Why is Shot on the Run and Spring Attack so costly?

[harpy]

I'm trying to understand when the game was being laid down why the designers thought that Shot on the Run and Spring Attack were so valuable that they required such heavy investment in feats.

Wait! I'm parsing out Spring Attack's negation of attacks of opportunity... that I get, it's the basic function of both feats, being able to move, attack and move that seems not worth some investment.

In both instances you are only gaining one attack, which after 5th level becomes more and more of a liability. So in and of itself I'm not seeing how their value as feats warrant such heavy prerequisites.

In some ways it seems as if "simulationist" ideas kicked in and it seems that it could only seem realistic if you already had dodge, mobility, etc. to pull off these stunts, so that ultimately it was encoded in the game this way not out of some sense of balance, but just for flavor.

The odd thing is that the value of the feats diminishes over time, but it only kicks in as a ability just around when the feats begins to slip in value. The earliest you can get them is at 4th level, and by 6th level iterative attacks kick in and the maneuvers become less useful.

The one other equivalent feat in 3.5, Flyby Attack, doesn't have any other prerequisite other than needing to fly, which make sense. It fits and works for what it does.

In Star Wars Saga they gave us "Running Attack" with just the simple Dex 13 prerequisite. It applied to both melee and ranged attacks and simply allowed you to move, attack, and move all in the same round. No attack of opportunity bonuses, though, which is fine.

The only thing we saw come of that restructuring of the 3.5 feats was that it improved combat, it made things more fun. Combat became mobile, shifting and allowing for more interesting use of terrain. There were no broken loops going on and right from level one you could have a cool exception based rule to show off to the rest of the players.

We also quickly found that being able to pop out from behind cover, fire and then hide again wasn't that great. PCs and NPCs quickly just adjusted and made ready actions for when someone was popping out behind cover.

It seems to me that if they had just let there be a "running attack" feat for 3.5, and then had a separate feat for ignoring AoO then the system as a whole would have been more enjoyable.

 

[Shin Okada]

IMHO, it is mainly because in 3.Xe non-casters' default fighting style is assumed to be full-attack. Damage output is balanced out against spells assuming that warriors (or monsters) can make full-attack reasonably often.

 

[Elethiomel]

I think the rationale was that spring attack and shot on the run both allow you to play keep-away (if you combine spring attack with unusually high movement, for free with Shot on the Run). This is a bigger deal in a game where melee is the main method of fighting than in a blaster-rifle heavy game.

Yes, you can still partly counter it with ready actions; but a character built around spring attack will likely have a more powerful single attack in mind when building the character - the spring attacker can utilize their specialty (whatever that is), while the opponent does not gain a full attack against the spring attacker. In that sense, it does not get less useful after level 6, because while you're denying yourself a full attack, you're also denying the enemy a full attack.

Flyby attack is likely made the way it is because the designers didn't, at the time of writing Flyby Attack, think very many PCs would be capable of permanent flight. Flyby Attack is much superior to both Spring Attack and Shot on the Run, as it allows any standard action to be performed in the middle of a move, such as Book of 9 Swords maneuver, a spell, an Awesome Blow (a favourite of dragons), etc. It is basically a monster feat (as evidenced by its location), so it may be that the designers didn't think very hard on how it would work if a PC took it.

 

[Vegepygmy]

We also quickly found that being able to pop out from behind cover, fire and then hide again wasn't that great. PCs and NPCs quickly just adjusted and made ready actions for when someone was popping out behind cover.

At which point the "popper" stops popping out (and maybe does something else useful on his turn), and his opponents wind up wasting their standard actions readying for an event that never comes to pass. That's a pretty worthwhile ability to have.

 

[Runestar]

I am thinking that spring attack might have been priced from the perspective of a rogue. He is deemed to be fairly fragile, so spring attack allows him to move adjacent to a foe to attack, then move away, so the foe cannot full-attack him on its next turn.

In addition, the rogue's bab scales much more slowly. This means that its iterative attacks aren't so useful as they are less likely to hit, so the opportunity cost of move-attack+sneak attack-move away is less compared to a fighter.

 

[harpy]

Thanks all for the replies, my mind is crunching it all.

One of the things I wanted to understand was why there wasn't a "running attack" feat. Not spring attack with it's ability to avoid AoO, but just move/attack/move with AoO still wide open.

When going up against a large (tall) or bigger creature then tumble isn't going to be able to help a rogue get in and out of the natural reach zone, at least for the average character since tumble only gives 15' of movement. So in that regard I can see how Spring Attack in and of itself is worthwhile, the prerequisites, not so much.

But how would the game fall apart with a Running Attack feat.

Now, we have the situation where people can run up, poke someone and then step away, and they can do that over and over again. It just that wider strategies of the game aren't being considered? As the game exists right now the field of combat is very static. People charge, make contact and then the fight bogs down into a lot of shuffling with five foot steps, with a few other repositionings and then five rounds later its over.

If characters could move more fluidly then you see more cinematic battles and terrain becomes more important. If I as a DM had players with a Running Attack feat, and who delighted in poke and run tactics then I'd just adjust scenarios so that the characters weren't going up against solo or only a few monsters. Overrun and Bullrush would also become far more valuable actions, and at that point the game becomes more fun because you see people getting shoved around, people darting here and there, etc.

If a DM creates scenarios where the tank can pin down the solo monster and then the other characters can dart in and out with impunity, I can see how it would be seen that move/attack/move would seem broken. However, that has more to do with poor scenario design and tactics on the DMs part, stuck in a more static frame of reference.

I've had a chance to play a archer/ranger character for quite awhile and from my experience, while it was fun to have shot on the run as a option, inevitably my character needed to output as much damage as possible, which meant full attacks with rapid shot and iterative attacks, so the feat wasn't really being used, save in some very specific situations.

 

[Elethiomel]

Your experience with the ranger nonwithstanding, if you build a character around these feats they can be very powerful indeed. You don't even need to pin the "boss" down (and not all monsters *should* have good tactics; some are of animal-level intelligence after all) to deny it full-attacks throgh use of spring attack.

Iterative attacks being so important is the reason why the game turns into a lot of shuffling with five-foot steps. Implement the Book of Nine Swords and use classes from that, and with a few exceptions nobody will care about iterative attacks any more because most maneuvers are standard actions; the battlefield will turn into a cinematic place again without a single person taking spring attack.

 

[pawsplay]

Shot on the run potentially allows you to make an attack each round against a foe against whom you have total cover. Picture two pillars in front of an NPC; you start behind one, move and shoot, and end up behind the other. The only counter is for the opponent to use a standard action to move closer to you. If going from full attacks to single attacks is advantageous to you, which it likely is if you anticipated this tactic, you have gained a substantial advantage.

Spring attack allows you to avoid AoOs, as well as gaining similar benefits as above.

Their value at higher levels depends on a lot of things. If you have skirmish, their value becomes immense.

 

[freebiewitz]

Spring attack is one of the preuquites to getting the whirlwind feat.
Basically it meens you hit everybody within range of a melee weapon. Awesome if you use it with a daggered whip :3 1d6 damage all around. Litterely. Though you still have to roll for hit.

 

[Runestar]

And whirlwind is arguably one of the biggest traps there is. It seems powerful, but is impractical to use in combat.

At least they introduced those feats in PHB2 that allow you make additional attacks when you spring-attack. Still very expensive though.