Iterative Attacks

[Galloglaich]

Originally Posted by Wulf Ratbane

I've been doing some heavy permutations/probability number crunching over the break, and I wanted to run something past the folks here.

Playing around with possible speed fixes for iterative attacks, I've found something that works pretty good for me personally:

• At 6th level, you get a 2nd attack, but both attacks suffer a -2 penalty (-2/-2 instead of 0/-5).
• At 11th level, the penalty drops to -1/-1 (instead of 0/-5/-10).
• At 16th level, the penalty drops to -0/-0 (instead of 0/-5/-10/-20).

But there is just no way around one peculiarity of the 3rd and 4th iterative attacks, to wit:

Against creatures that you have almost no hope of hitting (natural 18 or better on your first attack, and natural 20's thereafter); and against creatures that you almost can't miss (needing "less than a natural 2" on your first attack, with a great chance of success on even your 3rd and 4th attacks), your expected damage will drop off.

So the core poll question is this:

If your expected damage over the range of 80-90% of all creatures you will encounter will INCREASE by 5 to 20%, would you be willing to lose your 3rd and 4th attack, and accept a DECREASE against the "edge case" creatures (very high AC or very low AC)?

EDIT: I want to clarify that. At -1/-1, your expected damage against most creatures you will encounter is BETTER than three attacks at 0/-5/-10; and at -0/-0, your expected damage against most creatures you will encounter is BETTER than four attacks at 0/-5/-10/-15.

There are other emergent benefits to this proposal (levelling the expected damage output non-fighter classes, reducing the necessity of AC-pumping for PCs, etc.) but I am primarily concerned with how this fix strikes the primary fighting classes.

I selected "Other": I agree iterative attacks is a clumsy rule: use the Martial Pool instead.

Give your players a Martial Pool dice at a certain rate, say one at first level plus one per every 3 BaB. (Or alternately do as we do and give them one per BaB with a cap at 4th level)

Then once they have say two Martial Pool, that means two dice, with no extra bonus ove their BaB, but they can choose to either attack twice with one die each, or attack one time using both dice and keeping the highest roll. This is called a "roll many / keep one" system. It improves their average die roll by about +4, doubles their chance of getting a natural 20, and all but eliminates their chance of getting a fumble (all of this increases with more and more dice). You can also give them multipliers on critical hit damage, one per dice they rolled.

If you are using armor as damage reduction you can have even more fun with this by letting them use their MP for active defense die rolls.

This eliminates all that useless arithmetic, and also allows you basically replace things like full attack option, tracking the number of AoO, fighting defensively, etc. etc. just by weighing the dice in your hand instead of doing a bunch of math.

It's much more intuitive, more cinematic / dramatic and also faster IMO.

G.

[Max Money AWA]

OK Have only read the first page so forgive me. (I'll edit this after I read the rest)

I like old school combat. In First Edition and 2nd Ed AD&D, the fighter-types could make more than one attack per round (that was one of the things that set them apart from the rest of the classes). What about changing the OP set-up to this:

* Most classes can make more than one attack with a -2 penalty when the BAB for the class reaches +6. Period. No getting better, no dropping off. Just the way you have it.

* The fighter-type classes get a bonus of +1 at 11th level and another one at 16th level (basically the same as the OP) and capping the number of attacks per round at 3 and not four.

One related question, how do you deal with movement in a round when making a full attack in this set-up?

I also like the idea of dropping back a bit with critter hit points as well.

[Wulf Ratbane]

Hey Max!

Read on... Most of what you ask for is covered in the thread (and my proposal).

[GlassEye]

Your system (which seems quite accessible and easy to me) describes an extra attack at 6th level then decreasing the negative modifier at 11th level and 16th level. Is this for all characters or just the fighting types? Would it make much of a difference (or was it your intent) that the extra attack and decreases to penalty occur at +6 BAB, +11 BAB, and +16 BAB?

[Wulf Ratbane]

Originally Posted by GlassEye

Your system (which seems quite accessible and easy to me) describes an extra attack at 6th level then decreasing the negative modifier at 11th level and 16th level. Is this for all characters or just the fighting types? Would it make much of a difference (or was it your intent) that the extra attack and decreases to penalty occur at +6 BAB, +11 BAB, and +16 BAB?

All characters-- it's based on BAB.

But note that wizards will only achieve +10 BAB, and Clerics/Rogues +15.

[GlassEye]

Thanks for the clarification. I like this; it sounds like a very workable fix. I plan on bringing it up at my tabletop game and seeing if they'd be willing to give it a shot.

[Runestar]

Has anyone tried implementing a manyshot variant for melee attacks? Maybe you can make all your attacks as a standard or full action, but you take an attack penalty. How might it work? I think it may be a tad too strong (it is okay for ranged since archers are already virtually assured of full attacks regardless of where they stand on the battlefield, but it is harder for melee to ensure that they can consistently make full attacks while staying within reach of their foes).

But then, warblades and swordsages can initiate diamond blade nightmare at lv15+, so it doesn't quite seem as bad...

[Max Money AWA]

Originally Posted by Max Money AWA

One related question, how do you deal with movement in a round when making a full attack in this set-up?

I also like the idea of dropping back a bit with critter hit points as well.

Originally Posted by Wulf Ratbane

Hey Max!

Read on... Most of what you ask for is covered in the thread (and my proposal).

Read through the whole thread and didn't really find anything on how you run movement and full attacks.

Do you run it old school and full movement with full attacks, or do you only allow partial movement (something less than a full move) with full attacks?

[genshou]

Since no change is proposed, assume the standard rules apply. Any time you are making more than one attack, you must take a full attack action unless a special ability or feat states otherwise.

[Max Money AWA]

Originally Posted by genshou

Since no change is proposed, assume the standard rules apply. Any time you are making more than one attack, you must take a full attack action unless a special ability or feat states otherwise.

So now a full-attack action is worse than before, if what you say is true, because you get one or two less attacks and can only take a five foot step in that round. <looks for the Mr. Yuck face>

If you are going to use this version of iterative attacks, then up to normal movement should be allowed.

[freyar]

Originally Posted by Max Money AWA

So now a full-attack action is worse than before, if what you say is true, because you get one or two less attacks and can only take a five foot step in that round. <looks for the Mr. Yuck face>

If you are going to use this version of iterative attacks, then up to normal movement should be allowed.

How is it worse just to get fewer attacks if those attacks are actually worth more? From Wulf's simulations, the average damage is actually higher in most cases for his system.

[Wulf Ratbane]

Originally Posted by Max Money AWA

Read through the whole thread and didn't really find anything on how you run movement and full attacks.

Do you run it old school and full movement with full attacks, or do you only allow partial movement (something less than a full move) with full attacks?

Here:

Iterative Attacks

(You may have overlooked it because I was brief.)

[Qualidar]

Coming in a bit late to the discussion, but I was thinking about the edge cases this morning: at what point could you add and extra attack (or 2), balanced by a penalty, and have it equal out to the old expected damage output with the iterative attacks?

I'm wondering if having the option to start wildly swinging would work: 3 attacks at -10 each or four attacks at -15 (or whatever statistically works) as an alternative for when you just need to swing for the fences against a horde of low level orcs or a powerful dragon you need to get lucky to hit.

[Quartz]

Here's another edge case: what about the character who goes for the Spring Attack tree? They can eventually get 4 attacks too, each separated by movement. This is the sort of character who takes a shot or two at the BBEG then leaps away to hammer a mook. A high-level monk with this - or worse, a high level monk with a few fighter levels - is just plain nasty.

[Wulf Ratbane]

Originally Posted by Quartz

Here's another edge case: what about the character who goes for the Spring Attack tree? They can eventually get 4 attacks too, each separated by movement. This is the sort of character who takes a shot or two at the BBEG then leaps away to hammer a mook. A high-level monk with this - or worse, a high level monk with a few fighter levels - is just plain nasty.

How does anyone get more than one attack while moving and forgoing a full attack action?

[Michael Silverbane]

Originally Posted by Wulf Ratbane

How does anyone get more than one attack while moving and forgoing a full attack action?

There's a couple of feats that allow this in Player's Handbook II. Bounding Assault allows two attacks during a spring attack. Another feat allows a third, and so on.

[tomBitonti]

Hi,

My experience with multiple attacks wasn't that there was a problem for fighter attacks; there was a huge problem when special actions were added.

For example: The combination of Whip + Rapid Shot (why, oh why?) + Haste + This is a touch attack + Followup Trip Confirmation Roll. Then add on to that: Crack of Fate + Splat book extra attack. Then: AOO for standing up + Combat Reflexes. We had a player who could use more of the resolution time than all of the other players combined. He did awesomely hold off a huge horde of goblins, orcs, ogres, and giants, at a choke point, but it wasn't fair to the other players how much time he used.

My fix for this is to make special attacks (e.g., Power Attack and Trip) standard actions and be done with it.

Would you consider simply adopting flurry of blows as a single unified mechanic for making multiple attacks?

Also: Can we answer what is the basis for multiple attacks in the first place? What immersion are we trying to engender?

Also: Wasn't the combat round a lot longer in 1E? I think the justification for multiple attacks is reduced because of the shortening of rounds.

I do like this probabilistic argument for multiple attacks (which subsumes Cleave): For a portion of your round, if you miss someone, then you used all of your effort in that portion of the round to try for a hit, and you were unable to succeed. You ought not to get an additional attack. If you do get a hit, then chances are you expended less than your full effort on that attack, and you should get a followup attack (with a subtraction, since you only have so much effort left over). I would still want to allow you to divide your effort to make several less focused attacks.

Has anyone put the range of combat options on an axis:

Power Attack (-hit +dmg)
Normal Attack
Precise Attack (+hit -dmg) [don't think this currently exists]
Defensive Attack (-hit +ac) [Weapon Finesse, Fight Defensively, Full Defense]
Light Attack (extra attack, -hit) [Flurry of Blows]

Edit: Ok, here is a question: When going from a single attack (@+5BAB) to a second attack (@+6BAB) how much does that change your damage output? How much of an attack bonus is that equivalent to? Also, I can imagine that the maths work our very differently at this point if multiple attacks are disallowed, or are reduced.

Thx!

TomB

[Wulf Ratbane]

Originally Posted by tomBitonti

Would you consider simply adopting flurry of blows as a single unified mechanic for making multiple attacks?

Good catch-- that's pretty much exactly what I have done.

Also: Can we answer what is the basis for multiple attacks in the first place? What immersion are we trying to engender?

For me it's a mechanics/balance issue. The fighter types need damage output at high levels.

[tomBitonti]

I keep getting back to a number of fundamental changes that 3E introduced. My understanding is that melee damage was increased in order to give fighters greater damage output, so to allow them to compete better with spell casters.

Looking at the primary sources of damage at higher levels, I can see:

From 1e:

Sword base damage: 1d8
Possible Magical Add: +0 to +5
Possible Strength Add: +0 to +8 (what is the high end here)
Damage multiplier from iterative attacks: x1 to x4?? (I don't remember the high end from 1E)
Sneak Attack: +0 to +xd6 (don't know the high end)

From 3e:

Add Power Attack: +0 to +40, per attack
Add Higher Strength: up to +13 (Half-Orc barbarian: 36 == 20 + 4 + 6 + 6)
Add Criticals: +0 to +90 (for a x3 battleaxe from a raging barbarian with improved critical)
Add Multiple Sneak Attacks

I'm thinking that where this goes wrong is with the combination of the damage adds with iterative attacks, which gives you a non-trivial second-order add to damage.

[Kid Charlemagne]

Originally Posted by Wulf Ratbane

The TWF feats are designed to let your off-hand mimic what your main hand is doing at the same bonus for the same iterative attack. Mechanically, that wouldn't change.

Since your main hand isn't making a 3rd or 4th attack, Greater and Superior TWF would go away-- or need to be altered (e.g., lessening the off-hand penalties by 1 each).

OK, so just to be sure I'm getting this straight:

A Ranger (or any fighter with 2-wpn fighting) would look like this:

6th level (2-wpn fighting)
+2/+2/+2/+2 (+6 BAB, -2 to attack for multiple attacks, -2 for 2-wpn fighting, extra off-hand attack due to Improved 2-wpn fighting)

11th level (assuming no adjusted greater 2-wpn fighting)
+8/+8/+8/+8 (+11 BAB, -1 to attack for multiple attacks, -2 for 2-wpn fighting, extra off-hand attack due to Improved 2-wpn fighting)

16th level (same asumptions)
+14/+14/+14/+14 (+16 BAB, -0 to attack for multiple attacks, -2 for 2-wpn fighting, extra off-hand attack due to Improved 2-wpn fighting)

Incidentally, I like the idea of altering Greater and Superior TWF in the manner you propose.