Threeaction

Threeaction is a term used to describe the three-action economy in certain tabletop role-playing games, most notably Pathfinder Second Edition. In these systems, a character’s turn provides a fixed budget of actions, typically three, which players spend to perform activities such as attacking, moving, casting spells, or other maneuvers. Actions can be combined in various ways as long as their total cost does not exceed the available three actions. In addition to actions, many systems include free actions that do not reduce the action budget and reactions that trigger in response to other events and do not count toward the three-action total.

The three-action economy was introduced by Paizo with Pathfinder Second Edition, released in 2019, as a redesign of traditional action-per-turn frameworks. The design goal was to create tactical flexibility while simplifying decision-making, balancing speed, power, and positioning without resorting to rigid one-action-per-turn rules or excessively variable action counts. The approach aims to give players meaningful choices on every turn and to shape combat pacing and character planning.

Mechanically, common actions cover a range of activities, with some costing more than one action. Simple moves, basic attacks, and many spell effects cost a single action, while more complex maneuvers or higher-level spells may consume two or three actions. The total resets each turn, and the economy interacts with terrain, timing, and the use of reactions to add strategic depth. Variants of fixed-action budgets appear in other games as well, though threeaction remains most associated with Pathfinder’s design.

See also: Action economy; Pathfinder (role-playing game); Pathfinder Second Edition.