Iterative Attacks
Wulf Ratbane
Adventurer
Easy to check with my spreadsheet. Be right back to edit this post.
Up to a 30% increase in expected damage at 3 attacks.
Up to a 50% increase in expected damage at 4 attacks, with the biggest gains across the subset of most common ACs you will encounter.
Last edited:
Treebore
First Post
Which standard are you comparing these too? D&D standard or your idea? IF its the D&D standard how does it compare to your idea?
Now that you mention it...
I've actually done something like that - our group nailed the BBEG and we were about to book, rather than fight an enormous ooze released by one of the traps guarding his den of evil (because IIRC the wizard figured out it had the at-will ability to try to transport someone to a random plane), when I decided that hell no, my dwarven barbarian wasn't going to run without at least trying to kill it. Four attacks on max Power Attack later, the thing was modern art.
Wulf Ratbane
Adventurer
Comparing to RAW.
My method increases damage expectation over the RAW by no more than 16%, and has a drop-off on the edge cases to compensate.
0/5/5/5 is all upside.
Wulf Ratbane
Adventurer
Now that you mention it...
Four attacks on max Power Attack later, the thing was modern art.
Heh. Right.
But notwithstanding losing the ability to GO NUTS on a gelatinous cube... how's the idea grab you?
Johnny Angel
Explorer
What about Monks? They get a Flurry of Blows, after all, and are liable to stack Two-Weapon Fighting on top of that. And they aren't just going to be using it for damage -- with Improved Trip and such abilities they can make a lot of use of those extra attacks. But this makes their turns take forever at higher levels. Seems like they've got a lot to lose by your system.
Well, PHB2 did refer to flurry of blows as "flurry of misses", and the OP's model is very similar to the decisive strike variant it gave the monk (the intention was to give the monk fewer, but more meaningful attacks). It is a waste of time if you had 9-10 attacks, but only a few could hit consistently (since you are still entitled to an attack roll, even if you are going to hit only on a natural 20).
It is not without its merits. Dr is less of a consequence, since you make fewer attacks. Gameplay would be sped up, since you make fewer rolls. But abilities which trigger on hit, such as sneak attack, may be less valuable. Power attack's efficacy would be easier to gauge since all your attacks are made with the same bab.
I am liking it more and more.
Wulf Ratbane
Adventurer
Anybody who rolls a lot of d20s, against edge case ACs (very high and very low) is going to lose damage.
That's why folks want iterative attacks "fixed."
Personally I feel that the biggest slowdown is in the variable attack bonus. Doing the math for every attack is a pain in the ass. I don't care if you're playing a hasted thri-kreen monk-ranger-Tempest and you have 12 attacks, if you can roll all of your attacks at once and easily sort them into hits and misses, that's fine by me.
It's having to roll them one at a time, each with a different attack bonus, that drags the game down.
So to be clear-- my proposal, which reigns the attack sequence back to two attacks, is doing it primarily because it is the closest match to existing damage expectation, not because "two attacks is fewer than four attacks."
Jeff Wilder
First Post
That's interesting, because the appeal of your proposal for me is that "two attacks is fewer than four attacks." With one exception in my groups, nobody has a problem with "+14, then +9, then +4." (Obviously, +12/+12 would be simpler.)
With a couple of exceptions, the high-BAB PC-players don't particularly like rolling multiple attacks at once, actually, and as far as I'm aware, nobody begrudges them the few extra seconds of suspense on their turn. In our groups, spellcasters tend to take significantly longer turns than BAB monsters.
