What can I do in one round?

Question

I'm still little confused about actions in Pathfinder. There are standard actions, move actions, full round actions, free actions, etc. I need to know which combinations of these actions I can use in one round. Could someone give me a summary and clarify it for me?

Answer 1

According to The ever useful d20PFSRD:

In a round of combat, you can do either :

• 1 Full-round action OR
• 1 Standard action plus 1 Move action (in any order) OR
• 2 Move actions (effectively trading your Standard action for a Move action)

Plus a combination of :

• 1 Swift or Immediate Action AND
• Any number of Free Actions

A few special cases

The 5 ft. step
Provided you don't take any other action that actually involves using a move speed (walking/running/flying...) during the same round, you can take a 5' step as a free action that does not provoke attacks of opportunity once per round.

Spellcasting
While most spells have a casting time of 1 Standard action, others can take a Swift action, a Full-round Action or more. For those spells that take longer to cast, you're effectively using up a Full-round action each round for the duration of the casting.
Also, be they Quickened spells or whatever, you can never take more than 1 Swift action per round.