) Most actions on your turn are, more or less, performed in parallel, with adjudication happening in sequence out of necessity. If you move, you're taking some amount of time to get to your destination while possibly also performing some standard action. This could be spending 5 seconds to move into position and "winding up" your attack to deliver at the end, or it could be delivering your attack first and then getting to your destination afterwards. It's fuzzy out of necessity.

3) Full-Round actions serve two purposes.
- A) Actions that preclude either movement or standard action. Standing there and attacking for the full round precludes your opportunity to move, for example.
- B) Actions that synergize movement and action for some added benefit. Charging combines a double move with an attack and grants a bonus for the combo.

4) Swift/Immediate actions take "almost no time, but a large expenditure of effort". Moving up to your speed as a Swift action is done much faster than moving up to your speed as a Move action. So it makes sense that you can fit in the opportunity to move as a Swift action in the same round that you've performed a Full-Round action.

5) Extra actions are about overlapping. You don't extend the time for your turn so how, exactly, do you fit another standard or move action in there? Because you're more efficient with your action; you're able to fold actions into themselves and multi-task to use your time more effectively. It's just the adjudication that happens in sequence; the actual actions are smooth and fluid and have overlapping elements with other actions. So you're executing your move while making your full-attack because you know how to execute your attacks and recover your stance on the run.


That's flavor, and not one I agree with.

It can just as easily (and more likely is) your character moving supernaturally quickly. This is Mythic, where your Barbarian can crash through multiple stone walls to reach his target.

Your physics and realism have no place here.

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