|
I was under the understanding that during spring attack you could only move up to a single move speed,
As a full-round action, you can move up to your speed and make a single melee attack without provoking any attacks of opportunity from the target of your attack. You can move both before and after the attack, but you must move at least 10 feet before the attack and the total distance that you move cannot be greater than your speed. You cannot use this ability to attack a foe that is adjacent to you at the start of your turn.
Normal: You cannot move before and after an attack.
but then I was reading through the FAQ about spring attack and got confused about the distance of the movement...
Spring Attack: Can I use Spring Attack to make an attack from an ally's square?
Let's use a diagram of a 5-foot-wide hallway to help visualize this question. Periods are open squares. A is the acting character. Numbers are allies of A. X is the monster.
. . . . . A 1 2 3 X
Using the diagram as a model, the question is, "Can I use Spring Attack to move from A to 3, make an attack on the monster from 3's square, then move back to A and end my turn?"
The answer is "yes." The key to understanding this is the general rule, "you cannot end your movement in an occupied square." Spring Attack is a full-round action; it is not a move action, then an attack, and then another move action, it's one continuous movement with an attack happening in the middle. Thus, with Spring Attack you're not ending your movement until you end your movement for the turn.
To look at it another way, if the character just wanted to move from A to 3 and back to A, that would be a legal move because he's not ending his movement in 3, he's ending his movement back in A. With Spring Attack, the character still isn't ending his movement in 3; the feat gives him the ability to perform an attack as part of the continuous movement from A to 3 to A (regardless of whether that attack happens when he's in an occupied square).
(Even with speed 15, a character moving 15 feet from A to 3 and then 15 feet from 3 to A isn't ending his movement in 3... using a move action to move 15 feet and a standard action to move 15 feet doesn't mean he's actually pausing halfway through his movement to change actions.)
The bolded part specifically seems to suggest that during the spring attack you can move the total of two-move actions during the spring attack. Am I understanding this correct or is my previous understanding the correct one?
The bolded sentence isn't referring to spring attack. It is just an example that if you had 15' movement you can use a move action to move to 3, presumably use a swift or free action (even if it's just to thumb your nose at the people who said you couldn't), then spend your standard action to move back to square A. This is something that without that example many people would veto.
Your initial understanding is correct. Spring attack is limited to a single move speed.