Dex for extra attacks

[marli]

I want to make a way so that players get extra attacks from thier dex bonus, in exchange nobody gets dex modifiers to damage and/or attack from range weapons.(this is for balance)

I am really struggling to emplment this without increasing the complexity but heres what ive come up with.

at the end of a players turn
they roll D20, get under thier dex mod they get an extra turn.(this is problimatic if characters have minus mods)
OR
the player adds thier dex modifior to an "extra turn" stat. if that stat reaches 20(just a number ive picked) it resets and they get an extra turn..or 7 and they get an extra action.(works with minuses, players skip a turn or drop an action at -20/-7)

another even more complex option is at the end of the turn all player move up the order by thier dex mod, if this move moves them "over the top" they get an extra turn.
this has the advantage of changing the turn order every turn.(minuses apply an approperate "under the buttom" rule)it is however a bit of a problem with low character encounters.

extra turns can be taken any time before the end of the turn,effectively interupting another chracter.

I want to give battles a realistic feel, with player not being able expect who will react next, fast characters out manovering lumbering characters.
a ninja drops in stabs a player, scuttles away, as the lumbering knight downs him, another warrior challanges him. every time it seems the knights power is driving the warrior back the warroir seems to find a extra opening evening the battle...

I also may offer players the chance to skip actions to gain traction on the extra turn track(drop you minor, gain 2 , move 3, standard 6)?? or a mod on rolls.

any ideas or critisisms welcome.
especilly if you can find a more simplisic way to empliment.

Please keep in mind I may not use this for 4e.

 

[Pyrex]

Removing Dex from +Hit and +Damage basically takes the Rogue (and ranged Ranger) class off the table while not even slowing down other ranged classes that aren't Dex-primary (Seeker). They simply won't be able to keep up, extra actions or not.

Simpler solution: Any character who rolls 20 or higher on Initiative can drop their Init by 20 to gain an extra action point which must be used by the end of the encounter (and can be used along with your standard action point).

 

[marli]

well, balance isnt ironed out yet. in fact basic empliment tation isnt either.

however i wast thinking of taking out both mods unless my suggestion became overpowered.

interesting about the -20 init.

thing is im looking for a constant feed of extra turns thoughtout the combat. What you are suggesting would be used straight away, or at least as soon as the basics of the encounter was assessed.

What I REALLY want is faster characters to build thier advantage over the combat.

 

[Pyrex]

Then, for starters, make sure you aren't singling out Rogues & Rangers for hurt. If "faster" is what you're trying to reward, you need to base it off total Initiative modifier.

If you want to add more unpredictability to combat:

*Roll initiative every round.
*Any time you get 20+, you can take a -20 penalty to Init to gain an extra action.
*Every round, the penalty reduces by 5.

"Faster" characters will have the opportunity to gain AP more often, only the fastest will gain more than one in any 5-round window, even the slowest PC's will that the option to gain an extra AP at least once per combat.

Edit: Bonus: Improved Initiative actually becomes a good feat.

 

[Saeviomagy]

What you are describing doesn't sound very different to the current 4e interrupts and opportunity actions. Incidentally: have you actually played 4e before you attempt this change? Contrary to how it reads, 4e actually does have a lot of initiative shuffling going on (enough to make our initiative tracker quite confused at times).

Perhaps you simply need to inspire people to take more interrupting powers and increase the benefit for provoking OAs?

I would steer clear of granting extra actions for dex and then denying +hit and +damage from dex - that's just wrecking game balance completely for a select few characters and making others ridiculously overpowered.

For a first step, how about allowing the use of any power as a basic attack (which means people charging with interesting powers, and others taking OAs with them).

 

[Alex319]

For a first step, how about allowing the use of any power as a basic attack (which means people charging with interesting powers, and others taking OAs with them).

This is something you have to be careful with. There is at least one infinite recursion trick with it: with the power Throw and Stab, you can replace the free basic attack granted at the end with another Throw and Stab, thus repeating the "throw" part indefinitely. There are probably all sorts of other tricks that could be overpowered (e.g. Warlord using Commander's Strike to allow his teammate to use an AoE, gaining the damage bonus on all the targets).

 

[Saeviomagy]

This is something you have to be careful with. There is at least one infinite recursion trick with it: with the power Throw and Stab, you can replace the free basic attack granted at the end with another Throw and Stab, thus repeating the "throw" part indefinitely. There are probably all sorts of other tricks that could be overpowered (e.g. Warlord using Commander's Strike to allow his teammate to use an AoE, gaining the damage bonus on all the targets).

When there's a real DM present, infinite recursions really don't work.

As for other things... meh. You're already expecting a big increase in the amount of damage being dealt all round.

 

[knightofround]

Well its an interesting idea, but I think it would cause a pretty big imbalance. Everyone will want a high dex, except for the ranged dex-based classes, which will need both STR and DEX as high as everyone else.

I think an easier, simpler solution would be using initiative instead to implement the desired change. For example, on your first round your final initiative ends up being 24. Second round your rolled initiative is 8. Your total is now 32. Third round your rolled initiative is 16. Your total is now 48. And so on throughout the entire battle. Whenever you get to a point where someone has double the initative of the person below them, on the next round only people above the lowest 1/2 are allowed to participate...and the person that was less than 1/2 of the value of the next person up is elevated to the top.

So, example:

Round 1:
Player A is 20
Player B is 18
Player C is 9
NPC is 2

On the first round, the order goes A, B, C, NPC.

Round 2:

The lowest 1/2 value is the NPC, so they are excluded from this turn. Instead, their init is automatically boosted to 20, the highest value from the previous round. Everyone else rolls init.

Player A is 35 (20+15)
Player B is 26 (18+8)
NPC is 20. (2->20), but they are excluded from this turn.
Player C is 14 (9+5)

Order of actions is A, B, C.

Round 3:

Nobody has double the amount of player above them. Therefore, everyone takes an action. Order of actions is A, B, NPC, C.

And so on and so forth.

Does add a lot to bookeeping? Most definitely. Does it make Improved init more powerful? Most definitely. But I think something like this is the only way to force Dex to grant more attacks without imbalancing several classes, or particular forms of combat.

 

[Nytmare]

Or you can latch on to the idea that combat is an abstraction and that it's not meant to be a direct and realistic representation of how a "real" fight is supposed to look. (and by real I mean like a fight in Final Fantasy)

The die rolls and funny power names are just the highlights of the fight. In the end, the guy who galoots around the combat round swinging a tree trunk at people every once in a while, and the guy who is a non-stop whirlwind of rapier slashes show what they're doing by the description of what the die rolls are, not by the die rolls themselves.