Removing Multiple Attacks: What changes must be done to monsters?

[Baby Samurai]

Well, the difference I see is that monsters usually don't get iterative attacks, they just get multiple natural attacks (2 claws and bite etc).

We know a 20th level Jedi with BAB +20 will only get one attack (baring feats – cleave, TWF etc), but we still don't know if a tiger will still have 2 claws and a bite attack, or one attack to take into account all of its natural weapons.

 

[GlassJaw]

I'll see if I can get GlassJaw to take a look at this today.

GlassJaw was too busy with "real work" and registering for GenCon yesterday to look at this. Trying to wrap my head around it now.

Mathematical flaming hoops aside, something about removing multiple attacks and adding a damage bonus to emulate a character's increase in "power" doesn't sit right with me. Dunno, can't really put my finger on it yet.

My gut feeling is that it would end simplifying gameplay too much.

 

[Flynn]

I look forward to your revelations, Glassjaw. I am simply looking to improve the speed of play in my games, and removing iterative attacks looks like it will work well for me. There have been a number of great suggestions above, and I hope that you can help me to find a reasonable manner in which this can be done and still allow me to use monsters from the usual D20 sources (with or without modifications.)

Looking forward to your input,
Flynn

 

[D.Shaffer]

We know a 20th level Jedi with BAB +20 will only get one attack (baring feats – cleave, TWF etc), but we still don't know if a tiger will still have 2 claws and a bite attack, or one attack to take into account all of its natural weapons.

We dont know if tigers will, but we know that Trandoshans get multiple claw attacks.

From the figure previews. (Here)

Melee unarmed +7 (1d8+3) or
Melee unarmed –3 (1d8+3) and
unarmed –3 (1d8+3)

So it looks very much like you'll still get multiple natural attacks in the new game. Whether you want to get rid of them all together for adaption into DND? Different story.

 

[Jer]

We dont know if tigers will, but we know that Trandoshans get multiple claw attacks.

From the figure previews. (Here)


So it looks very much like you'll still get multiple natural attacks in the new game. Whether you want to get rid of them all together for adaption into DND? Different story.

Hm. Are you sure that those are from natural attacks and not from the Martial Arts feats that the Trandoshan Mercenary has? Though taking a -10 penalty to do 2 unarmed attacks instead of one strikes me as a hefty penalty to have to take a feat for.

 

[D.Shaffer]

Hm. Are you sure that those are from natural attacks and not from the Martial Arts feats that the Trandoshan Mercenary has? Though taking a -10 penalty to do 2 unarmed attacks instead of one strikes me as a hefty penalty to have to take a feat for.

Well, the actual Mini's stat list it has having 'Double Claw', so I think it's a safe assumption, yes. I think someone mentioned that the Martial Arts feats just increase unarmed damage from the preview in Game Trader they saw.

 

[Baby Samurai]

I think someone mentioned that the Martial Arts feats just increase unarmed damage from the preview in Game Trader they saw.

True: base 1d4 – 1d6 – 1d8 etc.

 

[GlassJaw]

Ok, I did some calculations. Let me explain the table below.

Each column shows the increase in average damage versus the natural roll you need to hit as you add more iterative attacks. The table assumes an average weapon damage of 1 (see conclusions below for more info on this) and is independent of actual to hit and damage bonuses (if uses natural rolls only).

The first row of the chart assumes a roll of 2 will hit and the last row assumes a 20 is needed. The damage listed in each column is cumulative. That means if every attack hits on a 2 and you have 3 attacks, your total average damage is 2.850.

Crits are not factored into this. That would change some of the numbers slightly (especially for the lower rolls) but not signigicantly enough to invalidate these numbers.

The "% incr" column shows the percent increase in total average damage from 1 attack to 4 attacks and the "Delta" column is the actual difference in value from 1 attack to 4 attacks.

1 Attack	2 Attacks	3 Attacks	4 Attacks	% incr	Delta
Roll	Ave Dmg	Roll	Ave Dmg	Roll	Ave Dmg	Roll	Ave Dmg		
2	0.950	2	1.900	2	2.850	2	3.800	25.000	2.850
2	0.950	2	1.900	2	2.850	3	3.750	25.333	2.800
2	0.950	2	1.900	2	2.850	4	3.700	25.676	2.750
2	0.950	2	1.900	2	2.850	5	3.650	26.027	2.700
2	0.950	2	1.900	2	2.850	6	3.600	26.389	2.650
2	0.950	2	1.900	2	2.850	7	3.550	26.761	2.600
2	0.950	2	1.900	3	2.800	8	3.450	27.536	2.500
2	0.950	2	1.900	4	2.750	9	3.350	28.358	2.400
2	0.950	2	1.900	5	2.700	10	3.250	29.231	2.300
2	0.950	2	1.900	6	2.650	11	3.150	30.159	2.200
2	0.950	2	1.900	7	2.600	12	3.050	31.148	2.100
2	0.950	3	1.850	8	2.500	13	2.900	32.759	1.950
2	0.950	4	1.800	9	2.400	14	2.750	34.545	1.800
2	0.950	5	1.750	10	2.300	15	2.600	36.538	1.650
2	0.950	6	1.700	11	2.200	16	2.450	38.776	1.500
2	0.950	7	1.650	12	2.100	17	2.300	41.304	1.350
3	0.900	8	1.550	13	1.950	18	2.100	42.857	1.200
4	0.850	9	1.450	14	1.800	19	1.900	44.737	1.050
5	0.800	10	1.350	15	1.650	20	1.700	47.059	0.900
6	0.750	11	1.250	16	1.500	20	1.550	48.387	0.800
7	0.700	12	1.150	17	1.350	20	1.400	50.000	0.700
8	0.650	13	1.050	18	1.200	20	1.250	52.000	0.600
9	0.600	14	0.950	19	1.050	20	1.100	54.545	0.500
10	0.550	15	0.850	20	0.900	20	0.950	57.895	0.400
11	0.500	16	0.750	20	0.800	20	0.850	58.824	0.350
12	0.450	17	0.650	20	0.700	20	0.750	60.000	0.300
13	0.400	18	0.550	20	0.600	20	0.650	61.538	0.250
14	0.350	19	0.450	20	0.500	20	0.550	63.636	0.200
15	0.300	20	0.350	20	0.400	20	0.450	66.667	0.150
16	0.250	20	0.300	20	0.350	20	0.400	62.500	0.150
17	0.200	20	0.250	20	0.300	20	0.350	57.143	0.150
18	0.150	20	0.200	20	0.250	20	0.300	50.000	0.150
19	0.100	20	0.150	20	0.200	20	0.250	40.000	0.150
20	0.050	20	0.100	20	0.150	20	0.200	25.000	0.150

 

[Flynn]

Glassjaw,

It appears your calcs covered a wider range of the iterative attacks than my iterative percentages did, namely when you could roll lower than a 2 on the first or later attacks and still hit, except for that Natural 1 rule. I have to admit that the numbers look pretty skewed at those ranges.

Now, I'll ask you the same question I asked Wulf: what do you glean from your analysis? How does that translate into a game mechanic we can use?

Thanks,
Flynn

 

[GlassJaw]

After looking at this, my main conclusion was that going from iterative attacks to a single attacks with flat damage increase are not even close to being the same. Also, adding a flat damage bonus is not linearly "balanced" across the range of attack rolls.

Let me explain.

I listed the % increase and delta values to show "theoretical" and in-game data. % increase in damage is nice from an analytical point of view but doesn't do much to show what's going to happen at the table.

For example, regardless of the average damage done, the % increase is always the same. My Excel chart uses average damage as a variable so the table repopulates as I change it. Whether your average damage is 1 or 50, going from 1 attack to 4 attacks is a 25% increase in damage.

However, the delta of going from 10 to 25 ave damage for 4 attacks is 28.5 to 71.25. That's a huge difference at the table, but percent increase doesn't really show you that.

Also, as the roll you need to hit goes up, the delta goes down dramatically, even though the percent increase can be fairly high. That means that as you hit less, the value of extra attacks goes down. You might have a huge percent increase in damage from a single attack but if your average damage is low to begin with because you don't hit very often with a single attack, you are going to have even less chance to hit with iterative attacks.

So how does this compare to a static damage bonus with a single attacks? The most obvious is that it penalizes characters with a high AC. If a character needs to roll very high with their first attack to hit, iterative attacks won't be boosting their average damage very much. Now however, that player has a flat damage boost for when they do hit. The player with the high AC will now take more damage on average.

Also, I think it will make high-level play less deadly. Attack bonuses scale a lot faster than defense/AC does in d20. That's not by accident. With only a single attack, even with a +10 bonus at level 20 (Saga grants a +1/2 level bonus), players will be donig a LOT less damage at high levels, which will potentially make combats much longer. Maybe this was a design goal, I don't know.

This may also have interesting implications with their damage track system. I don't yet know how the Threshold is calculated (in the previews, a level 1 character had a threshold of 14 while a level 8 character had a 22), but depending how it scales, with a flat damage bonus, it seems like there will be a greater chance to eclipse this threshold as the damage bonus increases.