Touch attacks: is it just me..?

[Saeviomagy]

That's a good point. I'm not sure what the threshhold is, but it's definitely not that high. The system i'm looking at would give an average person 2 actions (same as D&D3E), and a fast person probably 4 or maybe 5--i'm still working it out, so not all the options are set yet. And it would go up with level, same as BAB does now, for everyone, to some degree. So that should mean that by the time the fast people have 5 actions, the slowpokes have 3.

But i'll point out that right now D&D accepts a 4:1 ratio: a high-level warrior has 4 attacks to the spellcasters single spell.

No, he doesn't get 4 goes to everyones one go.

He gets one action which may or may not strike 4 times.

There is a very big difference, and it is this:
If you're striking 4 times, you are very limited in what you can do - you can take a 5 foot step before or after, and you may (if the situation warrants it) replace attacks with special maneuvers, such as disarming or sundering or tripping.

However most of the time, you'll just roll, know whether you hit or missed, and read off the damage to the DM, before finding out whether you're moving onto another target.

If you did the same thing with (say) a wizard, allowing him 4 spellcastings, then the game would slow down interminably as he picked out the appropriate spell to use for each attack, and worked out viable targets etc etc.

In fact, if you allowed movement between the attacks in a full attack, that would drastically slow down the game as the fighter worked out how to cherry-pick his targets.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Look at the casting time of the spell, it functions as a modifier to init, just like weapon speed does. But, clearly, it is a duration (by definition). So you must be casting the spell for X segments, ending on the segment the spell goes off. IOW, you start casting the spell on your original initiative (roll + dex mod), and finish on your adjusted init (roll + dex mod + casting time), and if you get hit anywhere in that range, it's while casting the spell.

1E was much cooler.

I'll have to look up the formula exactly when I get home. But essentially, if you had guy with weapon vs guy with spell, and the guy with the weapon lost initiative, you subtracted his weapon speed factor from the losing initiative die roll (d6), took the absolute value of the result, and compared it to the casting time of the spell. If it was lower, the weapon hit before the spell was complete, and disrupted the spell. If it was equal, the weapon struck simultaneously with the spell going off. If it was higher, the spell occurred first.

1E initiative also catered for Reach weapons - they had a very poor speed factor, but that didn't matter in the first round. When someone closed to attack or charged, initiative and speed factor did not determine who struck first; the person with the longer weapon went first.

1E speed factors also catered for someone with a fast weapon potentially getting more attacks than someone with a slow weapon, but I'll need to check my 1E DMG to remember how that worked.

-Hyp.

 

[bardolph]

You can't, or, at least, not easily. That's the problem, IMHO--whatever advantage init gives you is too front-loaded (and possibly also too insignificant--though i'm apparently in a minority of one on that part, so feel free to discount it).

I suppose. Initiative gives an advantage of exactly one turn. I just don't see that as a flaw.

Attack: one attack, period. Full attack: anyone can pick up a 2nd weapon, but i should've said 1 to 5. Oh, wait, creative math on my part: 20 divided by 5 is 4, not 5. So, 1 to 4 extra attacks (two weapon or double weapon, +20 BAB), without using feats.

But realize that, without feats, you're facing a -4/-8 or -6/-10 penalty when fighting with two weapons. I would call that prohibitively expensive.

No, swashbuckler is just a convenient shorthand for the general class of warrior i'm talking about: those who favor mobility (and maybe precision) over power. And my point about monks is that the whole *point* of the martial artist archetype is, IMHO, phenomenal physical control--that should include acrobatics, mobility, dodging, etc. I have no problem with being able to build a mobility-based warrior with fighter, i just think that it should be easier, or turn out better, with a monk.

Monks get a very generous array of abilities as it is. It looks like your whole complaint revolves around a single Feat -- Spring Attack. However, while Monks have to wait until 6th level before being able to select that Feat (while Fighters can nab it at 4), please keep in mind the plethora of other Monk abilities (at 4th level): Tumble as a class skill, Evasion, Great Saves, Improved Grapple or Stunning Fist, Combat Reflexes or Deflect Arrows, Still Mind, Ki Strike, Slow Fall, and don't forget the Fast Movement.

I honestly don't think that a monk who gets all that, and has to wait two more levels before getting that precious Spring Attack, is really that far behind the "mobile Fighter." Besides, I don't see why the Fighter class should be expected to be inferior at all.

If Spring Attack was "iconically fundamental" to the concept of a Monk, perhaps it should have been included in the Bonus Feats for Monks. But I don't think that particular Feat is.

Look at the casting time of the spell, it functions as a modifier to init, just like weapon speed does. But, clearly, it is a duration (by definition). So you must be casting the spell for X segments, ending on the segment the spell goes off. IOW, you start casting the spell on your original initiative (roll + dex mod), and finish on your adjusted init (roll + dex mod + casting time), and if you get hit anywhere in that range, it's while casting the spell. Don't feel like digging the rules out, much less searching through them, so i don't know if this is a standard rule, an official optional rule (in the PH/DMG), a rule from one of the "Complete..." books, a rule from Dragon, or one we came up with on our own.

I suppose it could have been workable, but IMHO 3rd edition handles this FAR more elegantly, through Attacks of Opportunity and Readied Actions.

This is actually one area where the "freeze-frame" initiative system really shines.

The only weakness in the 3e "freeze-frame" initiative, in my experience, is the "Okay, now the whole party stumbles into a pit trap" scenario.

I'd call that a small sacrifice.

Hmmm...now that you put it that way. I dunno. Perhaps it'll only be fixed [to my satisfaction] with a whole new system--the freeze-frame effect needs to be lessened or eliminated.

Okay. I don't see it as flawed. Rather, I see it as far less flawed than other systems, and far more playable, since it relies on much less DM "fudge-factor."

Actually, that's where i see one of the flaws in the selection of feats in the core rulebook: they're too ordinary. I think feats should be special, not just doing something a bit better, but doing some cool and fun that you otherwise can't do. And, the flipside of this is that if it's something you should generally be able to do, you shouldn't need a feat to do it (though i can see some latitude for feats that overcome penalties).

Well, I see Feats as a way of taking something that is ordinarily a pain in the ass, and making it much easier. However, there's nothing preventing you from creating some extraordinary explanation for an otherwise "ordinary" feat. For example, my character received a "raven's eye blessing" from his god at birth, turning his eyes yellow and granting a +3 bonus to Spot rolls (in other words, he has Skill Focus: Spot)

Truly extraordinary abilities are handled by Classes. This is as it should be, IMHO. If you really want "special" feats, take a single level of Psion or Psychic Warrior. I think that both of these classes perfectly represent the "supernaturally gifted" thing it seem you're going for.

Shocking grasp? All the time. But touch-attack spells in general? No. But not because they couldn't hit--because they couldn't defend. The wizards didn't get near enemies to even try and hit them, 'cause they didn't wanna get creamed. (For whatever bizarre reason, i never had any multi-classed wizards in the game--lots of multiclassed everything else, but all the wizards were single-classed (and, for that matter, all but one were specialists, to boot).)

But even if they could defend, they couldn't hit. I mean, honestly, why would an AD&D cleric ever burn a spell on inflict light wounds, when its effects are virtually identical to a normal, non-magical mace?

Anyway, touch AC is a kludge, because they weren't willing to kill the sacred cow of AC. Given the way that, for martial attacks, AC is a tangle of dodge, luck, fatigue, and actual damage, the fact that it suddenly becomes an absolute measure of successful contact once the attack only needs to touch to succeed just confuses the issue more.

I don't think touch attacks are a kludge at all. It works perfectly with the AC system, and is both consistent and logical.

AC represents exactly two things: ability to deflect, and ability to dodge. Now, granted, it might have been more realistic to separate these two concepts. In fact, many other RPG's do exactly this. However, I have found that these other RPG's almost without fail require either more dice rolls, more charts, or more modifiers in order to accomodate this.

I think that the "sacred cow" of AC was preserved mainly because it works, and because it's simple.

True. A real system of that sort needs to take account of both reach and speed, and do so differently depending on circumstances. Specifically, a weapon's reach gives you an advantage in speed when you're far away (relatively speaking) and closing; a weapon's speed gives you an advantage once you're close enough to eliminate the reach advantage (i.e., within the reach of the shorter weapon)--which is why such rules also should include rules for closing/fending and retreating/pressing, because the guy with the long weapon should want to constanty back away, outside of the reach of the other guy, while the other guy should want to stay in close where the reach advantage is nullified (and, depending on the weapon, it may even incur a problem using the weapon so close).

D&D3E handles all of this very nicely. Really, it does.

 

[woodelf]

Okay. I don't see it as flawed. Rather, I see it as far less flawed than other systems, and far more playable, since it relies on much less DM "fudge-factor."

What are you comparing it to? I've played a lot of RPGs over the years, and very few of them seemed more frustrating in combat than D&D3E. But maybe we just haven't played the same games?

Truly extraordinary abilities are handled by Classes. This is as it should be, IMHO. If you really want "special" feats, take a single level of Psion or Psychic Warrior. I think that both of these classes perfectly represent the "supernaturally gifted" thing it seem you're going for.

Hmmm. Maybe. Not sure i agree, but i see where you're coming from. (Of course, if the really extraordinary abilities shoul be class abilities, that'd cut out all the psionic feats.)

D&D3E handles all of this very nicely. Really, it does.

Please elucidate: how do i press someone in D&D3E, or fend them off?