How to Abuse Free Actions


Advice


I personally haven't the slightest on how to best pull this off, but I would like to issue a challenge. Technically you can make an infinite number of free actions in a turn. (Eventually the GM would say enough, but we'll call it infinite.)

So what character build could best abuse free actions? My first thought is some sort of multiclass barbarian that rage cycles.


Well, there's always the infinite throwing shield trick, but that's old hat. Besides, you'll have to spend ages picking up after every battle, not to mention the logistics of carrying that many shields on your person. We can do better.

First, start as a wizard with the Quick Draw feat and ranks in Craft (alchemy). You're going to put that skill to use crafting barrels upon barrels of alchemist's fire, acid, gunpowder... take your pick. Stockpile your alchemical doom in Large barrels until you hit 5th level, at which point you'll learn to cast shrink item to make them portable. Shrinking a Large barrel reduces it to Diminutive size, or about the same size as a flask, which you can then store on bandoliers about your person.

When combat starts, fly above the enemy (you remembered to take fly, right?) and draw one of your barrel-flasks as a free action using the Quick Draw feat. (Your GM may argue that barrel-flasks aren't weapons - point out to him that they're fragile and semi-aerodynamic items full of dangerous substances. They're improvised weapons at the very least.) Drop, drop the barrel-flask as another free action. (Your GM may call this an attack, but you're not actually aiming at anyone - just dropping something. Totally free!) Assuming you're up high enough, dropping a shrunken item should have the same kinetic effect as tossing it on the floor and return it to full size as well as breaking it open. I'd say 20-30 feet should be enough. (Your GM may argue that shrink item is triggered by the intention of tossing as opposed to the physical act - remind him that we're deliberately playing fast and loose with the rules here he's merely hypothetical strawman who exists to legitimize this outrageous argument. He'll understand!)

So, you've just dropped a barrel full of acid/napalm/explodey dust in the vicinity of your opponent(s), which should call for a Reflex save do avoid initial and/or ongoing damage. Well, let's drop another! That's two more free actions and another Reflex save for the poor saps below, not to mention a growing environmental hazard. Repeat the process until your pool of alchemical death is large enough for your tastes, and/or everything on the ground is dead, including the ground itself. If you're using gunpowder, you'll need to drop some sort of heat source to begin the fireworks - I recommend a lit torch in your offhand, or a shrunken bonfire, either of which can be dropped as yet another free action.

(Your GM, not taking the hint, may insist that all of this is taking too long and you need to quit monopolizing the session with your absurd rule-bending combat exploit. Point out that by RAW, you haven't actually taken more than six seconds of real time to complete your diabolical plan - talking is, after all, a free action.)


Love it. Now from the point of view of any poor DM who faces this insanity, what is too many free actions? I know, har har, the rules allow...blah blah, but to try and realistically consider when you've used up your turns with free actions? Let's pick an amount, say 6 free actions a turn? But does that account for any other actions? Maybe a grand total of 4 free actions, and any other normal actions you may have?Maybe using 5 free actions is considered equal to 1 standard? Lol 10 free actions a turn, and a 5ft step/ fly! Lol just for the enjoyment of speculating what an average DM might allow?


First of all: It's very bad form to ask the forum for help to abuse the game and to piss off your DM.

I just let my players use as many free actions as they want. As far as I know, there's nothing broken or abusive about it that can be done.

@Irthos: Your ideas are full of corner cases or directly contridict stated rules.


I think the free action speech is limited to a sentence or two, so just use run-on sentences that don't ever really wind down because it's possible to just keep adding more and more on, effectively prolonging one free action indefinitely, which, while not exactly abusing our infinite free action allotment nevertheless manages to fulfill the spirit of the challenge by taking just one free action and abusing it in a manner not unlike one would do when abusing infinite free actions, much to the consternation of the GM and fellow players, even if it does require a certain willful ignorance of the intention behind the free action speech limitations to circumvent some reasonable approximation of what one could accomplish in the six-second in-game time frame the speech is taken to occur in, i.e. one round.


CannibalKitten wrote:
Love it. Now from the point of view of any poor DM who faces this insanity, what is too many free actions? I know, har har, the rules allow...blah blah, but to try and realistically consider when you've used up your turns with free actions? Let's pick an amount, say 6 free actions a turn? But does that account for any other actions? Maybe a grand total of 4 free actions, and any other normal actions you may have?Maybe using 5 free actions is considered equal to 1 standard? Lol 10 free actions a turn, and a 5ft step/ fly! Lol just for the enjoyment of speculating what an average DM might allow?

I would make decisions like that on a case by case basis. I tink that's the only way to handle it. Although I'll admit, if a player went to THAT much trouble to use free actions, I wouldn't be able to say no...


Throwing Shields and Blinkback Belts

That's it. The game breaks when you use those two in conjunction.


It isn't infinite, but one combo I saw talked about a few months ago was siegebreaker fighter:

By 2nd level it gets:

Breaker Rush wrote:
At 1st level, a siegebreaker can attempt bull rush or overrun combat maneuvers without provoking attacks of opportunity. When he performs either combat maneuver, he deals an amount of bludgeoning damage equal to his Strength bonus (minimum 1). If he has Improved Bull Rush or Improved Overrun, the damage dealt by the appropriate maneuver increases by 2 and he adds any enhancement bonus from his armor or shield (though such enhancement bonuses do not stack, if both armor and shield are magic).
Breaker Momentum wrote:
At 2nd level, when a siegebreaker successfully bull rushes a foe, he can attempt an overrun combat maneuver check against that foe as a free action.

With Shield Slam your attack routine looks like:

- Shield slam adjacent opponent (standard action)
- Free action bull rush + damage
- Free action overrun + damage, opponent sent prone as you move through its square, greater overrun triggers AoO
- Make a shield slam with AoO
- Free action bull rush + damage

You can garnish this with Spiked Destroyer for one additional attack as a swift action. Works great until you face enemies with high CMD.

If we instead use Bulette Style (and Bulette Leap) our strategy looks like:
- Start running through enemies.
- Overrun first enemy + damage, enemy is knocked prone due to grt. overrun
- Provokes AoO, use shield bash
- Free action bull rush + damage
- Free action overrun + damage (at -2 penalty)(no AoO 'cos its already prone)
- Keep moving due to Bulette Leap, reach another enemy and overrun with -4 penalty
- Provokes AoO, use shield bash
- Free action bull rush + damage
- Free action overrun + damage (at -6 penalty)(no AoO 'cos its already prone)
- Continues until you run out of movement, run out of AoOs or you mess up a CMB check.

Again, it stops dead in its tracks if enemies have high CMD, avoid you in some way, or are spread out too far. Its one of those things that work insanely well on paper and make for a killer story in 1/10 fights, but most of the time end up pretty good rather than broken.


Just want to say something, I'm not intending to break the game here. This is an like an exercise to see how useful free actions can be. I probably should've made that clearer. Some great stuff here.


MageHunter wrote:
Just want to say something, I'm not intending to break the game here. This is an like an exercise to see how useful free actions can be. I probably should've made that clearer. Some great stuff here.

I think people may have gotten the wrong idea since you used "abuse" in your OP. That term is usually associated with breaking the game.

I'll have to keep thinking if there are any other big strats out there that use lots of free actions (Darksol and Irthos already covered the most cheesy and well known one).


Look at the Skirmisher Archetype for the ranger.

chose Aiding attack, Distracting attack, Hateful attack, Hobbling attack, Rattling strike, Tangling attack and Upending strike for a lot of extra effects, all free actions.

Maybe multiclass to a level of barbarian for free action rage, consider the shield slam feat chain for a free action bullrush. There are propbly a lot more options


MageHunter wrote:
CannibalKitten wrote:
Love it. Now from the point of view of any poor DM who faces this insanity, what is too many free actions? I know, har har, the rules allow...blah blah, but to try and realistically consider when you've used up your turns with free actions? Let's pick an amount, say 6 free actions a turn? But does that account for any other actions? Maybe a grand total of 4 free actions, and any other normal actions you may have?Maybe using 5 free actions is considered equal to 1 standard? Lol 10 free actions a turn, and a 5ft step/ fly! Lol just for the enjoyment of speculating what an average DM might allow?
I would make decisions like that on a case by case basis. I tink that's the only way to handle it. Although I'll admit, if a player went to THAT much trouble to use free actions, I wouldn't be able to say no...

Exactly why, personally, I would have to limit it while still allowing them to be crazy as they obviously intended in making such a character. I cant see it getting too out of hand really, mostly just silliness. I feel like some free actions are free because they can be done at the same time as other actions (talking and swinging a weapon, or in 5th i think they say picking something up during movement is free) some free actions aren't quite that free though probably and because of that they are obviously not all equal in the amount of time they should take up. Also realize that this is obviously in fun and no rules should exist for extensive use except for maybe one limiting how many you can have a round.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I didn't get the sense the OP was asking in any spirit other than good fun.

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Advice / How to Abuse Free Actions All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.