Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
getting rid of full-attack in 3.5e
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Andre" data-source="post: 4188762" data-attributes="member: 25930"><p>When my group decided to get rid of full attack actions, we made a few changes that worked fairly well:</p><p></p><p>1) All characters and monsters add their BAB to damage. This includes melee and ranged, so archers now gain a good bonus to damage. We decided this bonus also added to damage caused by a grapple.</p><p></p><p>2) Creatures with more than one attack instead kept the most powerful attack, adding a bonus for every other natural attack, plus BAB. There was no set formula, but typically the bonus was equal to 1/3 or 1/4 of the max damage the extra attacks could have caused (so 1d4 adds +1 damage, 1d6 adds +2).</p><p></p><p>3) Creatures with special abilities dependent on multiple hits instead had those abilities replaced with a percent chance of occurring. For example, a troll normally rends if both claw attacks hit. With the new system, if it's main attack lands, it has a 50% chance of rending.</p><p></p><p>4) A few creatures kept multiple attacks, because that was their schtick. For example, the hydra.</p><p></p><p>5) Two weapon fighting became a single feat. It's effect was two-fold: the character could use one weapon to parry, gaining +1 AC (+ weapon bonus). If not used to parry, the character could wait to see the results of their melee attack roll; if the attack succeeded, the player could declare which weapon hit.</p><p></p><p>A few comments on these changes:</p><p>*Damage output tended to be higher at low and mid levels, and we didn't see much difference at high levels, as so many opponents have high AC's. Power Attack was more useful at high levels, but that just helped balance losing so many iterative attacks.</p><p>*Archers tended to be more effective without special equipment, as the BAB bonus to damage added up.</p><p>*High strength and 2H weapons still mattered, but less so. After all, if your fighter is averaging 15 points in one hit, an extra couple points from a bigger weapon or higher strength score has less impact. Especially since those things only add to one attack a round (usually - see next point).</p><p>*Due to higher damage, it wasn't uncommon to drop an opponent in one shot. Cleave and Great Cleave were great feats (pretty much must-haves, but that's no different than RAW). Characters also had to be careful - that troll could do an enormous amount of damage with one roll.</p><p>*Because a character could go from healthy to dying in one roll, we modified the death and dying rules. Essentially, any attack that took a character from positive to negative hit points only took the character to -1, no matter how much damage was done. Getting hit when at negative hit points worked per RAW, so don't get fireballed when down. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></p><p>*It sped up combat considerably, especially with the folks who have trouble remembering which attacks have which bonuses.</p><p>*There was more movement in combat (in part because we eliminated AoO's for movement at the same time as we made these changes).</p><p></p><p>All in all, we liked the changes and probably wouldn't go back without some strong incentives. Of course, RL got in the way, so we haven't gamed in while, darn it... <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":(" title="Frown :(" data-smilie="3"data-shortname=":(" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Andre, post: 4188762, member: 25930"] When my group decided to get rid of full attack actions, we made a few changes that worked fairly well: 1) All characters and monsters add their BAB to damage. This includes melee and ranged, so archers now gain a good bonus to damage. We decided this bonus also added to damage caused by a grapple. 2) Creatures with more than one attack instead kept the most powerful attack, adding a bonus for every other natural attack, plus BAB. There was no set formula, but typically the bonus was equal to 1/3 or 1/4 of the max damage the extra attacks could have caused (so 1d4 adds +1 damage, 1d6 adds +2). 3) Creatures with special abilities dependent on multiple hits instead had those abilities replaced with a percent chance of occurring. For example, a troll normally rends if both claw attacks hit. With the new system, if it's main attack lands, it has a 50% chance of rending. 4) A few creatures kept multiple attacks, because that was their schtick. For example, the hydra. 5) Two weapon fighting became a single feat. It's effect was two-fold: the character could use one weapon to parry, gaining +1 AC (+ weapon bonus). If not used to parry, the character could wait to see the results of their melee attack roll; if the attack succeeded, the player could declare which weapon hit. A few comments on these changes: *Damage output tended to be higher at low and mid levels, and we didn't see much difference at high levels, as so many opponents have high AC's. Power Attack was more useful at high levels, but that just helped balance losing so many iterative attacks. *Archers tended to be more effective without special equipment, as the BAB bonus to damage added up. *High strength and 2H weapons still mattered, but less so. After all, if your fighter is averaging 15 points in one hit, an extra couple points from a bigger weapon or higher strength score has less impact. Especially since those things only add to one attack a round (usually - see next point). *Due to higher damage, it wasn't uncommon to drop an opponent in one shot. Cleave and Great Cleave were great feats (pretty much must-haves, but that's no different than RAW). Characters also had to be careful - that troll could do an enormous amount of damage with one roll. *Because a character could go from healthy to dying in one roll, we modified the death and dying rules. Essentially, any attack that took a character from positive to negative hit points only took the character to -1, no matter how much damage was done. Getting hit when at negative hit points worked per RAW, so don't get fireballed when down. :) *It sped up combat considerably, especially with the folks who have trouble remembering which attacks have which bonuses. *There was more movement in combat (in part because we eliminated AoO's for movement at the same time as we made these changes). All in all, we liked the changes and probably wouldn't go back without some strong incentives. Of course, RL got in the way, so we haven't gamed in while, darn it... :( [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
getting rid of full-attack in 3.5e
Top