Iterative Attacks

[Scurvy_Platypus]

as wizards get to do more damage with their spells and eve the chance to wield duel wands for double attacks, the rogue is doing extra sneak attack damage and the druid gets to have an army of animal companions and followers, why should the fighter get stuck with just : I hit with my sword: Whack!

I is hard enough that the fighter is the meat shield for the party, being up on the front line in the mids of spells zinging around him, and gods only know what else. why shouldn't his expertise show some pazaz and get multi attacks as he has learned how to skillfully weave with his weapon through the defenses of his opponant?

Errr... I get the impression you feel the need to defend the Fighter's right to be cool or something. I'm not questioning that; I refuse to play casters in d20 and usually play fighters. I'm all about fighters not sucking and being redundant/useless/whatever negative you care to call it.

I think Scurvy's point was "why not just do more damage with the one attack as the solution".

Sorta. So, the casters do damage in part pased on their level. Rogues do a sort of scaled bonus damage as well. Fighters... oh, they have to make an additional roll.

And of course, because of the way it's set up, it's not that _Fighters_ get to attack multiple folks at once... no, it's tied to BaB which means anyone that can pump up their BaB gets to tap into iterative attacks. Rogues and casters have their bonus damage "protected" from poaching by forcing people to invest levels in specific ways.

So I have to wonder if maybe it's not just better to scrap the whole iterative attack thing altogether. It slows down the game, everyone is doing it, and the way things are now, it's got to be fixed in some fashion that not everyone can agree to, although Wulf's fix seems reasonable enough to me.

In other words, it seems to me like Iterative Attacks are just there because they've always been there; it's a sacred cow. I'm trying to figure out why it _shouldn't_ be killed.

Now, if iterative attacks became a class feature of the Fighter... that's something I can see.

And before someone says, "It doesn't really slow things down that much"... with one person? Probably not. But every person at the table has to do iterative attacks, and that's where things really start slowing down. Especially since not everyone has all the bonuses for everything pre-figured (Bard Song, Haste, other stuff) so that means that instead of having to add up all those bonuses for a single attack, they do it for 2 and 3 attacks.

Yeah, you can complain that people should be more "prepared" or whatever, but let's face it, the world isn't perfect.

Off the top of my head: it restricts you to attacking just one opponent.

And I think _that_ is a pretty good point. But I still find myself thinking, "So?" It seems like there's a general tendency to use a small number of opponents in the first place. By default, 3.x doesn't have rules for mooks for example and most GMs seem to abhor the idea of having a lot of smaller minions that characters can chew through and look cool while doing it. In other words, they're using bigger monsters.

Just like I shouldn't have to make a Balance check to walk down the street, I'm not sure I should really have to roll the d20 3 different times just to whack one creature for a whole bunch of damage.

Pathfinder's Cleave feat seems to handle the attacking multiple targets too, so.... yeah. I guess everyone but me understands why Iterative Attacks for everyone is such a great idea.

It also restricts your effectiveness for the entire combat round to the whims of a single d20 roll. As anyone who's rolled a d20 knows, they are utterly unpredictable in any single instance.

This is 3.x. There's all kinds of stuff that affects/restricts your effectiveness. Last game, I was given the lovely opportunity to fail a Will save (that had to be over 21) for my Fighter or flee in panic after dropping my weapon (Thanks "Rise of the Runelords"). The basic premise of 3.x seems to be that at low levels, you're at the whim of the d20 roll. At higher levels, it's all about stacking bonuses.

By the time you're at the point where Iterative Attacks seem to matter (I'm currently 9th level), the d20 roll is instead functioning more like a random bonus, and it's more about having a massive starting bonus in the first place.

Or maybe I'm just a complete idiot. But that's how it seems to me.

Sorry Wulf, I'm not trying to hijack your thread here. I _think_ it's topical to your poll, but if this is pulling discussion away from what you want to focus on, I'm happy to start a new thread.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Sorry Wulf, I'm not trying to hijack your thread here. I _think_ it's topical to your poll, but if this is pulling discussion away from what you want to focus on, I'm happy to start a new thread.

No problem at all.

 

[Papa-DRB]

My guys just hit 6th level 2 sessions ago and the last session was the first one where they used this. The only "problem" and that was easily worked was making sure they added 2 to their "to hit" if they took a single attack. After a few move/attacks or full round attacks they all had it right...

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

It also restricts your effectiveness for the entire combat round to the whims of a single d20 roll. As anyone who's rolled a d20 knows, they are utterly unpredictable in any single instance.

That is mostly a problem if it takes a long time to resolve each round.

So I guess it _is_ bad for D&D 3E, unless you fix that, too.

How would it work to add BAB to damage and increase the damage dice number by 1 at 6th, 11th and 16th level?

In addition, characters can always make two attacks at a -5 penalty, maybe a third at 11th level, and you don't get the extra damage dice then.

A nice "simulation" side effect: It might be more useful to make multiple attacks with small weapons, since the damage dice is not really all that impressive.

Feats like Two-Weapon Fighting would basically reduce this penalty to -2 _if_ you make one of the attacks with your off-hand.


Example:
Against AC 24 Monster:
Fighter 6, Str18, Greatsword +2, Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialisation:
- Single Attack: +13 melee, 4d6+14 damage (28 damage avg)
- Multiple Attacks: +8/+8 melee, 2d6+14 damage each (15 damage avg)


Rogue 6, Str14, Dex18, Shortsword +2, Weapon Finesse, Two-Weapon Fighting
- Single Attack: +10 melee, 1d6+10 damage +3d6 sneak attack (9.6 damage)
- Multiple Attacks: +8/+8 melee, 1d6+10 damage +3d6 sneak attack (12 damage)

Against AC 25 monster
Fighter 8, Str18, Greatsword +2, Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialisation:
- Single Attack: +15 melee, 4d6+16 damage (28 damage avg)
- Multiple Attacks: +10/+10 melee, 2d6+16 damage each (15 damage avg)


Rogue 8, Str14, Dex18, Shortsword +2, Weapon Finesse, Two-Weapon Fighting
- Single Attack: +12 melee, 2d6+12 damage +4d6 sneak attack (13.2 damage)
- Multiple Attacks: +10/+10 melee, 1d6+12 damage +4d6 sneak attack (14.75 damage)

Hmm... needs work.

 

[Cheiromancer]

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).

I'm late to the discussion, but I want to say that I think this is a freakin' BRILLIANT piece of design. I really hope it is included in Trailblazer when it is released.

I wish I knew the reasons why people opposed this change. I suspect that some may have replied to the poll before they understood what its implications were. E.g., they thought it would hose fighters or something.

 

[Hrothgar Rannúlfr]

Hi, Wulf.

First, I really like your idea for "fixing" multiple attacks in 3.x. This is one thing that has bothered me about 3.x since first playing 3.x at levels high enough to have multiple attacks.

Above, you and Kid Charlamagne were talking about Two-Weapon Fighting's impact on this.

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)

I like how this works, too. Especially, how the penalties for two weapon fighting are different for differently weighted weapons.

So, I was just wondering if you'd thought about using different penalties for multiple attacks based on the weapon categories (similar to how TWF's penalties are different if the weapon isn't light)? For example:

-0 Unarmed Strikes & Light Melee Weapons & Simple Ranged Weapons
-2 One-Handed Melee Weapons & Martial Ranged Weapons
-4 Two-Handed Weapons​

I realize this isn't as simple as a flat +2 across the board. But, it gives an additional incentive to use something other than a Two-Handed Weapon.

 

[ValhallaGH]

That is mostly a problem if it takes a long time to resolve each round.

Not really.

I play a lot of Mutants and Masterminds (I'm leaving in 20 minutes to run a session), so I'm used to characters only having one attack per round. I'm also used to bonuses and DCs being such that characters have to roll between 8 and 12 to connect. I'm used to characters having everything riding on one d20 roll (either to hit or to save against attacks), and I know just how much it sucks to be totally neutered by a plastic polyhedron. There are few gaming events worse than having your character rendered totally useless by a roll of the dice.

Now, where M&M and D&D differ the most (from a philosophical view, there are a host of mechanical differences) is in where and how you get to control the randomness that the d20 roll represents.
D&D makes you control the bonuses, providing scores of bonus types and amounts for you to milk until you have the biggest possible bonus (and thus the least reliance upon the d20); in fact, it's gotten so bad that the rules now assume that you're collecting as many bonuses as you can, to the point that it is necessary, rather than advisable.
M&M, on the other hand, gives the player (some) control over the d20 roll itself. Specifically in the form of Hero Points, a limited resource that can, among other things, guarantee a d20 result between 11 and 20. This doesn't guarantee success, but it can let you come through in those "clutch" situations. Yes, M&M has bonuses too, which are largely situational (tactics, teamwork, environmental, etc), and can limit or remove the need to use Hero Points to control the d20; this is generally regarded as your "reward" for good tactics.

D&D combat has one more way to give mundane combatants control over the d20 roll. Specifically, by allowing characters to roll multiple d20s each round with a chance to hit on each one. The designers, for whatever reasons, chose to make this "second chance" a constant option rather than one saved to redeem failure. To limit abuse, a price had to be attached; they chose a combination of action requirement and decreasing probability on subsequent attacks.
(I realize this view is probably not the intent of iterative attacks. Nevertheless, I see it as the best and primary feature of them, and is the view that seems most relevant to this phase of the discussion.)
If you remove iterative attacks completely then you should replace them with some other form of dice control to maintain at least the illusion of parity.

Man, I hope that makes sense.

 

[Scurvy_Platypus]

It also restricts your effectiveness for the entire combat round to the whims of a single d20 roll. As anyone who's rolled a d20 knows, they are utterly unpredictable in any single instance.

D&D makes you control the bonuses, providing scores of bonus types and amounts for you to milk until you have the biggest possible bonus (and thus the least reliance upon the d20); in fact, it's gotten so bad that the rules now assume that you're collecting as many bonuses as you can, to the point that it is necessary, rather than advisable.

Yeah, but 3.x programmed this sort of thing into the game system. ACs increase faster than most characters ability to hit them "naturally", forcing people to try and stack bonuses as much as possible. So people start doing so, and WotC goes "Oh, everyone stacks bonuses like mad... huh. Ok, we'll just add [X, Y, Z] since people are doing this, and that way the creatures will still be a 'challenge' for them."

I mean, we know they lied about the CRs on dragons for example, in order to make the fight feel more "epic" or whatever. So jiggering ACs, giving creatures "save or suck" abilities and so on, that's just a normal part of their design approach. Basically, as people have ramped up to try and catch up to the critters, the critter makers inflate things to try and keep it "challenging". All that's happened is the cycle of inflation.

D&D combat has one more way to give mundane combatants control over the d20 roll. Specifically, by allowing characters to roll multiple d20s each round with a chance to hit on each one. The designers, for whatever reasons, chose to make this "second chance" a constant option rather than one saved to redeem failure. To limit abuse, a price had to be attached; they chose a combination of action requirement and decreasing probability on subsequent attacks.
(I realize this view is probably not the intent of iterative attacks. Nevertheless, I see it as the best and primary feature of them, and is the view that seems most relevant to this phase of the discussion.)
If you remove iterative attacks completely then you should replace them with some other form of dice control to maintain at least the illusion of parity.

Man, I hope that makes sense.

So what goes through my mind is, this is a design problem. Err, that sounds stupid. I mean that following the chain of reasoning (as I understand it), basically they made things tough and then went "Oh, we should do something so people don't feel completely screwed."

Either that or they said, "Huh... you know, earlier versions of the game had Iterative Attacks and we're going to keep them in this version, so... why don't we do something so that Fighters are needed explicitly because of their ability to do Iterative Attacks better than anyone else?"

If the basic problem is that ACs are inflated, then isn't it a better solution (or at least one worth considering) to simply say, "Because of the different design assumptions between Trailblazer and other OGL games, when using monsters from another OGL source, you'll want to make a few adjustments. The following chart will help:" And then follow with a chart that lists AC from X to Y, Hit Points....whatever the problem bits are.

Does it mean there's a bit of work for the GM? Yup. But there's work for the GM no matter which way you cut it, and I think it's better to slide a bit of it into Prep time as opposed to trying to fix a system that's not working, monster designers have already effectively reduced the effectiveness of (by building monsters with the assumption that folks are going to be Iterative Attacking with a massive stack of bonuses) and that's slowing down things at the table.

In the Pathfinder game I'm in, there's 6 of us players, we're level 9, and we have roughly 4 hours of play on a weeknight. This translates to basically a bit of rp and usually one combat. 2 combats if the encounter is supposed to be "easy". In a couple of cases, combat has taken 5+ hours to sort through.

Slow down in the game isn't only about Iterative Attacks. It's just one point among many. Critters that cause characters to flee with a failed save extend things out. Tactical movement between critters that are fast (over 30) and slow (20 like my !%#$% dwarf) extend things out. Trying to figure out spells extends things out. Damage Resistance if you don't have the secret weapon extends things out. And so on.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is, Monster design seems to have fueled a bunch of different things in the game. Given the importance that killing them has within the d20 rules, I wonder if the solution really is to nibble around the edges and try to fix a problem (Iterative Attacks) that's an attempt to address another problem (inflated monster stats).

Like I said, if Iterative Attacks were a special ability of the Fighter Class, then sure, I'm down with fixing it. But since they're a mechanic that everyone is tapping into, I have to wonder why we should bother keeping the mechanic instead of scrapping it and dealing with the problem directly.

If it's just "sacred cow" status and it's just a given that Iterative Attacks are going to stay period.... *shrug*... well, it's the will of the masses then.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

If the basic problem is that ACs are inflated...

It's not. There shouldn't be anything in this thread to give you that idea.

If it's just "sacred cow" status...

It's not.

There were 4 iterative attacks, each with a different bonus.

Now there are two attacks, with the same bonus.

Or three with flurry attack. Or four with TWF. Or maybe even five with TWF, Flurry and Haste. Or maybe even six with TWF, flurry, and haste... all with the same bonus.

 

[Scurvy_Platypus]

It's not. There shouldn't be anything in this thread to give you that idea.

Sorry, it sorta seemed to me like ValhallaGH was implying/suggesting that.

It's not.

There were 4 iterative attacks, each with a different bonus.

Now there are two attacks, with the same bonus.

Or three with flurry attack. Or four with TWF. Or maybe even five with TWF, Flurry and Haste. Or maybe even six with TWF, flurry, and haste... all with the same bonus.

Well, I didn't mean "sacred cow" necessarily in the sense that "we can't change Iterative Attacks"; you've got a decent sounding change suggested. I meant it more in the sense of "we need to keep Iterative Attacks".

That's what I'm unsure about. It seems to be a foregone conclusion that they should be kept, as well as that they need to be modified instead of being kept in their current form.

I'm just trying to figure out why they need to be kept is all. The reason for keeping them might suggest an alternative approach. Does that make sense? I feel like I'm kinda off to one side in the dark here and missing something that everyone else knows and takes for granted.

Are they being kept because without them Fighters become more of a chump class to take? (I say this being a guy that usually plays Fighters in 3.x)

Are they being kept because ever since Rules Cyclopedia (and the Weapon Mastery) there's been a form of Iterative Attacks?

Apparently it's not because of monster stat inflation.

Some other reason I'm missing? Iterative Attacks _do_ something; they're included in the game for a reason. As they stand they're not working, or they could be made to work a better way.

If I could figure out what they're doing in the first place, it'd be easier for me to say "Yeah, this option rocks!" or "What about doing [whatever] instead?"

Or maybe even five with TWF, Flurry and Haste. Or maybe even six with TWF, flurry, and haste... all with the same bonus.

Errrr... these look the same to me. Am I missing something else?

Sorry for being the slow person in the thread... I'll go back and drool quietly in the corner while I wait.