How did you avoid spamming attacks in 3e combat?

[pawsplay]

Maybe I was just mean to the fighters or something, but our fights have never looked like that. One of the first fights I ever ran in 3e was the PCs versus some wolves, and just the tripping attack resulted in some interesting scenarios, such as whether a PC would remain prone and attack or try to get away and stand.

 

[Janx]

In 3e, for non-spell casters, combat means making the maximum number of attacks each round.

That's all I ever did. We'd only do disarm, bullrush, trip, sunder when the situation called for a deviation from attacking and doing damage.

What made it less boring is a DM who describes each round artfully so it doesn't SOUND like your doing the same exact thing every round.

 

[pawsplay]

In 3e, for non-spell casters, combat means making the maximum number of attacks each round.

I've heard this asserted so many times and yet it has never matched my experience. On occasion, a warrior's options devolved to taking a full attack a couple of turns in a row. But usually not.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

In our groups experience certain players are interested in variety and certain players want things as simple as possible. Those players who want simple like the fighter + Full Attack. They don't want options, they want to run up and hit things. Those players who like variety find it in both martial and spellcasters. The full spellcasters are by nature variety machines. When playing martial classes though they can be played straight up or multiclassed. A primary martial class with a dip in spellcaster (or straight Ranger or Paladin) opens up some of that variety. In our games even straight fighters can be played with variety from magic as 3E makes magic items common enough. At all levels our fighters who want variety load up on potions, and by higher levels magic items can provide higher level magical variety as well. Some folks may not like the christmas tree effect, but our group embraces it as it gives that variety that prevents us from having to spam Full Attacks if we don't want to.

 

[Gothmog]

(My perception of 3e is that most effective martial characters --which is to say the builds the system encouraged-- were built around spamming: a single, unbalanced shtick meant to be used over and over again, useful in many situations as possible so it can be performed almost without regard to situation or opponent)

Yep, this is absolutely true IME. Since martial PCs really only shine when doing damage, and the only way to customize they get is feats, it was really common to see them layer feat upon feat in the same chain to do one schtick really REALLY well, and pretty much suck at everything else. That also made them mind-numbingly dull. I even tried varying the opposition to encourage different tactic use- it didn't help. It was pretty much full attack, every round, all the time using their schtick.

I guess it didn't feel as much like spamming to some folks because combats were so short, but to me, it was tremendously unsatisfying and far more repetitive than what I've experienced so far with 4e combats.

 

[mmu1]

I never cared about avoiding "spamming" - then again, for me the reward is usually the results I get, not the tools I use to get them. (within the rules, and within reason, of course)

My high-level 3.5 fighter type could - on a good round - drop a couple of credible enemies near his own level from full hp to 0. Without being buffed by any other party members.

That made me a lot happier than if he had several different types of attacks with colorful names, but which in practice didn't have very much "oomph" at all.

 

[Remathilis]

Easy!

Round One: Wizard nukes them with damage or shutdown effect.
Round Two-Four: Fighters clean up.

Later...

Round One: Wizard Nukes them with insane damage or death effect.
Round Two: Fighters loot the corpses for GP...

 

[Stalker0]

I think this thread response boils down to "Death is the ultimate condition".

While not fancy, killing your enemies in one or 2 strokes is fun. So even if the fighter's method of doing that was limited, the ability to lay down death to enemies very quickly can be exciting, especially when they are doing the same thing to you.

I think why 4e gets accused of spamming is that you can hit the same enemy 4 times and its still not dead, and that gets discouraging.

 

[pawsplay]

Yep, this is absolutely true IME. Since martial PCs really only shine when doing damage,

I disagree with this premise.

and the only way to customize they get is feats,

"As opposed to spellcasters, who get spells AND feats, the only OTHER way to customize..."

At the very least, a fighter should be ready to grapple an enemy spellcaster, demoralize something with a low Will save and an even lower Reflexes save, or use an appropriate magic item. Playing a fighter without tactics is like playing a wizard who always memorizes the same spells.

 

[Cadfan]

I'm not a current 3e player, but I was for eight years. So I'll answer.

1. You are absolutely right that the dominant strategy for melee characters was to use feats to create a specialized attack, and then to spam that attack as much as possible.

2. But, combat was short, so the spamming wasn't as noticeable.

3. In that short combat, at least a few rounds were spent getting into position to spam your attack, or moving on to your next foe after spamming your last one.

4. If a combat lasts 5 rounds, and you charge in the first round, full attack in the second, full attack in the third, move and attack in the third (because your foe died), and full attack in the last, did you spam?

Of course, if combat lasts 7 rounds and you, in order, use Charge, Cleave, Crushing Blow, Reaping Strike, Passing Attack, Reaping Strike, Reaping Strike, did you spam? Maybe you did. I don't think so, but see point 6 for more on this.

5. Some people LIKE spamming attacks. Those that didn't played spellcasters.

6. There's a certain sort of person who gets their kicks from describing their attacks. So yes, theyr'e spamming the same thing over and over, but they're describing it differently each time.

In 4e, their attacks have names, and little italicized lines of flavor text, and a certain percentage of the combat-describers seriously believe, and repeatedly claim on this forum, that this kills the roleplay aspect of describing your attacks. They look at 3e with its bull rush and sunder and disarm and whirlwind attack and full attack and see a wealth of roleplay opportunity, and they look at 4e and proclaim that every Reaping Strike is exactly the same and that you're just spamming it like you are on a computer and repeatedly hitting the "Reaping Strike" button. The fact that an individual character has more viable attack options at level 1 than most non-spellcasters in 3e have at level 10 doesn't cross their minds, because, to them, that's just a slightly larger selection of buttons to push, and it can't compare with the infinite ways you can describe a full attack.

In a way, the vanilla, spammable characteristics of 3e non spellcaster combat is an advantage to them- since "full attack" is thematically a big fat nothing, its a canvas onto which they can project anything they like. They can't do this in 4e because their big empty canvas is covered up with a italicized line of text that says something like "You punctuate your scything attacks with wicked jabs and small cutting blows that slip through your enemy’s defenses."