D&D 5E Doing away with Extra Attack

Xeviat · Jul 12, 2019

Cap'n Kobold said:
Assuming the adventuring day that the game is balanced around, a 5th level wizard can cast three Fireballs a day.

Fortuitously, that is the same number of Action Surges that the fighter will get, allowing us to balance them against each other.

Unless you're making concomitant changes in casters, changing the capabilities of non-casters is an ideal time to adjust the power of the change to bring them in line with casters - wherever you happen to think that line is.

It would be interesting to take a deeper look while I'm in there. I think the Wizard should be a bit more offensively powerful than fighters and even rogues, because the wizard's defenses are so much lower (lower hp, lower AC). But, it's probably not too many.

Also, fireball and many spells deal more damage than the spell creation guidelines say; then again, I'm sure the no damaging status effect spells are better in the long run than most damage spells. 8d6 fireball is 28 average damage, though, and 4d6*+4+weapon specialization is 41.33 with action surge, so it has it's benefits. Beefing up Maneuver options could be a good place to shore up combat disparities, though.

Gladius Legis · Jul 12, 2019

I really like Extra Attack as it is for the most part. At the very least the initial instance of it at Lv. 5 should stay for all the current "warrior" classes.

I'd be OK with Fighters receiving alternate class features at Lv. 11 and 20 for their 3rd and 4th attacks somewhere down the line, though. Maybe an extra weapon die on all weapon attacks at Lv. 11, for instance, in place of the 3rd attack.

And at Lv. 20, I remember there being a proposed Fighter capstone from the playtest that instantly killed an enemy if you brought it below a certain number of hit points with an attack. That would be pretty cool. It'd make the Fighter someone who could take on an army of typical soldiers and guards a lot easier, knowing that their hits would always mean death.

jmartkdr · Jul 13, 2019

One thing extra attack does it limit the number of 'dead turns' - that is, turns where you accomplish nothing. A spell usually either goes after multiple targets (with a rare chance of all of them passing saves) or does something even on a successful save, but a missed attack is just 'nothing happens.' Attack twice means your odds of all attacks missing are pretty low, so you usually do something, at least.

Damage on a miss might be a workaround, but I personally never felt that way playing 13th Age.

Xeviat · Jul 13, 2019

jmartkdr said:
One thing extra attack does it limit the number of 'dead turns' - that is, turns where you accomplish nothing. A spell usually either goes after multiple targets (with a rare chance of all of them passing saves) or does something even on a successful save, but a missed attack is just 'nothing happens.' Attack twice means your odds of all attacks missing are pretty low, so you usually do something, at least.

Damage on a miss might be a workaround, but I personally never felt that way playing 13th Age.

This is true. Spellcasters have to use a resource to get this, though, as their cantrips generally have misses (except Evokers with select cantrips). A 65% hit chance becomes an 87.75% chance to hit at least once when you get Extra Attack, which feels a lot better than missing. You're definitely right there. It's an important thing to consider. Higher level casters do reach a point where they're not likely to be using their cantrips unless they're built around them (looking at you Warlock).

Tony Vargas · Jul 13, 2019

Xeviat said:
This is true. Spellcasters have to use a resource to get this, though, as their cantrips generally have misses (except Evokers with select cantrips). A 65% hit chance becomes an 87.75% chance to hit at least once when you get Extra Attack, which feels a lot better than missing. You're definitely right there. It's an important thing to consider. Higher level casters do reach a point where they're not likely to be using their cantrips unless they're built around them (looking at you Warlock).

You could substitute an Advantage-esque mechanic for extra attack, I suppose...

Xaelvaen · Jul 13, 2019

Xeviat said:
This is true. Spellcasters have to use a resource to get this, though, as their cantrips generally have misses (except Evokers with select cantrips). A 65% hit chance becomes an 87.75% chance to hit at least once when you get Extra Attack, which feels a lot better than missing. You're definitely right there. It's an important thing to consider. Higher level casters do reach a point where they're not likely to be using their cantrips unless they're built around them (looking at you Warlock).

There's the Talislanta 'partial success' approach. If you miss your attack roll by 5 or less, you deal half damage instead of none - in 5E, pretty rare to miss by much more than that.

Xeviat · Jul 13, 2019

Tony Vargas said:
You could substitute an Advantage-esque mechanic for extra attack, I suppose...

That might be a reasonable compromise to get around the people that despise "damage on a miss" on weapon attacks.

Xaelvaen said:
There's the Talislanta 'partial success' approach. If you miss your attack roll by 5 or less, you deal half damage instead of none - in 5E, pretty rare to miss by much more than that.

Or the video game approach where hits are more assumed, but that would require a complete change of the system. LOL.

Garthanos · Jul 13, 2019

Tony Vargas said:
IIRC, they dipped their toe in that pool in the playtest and found it frigidly cold. The problem with giving up damage to do something cool, is that cool don't kill da monster - and DPR calculations are unforgiving.

Balance your cool as a smallish component of an attack that is still badass like they did on the maneuvers now. But treat them as forgo an attack and do a roll maybe even an easy one to put your eggs (the benefit of 1 of those attacks in a basket with the other subsequent one this latter to be truly balanced may take extra to hit on the combined basket - then tweak to fit)

Scanning for openings is pretty visualizable

Xaelvaen · Jul 13, 2019

Xeviat said:
Or the video game approach where hits are more assumed, but that would require a complete change of the system. LOL.

Yep, that's effectively what Talislanta 5E did haha. Practically never outright fail unless you're in over your head, but man those partials on Saves still suck.