Iterative Attacks

[Arkhandus]

At what level (currently) do you feel that AC stops being of any use against primary attacks?

How many creatures in the SRD do you suppose have 3 or more iterative attacks at -10 or -15?

(Note that multiple attacks-- eg claw/claw/bite-- are not the same thing as iterative attacks.)

Interesting: 21 of 564, counting templates and Good creatures.

Well, let's see. At 6th-level a human fighter can easily have +12 to hit and do 2d6+9 damage (+6 BAB +4 Str +1 Focus +1 enhancement, 2d6 greatsword +6 Str +2 specialization +1 enhancement), while an opposing fighter could have AC 23 or 24 (+1 Dex +9 magic full plate +3 magic heavy shield +1 Dodge), +2 more if using a tower shield instead. A troll would hit them less often, a gorillon or chuul just as often as the fighter, and a hill giant or bulette more often.... So fairly even there...

At 11th-level that fighter could have +22 to hit (+11 BAB, +5 Str, +2 Belt of Giant Strength, +2 focus and greater focus, +2 enhancement) and deal 2d6+14 damage (+10 Str, +2 specialization, +2 enhancement), versus another fighter with AC of 30 (+3 Dex, +10 magic mithral full plate, +4 magic heavy shield, +1 ring, +1 amulet, +1 Dodge) or 32 with a tower shield instead, also roughly even. A glabrezu or fire giant or frost worm or dire tiger would hit about as often, a hamatula or stone golem less often, an adult or mature adult dragon just as often, a purple worm more often.

I'd say it starts to break down more around 14th or 15th-level. And trying for high AC severely cuts down on damage output by then (moderately so at the lower to middle levels). The greatsword fighter's high-AC counterpart would be attacking at maybe +12 for 1d8+7 damage at 6th-level or +19 for 1d8+8 at 11th (maybe a bit better if they could afford a strength-booster despite their expensive AC-boosters). And it just gets worse from there for the AC-guy.

Final edit (man I wish I could type more than a paragraph at once without getting auto-logged-out): My point is mostly just, though, that your AC isn't going to stop the primary attacks much; if you really try to pump it up, you may get hit half the time by primaries, but your damage output will be lower than your enemy's and you won't have as much attack bonus to use for accuracy or Power Attacking.

 

[The Black Kestrel]

Dude, this IS cracking on Trailblazer.

I should have edited that to say get cracking on Trailblazer FASTER .

Thanks for taking the time to answer my question in terms the semi-math literate like myself can understand. You sir have a convert.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Thanks for taking the time to answer my question in terms the semi-math literate like myself can understand. You sir have a convert.

If you haven't already seen it, you may find some more applied math in my Encounter Budgeting.

It's in this forum... search this forum for posts by me.

Lots more to come. I'm getting excited!

 

[maddman75]

I think this would dramatically speed up play. No, rolling at +22, then +17, then +12, then +7 isn't terribly complicated. But if I'm just rolling two dice at +20, I can roll them all at once and be done. It effectively turns four rolls into one. Damage can be all rolled in one handful as well.

As for the outliers, maybe a couple of options in that case? Proposals

- If a natural 20 is *required* to hit (ex you have +11 to hit and they have AC 35) and the character rolls a natural 20, the crit is automatically confirmed.
- If the character has +19 or more needed to hit ie, only misses on a one, they gain one additional attack when the opponent is felled. If the character has the Cleave/Great Cleave feats, this attack is in addition to the ones granted by those feats.

Plug that into your spreadsheet and see how it helps the outliers!

 

[Achan hiArusa]

Multiple attacks were so much easier to deal with and you didn't feel like you had to give up attacks. I am going to try a variant of the Martial Pool http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera.../241602-martial-pool-new-combat-mechanic.html in the place of iterative attacks.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

As for the outliers, maybe a couple of options in that case?

Folks have mentioned a couple of things in this thread, including Power Attack, and now Cleave.

As long as I am rebalancing classes, I might look at granting a couple of such feat-like abilities to the Fighter, regardless.

 

[Nellisir]

My only critique is that the declining penalty (-2/-1/0) is a little clunky, since it gives the appearance (not actuality, just appearance) that the character's BAB is going backward and then jumping forward.

But that's a nitpick. Overall I like it better than 4 iterative attacks.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

My only critique is that the declining penalty (-2/-1/0) is a little clunky, since it gives the appearance (not actuality, just appearance) that the character's BAB is going backward and then jumping forward.

But that's a nitpick. Overall I like it better than 4 iterative attacks.

It's the same mechanic as the monk's extra unarmed strikes. I didn't review it for clunky appearance, just the expected damage.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Here's an extremely top-of-my-head idea that intrigues me, but I haven't remotely thought through the consequences. It kind of ties into the Trailblazer idea of Combat Reactions.

I was thinking of how 1E handled multiple attacks - if you had multiples attacks, you got your first one, and then your opponent got his, and then you got your second attack (nobody I know actually played it exactly this way but that's another story). I was thinking "how could you do that in 3E?" I thought of having a delayed, two-part initiative - IE I rolled a 20 for initiative, I would get my first attack at 20, my second at 15, etc.

But that's more complication than its worth. So then I thought that it was more like a reaction - and that spurred me to think: what if you only got 1 attack per round, but got more reactions, and more things that triggered reactions - for example, what if when you got your second attack, you instead got a Combat Reaction that allowed you to take a swing at someone when they took a swing at you? There are feats out there that let you do this, but I'm talking about making it a core piece of the combat rules.

Like I said, I have no thoughts whatsoever on how this would impact game play, or how balanced it would be (luckily folks like Wulf are around who are highly skilled at the mathematics of this sort of thing). It just seemed like an idea I had never heard proposed and that it was worth tossing out there.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Here's an extremely top-of-my-head idea...

Already part of the plan.