D&D 3E/3.5 getting rid of full-attack in 3.5e

[Michael Silverbane]

I did a couple of things in my game to get rid of full attacks while keeping melee fighters viable...

I changed the way that two-weapon fighting works, first. If you are wielding two weapons or a double weapon, you can opt to attack with both weapons or with both ends of a double weapon, whenever you could attack with one weapon. When doing so, you make an attack roll with a -10 penalty to both attacks (which can be reduced to -5 with the Dual Weapon Mastery feat). You can do this during a Standard Attack, or at the end of a Charge, or during an Attack of Opportunity... Whenever you want, so long as you are willing to take the attack penalty.

I took the Double Attack and Triple Attack feats from Star Wars Saga edition, and allowed you to apply them during a Standard Attack (but not a charge or an attack of opportunity).

I made it a bit easier to deal extra damage. If you have Weapon Specialization, you deal extra damage equal to your weapon's base damage (a longsword's base damage is 1d8, when specialized you deal 2d8 plus your various bonuses, a greatswords base damage is 2d6, when specialized, you deal 4d6 plus your various bonuses). I made power attack a flat -4 penalty to hit, dealing twice again the weapon's base damage (longsword power attack deals 3d8, or 4d8 for a specialist). and Charging causes you to deal extra damage equal to your weapon's base damage, as well, but provokes an attack of opportunity.

And... I made the Withdraw action and the Run action both Move actions (Withdraw allows you to move one-half your speed, with no AoOs and Run allows you to move one-and-a-half times your speed, but gives you a -4 on attack rolls for the round).

People move around a LOT more in combat, and melee fighters can dish out considerable damage. On the other hand, it is a completely rewritten set of combat rules, which some folks may not like.

Later
silver

 

[Klaus]

There's been a lot of talk about how 4e is getting rid of full-attacks. I think this would really help eliminate the "5' step and attack" that a lot of combats turn into.

If you were to eliminate the full-attack from 3.5e, how would you do it? For PCs, it'd be easy enough, just drop the extra attacks at high level. For monsters it's trickier, since some of them depend on a claw/claw/bite (to use the old notation) to get their damage up. You could boost their biggest attack and hand wave the clawing and biting. You could figure out the average amount of damage they're likely to do and work back from there. You could let them use their "extra" attacks, but only under certain conditions (defender is grappled, prone, flanked, etc).

Iterative Attacks gained through using a manufactured weapon and having a high BAB (i.e., +20/+15/+10/+5): eliminate them. Instead, if the character makes a single attack as a full-round action, he adds half his level or HD to damage (up to +10 at 20th level). Add feats that allow the character to make two attacks (at -5 each) or three attacks (at -10 each). This, essentially, is the Star Wars Saga mechanic.

Multiple attacks gained through having multiple weapons (natural or otherwise): remain the same.

 

[subbob]

There's been a lot of talk about how 4e is getting rid of full-attacks. I think this would really help eliminate the "5' step and attack" that a lot of combats turn into.

Well, I have not played for quite awhile and it's been even longer since I've played a high level campaign. That said, I still wanted to offer some thoughts from another point of view.

I'm thinking that if I were running a campaign, I'd not reduce the multiple attacks - but I would make some adjustments in the 5' step mechanic. I would give the engaged enemy (either PC, NPC or monster) a free action, at the time it occurs, to follow his opponent with a 5' step. This could not be used to disengage or move in any other direction, only to remain in contact.

I have not tried this yet, so I do not know how it would work in practice. This came to me when thinking about sword play scenes in various movies. When two combatants are engaged, generally one presses forward if the other falls back.

I realize it would require some tweaking - for example, what if two friendlies want to switch positions?

On the base issue of reducing number of attacks, it just seems "wrong" to me. Perhaps I'm too old school, but I've always subscribed to the concept of the die-roll represents not necessarily a single swing, but a chance to do damage during melee. When a higher level person gets more "die rolls" that does not translate to "more swings" but more opportunities during a given unit time to inflict damage, due to enhanced prowess.

 

[Darklone]

Even simpler fix than Bo9S: Use many scouts. Skirmishers and their damage will make all full attack actions except archers and pounce attacks futile.

 

[Flynn]

I'm simply going to have BaB add to damage. 1 attack per round (barring some sort of special occurrence), add BaB to your damage roll.

I like simple solutions and I don't think this is a bad one. It might have some odd bumps in it, but there isn't a perfect system.

I agree with Scurvy's assessment, based on the long discussion found in this thread from last year:
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=195546

Hope This Helps,
Flynn

 

[Set]

For straight Fighters, I prefer some combination of;

1) As an option, instead of using iterative attacks, the Fighter can make a mighty strike against one target. For every 5 pts by which the Fighter exceeds the targets AC, he adds one extra die of damage, equal to the normal weapon die size. (So a Fighter using a Longsword who exceeds his targets AC by 10 will do 3d8 base damage, plus whatever modifiers he gets for Str, Specialization, weapon enhancement, etc.) Non-Fighters may be able to purchase this class feature as a Feat.

2) Add bonus damage equal to 1/2 Fighter levels (rounded up, so +1 at 1st level, +2 at 3rd level to +10 at 19th level). This bonus damage adds to armed or ranged weapon attacks or unarmed melee attacks.

 

[cr0m]

Thanks for all your responses, folks. Special thanks to Scurvy and Klaus for yours--they're exactly what I was looking for.

Cheers.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Use Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords. Seriously. I've used it during a short adventure during Easter, and I've seen ONE full attack during the entire play.

Why is this? I don't have Bo9S, so I'm not quiet clear on how it does this - are all the powers standard actions to use, therefore only one per round?

 

[Bladesong]

We have been doing this for a while and it has been working fine (the characters made it to 18th level before we ended the campaign).

~ Characters get a single attack and add 1/2 their BAB in damage. For 2-weapon fighters they divided their damage bonus between the two weapons with the primary weapon getting the "left over" point (if any). Same with rapid shot or flurry of blows. Classed characters added 1/2 their BAB to defense.
~ Creatures get either their bite or their claws in a single round with 1/2 their BAB in damage (usually divide the damage when they opt for the 2 claws). As DM I just used the attack type that seemed logical at the time. The hydra, which only showed up once in the adventure, divided the bonus BAB between the heads, but no head could have less then +1 if there was any bonus at all. The beholder was encountered a couple of times, the first time I used it I just halved the number of eyes he could use in a round, the rest of the ecounters I rolled 1d6+1 for the number of eye attacks made each round (I was using the modified beholder from the wizards site). Only creatures with character levels got the 1/2 BAB for defense and only based on actual class level (so even if it was a giant with 2 levels of barbarian, he only received +1 defense for his 2 levels of barbarian, not 1/2 his total BAB).

There were just a few other changes...just choices I made. Weapons and armors did not have "pluses"; they were either normal or "magic" though they could have all of the regular added effects (i.e. frost, flame, etc.). There were no stat increasing spells (i.e. bull's strength, cat's grace, etc.) or items. If you were looking for stat increases you had to use enlarge, rage or some similar effect. I removed threats; if you rolled a 20 (or 19-20, etc. depending on the weapon) you got a crit. No multipliers, you did maximum damage, but added +5 damage if the weapon had a X3 modifier and +10 if it was a X4 modifier. Altered the cleave tree of feats by removing the "if you drop your foe" clause and changing it to: if you use power attack and there are 2 foes adjacent to you, your attack follows through to the second foe, roll to hit as normal doing your regular damage but without 1/2 your BAB. Great cleave would allow you to strike additional adjacent foes. Whirlwind attack allowed you to use half your BAB on all foes.

Combat encounters ran longer, but were smoother and faster each round (not a lot of math being performed).

 

[Arkhandus]

Why is this? I don't have Bo9S, so I'm not quiet clear on how it does this - are all the powers standard actions to use, therefore only one per round?

For the most part, yeah. The majority of strike maneuvers in the Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords use a standard action to initiate, usually granting one attack as part of that action. Often with a damage bonus and/or a special effect, like the 1st-level Clinging Shadow Strike, which adds 1d6 damage to the attack and makes the opponent attempt a Fortitude save against lowered accuracy for 1 round.

There are only a small handful of exceptions; Steel Wind, Flashing Sun, Pouncing Charge, and Time Stands Still are all that spring to mind, along with two or three that are only sort of like two attacks in one (Disarming Strike is both a normal attack and a disarm attempt, for example). Though a few maneuvers use a full-round action for one attack (like some of the special charge attacks).

Using a maneuver is often, but not always, better than taking the full-attack action. Barbarians can often do similar or slightly better damage on a full-attack to a martial adept using a strike maneuver, but it takes more effort to make such a Barbarian. Martial adepts (Crusaders, Swordsages, Warblades) can dish out a lot of damage without any extra effort on the player's part, while still being similar or behind the average Wizard in damage output. A few maneuvers are overpowered, as with a few spells/powers/feats in any book. At least no maneuver can be spammed, since it always takes some time/effort to recover it.