So, I recently read the Swiftblade prestige class on the wizards website. However, one thing there caught my eye:
Perpetual Options (Ex): At 9th level, you can perform even more actions with the haste spell. Instead of making one extra attack at your highest base attack bonus while under the effect of a haste spell that you cast yourself, you now have the choice of making one extra move action or one extra standard action. For example, you could make three consecutive move actions with this ability, two move actions and one standard action, one move action and two standard actions, a full attack action and a move action, a full attack action and a standard action, a full round action and a move action, or a full round action and a standard action.
(Link, emphasis mine)
However, I believe this to be against the standard rules, in reference both to this question and the Players handbook, which says:
Full-Round Action:A full-round action consumes all your effort during a round. The only movement you can take during a full-round action is a 5-foot step before, during, or after the action.
(Player's Handbook, page 139)
Am I right, and this class has been made carelessly? Or is this outside the normal rules? How should I treat this?
Best Answer
D&D is a game of exceptions.
You must use your Str modifier to hit with a melee weapon, unless you're wielding a light weapon and you have the Weapon Finesse feat.
Weapon Finesse only works with light weapons, but there are some weapons that explicitly work as if they were light only for Weapon Finesse purposes (like the rapier).
Your full round action takes up all of your turn except if you're a lvl 9 Swiftblade with haste.
Since the Perpetual Options haste adds a standard action to your turn and a complete action is a move+standard*, now you have a move action and two standard ones and you can combine a move and a standard action to get a full round action.
*There's a little bit of educated guesswork here. In 3e, you could forfeit a move action and a standard action to get a complete action, that could even be split between two consecutive rounds. In 3.5e the wording has changed to "takes up all your action", implying that no matter how may actions get added to your turn, a full round action eats them all.
At the light of the Swiftblade wording, I think RAI on full round action is that, since a round is made of move+standard, the 3.5e manual just wanted to simplify things by saying "all your actions" instead of naming them.
Even if this is not held true, Swiftblade still clearly states this as an exception and specific trumps general.