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<blockquote data-quote="Kunimatyu" data-source="post: 2812318" data-attributes="member: 22057">Well, a number of people(and perhaps my original post, for that matter) implied that my player with the eight attacks is somehow bad at math, or has improperly-set-up dice -- that's not the case. He's got precisely color-coded dice, and does in fact roll them on other people's turns to prevent his full attacks from slowing down the game too much. He's got a decent head for math, so I can't really fault him there either. It's just that twenty dice rolled in a turn, no matter how well-set-up, strikes me as rather...inelegant. As something that's perhaps more complex and clunky than it really has to be, especially when those iterative attacks at low BAB rarely, if ever, hit. I don't think a good solution is available in 3.5, as changing the way iterative attacks work does send ripples through the whole structure, BUT I think it's interesting to think about this stuff for 4E, when sacred cows can be tipped effectively. I don't pretend to understand all the ins and outs of design, but it seems to me that a good attack system does the following two things:One, it has a good way to differentiate the sword-and-board fighter from the two-handed weapon fighter from the two-weapon fighter. The &quot;feel&quot; and tactics of each of the three types should be different, and not in a really abstract way with bonuses and penalties -- preferably, different feat/technique options and difference in the number and method of dice rolled.Two, it keeps the number of dice rolled on a player's turn to a reasonable number, such that a calculator program isn't by far the better choice. This is a pen and paper game, not a computer RPG, and as such, the level of numerical complexity should stay within certain bounds.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Kunimatyu, post: 2812318, member: 22057"] Well, a number of people(and perhaps my original post, for that matter) implied that my player with the eight attacks is somehow bad at math, or has improperly-set-up dice -- that's not the case. He's got precisely color-coded dice, and does in fact roll them on other people's turns to prevent his full attacks from slowing down the game too much. He's got a decent head for math, so I can't really fault him there either. It's just that twenty dice rolled in a turn, no matter how well-set-up, strikes me as rather...inelegant. As something that's perhaps more complex and clunky than it really has to be, especially when those iterative attacks at low BAB rarely, if ever, hit. I don't think a good solution is available in 3.5, as changing the way iterative attacks work does send ripples through the whole structure, BUT I think it's interesting to think about this stuff for 4E, when sacred cows can be tipped effectively. I don't pretend to understand all the ins and outs of design, but it seems to me that a good attack system does the following two things: One, it has a good way to differentiate the sword-and-board fighter from the two-handed weapon fighter from the two-weapon fighter. The "feel" and tactics of each of the three types should be different, and not in a really abstract way with bonuses and penalties -- preferably, different feat/technique options and difference in the number and method of dice rolled. Two, it keeps the number of dice rolled on a player's turn to a reasonable number, such that a calculator program isn't by far the better choice. This is a pen and paper game, not a computer RPG, and as such, the level of numerical complexity should stay within certain bounds. [/QUOTE]

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