Marionnen's Musings: The Ineffective Iterative

[airwalkrr]

Wherein I discuss a possible fix for the diminishing returns of extra attacks for a high base attack bonus.

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

I've felt the same way.

Once I learned the difference between BAB based weapon attacks and natural attacks from [MENTION=85158]Dandu[/MENTION]'s Mini Guide, I decided If I were to play a melee combatant, I'd want natural attacks.

And so, I've developed and played with a Shifter Totemist. With 5 natural attacks at character level 5 (A primary claw, three secondary claw and a bite attack), I'll never go back to swinging a sword.

 

[delericho]

The game probably shouldn't give iterative attacks "for free". Instead, there should really be feats available for the Fighter who wants to specialise in getting multiple attacks. As the the appropriate penalties, that would depend on just how the system is to be rebalanced. In all honesty, allowing the Fighter to take the second (and subsequent) attacks with no penalty is probably not too much - just make sure you have appropriate prerequisites on the feats.

 

[B.T.]

White text on a black background is really hard to read.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Trailblazer has a fix that I like. It essentially amounts to changing iteratives into flurry of blows. You get an extra attack, but all of your attacks take a penalty, which then disappears gradually at higher levels.

 

[airwalkrr]

White text on a black background is really hard to read.

Curious. Is that not the default setting for EN World?

 

[airwalkrr]

The game probably shouldn't give iterative attacks "for free". Instead, there should really be feats available for the Fighter who wants to specialise in getting multiple attacks. As the the appropriate penalties, that would depend on just how the system is to be rebalanced. In all honesty, allowing the Fighter to take the second (and subsequent) attacks with no penalty is probably not too much - just make sure you have appropriate prerequisites on the feats.

Perhaps you misread. The second, third, and fourth attack are all at -5, just like natural attacks from monsters.

Now, I did mention in the blog an old rule which I had considered in which there were a total of three iterative attacks (2nd at +8 and 3rd at +16) with no penalty for iterative attacks. Perhaps that is what you are referring to. But within the scope of this post, I was merely using that as a comparison to judge how I feel the -5 for all iterative attacks rule better fits the consistency of the rules.

 

[delericho]

Perhaps you misread.

No, but I did express myself very poorly. When I said the system shouldn't give the extra attacks for free, I was referring to the RAW, and the way that any character with a BAB of +6 automatically gets a second attack.

IMO, this would have been better handled using the feat system - that is, every character gets only a single attack regardless of BAB, but that there should be feats to grant additional attacks. As for the penalty associated with these extra attacks - I agree with you that the current iterative penalties are too much, especially after the second (-5) attack.

 

[Starfox]

I think the idea of iterative attacks (as far as there is one) is to add value to mid-range armor classes. The first attack in an attack chain should almost always hit for a fighter (or a 3/4 BAB class will almost never hit). Basically, at level 20, the second iterative attack of a full BaB character is the same as first attack of a 3/4 BaB character, and the third attack is equivalent to that of a 1/2 BaB character.

I think this is how they arrived at the rule for Iterative attacks. I find understanding the background of a rule is good when modifying it.

I'm not saying this is how it SHOULD be. I always disliked iterative attacks and wanted something simpler.

 

[Sunseeker]

It's always been my opinion that every primarily-martial class should get two melee attacks. Two attacks with a single weapon, or a single attack with each of two weapons. Further attacks could be gained through "Two-weapon fighting" style feats. Adding an additional attack at a penalty, with the next tier reducing the previous penalty but adding an additional attack. So:
"Multiattack": You gain an additional attack at a -5 penalty. Keep taking this feat as many times as you want.
"Improved Multiattack": The penalty to your additional attacks is reduced by 2.

There should be no differentiation between a "main hand" and an "off hand" for this matter. It's unnecessary. You only need to limit two-weapon fighting styles to light weapons, and thusly smaller die-types.