Are Multiattacks a Problem?

[Dice4Hire]

This thread shows that the christmas tree effect in 4E is alive and well. Too many bonuses stacking on attacks or damage or whatnot. Add in feats and it is a problem.

Magical items and feats need more rethinking than anything, especially the ones that say item/feat bonus and those that do not. They all should.

 

[Gortle]

Could also remove stacking of untyped bonuses. And any player means to inflict vulnerability. That'd solve a couple of the problems. But, it gets increasingly complex.

Applying enhancement and feat bonuses to a target once per W, for example, would narrow the gap considerably. Though spells are unfortunately far too messy for something so simple.

Applying vulnerability only once per turn would also help.

Worth thinking about. Scaling is hard though. I got very annoyed looking at 7W powers with a rogue wielding a d4.

If they think Barbarians are underdone compared to Rangers it is pretty easy for them to add in another feat with a strong effect to rebalance them - like Painful Oath did for Avengers. Maybe a larger bonus while raging.

Errata iron armbands and bracers of archery to once per turn, or reduce the bonus to +1/+2/+3. Constant damage and hit bonuses suffer all the same problems that stat buffs did in 3rd ed. They are too strong and crowd out the item space. Constant or near universal effects should be weaker than more specific effects.

I don't really want WotC to nerf charging or multiattacks or frost/radiant vulnerability that badly. I'd prefer if they could add new alternatives. Perhaps a few minor boosts to psychic and proning builds. Maybe some serious extra single target damage with on going fire damage, weakening affects with necrotic, a few dazes with lightning. There is a lot of extra space for a creative mind to apply themselves.

 

[Saeviomagy]

You don't need to look beyond one class to see that multiattacks are broken.

And I don't mean "hey, look at this class that uses multiattacks compared with others that don't", I really mean look at just a single class in isolation.

I honestly don't think there is any standard action single-attack power on the rangers entire power list that's worth taking where there is a multi-attack or minor/immediate action alternative.

 

[BobTheNob]

So, to sum up:
Mutli-attacks are the kings of single target damage.
Their needed at higher levels because monsters do so much damage and are so tough that without them fights get a hell of a lot harder.
Despite this, multi-attacks are not an always winning strategy as certain monster formations and tactics can make them harder to employ effectively.
Therefore, they are not broken.

Focusing particularly on the "they are needed at high levels" followed by "they are not broken"...I just cannot imagine how I could disagree with this more.

What this means is (hyperthetical conversation between two people)
Person 1 : "Design your character however you want...but make sure you stack him with multi attack powers, because they are needed"
Person 2 : "Hang on, you said design however I want...I dont want multi attack powers, they dont suite the character I am trying to put together"
Person 1 : "No-one is forcing you to take them, you just wont be much good later in the game"
Person 2 : "So I have the right to design an in feasible character?"
Person 1 : "Yep, great design huh!"

If it is was the case that you couldnt cope with the game unless you took certain options, that is a 100% guaranteed sign that something is wrong. How is it even possible to say
1 "You must have them"
and then
2 "There is no problem"?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yeah, basically each character should be getting some kind of 'expert' level performance at SOMETHING fairly relevant. Even Sorcerers don't really keep up anymore now that they don't have some of the better damage bonuses. It is like there are only 3 or 4 really solid obvious builds that most players should use, and it isn't like they're trick builds, you can still do plenty of other stuff, have some resources for out of combat stuff, etc.

 

[Gortle]

You don't need to look beyond one class to see that multiattacks are broken.

And I don't mean "hey, look at this class that uses multiattacks compared with others that don't", I really mean look at just a single class in isolation.

I honestly don't think there is any standard action single-attack power on the rangers entire power list that's worth taking where there is a multi-attack or minor/immediate action alternative.

Mostly agreed but that is something WotC need to address as a design issue.

Multiattacks is too much a part of the game to remove. There are so many different types of multiple attacks.

For the ranger WotC should probably embrace it and add a few more multiattacks powers in, so the PC has to think about his power selection more. Maybe tone down some a bit. Some single attack powers that do a prone/push or slow might be competitive. But feats like Hobbling Strike just compound the problem - because they add to the multiple attack better than the single attack.

The only real limit to the immediate action is the one per round limit. If the PC is getting immediate actions off other sources like Strikebacks and Agile Opportunist then they shouldn't take that many.

They can't take away multiple attacks, but there are some things they can do - give twin strike a small to hit penalty, say -2?, apply a blanket -2 to hit on minor action attacks? Every ranger player out there will scream.

 

[BobTheNob]

One thought on it is actually tie it to action economy. Make multiple attacks full actions (like the monk, but without a movement component), then they retain their flavor, but have a cost which is a real high impact. Yea, you can attack lots, but you cant do much else with the round.

Probably wouldnt solve the core issue, and would create as many problems as it solves, but Im just voicing an idea.

 

[Mengu]

One thought on it is actually tie it to action economy. Make multiple attacks full actions (like the monk, but without a movement component), then they retain their flavor, but have a cost which is a real high impact. Yea, you can attack lots, but you cant do much else with the round.

I've pondered what the impact would be for twin strike to use both standard and move actions. However, it pretty much tells melee rangers they must use reach weapons (like spiked chain) so their enemies don't just shift away, and archer rangers have little to worry about once they figure out how not to provoke. It also encourages people to just stand around in the same spot, which is kind of like going back to 3.5, and I don't particularly like that, I was glad 4.0 did away with that.

Action cost is a novel idea, but maybe it could cost immediate actions or something (can't take immediate actions ueont), I don't know. Movement is too precious and too much fun, I wouldn't want to take that away.

 

[Psikus]

Man, this would be a crippling rebuttle of my position if, you know, those weren't five round fights against equal level foes with absolutely no fights before or after, and dailies being burned in each fight. Let's try to keep experiments in context.

Parties will nine times out of ten beat a single fight in a few rounds if they can go all out. Generally with little or no casualties. If they can burn dailies and surges at leisure there's really no risk in a battle at all. Resource management is a huge part of the game, and why the fifteen minute adventure day can be such a problem for encounter challenge. None of the "from the labs" account for this, save for the Death March one which has yet to be completed, so saying that they prove that multi-attacks are pointless and broken is more than a little dishonest.

Speaking as the author of one of those tests, I can say that resource management was taken into account. Granted, I didn't try out a full adventuring day (due to time constraints, though I intend to do it at some point in the future), but I played two consecutive on-level encounters with conservative resource usage. The two encounters spent between 25% and 40% of PC healing surges, and not more than 33% of daily powers, for those characters that had them. Tests from other players featured similarly realistic usage of dailies, even if they only played one or two encounters each.

The tests may not be perfect, but I don't think they are so flawed that they can be so easily dismissed. Clearly, more data points are needed, possibly covering full adventuring days, but this stuff takes a lot of effort. I expect we will eventually get to that point. Nevertheless, so far they have shown nothing that suggests that epic encounters are unplayable without multiattacks.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

Twin Strike should have been to only effect two different targets.