No Iterative Attacks in D&D

[Quartz]

Conflating the full attack into one roll might make the feat Great Cleave actually worth taking.

I'm a little leery of multiplying the base dice: it seems to me that most of the damage normally comes from adds (Strength, PA, magic, etc).

But one observation: so far the thread has concentrated on calculating the damage done. What about the chance of hitting in the first place? Going on the KISS princple, what if making a full attack meant that you could add your BAB to both your attack and your damage? Other adds are kept the same. Very simple, follows D&D's concept of the abstraction of damage, and allows use of Combat Expertise and Power Attack. And gives an extra option to low-level characters, for whom there is little incentive to take the Full Attack option.

 

[Flynn]

But one observation: so far the thread has concentrated on calculating the damage done. What about the chance of hitting in the first place? Going on the KISS princple, what if making a full attack meant that you could add your BAB to both your attack and your damage? Other adds are kept the same. Very simple, follows D&D's concept of the abstraction of damage, and allows use of Combat Expertise and Power Attack. And gives an extra option to low-level characters, for whom there is little incentive to take the Full Attack option.

That's a very good option, one that has been mentioned previously either on this thread or the one that inspired it, and the numbers work out well enough to be a definite consideration. If I weren't going to use damage multipliers, I'd use this suggestion, given the amount of discussion I've seen on it lately.

Nice, concise way of implementing it, too.

Thanks, Quartz,
Flynn

 

[Baby Samurai]

1.) Conflating the full attack into one roll might make the feat Great Cleave actually worth taking.



2.) What about the chance of hitting in the first place? Going on the KISS princple, what if making a full attack meant that you could add your BAB to both your attack and your damage?

1.) That's one of the things I really dig. And Whirlwind Attack etc.



2.) Do mean on a full attack they would add their BAB twice to hit (double their BAB on a full attack)?

 

[Flynn]

2.) Do mean on a full attack they would add their BAB twice to hit (double their BAB on a full attack)?

Your BAB is already added to your attack roll, so there's no need to add it a second time. I took it to mean that you make an attack roll as normal (which already has BAB added in), and then just add BAB to damage if you are taking the full-attack option (or for a full Saga conversion, you get to add BAB to your damage if you give up a move action in addition to the standard action for the attack.)

Quartz, if I have misunderstood, please clarify for me.

Hope that helps,
Flynn

 

[Baby Samurai]

I took it to mean that you make an attack roll as normal (which already has BAB added in), and then just add BAB to damage if you are taking the full-attack option (or for a full Saga conversion, you get to add BAB to your damage if you give up a move action in addition to the standard action for the attack.)

That's what I thought, so a 6th level fighter with an 18 Str and a longsword would look like this when making a full attack:

Melee longsword +10 (1d8+10)?

 

[Flynn]

That's what I thought, so a 6th level fighter with an 18 Str and a longsword would look like this when making a full attack:

Melee longsword +10 (1d8+10)?

Under what Quartz is proposing, if I understand it correctly, yes. I think that Croesus (sp?) is the one that posted something like this over on the other thread, and that he and his group have been doing it that way for a while. He'd make a great resource to talk to about that particular option.

Hope this helps,
Flynn

 

[Quartz]

Not quite. Say you have a BAB of +10. For a Full attack, you attack once at +20 (2x+10) and add +10 to your damage. This is not a BAB of +20; the extra is a bonus. Sensible PCs will likely use part of that +20 (to a limit of +10, your BAB) to boost damage via Power Attack and to reduce the chance of being hit via Combat Expertise. If Erik the Red is a 10th level fighter (BAB +10) wielding a 2-handed axe and has a basic AC of 20, he might use 5 for Power Attacking at +10, and 5 for Combat Expertise for +5 to AC, thus doing +20 (=+10+ (5x2)) damage and having an AC of 25 while still attacking at +10. Remember that the deductions from Power Attack, Combat Expertise, etc cannot reduce your BAB (10 in this case) to below 0.

 

[Baby Samurai]

I'm not a Mr Math Whiz, but I ran some damage averages using the standard system of iterative attacks and 3 variants. I'm leaving critical hits out of the equation for now.


Variant I: Multiply base weapon damage by the number of attacks the character would have under the standard system (BAB +11 = base weapon damage x 3 etc).

Variant II: Add BAB bonus to damage (BAB +11 = add +11 to damage)

Variant III: Add BAB and iterative bonus to damage (BAB +11 = add +11, +6, and +1 to damage)


Examples:


11th level fighter, 18 Str, +1 greatsword:

Standard: Melee +1 greatsword +16/+11/+6 (2d6+7) – average damage on one hit: 14, average damage on two hits: 28, average damage if all three hit: 42

Variant I: Melee +1 greatsword +16 (6d6+7) – average damage: 28

Variant II: Melee +1 greatsword +16 (2d6+18) – average damage: 25

Variant III: Melee +1 greatsword +16 (2d6+25) – average damage: 32




20th level fighter, 20 Str, Greater Weapon Focus, Greater Weapon Specialization, +5 greatsword:

Standard: Melee +5 greatsword +32/+27/+22/+17 (2d6+16) – average damage on one hit: 23, average damage on two hits: 46, average damage on three hits: 69, average damage if all four hit: 92

Variant I: Melee +5 greatsword +32 (8d6+16) – average damage: 44

Variant II: Melee +5 greatsword +32 (2d6+36) – average damage: 43

Variant III: Melee +5 greatsword +32 (2d6+25) – average damage: 73




Which do you think is the best variant to go with to compensate for no iterative attacks?

 

[Flynn]

Umm, Baby Samurai, calculating average damage per strike is not done that way. You multiply the percent chance to hit by the average damage to find the damage for that strike. That's why it's tricky until you set the target AC, so that you know what you are going against. Your suggested calculations above do not have accurate statistical values.

For target AC, I use the MM suggestion under creating a new monster of suggested AC equal to 13+CR, and assume you are fighting a CR equal to your level. Sorcica takes it a step beyond and calculates against every AC over a range of 10 to 50.

Just thought you'd want to know,
Flynn

 

[Flynn]

Not quite. Say you have a BAB of +10. For a Full attack, you attack once at +20 (2x+10) and add +10 to your damage. This is not a BAB of +20; the extra is a bonus. Sensible PCs will likely use part of that +20 (to a limit of +10, your BAB) to boost damage via Power Attack and to reduce the chance of being hit via Combat Expertise. If Erik the Red is a 10th level fighter (BAB +10) wielding a 2-handed axe and has a basic AC of 20, he might use 5 for Power Attacking at +10, and 5 for Combat Expertise for +5 to AC, thus doing +20 (=+10+ (5x2)) damage and having an AC of 25 while still attacking at +10. Remember that the deductions from Power Attack, Combat Expertise, etc cannot reduce your BAB (10 in this case) to below 0.

Quartz, this method does not match statistically with the desired outcome. Iterative attacks do not make it easier for you to hit someone. Instead, it becomes harder under v3.5 to hit someone with successive iterative attacks. The proper statistical calculation for determining the impact of a weapon strike is to multiply average damage by the percent chance to hit. The chance drops with each iterative attack, indicating that on the average, the subsequent attacks pile on less damage. The sums are totalled per round, and that's how you figure out what your total damage is. The attack is already figured into our equations.

By adding to attack, you increase one side of the equation, because the percentage of attack success gets bigger. By adding to damage as well, you are increasing the base damage. Multiplying the two together gives you a MUCH greater return than is needed to accurately reflect iterative attacks. MUCH greater.

Mathematically, this approach does not meet my needs. That isn't to say you can't use it in your own games, but I'd test it first. My numbers say it's broken, and broken bad. Of course, as always, YMMV.

Hope This Helps,
Flynn