So, I've been wondering about this for a while now, can one use a "Swift Action" ability as a move or standard action?
A specific example would be a Paladin wanting to use smite evil, (swift action) lay on hands himself, (swift action, change to move) and take the total defense action (standard) in the same round.
Similarly, could a Paladin lay on hands himself twice in a round, using his swift and standard actions? Afterall, using that specific ability on himself is a swift action, but using it on another is a standard, so are they interchangeable when the paladin uses it on himself?
Could the same paladin use lay on hands on himself, smite evil, and cast a quickened spell? (5th level or higher take Extra Traits feat for the Magical Lineage trait choosing, let's say, CLW and then getting to 14th level. A bit featy but totally doable.)
Yes, all of my examples involve a paladin, but that's just because paladins have that unique takes-two-different-action-types-depending-on-circumstances lay on hands ability. I'm curious about if swift actions can be traded out for other actions for any class. I know that one can't do it with quickened spells no matter what is said here, but I still wanna know about what people think about other swift actions getting used as move or standard actions instead.
A move action may be taken in place of a standard action.
No other actions are interchangeable.
I personally would allow a paladin to swift action LoH, then standard action LoH on themselves if they wanted to. But RAW doesn't seem to support that - if he is LoH on self it is always a swift action, if he is LoH on someone else it is always a standard.
D&D's 4E would let you do this with Minor actions. However there's no way to do it in the Pathfinder rule set.
Generally it wouldn't be an issue to houserule in, but it gets tricky once you realize that your immediate action counts as your swift action for the round. Well, can you say "I use my next move action to get another immediate action to use my oracle's Misfortune ability on that creature too," or not? If immediate actions were entirely separate, than it wouldn't be too bad though.
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As long as whatever they want to do isn't game-breaking, I'd be inclined to allow it case-by-case (not to do things like add judgement and bane for an inquisitor).
This would generally be the way to handle it. For your lay on hands on self ability, I would allow it to use the standard action because otherwise, the paladin could use it on himself (swift action) and then an ally (standard action) but not himself twice in the same amount of time.
Now, if someone's trying to do something ridiculous with it, such as trying to make the Peasant Railgun, the GM is under full rights to say no...if you're unfamiliar with it, feel free to read.
In 3.0 rules I had a player who liked to cite a particular rule: handing something off to someone else is a free action, you can have as many free actions as you want in a round, combine this to have one person holding a pile of staves or something easy to stack in their arms. Have a line of a hundred minions readying actions to hand off anything that is handed to them. He then claimed because free actions used a "negligible amount of time," handing them off down the line of a hundred people would still be one round, so when the last person let go it would be traveling a few hundred miles an hour and would count just as if falling at max velocity, doing 20d6 damage. And this could happen as many times per round as the DM allowed free actions to happen.
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Your immediate action counts as your next round's swift action. You can take a standard, move, & swift (or a full round action & swift) and between the end of your turn in round 1 and the beginning of your turn in round 2 take an immediate action. In round two however you won't have a swift to take.
Houserule it all you want but RAW the point of making actions swift is they are restricted to a single use per round. Its not only an action economy issue, but a resource management and game balance issue. Things like the Paladin's LOH or an Inquisitor's Bane and Judgement are choices you have to make. Do I choose A or do I choose B. These things matter in the course of an encounter. If the designers intended you to do both in a round they would make them free actions. Standard actions abilities like activating magic items or making a Vital Strike are weighed the same way, you only get to choose one.
--Schoolhouse Vrock