# Iterative Attacks



## Wulf Ratbane (Jan 4, 2009)

I've been doing some heavy permutations/probability number crunching over the break, and I wanted to run something past the folks here.

Playing around with possible speed fixes for iterative attacks, I've found something that works pretty good for me personally:


At 6th level, you get a 2nd attack, but both attacks suffer a -2 penalty (-2/-2 instead of 0/-5).
At 11th level, the penalty drops to -1/-1 (instead of 0/-5/-10).
At 16th level, the penalty drops to -0/-0 (instead of 0/-5/-10/-20).

But there is just no way around one peculiarity of the 3rd and 4th iterative attacks, to wit:

Against creatures that you have almost no hope of hitting (natural 18 or better on your first attack, and natural 20's thereafter); and against creatures that you almost can't miss (needing "less than a natural 2" on your first attack, with a great chance of success on even your 3rd and 4th attacks), your expected damage will drop off.

So the core poll question is this: 

If your expected damage over the range of 80-90% of all creatures you will encounter will INCREASE by 5 to 20%, would you be willing to lose your 3rd and 4th attack, and accept a DECREASE against the "edge case" creatures (very high AC or very low AC)?

EDIT: I want to clarify that. At -1/-1, your expected damage against most creatures you will encounter is BETTER than three attacks at 0/-5/-10; and at -0/-0, your expected damage against most creatures you will encounter is BETTER than four attacks at 0/-5/-10/-15.

There are other emergent benefits to this proposal (levelling the expected damage output non-fighter classes, reducing the necessity of AC-pumping for PCs, etc.) but I am primarily concerned with how this fix strikes the primary fighting classes.


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## Treebore (Jan 4, 2009)

So why wouldn't just continuing this -2 on to the third and 4th iterative attacks not work? The biggest power of the fighter types over spellcasters is how many damaging attacks they can do per round.

Or why wouldn't doing -4 for the third, and -6 for the 4th, and have them then offset by further level gain also work?


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## Runestar (Jan 4, 2009)

Possibly yes. This is the main reason why I like the strike maneuvers from tome of battle. As a standard action to initiate, they allow me to move and still retain a reasonable damage out. While the damage I deal is typically inferior to a fighter utilizing the full attack action, it is more consistent, in that I am not reliant on full attacks. And of course, dr applies only once (or not at all, for certain maneuvers), so against foes with fairly high dr, I might actually come out ahead.

This is based on the monk's decisive strike variant from the PHB2, no? 

I think your proposed change might benefit the fighter very minimally, because he already has a similar option in the PHB2.

This does however, appear to make power attack a must-have feat.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Jan 4, 2009)

Treebore said:


> So why wouldn't just continuing this -2 on to the third and 4th iterative attacks not work?




Damage goes WAY up.



> Or why wouldn't doing -4 for the third, and -6 for the 4th, and have them then offset by further level gain also work?




My goal is to eliminate different bonuses/penalties for iterative attacks, so that you can do the math once and roll in a batch. 

Dropping down to just 2 attacks (period) is another marginal increase in speed at the table, but it's not the same imperative as normalizing the penalty.


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## EricNoah (Jan 4, 2009)

Looks good to me.  My DM allowed me to basically double my damage but only do one attack per round - my experience in that campaign was that I was hitting about 1-2 out of every 4 attacks.  He also let me develop some special maneuvers I could do in lieu of more damage (including knocking my opponent back, damaging armor [AC permanently drops by 1 to 3 points depending on how much Power Attack I put into it - helps me help the rest of the party finally land a blow], and even shattering magical effects [expend a prepared dispel magic on a successful hit]).


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## Treebore (Jan 4, 2009)

OK, so you don't see the extra fighter attacks as balancing their power against what spellcasters can do?

I mean 30 HP fireballs don't seem like much, but if they do 30 HP to 20 different targets mages can do 600 HP of damage per round. Granted, thats likely an unusually high example, but its meant more as an illustration of what I am asking about.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Jan 4, 2009)

Treebore said:


> OK, so you don't see the extra fighter attacks as balancing their power against what spellcasters can do?




Treebore, of course. 

This is not the place to run through the probabilities-- they are long, they are complex, they are not message-board friendly. For some attack permutations, we are talking about 1 chance in 160,000.

Everything you need to know is in the first post. I will repeat it, not to hammer on you, but because I want everyone to be clear.

The fighter does not LOSE damage against 80-90% of all creatures. He GAINS damage. He GAINS damage even without his 3rd and 4th attack. 

This change IMPROVES the fighter by increasing his damage against the bulk of foes he will ever face.

Let me repeat that:

A two-attack sequence of 0/0 has a greater expected damage output than a four-attack sequence of 0/-5/-10/-15 against most creatures you will ever encounter.

He will lose damage against the edge cases-- creatures with an AC so high you basically need a natural 20 to hit, and creatures with an AC so low you basically need a 1 to miss.

Most creatures in the SRD-- that is, 80%-90% of all creatures-- fall inside an expected AC range that does not include these edge cases.

But I am not willing to necessarily throw those edge cases away without sounding it out with other folks. 

Is the trade-off worth it if there is a perceptible increase in combat resolution at your table? Even if occasionally you will come up against a creature that you would have done better against using the old method (3rd and 4th attack)?


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## El Mahdi (Jan 4, 2009)

*Iterative Attacks. - Is the proposed trade-off acceptable?*

_Other: Let's hear it!_


Just eliminate Iterative Attacks.

Then...

Limit multiple attacks by monsters (only give them a second attack if they're originally listed as having multiple attacks, and then only if their first attack is successful).

and...

Decrease HP of monsters (whatever "feels" right, somewhere like 10% to 25%, depending on how dificult or "balanced" you want it).


This will also have the added benefit of making combat move faster, and make Feats like Cleave really mean something.


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## Treebore (Jan 4, 2009)

So to sum up, your saying your analysis shows by hitting more often with that second attack they actually do more damage close to 90% of the time? I can believe that, because I felt my third and 4th attacks were all but useless to roll for. Like you said, you hardly ever hit with them, especially against encounters "of your level".

Sounds to me like the way to go.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Jan 4, 2009)

Treebore said:


> So to sum up, your saying your analysis shows by hitting more often with that second attack they actually do more damage close to 90% of the time? I can believe that, because I felt my third and 4th attacks were all but useless to roll for. Like you said, you hardly ever hit with them, especially against encounters "of your level".
> 
> Sounds to me like the way to go.




Extremely well put! That's it exactly.


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## mmu1 (Jan 4, 2009)

I think you should have had a "Yes, it's acceptable even though I still like iterative attacks as they are now." option.

That's how I feel, anyway - I'm pretty happy with how attacks work currently, but I'd be willing to consider an alternative provided it wasn't so simplified that you only ever got one attack per round (without using powers/special abilities).

I suppose the ideal thing from my point of view would be a system under which you still got up to 4 iterative attacks, but calculated in such a way that you'd be able to use the same modifer for all of them, but I doubt that the amount of overhauling required to make that happen would be practical - or even doable.


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## Thondor (Jan 4, 2009)

I remember an Old thread (in 3e house rules) that basically established the idea that using the old 1e/2e rules for etra attacke created extremely similar average damage. Just proposing the idea that you could look at that. 
Quick check in the (2e) Paladin's handbook: 7th level 2/3 attacks per round (eg 2 attacks in first round, 1 in secound etc) 13+ 2/round. I believe the fighter got these a level sooner then the paladin and ranger. The simplicity is that your attack roll doesn't change -- eg surprise round and standard action attacks are the same as when you get more attacks.
I have used this rule in a 3.5 game that got to 8th level. It does make things simpler. (I usually let the player decide what round they get their first 2 attacks)


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## Runestar (Jan 4, 2009)

On a side note, does anyone have any suggestions on what they normally do with their iterative attacks, considering that you tend to miss quite frequently with them? Do you just pray that the dice roll your way, or is there a more efficient option for using them?

For example, tome of battle has the stormguard warrior feat. So a high lv fighter with said feat could convert his 3rd and 4th attack into touch attacks (deal no damage, but grant a small damage bonus on all his attacks for the next round). So unless your foe too has a very high touch AC, you shouldn't have any issues hitting with touch attacks.

Tripping could be made using your last attack (since for some reason, opposed trip checks ignore bab). Not sure if there is some justification for not initiating a trip on your first attack, given the +4 to-hit being prone grants (which applies to all your subsequent attacks). Sunder/disarm is out, given they involve opposed attack rolls.

Some other trick?


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## kitsune9 (Jan 4, 2009)

I  like these discussions on iterative attacks. It's an interesting dilemma in that we know some of the inherent problems with having so many attacks per round, how the last attacks are basically useless, etc., etc.

In my campaign, even though it's a pain at high levels, we play iteratives as is so some of the players in my game by the time they reached 16th level, two weapon fighting, haste, etc, they do about 10 attacks in a single round I think. 

My overall problem with iteratives is the high level aspect of it in slowing down the game. At the lower levels, it's not really a big deal.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Jan 4, 2009)

mmu1 said:


> I think you should have had a "Yes, it's acceptable even though I still like iterative attacks as they are now." option.




I did my best to tune the questions to provide an answer that helps me as a designer.  



> I suppose the ideal thing from my point of view would be a system under which you still got up to 4 iterative attacks, but calculated in such a way that you'd be able to use the same modifer for all of them, but I doubt that the amount of overhauling required to make that happen would be practical - or even doable.




The overhaul is not problematic at all. You look at the first attack entry in the Full Attack on the statblock, then subtract the modifier for the first and all iterative attacks. It's very easy to do on the fly.

Also, remember that we are talking about iterative attacks, and not multiple attacks. There is a difference. A claw/claw/bite routine is an example of multiple attacks.

In searching for a flat penalty, I also looked at -5/-5/-5 at 11th; and -7/-7/-7/-7 at 16th. They also "work" but they expanded the size of the upper edge cases. In other words, they redefine "Really hard creatures to hit" down from needing a natural 18 to hit, to needing a natural 13 to hit. (There's one creature at the 18+ mark: The svirfneblin. There are scores of creatures at 13+. Big difference.)



Thondor said:


> I remember an Old thread (in 3e house rules) that basically established the idea that using the old 1e/2e rules for extra attacks created extremely similar average damage. Just proposing the idea that you could look at that.




I remember that rule well. 

I will look at it out of curiosity, but I always hated having to remember whether I was on a 1-attack round or a 2-attack round. It was as annoying as 1-2-1 counting for movement. 



Runestar said:


> On a side note, does anyone have any suggestions on what they normally do with their iterative attacks, considering that you tend to miss quite frequently with them? Do you just pray that the dice roll your way, or is there a more efficient option for using them?






kitsune9 said:


> I like these discussions on iterative attacks. It's an interesting dilemma in that we know some of the inherent problems with having so many attacks per round, how the last attacks are basically useless, etc., etc.




This kind of anecdotal feedback is useful to me, but I am still waiting for the guy who says, "No way, man. If it weren't for that 3rd and 4th attack, I never could have taken out that black pudding with that broom handle."

(Most of the oozes fall into the category of "So easy you can't miss.")



> Tripping could be made using your last attack (since for some reason, opposed trip checks ignore bab). Not sure if there is some justification for not initiating a trip on your first attack, given the +4 to-hit being prone grants (which applies to all your subsequent attacks). Sunder/disarm is out, given they involve opposed attack rolls.




Well, now, that's another issue entirely. Pathfinder has a good leg up on Combat Maneuvers but I would like to see them made more useful.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Jan 4, 2009)

I wish there was a poll option where I could make the respondents viewable to the poll starter but not the public. 

I'd like to ask the "Unacceptable" folks some follow-ups.


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## Kid Charlemagne (Jan 4, 2009)

Wulf Ratbane said:


> If your expected damage over the range of 80-90% of all creatures you will encounter will INCREASE by 5 to 20%, would you be willing to lose your 3rd and 4th attack, and accept a DECREASE against the "edge case" creatures (very high AC or very low AC)?




Yes, this seems like a very good way of handling it.  One question  - how do you handle two-weapon fighters in this case?  A ranger with six attacks (3 with each hand)?


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## Wulf Ratbane (Jan 4, 2009)

Kid Charlemagne said:


> Yes, this seems like a very good way of handling it.  One question  - how do you handle two-weapon fighters in this case?  A ranger with six attacks (3 with each hand)?




The TWF feats are designed to let your off-hand mimic what your main hand is doing at the same bonus for the same iterative attack. Mechanically, that wouldn't change.

Since your main hand isn't making a 3rd or 4th attack, Greater and Superior TWF would go away-- or need to be altered (e.g., lessening the off-hand penalties by 1 each).


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## The Black Kestrel (Jan 4, 2009)

Wulf,

I'm at toss up. I was happy with the Pathfinder solution to iterative attacks (Vital Strike and Imp. Vital Strike) which essentially fixes your attacks at 11th level and beyond to 0,-5 with a damage boost (1 extra die of damage or two extra dice of damage). I like that you retain the option of additional iterative attacks for the "edge" opponents with the Pathfinder solution. I'm also curious if you have modeled the PF solution versus yours and how it turns out from a hit perspective and from a damage perspective. 

So for now, I'm unable to vote.

P.S. Get cracking on Trailblazer


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## Wulf Ratbane (Jan 4, 2009)

The Black Kestrel said:


> Wulf,
> 
> I'm at toss up. I was happy with the Pathfinder solution to iterative attacks (Vital Strike and Imp. Vital Strike) which essentially fixes your attacks at 11th level and beyond to 0,-5 with a damage boost (1 extra die of damage or two extra dice of damage).




Flat damage boosts don't really replace iterative attacks. They can't, because a flat damage boost has no way of knowing how many damage dice you might have been adding. 

Let's look at SWSE for example, that gives a flat damage boost of 1/2 your level instead of iterative attacks.

If your attack has a fairly low vanilla damage rating-- say a plain sword with an average of 9.5 damage-- then a +10 damage bonus at +20 BAB works out just fine.

But if your attack is a +3 holy flaming longsword, and you happen to be sneak attacking for +7d6, well then a flat +10 damage isn't going to come close to replacing the lost iterative attacks. (You'd average 1d8+2d6+1d6+7d6 = ~40 damage, plus STR.)

Vital Strike and Improved Vital Strike work the same way. They only multiply the base weapon's damage-- no bonuses for STR, magical effects, sneak attack, successful crits, etc. 

If you're using a weapon that does 1d8 base damage, then Vital Strike takes you from 1d8/1d8/1d8 at 0/-5/-10 to 2d8/2d8 at 0/-5.



> I like that you retain the option of additional iterative attacks for the "edge" opponents with the Pathfinder solution.




Well of course you do! Who _wouldn't_ like to choose the best possible expectation at all times?

I'm wary of Spreadsheet Warriors who keep a tally of exactly when they are better off using Attack Mode A or Attack Mode B. 



> I'm also curious if you have modeled the PF solution versus yours and how it turns out from a hit perspective and from a damage perspective.




Just eyeballing it I can tell you that can't replace an unknown amount of damage (flaming? high STR? sneak attack?) with a known amount of damage (weapon average damage) and expect it to "work out."

Basically, given the choice, you will _always _use Vital Strike if the damage expectation exceeds the expectation on your third attack.

If Vital Strike adds 9 damage (on average, considering 1d8 base weapon that yields a 2d8 boost) then you will use Vital Strike anytime that:

9 > (3rd attack probability)*(3rd attack average damage).

If your third attack has a 5% chance of hitting (nat 20), you'd need to be averaging 180 damage per attack to equal Vital Strike. (Not likely...)

Conversely if your 3rd attack hits 50% of the time, you'd only need to be averaging 18 damage-- trivial for most fighters and rogues.

You can do the math in reverse. If you know that your holy flaming longsword sneak attack averages 40 damage, then you know you want to use it anytime your chance to hit on your third attack exceeds 9/40, or 22.5% (ie, you hit on a natural 16 or better). 

If you need a natural 17 or better, go with Vital Strike.

Speaking, admittedly, as a lazy designer who is just eye-balling it, I conclude that Vital Strike is lazy design and Jason just eye-balled it. 



> P.S. Get cracking on Trailblazer.




Dude, this _IS _cracking on Trailblazer.


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## DaveMage (Jan 4, 2009)

How unbalancing it is to simply make all iteritave attacks at -5?  (Though you would earn iterative attacks at the same time you do under the standard rules.)

So, instead of +11/+6/+1, you would have +11/+6/+6.

A 20th level fighter would have a BAB of +20/+15/+15/+15.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Jan 4, 2009)

DaveMage said:


> How unbalancing it is to simply make all iteritave attacks at -5?  (Though you would earn iterative attacks at the same time you do under the standard rules.)
> 
> So, instead of +11/+6/+1, you would have +11/+6/+6.
> 
> A 20th level fighter would have a BAB of +20/+15/+15/+15.




Easy to check with my spreadsheet. Be right back to edit this post.

Up to a 30% increase in expected damage at 3 attacks.

Up to a 50% increase in expected damage at 4 attacks, with the biggest gains across the subset of most common ACs you will encounter.


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## Treebore (Jan 4, 2009)

Wulf Ratbane said:


> Easy to check with my spreadsheet. Be right back to edit this post.
> 
> Up to a 30% increase in expected damage at 3 attacks.
> 
> Up to a 50% increase in expected damage at 4 attacks, with the biggest gains across the subset of most common ACs you will encounter.





Which standard are you comparing these too? D&D standard or your idea? IF its the D&D standard how does it compare to your idea?


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## mmu1 (Jan 4, 2009)

Wulf Ratbane said:


> This kind of anecdotal feedback is useful to me, but I am still waiting for the guy who says, "No way, man. If it weren't for that 3rd and 4th attack, I never could have taken out that black pudding with that broom handle."
> 
> (Most of the oozes fall into the category of "So easy you can't miss.")




Now that you mention it...

I've actually done something like that - our group nailed the BBEG and we were about to book, rather than fight an enormous ooze released by one of the traps guarding his den of evil (because IIRC the wizard figured out it had the at-will ability to try to transport someone to a random plane), when I decided that hell no, my dwarven barbarian wasn't going to run without at least _trying_ to kill it. Four attacks on max Power Attack later, the thing was modern art.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Jan 4, 2009)

Treebore said:


> Which standard are you comparing these too? D&D standard or your idea? IF its the D&D standard how does it compare to your idea?




Comparing to RAW.

My method increases damage expectation over the RAW by no more than 16%, and has a drop-off on the edge cases to compensate.

0/5/5/5 is all upside.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Jan 4, 2009)

mmu1 said:


> Now that you mention it...
> 
> Four attacks on max Power Attack later, the thing was modern art.




Heh. Right. 

But notwithstanding losing the ability to _GO NUTS_ on a gelatinous cube... how's the idea grab you?


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## Johnny Angel (Jan 5, 2009)

What about Monks?  They get a Flurry of Blows, after all, and are liable to stack Two-Weapon Fighting on top of that.  And they aren't just going to be using it for damage -- with Improved Trip and such abilities they can make a lot of use of those extra attacks.  But this makes their turns take forever at higher levels.  Seems like they've got a lot to lose by your system.


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## Runestar (Jan 5, 2009)

Johnny Angel said:


> What about Monks?  They get a Flurry of Blows, after all, and are liable to stack Two-Weapon Fighting on top of that.  And they aren't just going to be using it for damage -- with Improved Trip and such abilities they can make a lot of use of those extra attacks.  But this makes their turns take forever at higher levels.  Seems like they've got a lot to lose by your system.




Well, PHB2 did refer to flurry of blows as "flurry of misses", and the OP's model is very similar to the decisive strike variant it gave the monk (the intention was to give the monk fewer, but more meaningful attacks). It is a waste of time if you had 9-10 attacks, but only a few could hit consistently (since you are still entitled to an attack roll, even if you are going to hit only on a natural 20). 

It is not without its merits. Dr is less of a consequence, since you make fewer attacks. Gameplay would be sped up, since you make fewer rolls. But abilities which trigger on hit, such as sneak attack, may be less valuable. Power attack's efficacy would be easier to gauge since all your attacks are made with the same bab. 

I am liking it more and more.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Jan 5, 2009)

Johnny Angel said:


> What about Monks?  They get a Flurry of Blows, after all, and are liable to stack Two-Weapon Fighting on top of that.  And they aren't just going to be using it for damage -- with Improved Trip and such abilities they can make a lot of use of those extra attacks. Seems like they've got a lot to lose by your system.




Anybody who rolls a lot of d20s, against edge case ACs (very high and very low) is going to lose damage.



> But this [making lots of use of extra attacks] makes their turns take forever at higher levels.




That's why folks want iterative attacks "fixed."

Personally I feel that the biggest slowdown is in the variable attack bonus. Doing the math for every attack is a pain in the ass. I don't care if you're playing a hasted thri-kreen monk-ranger-Tempest and you have 12 attacks, if you can roll all of your attacks at once and easily sort them into hits and misses, that's fine by me.

It's having to roll them one at a time, each with a different attack bonus, that drags the game down.

So to be clear-- my proposal, which reigns the attack sequence back to two attacks, is doing it _primarily _because it is the closest match to existing damage expectation, not because "two attacks is fewer than four attacks."


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## Jeff Wilder (Jan 5, 2009)

Wulf Ratbane said:


> It's having to roll them one at a time, each with a different attack bonus, that drags the game down.
> 
> So to be clear-- my proposal, which reigns the attack sequence back to two attacks, is doing it _primarily _because it is the closest match to existing damage expectation, not because "two attacks is fewer than four attacks."



That's interesting, because the appeal of your proposal for me _is _that "two attacks is fewer than four attacks."  With one exception in my groups, nobody has a problem with "+14, then +9, then +4."  (Obviously, +12/+12 would be simpler.)

With a couple of exceptions, the high-BAB PC-players don't particularly like rolling multiple attacks at once, actually, and as far as I'm aware, nobody begrudges them the few extra seconds of suspense on their turn.  In our groups, spellcasters tend to take significantly longer turns than BAB monsters.


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## mmu1 (Jan 5, 2009)

Wulf Ratbane said:


> Heh. Right.
> 
> But notwithstanding losing the ability to _GO NUTS_ on a gelatinous cube... how's the idea grab you?




As far as the various alternatives to iterative attacks go, I think it's probably the best one I've read so far. I've never been a fan of the "one attack with an increasing damage bonus" way of solving the problem.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Jan 5, 2009)

Jeff Wilder said:


> That's interesting, because the appeal of your proposal for me _is _that "two attacks is fewer than four attacks."




Don't misunderstand me: It's a happy coincidence.



> With one exception in my groups, nobody has a problem with "+14, then +9, then +4."  (Obviously, +12/+12 would be simpler.)




I don't have a problem with it either-- in terms of having a problem doing the math. But there is no question that it is incrementally slower than a batch roll with one modifier. 



> As far as I'm aware, nobody begrudges them the few extra seconds of suspense on their turn.




Same here, for the most part. In fact, I have made exactly that argument in defending the confirmation roll on crits. We like that moment of suspense.

But-- allowing of course that groups differ-- nobody really finds it "suspenseful" wondering if Bob is going to correctly add 14+9 for once in his friggin' life.


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## Holy Bovine (Jan 5, 2009)

I like Wulf's solution - it is simple and easy to work with.  In my own experience I have had fighters take the special ability from the PHB 2 that allows them to dump all of their extra attacks and gain an second attack at their highest attack bonus.  The pure fighter who took it never lacked for massive damage output!


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## med stud (Jan 7, 2009)

Would I accept an increase in damage in 90% of the cases as a tradeoff for losing out vs the rest of the 10%? Of course!

I also like the solution, I found it funny that in 3.x, the most brawny characterclasses requires the most math-savvy players to play the most efficient . This way it becomes easier.

I also thought about the corner cases you refer to; couldn't there be some solution that increases critical chance if you go up against very low AC? It would still leave the "only hit on a 20"- problem unsolved, but really, how common is that sort of opposition? At least I find it in poor form to the players of fighters to bring in that kind of opposition.


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## Arkhandus (Jan 7, 2009)

I don't like the idea......a skilled warrior should be able to wound or defeat several opponents at once, and cleave/great cleave/whirlwind attack are rather limited means of doing so (and relying on other stuff besides mere skill a.k.a. BAB).

And AC serves mostly to fend off iterative/secondary attacks at upper levels (at least against average or serious challenges), AFAIK, so eliminating those iterative attacks (or making them no worse than the primary in accuracy) makes AC lose most of its value (ergo making armor, shields, and such half-worthless).

If my fighter's high AC from magic armor + magic shield + feats and Dex and stuff only serves to give the enemy's attacks a small margin of failure, without at least shielding my fighter from a lot of iterative and secondary/off-hand attacks, it ain't worth the trade-off in my damage output or other abilities (and why not just play a barbarian then, for the DR if getting hit every time is just going to be a foregone conclusion?).


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## Wulf Ratbane (Jan 7, 2009)

Arkhandus said:


> AC serves mostly to fend off iterative/secondary attacks at upper levels (at least against average or serious challenges), AFAIK, so eliminating those iterative attacks (or making them no worse than the primary in accuracy) makes AC lose most of its value (ergo making armor, shields, and such half-worthless).
> 
> If my fighter's high AC from magic armor + magic shield + feats and Dex and stuff only serves to give the enemy's attacks a small margin of failure, without at least shielding my fighter from a lot of iterative and secondary/off-hand attacks, it ain't worth the trade-off in my damage output or other abilities (and why not just play a barbarian then, for the DR if getting hit every time is just going to be a foregone conclusion?).




Thanks for laying out your reasoning, Arkhandus. Those are indeed valid points.

At what level (currently) do you feel that AC stops being of any use against primary attacks? 

How many creatures in the SRD do you suppose have 3 or more iterative attacks at -10 or -15?

(Note that multiple attacks-- eg claw/claw/bite-- are not the same thing as iterative attacks.)

Interesting: 21 of 564, counting templates and Good creatures.


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## Darrin Drader (Jan 7, 2009)

I'll be honest, I think your system has merit if plugged directly into 3.5. 

However, I like the way Pathfinder handles this issue. If you have Great Cleave, you keep attacking nearby opponents as long as you keep hitting. This gives you the same potential to affect a lot of opponents with a single attack as if you were a wizard casting an area effect spell. Or, if you take Vital Strike and Improved Vital Strike, you can forego iterative attacks and just deal more damage on the attack(s). I can't think of a reason why you'd want to use traditional iterative attacks if you have those feats.

I ran a 5th level game a while back where the fighter was using the new version of Cleave to see if it tipped game balance too far in his direction and I was pretty pleased with the way it worked.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Jan 7, 2009)

Darrin Drader said:


> I'll be honest, I think your system has merit if plugged directly into 3.5.
> 
> However, I like the way Pathfinder handles this issue. If you have Great Cleave, you keep attacking nearby opponents as long as you keep hitting.




On its own, that's fine. It's certainly "more attacks" than before.

As a replacement for iterative attacks, it sucks. Negative binomial distribution is a harsh mistress.



> Or, if you take Vital Strike and Improved Vital Strike, you can forego iterative attacks and just deal more damage on the attack(s). I can't think of a reason why you'd want to use traditional iterative attacks if you have those feats.




I dealt with Vital Strike and IVS a few posts back, wherein I was very specific as to why you would want to use your iterative attacks in place of those feats.


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## Darrin Drader (Jan 7, 2009)

> On its own, that's fine. It's certainly "more attacks" than before.
> 
> As a replacement for iterative attacks, it sucks. Negative binomial distribution is a harsh mistress.




I suppose that depends on what you're fighting. Going back to that 5th level playtest I ran, the party was up against a group of orcs. The fighter with the Improved Cleave feat walked out into the middle of a group of five and started swinging, hit four, and did an average of something like 12.5 points of damage to each of them.

Against opponents with higher ACs, I can see how that would be less useful. 



Wulf Ratbane said:


> I dealt with Vital Strike and IVS a few posts back, wherein I was very specific as to why you would want to use your iterative attacks in place of those feats.




Aha!



> Flat damage boosts don't really replace iterative attacks. They can't, because a flat damage boost has no way of knowing how many damage dice you might have been adding.
> 
> Let's look at SWSE for example, that gives a flat damage boost of 1/2 your level instead of iterative attacks.
> 
> ...




I suppose that should motivate me to pay a little more attention before posting.

I guess my question then becomes, if I were to use your system, would VS and IVS still be attractive feats to take? Is your system maybe a little too good?


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## Runestar (Jan 7, 2009)

AC does have a use even if your enemy is going to hit you on a 2. 

In the very least, it prevents you from becoming a power attack magnet of sorts.


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## ruemere (Jan 7, 2009)

How does the new system interact with 3.5 Power Attack and 3.5 Combat Expertise? Are the penalties sufficiently low not to invalidate both feats?

Regards,
Ruemere


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## Wulf Ratbane (Jan 7, 2009)

Darrin Drader said:


> I suppose that depends on what you're fighting. Against opponents with higher ACs, I can see how that would be less useful.




It can't be _less useful _than the prior version of Cleave/Great Cleave. 

The old version of Cleave/GC require you to drop the opponent to trigger the bonus attack(s). Dropping the opponent, perforce, requires a successful hit. 

The new C/GC give you a bonus attack on a successful, regardless of whether you drop the target or not.

(At least that's my understanding from context here-- I'm not looking at my PF doc at the moment.)



> I suppose that should motivate me to pay a little more attention before posting.




NP! (And in retrospect my reply looks a lot more snarky this morning than I intended it last night. It was late, and I had turtles and cats on my mind.)



> I guess my question then becomes, if I were to use your system, would VS and IVS still be attractive feats to take? Is your system maybe a little too good?




I think you have to evaluate what I have presented here in the context of standing alone as "the" fix for iterative attacks.

VS and IVS are very easy to evaluate-- use the "reverse" damage calculation I mentioned in that post. If their expectation is better, you'd use them. 

The kinds of characters I build, I don't think they'd be used very often, but not everybody is a twink like me.


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## Voadam (Jan 7, 2009)

Wulf Ratbane said:


> There are other emergent benefits to this proposal (levelling the expected damage output non-fighter classes, *reducing the necessity of AC-pumping for PCs,* etc.) but I am primarily concerned with how this fix strikes the primary fighting classes.




How does this reduce the need for PCs to AC Pump?

Don't the two high attack rolls with no low ones mean that mid level AC is less useful than it would be compared with facing secondary iteratives with significantly lower attack rolls? Doesn't this lead to PCs pumping their ACs to their max since they only face those high attack rolls?


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## Darrin Drader (Jan 7, 2009)

Wulf Ratbane said:


> It can't be _less useful _than the prior version of Cleave/Great Cleave.
> 
> The old version of Cleave/GC require you to drop the opponent to trigger the bonus attack(s). Dropping the opponent, perforce, requires a successful hit.
> 
> ...




Yeah, that's absolutely correct, and I agree that the Pathfinder versions are a lot more useful than the 3.5 versions.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Jan 8, 2009)

Voadam said:


> How does this reduce the need for PCs to AC Pump?
> 
> Don't the two high attack rolls with no low ones mean that mid level AC is less useful than it would be compared with facing secondary iteratives with significantly lower attack rolls? Doesn't this lead to PCs pumping their ACs to their max since they only face those high attack rolls?




You basically can't pump your AC high enough to stop the first or second attack of most creatures in the BAB +11 range. So as someone else pointed out upthread, the point of AC at high levels is to deflect the 3rd (-10) and 4th (-15) attacks.

This is by design, by the way. At low levels, combat is supposed to be boolean-- hit or miss, because one or two hits can put you down. At high level, the game switches from a boolean model to an attrittive one.

Wellllll... heh. On the hit point scale, anyway. In fact it remains a boolean game with respect to Save or Die.


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## Runestar (Jan 8, 2009)

> You basically can't pump your AC high enough to stop the first or second attack of most creatures in the BAB +11 range. So as someone else pointed out upthread, the point of AC at high levels is to deflect the 3rd (-10) and 4th (-15) attacks.




As a PC or npc?

A lot of monsters tend to use natural attacks, and if you give them improved multiattack, this effectively means that all their attacks are made at the same bab. So if your AC can't stop the 1st one, it won't stop any of them. 

The only consolation is with regards to whether it decides to power attack for 10 or 20.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jan 8, 2009)

Wulf Ratbane said:


> You basically can't pump your AC high enough to stop the first or second attack of most creatures in the BAB +11 range. So as someone else pointed out upthread, the point of AC at high levels is to deflect the 3rd (-10) and 4th (-15) attacks.
> 
> This is by design, by the way.



You mean it was the intention of the 3E designers? Why did they never tell anyone? (Or did they, and I missed the memo?)


I like the change. I think the speed-up (both in number of rolls and ease of calculation) is totally worth the loss of damage in the few corner cases.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Jan 8, 2009)

Runestar said:


> As a PC or npc?
> 
> A lot of monsters tend to use natural attacks, and if you give them improved multiattack, this effectively means that all their attacks are made at the same bab. So if your AC can't stop the 1st one, it won't stop any of them.




More than "a lot" of creatures use natural attacks. The vast majority use natural attacks (not iterative attacks-- certainly true of the BAB 11 and higher crowd; see above). And most creatures with natural attacks _don't_ have multi-attack. (But that's a pure wild guess at the moment!)

So for most, they'll be at +0 primary and -5 secondary. There are no "tertiary" natural attacks at -10. The only way to have a -10 penalty is to use iterative attacks, and there aren't that many creatures that have 3rd and 4th iterative attacks (see my post above). 

Monsters' average attack roll (that's attack bonus +11) lags behind the tank PCs average AC up through 9th level (assuming a sword and board fighter who is diligent about upgrading his AC*).

Beyond 9th level, AC starts to lag the average attack roll, until the monsters have a 10 point advantage at 20th level. 

So to put that (hopefully) more clearly: Starting at 9th level, monsters are _designed _to hit the "good AC" PCs on _at least_ a 11+ (and it only gets better from there). That means the secondary attacks will land on a 16+. (If you are not a "good AC" PC then the outlook is even more grim for you.)

A creature with iterative attacks, on average, would be looking for natural 20s on the 3rd and 4th rolls.

(Obviously if your campaign uses lots of high level NPCs as BBEGs, you have a different situation.)



* This counts +9 AC for "armor + DEX" (in any configuration), +2 for large shield, and level-appropriate magic bonuses for armor, shield, deflection, and natural armor. You _could _gain another +1 for dodge; +2 for mithril armor; +2 for tower shield.


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## Voadam (Jan 9, 2009)

Wulf Ratbane said:


> You basically can't pump your AC high enough to stop the first or second attack of most creatures in the BAB +11 range. So as someone else pointed out upthread, the point of AC at high levels is to deflect the 3rd (-10) and 4th (-15) attacks.
> 
> This is by design, by the way. At low levels, combat is supposed to be boolean-- hit or miss, because one or two hits can put you down. At high level, the game switches from a boolean model to an attrittive one.
> 
> Wellllll... heh. On the hit point scale, anyway. In fact it remains a boolean game with respect to Save or Die.




So your saying since you take out those 3rd and 4th iteratives (and bumping up that second one) you take away the main point of AC, so there is less incentive to drive as hard as you can on AC at higher levels (especially for normally mid AC classes like rangers or rogues) because it will be increasingly marginally useful. Also the difference between mid AC and no AC bonus will diminish leading to unarmored D&D characters being more viable.

As noted though AC will still be useful to prevent massive power attack in addition to the increasingly little chance of stopping those full BAB strikes.

Will switching to your system mean that pumping AC by 2 for example lead to less damage blocked on average than under the iterative system for a sample BAB 11+ monster/NPC?


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## Wulf Ratbane (Jan 9, 2009)

Voadam said:


> So your saying since you take out those 3rd and 4th iteratives (and bumping up that second one) you take away the main point of AC, so there is less incentive to drive as hard as you can on AC at higher levels (especially for normally mid AC classes like rangers or rogues) because it will be increasingly marginally useful. Also the difference between mid AC and no AC bonus will diminish leading to unarmored D&D characters being more viable.
> 
> As noted though AC will still be useful to prevent massive power attack in addition to the increasingly little chance of stopping those full BAB strikes.
> 
> Will switching to your system mean that pumping AC by 2 for example lead to less damage blocked on average than under the iterative system for a sample BAB 11+ monster/NPC?




I couldn't figure out anything of what you said to snip. It's all good.

Now that I have actually looked at the data, I am not sure why anyone was incentivized to pursue AC as a strategy at high levels.

Remember that 9th level or so is the turning point. The farther away you are from 9th level the more (at low level) or less (at high level) AC will matter.


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## Arkhandus (Jan 9, 2009)

Wulf Ratbane said:


> At what level (currently) do you feel that AC stops being of any use against primary attacks?
> 
> How many creatures in the SRD do you suppose have 3 or more iterative attacks at -10 or -15?
> 
> ...



Well, let's see.  At 6th-level a human fighter can easily have +12 to hit and do 2d6+9 damage (+6 BAB +4 Str +1 Focus +1 enhancement, 2d6 greatsword +6 Str +2 specialization +1 enhancement), while an opposing fighter could have AC 23 or 24 (+1 Dex +9 magic full plate +3 magic heavy shield +1 Dodge), +2 more if using a tower shield instead.  A troll would hit them less often, a gorillon or chuul just as often as the fighter, and a hill giant or bulette more often....  So fairly even there...

At 11th-level that fighter could have +22 to hit (+11 BAB, +5 Str, +2 Belt of Giant Strength, +2 focus and greater focus, +2 enhancement) and deal 2d6+14 damage (+10 Str, +2 specialization, +2 enhancement), versus another fighter with AC of 30 (+3 Dex, +10 magic mithral full plate, +4 magic heavy shield, +1 ring, +1 amulet, +1 Dodge) or 32 with a tower shield instead, also roughly even.  A glabrezu or fire giant or frost worm or dire tiger would hit about as often, a hamatula or stone golem less often, an adult or mature adult dragon just as often, a purple worm more often.

I'd say it starts to break down more around 14th or 15th-level.  And trying for high AC severely cuts down on damage output by then (moderately so at the lower to middle levels).  The greatsword fighter's high-AC counterpart would be attacking at maybe +12 for 1d8+7 damage at 6th-level or +19 for 1d8+8 at 11th (maybe a bit better if they could afford a strength-booster despite their expensive AC-boosters).  And it just gets worse from there for the AC-guy.

Final edit (man I wish I could type more than a paragraph at once without getting auto-logged-out): My point is mostly just, though, that your AC isn't going to stop the primary attacks much; if you really try to pump it up, you may get hit half the time by primaries, but your damage output will be lower than your enemy's and you won't have as much attack bonus to use for accuracy or Power Attacking.


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## The Black Kestrel (Jan 13, 2009)

Wulf Ratbane said:


> Dude, this _IS _cracking on Trailblazer.




I should have edited that to say get cracking on Trailblazer _ FASTER _.

Thanks for taking the time to answer my question in terms the semi-math literate like myself can understand. You sir have a convert.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Jan 13, 2009)

The Black Kestrel said:


> Thanks for taking the time to answer my question in terms the semi-math literate like myself can understand. You sir have a convert.




If you haven't already seen it, you may find some more applied math in my Encounter Budgeting.

It's in this forum... search this forum for posts by me.

Lots more to come. I'm getting excited!


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## maddman75 (Jan 13, 2009)

I think this would dramatically speed up play.  No, rolling at +22, then +17, then +12, then +7 isn't terribly complicated.  But if I'm just rolling two dice at +20, I can roll them all at once and be done.  It effectively turns four rolls into one.  Damage can be all rolled in one handful as well.

As for the outliers, maybe a couple of options in that case?  Proposals

- If a natural 20 is *required* to hit (ex you have +11 to hit and they have AC 35) and the character rolls a natural 20, the crit is automatically confirmed.
- If the character has +19 or more needed to hit ie, only misses on a one, they gain one additional attack when the opponent is felled.  If the character has the Cleave/Great Cleave feats, this attack is in addition to the ones granted by those feats.

Plug that into your spreadsheet and see how it helps the outliers!


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## Achan hiArusa (Jan 13, 2009)

Multiple attacks were so much easier to deal with and you didn't feel like you had to give up attacks.  I am going to try a variant of the Martial Pool http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera.../241602-martial-pool-new-combat-mechanic.html in the place of iterative attacks.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Jan 13, 2009)

maddman75 said:


> As for the outliers, maybe a couple of options in that case?




Folks have mentioned a couple of things in this thread, including Power Attack, and now Cleave.

As long as I am rebalancing classes, I might look at granting a couple of such feat-like abilities to the Fighter, regardless.


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## Nellisir (Jan 14, 2009)

My only critique is that the declining penalty (-2/-1/0) is a little clunky, since it gives the appearance (not actuality, just appearance) that the character's BAB is going backward and then jumping forward.

But that's a nitpick.  Overall I like it better than 4 iterative attacks.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Jan 14, 2009)

Nellisir said:


> My only critique is that the declining penalty (-2/-1/0) is a little clunky, since it gives the appearance (not actuality, just appearance) that the character's BAB is going backward and then jumping forward.
> 
> But that's a nitpick.  Overall I like it better than 4 iterative attacks.




It's the same mechanic as the monk's extra unarmed strikes. I didn't review it for clunky appearance, just the expected damage.


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## Kid Charlemagne (Jan 14, 2009)

Here's an extremely top-of-my-head idea that intrigues me, but I haven't remotely thought through the consequences.  It kind of ties into the Trailblazer idea of Combat Reactions.

I was thinking of how 1E handled multiple attacks - if you had multiples attacks, you got your first one, and then your opponent got his, and then you got your second attack (nobody I know actually played it exactly this way but that's another story).  I was thinking "how could you do that in 3E?"  I thought of having a delayed, two-part initiative - IE I rolled a 20 for initiative, I would get my first attack at 20, my second at 15, etc.

But that's more complication than its worth.  So then I thought that it was more like a reaction - and that spurred me to think: what if you only got 1 attack per round, but got more reactions, and more things that triggered reactions - for example, what if when you got your second attack, you instead got a Combat Reaction that allowed you to take a swing at someone when they took a swing at you?  There are feats out there that let you do this, but I'm talking about making it a core piece of the combat rules.

Like I said, I have no thoughts whatsoever on how this would impact game play, or how balanced it would be (luckily folks like Wulf are around who are highly skilled at the mathematics of this sort of thing).  It just seemed like an idea I had never heard proposed and that it was worth tossing out there.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Jan 14, 2009)

Kid Charlemagne said:


> Here's an extremely top-of-my-head idea...




Already part of the plan.


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## Gantros (Jan 15, 2009)

In general, I like the original idea.  I think it's an improvement over the standard iterative attack rules in terms of speed and simplicity.  On the other hand, it still has the downsides of reducing the number of attacks a high-level fighter can make, and it still requires 4 rolls (2 attacks + 2 damage) per full attack with all of their attendant modifiers.

Here's an alternative suggestion I came up with.  Basically you can choose from two ways to use iterative attacks - against a single opponent, or against multiple opponents.

Single opponent

Make a standard attack.  If it misses, no further attacks are possible against that opponent this round.  If it hits, roll damage and apply any modifiers or critical effects.

At 6th level or higher, if the attack beats the target AC by 5 or more, total damage is doubled.
At 11th level or higher, if the attack beats the target AC by 10 or more, total damage is tripled.
At 16th level or higher, if the attack beats the target AC by 15 or more, total damage is quadrupled.

Multiple opponents

Make separate attack and damage rolls for each opponent.

At 6th level, you can attack up to two opponents, each at -2 to hit.
At 11th level, you can attack up to three opponents, each at -4 to hit.
At 16th level, you can attack up to four opponents, each at -6 to hit.

Why do it this way?  In my experience, iterative attacks are most commonly used to beat on a single opponent, and in this case it seems unnecessary to require multiple rolls with different modifiers.  This method lets you get away with one attack roll and one damage roll in all such cases, at the cost of a little bit of extra math.  It also gives you the option of hitting multiple opponents as before, which still requires multiple rolls and bonus calculations, but it's simplified by having a single modifier for all attacks.  The modifiers were selected to make the 3rd and 4th attacks more meaningful, while keeping the average probabilities of scoring hits relatively unchanged.

You could potentially even combine the single + multiple attack options if desired (e.g. a 16th level fighter attacks two opponents at -2 each, with 2x damage if he beats either AC by 5 or more).


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## kibbitz (Jan 15, 2009)

Gantros said:


> In general, I like the original idea.  I think it's an improvement over the standard iterative attack rules in terms of speed and simplicity.  On the other hand, it still has the downsides of reducing the number of attacks a high-level fighter can make, and it still requires 4 rolls (2 attacks + 2 damage) per full attack with all of their attendant modifiers.
> 
> Here's an alternative suggestion I came up with.  Basically you can choose from two ways to use iterative attacks - against a single opponent, or against multiple opponents.
> 
> ...




Interesting idea, but the need to beat the AC by a certain amount conflicts with the existing mechanic for Power Attack. If you went this route, how would you remodel Power Attack?


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## Wulf Ratbane (Jan 15, 2009)

Gantros, what are the damage expectations on that method?


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## Gantros (Jan 15, 2009)

kibbitz said:
			
		

> Interesting idea, but the need to beat the AC by a certain amount conflicts with the existing mechanic for Power Attack. If you went this route, how would you remodel Power Attack?




I haven't worked out all the math for it, but I think you should be able to use Power Attack normally.  You would just be trading a reduced chance of getting a damage multiplier for an increase in base damage.

Example:  Joe the 13th level fighter has +21 to hit vs. AC20 opponent.  Normally he'd hit on a 2 or better, do 2x damage on a 4 or better, and 3x damage on a 9 or better.  He opts for a +5 power attack, so now he hits on a 4 or better, gets +5 to damage before multipliers, 2x damage on a 9 or better, and 3x damage on a 14 or better. 



			
				Wulf Ratbane said:
			
		

> Gantros, what are the damage expectations on that method?



By my calculations, the single opponent method results in equal to slightly less damage than the RAW.  The delta ranges from 0 to -15%, with the biggest difference when using 4 attacks vs. high AC opponents.  The variance is due to the fact that iterative attacks can always still hit on a natural 20.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Jan 15, 2009)

Gantros said:


> By my calculations, the single opponent method results in equal to slightly less damage than the RAW.  The delta ranges from 0 to -15%, with the biggest difference when using 4 attacks vs. high AC opponents.  The variance is due to the fact that iterative attacks can always still hit on a natural 20.




I considered a single roll with "levels of success" early on.

I would expect just glancing at it that you'll chop off the top half of the edge cases (high AC) and underperform against the bottom half (low AC). That would be fine as long as there's some compensation in the middle.

EDIT: For the record, I threw out the levels of success model because it requires extra math after the roll to calculate the result.


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## Gantros (Jan 15, 2009)

Actually this method eliminates the low AC problem - in those cases average damage is identical to the RAW, since all of your attacks were almost certain to hit anyway.

The variance only becomes significant when you have >2 attacks and a low probability of scoring a hit on your initial attack, which is a relatively uncommon situation for high level fighters.  Essentially, you're only missing out on those occasions where you'd get lucky and roll a natural 20 on one of your extra attacks, which the damage multiplier doesn't account for.  Personally I think those occasions, when the fighter manages to deal big damage to a high AC opponent, are rare enough that the speedup in all other situations more than compensates for their loss.

As far as extra math goes, I can't really see a situation where this would require any more of it than your proposal.  In the worst case, it requires 1 modified attack roll + 1 AC comparison + 1 modified damage roll + 1 damage multiplier.  Your method would require 2 modified attack rolls + 2 AC comparisons + 2 modified damage rolls.  The most time consuming part is adding up the modifiers for each roll (plus crit damage, and variable magic weapon effects), so reducing the number of rolls whenever possible is what saves you time and math.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Jan 15, 2009)

Gantros said:


> As far as extra math goes, I can't really see a situation where this would require any more of it than your proposal.  In the worst case, it requires 1 modified attack roll + 1 AC comparison + 1 modified damage roll + 1 damage multiplier.  Your method would require 2 modified attack rolls + 2 AC comparisons + 2 modified damage rolls.




No. Your method requires comparing the attack roll to the AC, then figuring out how much you beat it by, _in increments of 5_. That is not err, *is *a non-zero calculation time.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Jan 16, 2009)

I've run the _levels of success_ method and see that it lags behind 0/5/10/15 (4 attacks, RAW) between .09 and .19 at every possible step-- for an average expectation loss of .15. 

Definitely not down with that.


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## whydirt (Jan 16, 2009)

What if you made the margins of success +4/+8/+12 instead?


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## Gantros (Jan 16, 2009)

Maybe I'm missing something, but I come up with an average loss of 7.5% across the entire to-hit range with 4 attacks, which is half of what you're getting.

Here's how I calculated:

Let's take a case where you need to roll a 5 or better to hit.  By the RAW, that's an 80% hit rate for the 1st attack, 55% for the 2nd, 30% for the 3rd, and 5% for the 4th.  Since each attack is roll is independent, expected damage per round is the sum of these, or 170% of the average damage for a single attack.

With level of success, there is a 20% chance for a miss, a 25% chance for normal damage, a 25% chance for 2x damage, a 25% chance for 3x damage, and a 5% chance for 4x damage.  Adding this up gives an expected damage identical to that of the RAW.

Using similar calculations for the worst case, when a roll of 16 or higher is required to hit with 4 iterative attacks, the RAW gives an expected damage of 0.4 while level of success gives 0.25.


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## pogre (Jan 16, 2009)

As a DM I like it.

I ran several campaigns into the epic levels and iterative attacks annoyed me.

I did have one player who loved rolling handfuls of dice though. He played a high level rogue and relished rolling a few d20's and bucketloads of d6's. I'll have to ask him what he thinks.

He really, really wants to go back to 3.X and I cannot help but think that bucketloads of dice are part of the reason.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Jan 16, 2009)

Gantros said:


> Maybe I'm missing something, but I come up with an average loss of 7.5% across the entire to-hit range with 4 attacks, which is half of what you're getting.




It looks like we're using the same methodology-- but I wonder if you're stopping your chart earlier?

I started from the last attack and worked backwards-- cases where you can successfully hit "By 15 or more" on a natural 2. 

My chart runs from _AC-attack bonus_ = -13 to +20.

I am perfectly capable of user error, I'll tell you that. 

(It's certainly curious that you're getting exactly half what I am getting.)

EDIT 2: Found it. I'm also counting x1.05 for crits. Backing that out, and shortening the chart down to just natural 2 on the first attack, accounts for the difference. We also have a slightly different method for expecation-- I am using long form permutations, but that accounts for a difference in the hundredths of points.

So to reiterate: Your methodology looks fine. An across the board drop in damage won't work for me, but if it works for you, it seems at least you're thinking it through solid.


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## Gantros (Jan 16, 2009)

Thanks for checking Wulf, glad to hear my stats skills haven't completely atrophied yet   I was only averaging from 0 to +20, so that explains our different averages.  If I extend the range to -13, the average variance drops to -4.4%.

By the way, if you want the level of success method to exactly match the expected damage from the RAW in all cases, there's a simple fix - just add the rule that if you roll a natural 20, you always get the max damage multiplier, regardless of how much you beat the AC by.


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## Kid Charlemagne (Jan 16, 2009)

pogre said:


> I did have one player who loved rolling handfuls of dice though. He played a high level rogue and relished rolling a few d20's and bucketloads of d6's. I'll have to ask him what he thinks.
> 
> He really, really wants to go back to 3.X and I cannot help but think that bucketloads of dice are part of the reason.




Bucket loads of dice are fun - especially for damage (soem people are hopeless when it comes to adding them up, though).  For a rogue, they won't get as many iterative attacks so I wouldn't think it would be as big of a deal as it is for a fighter...


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## roguerouge (Jan 16, 2009)

Since the existence of scrap paper and the concept of pre-rolling eliminates many of the math concerns in my campaigns that so many people are on about, my only problem with iterative attacks is the loss of a move action to use them. I wouldn't change how iterative attacks work except for that.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Jan 16, 2009)

Gantros said:


> Thanks for checking Wulf, glad to hear my stats skills haven't completely atrophied yet




If you _have _stats skills, you're ahead of me. I keep "Probability For Dummies" near at hand. 

I actually used the "long form" probability for four attacks, just to be thorough and make sure I had set up the probability problem correctly. You might chuckle to see my spreadsheet-- for a four attack sequence, I calculate each of the 16 possible combinations (1-4-6-4-1) to double check that it occupies the correct proportion of the 160,000 total outcomes.

Yeah, long form. 



> By the way, if you want the level of success method to exactly match the expected damage from the RAW in all cases, there's a simple fix - just add the rule that if you roll a natural 20, you always get the max damage multiplier, regardless of how much you beat the AC by.




Cool, I'll check that. I wouldn't mind putting that option up against others in a poll. That's very useful.

Walk me through that in the case of criticals.

If you roll a natural 20, you automatically get the full "iterative attack" multiplier. You also score a critical threat-- does the confirmation roll also enjoy the same benefits on a natural 20? In other words, does a 20 followed by a 20 score the full iterative multiplier, with the "base damage" equal to your critical damage roll?

I think your expectation might fall off against weapons with wider threat ranges (19-20, 18-20) that benefit from multiple rolls.

Nice contribution to the thread overall; I am much obliged.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Jan 16, 2009)

roguerouge said:


> Since the existence of scrap paper and the concept of pre-rolling eliminates many of the math concerns in my campaigns that so many people are on about, my only problem with iterative attacks is the loss of a move action to use them. I wouldn't change how iterative attacks work except for that.




I looked at the idea of allowing multiple attacks even while moving. The problem with that is that it actually punishes the PCs in the long term. They fight a lot more monsters with multiple attacks, often a lot earlier than they themselves have multiple attacks. 

The ability to keep on the move and _not _stand toe to toe with a troll is pretty important in mitigating the effect of its Rend. Same for giants, same for dragons. Mobility helps the PCs more, I think.


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## roguerouge (Jan 16, 2009)

Gantros: my DMs typically don't tell me the AC of what I'm attacking. So doesn't this undermine the time-saving practice of pre-rolling? In your system, I have to ask if each attack hits and by how much. Once I know that, I have to multiply the damage to that hit and write that number down. I do this for each of the four attacks and then sum all that damage that's been multiplied (or not). In the RAW way, you pre-roll your attacks and damage. Then you ask your DM, "Does a 36 hit? No? Does a 39 hit? Yes!" Then I add all the damage from the attacks that hit AC 39 or better and announce the damage and the number of hits. I feel like the multiplication under your system would slow things down at high levels just a bit.


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## roguerouge (Jan 16, 2009)

Wulf Ratbane said:


> I looked at the idea of allowing multiple attacks even while moving. The problem with that is that it actually punishes the PCs in the long term. They fight a lot more monsters with multiple attacks, often a lot earlier than they themselves have multiple attacks.
> 
> The ability to keep on the move and _not _stand toe to toe with a troll is pretty important in mitigating the effect of its Rend. Same for giants, same for dragons. Mobility helps the PCs more, I think.




Shoot. You're right. Maybe that's a good feat to design then, which at least limits the access to monsters.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Jan 16, 2009)

roguerouge said:


> Gantros: my DMs typically don't tell me the AC of what I'm attacking. So doesn't this undermine the time-saving practice of pre-rolling? In your system, I have to ask if each attack hits and by how much.




I have my issues with Gantros' solution (though they are slowly eroding) but I am going to back him up here-- tangentially.

One of the things I mention in in my advice for speeding up play is to dispense with the "AC is secret!" mentality.

My players are smarter than the average bear-- well, mostly, except for the fact that they can't add up bonuses quick enough to suit me. But they add them up between rounds, and they keep notes, and so within about 3 rounds they have the monster's AC pegged to within a couple of points, anyway.

(EDIT: Tangential note. I expect my players to do this-- what I did not expect was that the ringleader behind these careful meta-gamey notes was the LARP'er chick at the table. We're going to miss her, and her "I _rage_, and I _shift_, and I power attack for everything I can!"-- graduate school stole her away from us. )

Just dispense with the false suspense: Tell the PCs what the AC is. 

The gain you get in a smooth running game far outstrips the benefits of "secret AC."



roguerouge said:


> Shoot. You're right. Maybe that's a good feat to design then, which at least limits the access to monsters.




Two very quick comments, admittedly without a lot of thought behind them:

1) I have no problem with PCs being able to do things the monsters can't, and vice versa.

2) There are existing feats that are similar-- Superior Cleave (Oriental Adventures) lets you take a 5 foot step after you drop an opponent. I could certainly get behind a similar feat-- or, frankly, a blanket permission-- that allows a fighter to move after dropping an opponent, provided he has not moved yet. Basically, allow you to break up your full attack at any point, with one move, provided that such movement wouldn't otherwise provoke an AoO.

But not attack -move a bit - attack -move a bit more - attack, etc.

Hmm... The levels of success method breaks such a solution. Gantros, do you allow the attack multiplier if the combatant has moved?

And while I am thinking of it, do you do anything different with multiple attacks? (Claw/Claw/Bite routines and the like.)


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## ruemere (Jan 16, 2009)

Wulf Ratbane said:


> [...]
> Just dispense with the false suspense: Tell the PCs what the AC is.
> The gain you get in a smooth running game far outstrips the benefits of "secret AC."




Power Attack. Combat Expertise. And all other feats which rely on players choosing actions at the cost of attack penalty.



Wulf Ratbane said:


> Two very quick comments, admittedly without a lot of thought behind them:
> 
> 1) I have no problem with PCs being able to do things the monsters can't, and vice versa.
> 
> ...



There is a great feat in Arcana Evolved which allows to take a free move action several times a day. In other words, one can put everything into move and full attack, however, by default, full attack action eats move action.

Having played a character with this feat, I'd say that this is the best of both worlds. Your fighter gets a great boost, but you're not going to abuse it. Usually it just means that the round you charge (or move) is not wasted.



Wulf Ratbane said:


> Hmm... The levels of success method breaks such a solution. Gantros, do you allow the attack multiplier if the combatant has moved?
> 
> And while I am thinking of it, do you do anything different with multiple attacks? (Claw/Claw/Bite routines and the like.)




I am in favor of "single roll - multiple hits", HOWEVER, while it looks good on paper, it introduces greater swinginess of results. With multiple hits decided by a single roll and 3-4 rounds of combat, it's easy to totally miss the fun with 3-4 unlucky attack rolls while with 3-4 times three rolls (for a total of nine or twelve rolls) the average number of hits is more probable.

In other words, when foregoing multiple rolls in favor of a single roll, one would have to also forego d20 in favor of a more GURPS like test, with multiple dice heavily favoring certain average (for example: 4d6 - 3).

Regards,
Ruemere


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## Wulf Ratbane (Jan 16, 2009)

ruemere said:


> Power Attack. Combat Expertise. And all other feats which rely on players choosing actions at the cost of attack penalty.




First, as I said, players will figure out the AC in just a couple of rounds.

Second, these feats are not balanced based on the secrecy, ie the possibility that the player might "choose wrong." 

They are balanced against _probable outcomes_ and the trade-off of one bonus for another.

EDIT: Thanks much for your comments on the other point-- in my haste to contradict you I forgot that I agreed with more of your post!


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## Knightfall (Jan 17, 2009)

My main problem with Iterative attacks is that there are too many of them as the game progresses. I think it would be better to limit the number of iterative attacks that characters can have.

Perhaps cut the number of attacks in half. Therefore, barbarians, fighters, paladins, and rangers would only have two attacks at 20th level and the other classes would have either one or two depending on the "role" of the class.

I'd say that bards, druids, and sorcerers/wizards would only have one attack at 20th level while clerics, monks, and rogues would have two attacks at 20th level.

The progressions would remain the same but you simply remove the extra attacks. So, a 20th-level fighter would attack with +20/+15, a 20th-level monk would attack with +15/+10, and a 20th-level sorcerer would attack with +10.

Characters would be able to gain more iterative attacks through feats or unique prestige class abilities.

Just an idea...


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## DaveMage (Jan 17, 2009)

Wulf Ratbane said:


> First, as I said, players will figure out the AC in just a couple of rounds.




Maybe the AC should be revealed after round 1?


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## Nellisir (Jan 17, 2009)

DaveMage said:


> Maybe the AC should be revealed after round 1?



I think, if you have a rule about at what round in combat AC should be revealed...nah, I got nothin.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Jan 17, 2009)

Nellisir said:


> I think, if you have a rule about at what round in combat AC should be revealed...nah, I got nothin.




Yeah, I'm with you there.

I didn't even mention the players who have the ACs for 90% of the monsters memorized anyway.

As far as I am concerned, the silliness of secret AC is written plain on the face of it, and so for folks who like it, it is basically a matter of faith. I am not particularly invested in convincing folks otherwise.

Your game _will _run faster without it.


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## ruemere (Jan 17, 2009)

Wulf Ratbane said:


> First, as I said, players will figure out the AC in just a couple of rounds.



It must the way I run games then. Most monsters in my games are customized and the circumstances often change influencing stuff like AC from round to round (swift action self-buffs [first introduced in Arcana Unearthed] or special combat actions are great for this).



Wulf Ratbane said:


> Second, these feats are not balanced based on the secrecy, ie the possibility that the player might "choose wrong."
> They are balanced against _probable outcomes_ and the trade-off of one bonus for another.



It's not really about secrecy. I do believe that it's advantageous to game atmosphere to keep players guessing, making assumptions or calculating stuff by themselves.
Another belief of mine is that openly revealing monster statistics resembles observing football match with players running around with numbers on their shirts while listening to expert's commentary - it's too artificial for my taste.



Wulf Ratbane said:


> EDIT: Thanks much for your comments on the other point-- in my haste to contradict you I forgot that I agreed with more of your post!



You're welcome. 

Regards,
Ruemere


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## ruemere (Jan 17, 2009)

A method for faster resolution of multiple attacks occurred to me:

*Dicepool*

Determine success threshold level (AC - attack bonus).
Apply special [1] modifier (i.e. instead of 1st die receiveing +0, 2nd -5 and so on, just use some one uniform number) to success threshold level.
Count all d20 which score result equal or higher to threshold level as successes.
Reroll all success dice which also score threat range against the same threshold number for additional hits (number of additional hits: total all multipliers - number of attacks).
Roll damage once and multiply by number of hits.

Advantage: one single throw.
Disadvantage: you still get to use a lot of dice. You need to calculate that [1] special modifier somehow.

Regards,
Ruemere


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## ValhallaGH (Jan 17, 2009)

ruemere said:


> the circumstances often change influencing stuff like AC from round to round (swift action self-buffs [first introduced in Arcana Unearthed] or special combat actions are great for this).



This is why I don't tell players my critter's AC.  The AC keeps changing as cover, total defense, special abilities, concealment and other factors pop up and fall away.

I've come to hate that look on their faces when I tell them that their 38 does _not_ hit the monster's AC this time.  It's worse if I made the mistake of _saying_ that it had an AC of 37.

It's not about the "secret AC", it's about limiting the expectations that will be disappointed.


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## Kaisoku (Jan 17, 2009)

I was thinking of a way of making combat more dynamic with multiple attacks for an E6 game, and there's a mechanic I was thinking of doing.

Each person can do three actions per round:

1 Swift action (or Immediate action if done out of turn)
1 Move action (for movement or a move equivalent action)
1 Standard action

Free actions stay the same (limited only by DM's discretion, useable outside your turn, etc).

Then, you can do the following with a swift action:

Aid Another once per round. This promotes teamwork, and isn't overpowered as long as it's a tactical choice and you have to give something up to do it.

Use to activate a charge (requires using a Standard action). Charge is changed to allow one move + attack as the swift & standard action. This means you can do a move equivalent (draw weapon, pick up an item, stand up, etc) and then still charge up to 30' (or one move, you know).

Make multiple attacks. I call it starting an "Assault". Make one attack as a standard action, and then spend a swift action to turn it into an assault and make your additional attacks.
Additional attacks are 1 from a second weapon, 1 from high BAB, 1 from Haste.

Use an immediate action to interupt (requires getting a feat). Can't do a full attack next round, but at least you could interupt that caster.
I've been debating making melee more powerful against casters by allowing an "interupt" action as an immediate action normally, and then allowing a feat to give you movement when doing this (so a Fighter with the feat could move and attack as an immediate action).

A number of feats allowing you to do something extra by burning a swift action.

A number of spells castable as a swift action (buff spells primarily).


I haven't actually playtested any of these ideas, as it's just something I've recently thought up.
Any thoughts?


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## Papa-DRB (Jan 17, 2009)

Wulf Ratbane said:


> But-- allowing of course that groups differ-- nobody really finds it "suspenseful" wondering if Bob is going to correctly add 14+9 for once in his friggin' life.




I like your idea, and I think that I will propose it to my current group, they are all 3rd, almost 4th level now.

As a side note, you must have esp... How did you know that it is Bob (really!) in my group who can't add!!! The man is a genius (really), but he always has trouble with the simple math...


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## Stalker0 (Jan 17, 2009)

I've arrived very late to the discussion but I think basic 2 attack pattern with decreasing lower penalties is a fine basis for a model...though I'd have to see the math to confirm.

With 2 attacks, there is enough tension and chaoticness to make it fun (hitting with 0,1,or 2 attacks...and of course the various crits possibilities within). Its still quick to run, and still provides the fighter enough big damage.


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## genshou (Jan 18, 2009)

I've been doing something similar with firearms in my d20 Modern gaming, and bows in D&D.  As a DM who uses a lot of humanoid opponents, I would love having to make less attack rolls and not having to add a different amount to each.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Jan 18, 2009)

Stalker0 said:


> I've arrived very late to the discussion but I think basic 2 attack pattern with decreasing lower penalties is a fine basis for a model...though I'd have to see the math to confirm.




Stalker, I'll be happy to email you my excel sheet if you drop me a line.

It's a mess at this point and perhaps not terribly likely to make a lot of sense without explanation, but you're welcome to it.

EDIT: Alternately, I can print the long form results (without cell calculations) into a PDF and post them. Anything folks would like other than trying to line up tables with vbcode.


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## Gantros (Jan 18, 2009)

Wulf Ratbane said:


> Walk me through that in the case of criticals.
> 
> If you roll a natural 20, you automatically get the full "iterative attack" multiplier. You also score a critical threat-- does the confirmation roll also enjoy the same benefits on a natural 20? In other words, does a 20 followed by a 20 score the full iterative multiplier, with the "base damage" equal to your critical damage roll?




Yes, the multiplier is applied after any critical damage has been determined.  However, you've made me realize that I neglected to account for the confirmation rolls when I came up with this fix.

To do this, you'd need to apply separate multipliers to the standard damage and the critical damage.  The crit damage multiplier would be determined based on how much the confirmation roll beat the AC by (5 for 2x, 10 for 3x, 15 for 4x).  Personally though, I think the complication this adds is not worth it, since confirmed crits on iterative attacks are rare enough that they have little effect on the expected damage.



			
				roguerouge said:
			
		

> Gantros: my DMs typically don't tell me the AC of what I'm attacking. So doesn't this undermine the time-saving practice of pre-rolling?




The level of success method should still work fine with pre-rolling and secret ACs.  Basically you can just look up your attack roll, add up any applicable modifiers, and tell the DM what AC you hit.  The DM then compares that against the target's AC, determines how much you beat it by, and then informs you if any multipliers apply.  If they do, then you just look up your pre-rolled damage and apply them.  It should still be faster than adding up multiple attack modifiers and damage rolls, and the DM need not tell you the opponent's AC (though the multiplier might allow you to approximate it).



> Gantros, do you allow the attack multiplier if the combatant has moved?




Not really.  I use the RAW for full attacks, which state that the only movement allowed is a 5-foot step before or after the attack.  You can also take the step in between attacks against multiple opponents.



> And while I am thinking of it, do you do anything different with multiple attacks? (Claw/Claw/Bite routines and the like.)




No.  Natural weapon attack routines have too many variables to make something like levels of success practical.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Jan 18, 2009)

I'm worried that levels of success, especially with the extra multipliers on a natural 20, is going to be too swingy in combat.


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## Gantros (Jan 18, 2009)

True, one consequence of rolling less dice is that the results are always swingier.  This is why I recommend ignoring the fixes I threw out there and sticking with the original level of success rule.

The problem with any rule that requires a lot of dice rolls is that the more you roll, the lower the probability of getting an extreme result.  For example, if a 20th level mage casts a fireball, they could either roll 20d6 for damage, or 4d6x5.  Both have the same damage expectation, while the latter is obviously swingier.  However, even though the odds of an extreme result (i.e. 120 damage) improve from 1 in 3.6 quadrillion to a mere 1 in 1300, results like that are still rare enough to justify the time savings of rolling and adding 4 dice each time vs. 20.

Applying this logic to the level of success method, you can see that even though it can theoretically reduce the expected damage by up to 15% vs. the RAW against high AC opponents, this number is being skewed by those very rare cases where you roll natural 20s on multiple iterative attacks in a single round.  If you look at the math, it will actually result in an identical amount of damage at least 96% of the time, and that's for the worst case where you need to roll a 16 or higher to hit.  In most other cases, level of success gives you the same expected damage as the RAW closer to 100% of the time.

Add in the fact that high-level fighters are not going to encounter too many situations where they need such high rolls to hit with their primary attack, and you can see that the difference becomes largely irrelevant in practice.

Incidentally, this reminds me of an attempt I made a while back to estimate how many rolls are made in a typical game session.  The goal was to figure out how frequently you could expect to see a highly unlikely result over a given period of time.  I don't remember all the assumptions I used, but here's roughly what I came up with:

1 in 10 - at least once per encounter
1 in 100 - at least once per adventure
1 in 1,000 - at least once per campaign
1 in 10,000 - at least once in a lifetime

In other words, if you're rolling more than 5 d6s/d8s, 4 d10s/d12s, or 3 d20s to determine any outcome, you're likely never going to see an extreme result in a lifetime of gaming.  This helped put in perspective how many dice get rolled in a typical game that have no meaningful bearing on the outcome.


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## ruemere (Jan 19, 2009)

At the end of the day, d20 combat is about:
- delivering initial sequence of hits via iterative and/or natural attacks
- delivering secondary sequence of hits via confirmed criticals (confirming of a critical is a duplicated initial hit which results in delivery of usually multiple additional hits)

In order to replace this with a single roll, one would have to create a system for replicating this.

Having given this a bit of thought, I'd say that in order to prevent swinginess of combat, the system would have to be reworked so that each combat takes a larger number of rounds or...

Or... change the steps for success are calculated. Basically, allow the basic success (i.e. a single hit) to occur below target AC value, and multiple hits to take place above. For example (the step values are not relevant, I have just made the numbers up to make a point):

Whenever you miss target AC by 5 or less, you score single hit.
Whenever you score target AC or exceed by up to 10, you score average number of hits (two attacks mean still single hit, three attacks mean 2 hits).
Whenever you exceed target AC by 11 or more, you score maximum number of hits (two attacks mean two hits, four attacks mean four hits).

To compensate for low number of hits between target AC and target AC +10, the following mechanic is added for additional critical hits:

Whenever you score a critical threat, you automatically deal one additional hit. If you confirm critical threat, add another hit. If the confirmation roll was a natural twenty, multiply the number of hits scored so far by 1.5.

----

The problem with this system (aside from made up step values) are the attacks which deal different amounts of damage (different natural attacks, off-hand weapons). It would be great if the system simply allowed to score a number of hits to be distributed among targets. However, for this one would have to be using Storyteller/Exalted game.

Given complexity of current system, I find it hard to replace with a reliable one-roll task resolution. It's possible to work out probabilities (as Wulf showed us), but it's hard to preserve certain averages (d20 produces flat distribution, with all numbers being given equal probability) without taking a dip of GURPSish multiple d6s (i.e. roll multiple d6 and then add them up to meet a target number).

It would be possible to create a table with various success levels (d20 vs [AC - attack]: find a match to learn the number of hits)... hmm, maybe such table would be the best way. Who knows?

Regards,
Ruemere


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## Wulf Ratbane (Jan 19, 2009)

Gantros said:


> Applying this logic to the level of success method, you can see that even though it can theoretically reduce the expected damage by up to 15% vs. the RAW against high AC opponents, this number is being skewed by those very rare cases where you roll natural 20s on multiple iterative attacks in a single round.  If you look at the math, it will actually result in an identical amount of damage at least 96% of the time, and that's for the worst case where you need to roll a 16 or higher to hit.  In most other cases, level of success gives you the same expected damage as the RAW closer to 100% of the time.




Can we agree to a minimum probability below which we throw out any damage expectation that would affect the average?

1 in 400? (That's two consecutive natural 20's.)


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## Gantros (Jan 20, 2009)

That's an interesting question, and I'm sure people would have differing opinions.  Myself, I would set the bar higher, since I'd gladly give up a single chance to do double damage in return for 400 fewer dice rolls.  I don't play lotteries either, because I don't think the time and money spent buying tickets justifies the tiny chance of winning, but clearly many other people do.

My gut feel says I'd need at least a 1 in 100 chance, maybe even 1 in 50, of doing significant bonus damage before I'd consider it worthwhile to bother checking for it.  Sure it might have a big impact on the game if it came up at just the right moment, but it could just as easily come up in an irrelevant situation (e.g. against a mook that was already almost dead), or be negated by a low damage roll.


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## Galloglaich (Jan 21, 2009)

Wulf Ratbane said:


> I've been doing some heavy permutations/probability number crunching over the break, and I wanted to run something past the folks here.
> 
> Playing around with possible speed fixes for iterative attacks, I've found something that works pretty good for me personally:
> 
> ...




I selected "Other": I agree iterative attacks is a clumsy rule: use the Martial Pool instead.

Give your players a Martial Pool dice at a certain rate, say one at first level plus one per every 3 BaB. (Or alternately do as we do and give them one per BaB with a cap at 4th level)

Then once they have say two Martial Pool, that means two dice, with no extra bonus ove their BaB, but they can choose to either attack twice with one die each, or attack one time using both dice and keeping the highest roll. This is called a "roll many / keep one" system. It improves their average die roll by about +4, doubles their chance of getting a natural 20, and all but eliminates their chance of getting a fumble (all of this increases with more and more dice). You can also give them multipliers on critical hit damage, one per dice they rolled.

If you are using armor as damage reduction you can have even more fun with this by letting them use their MP for active defense die rolls.

This eliminates all that useless arithmetic, and also allows you basically replace things like full attack option, tracking the number of AoO, fighting defensively, etc. etc. just by weighing the dice in your hand instead of doing a bunch of math.

It's much more intuitive, more cinematic / dramatic and also faster IMO.

G.


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## Max Money AWA (Feb 13, 2009)

OK Have only read the first page so forgive me. (I'll edit this after I read the rest)

I like old school combat. In First Edition and 2nd Ed AD&D, the fighter-types could make more than one attack per round (_that was one of the things that set them apart from the rest of the classes_). What about changing the OP set-up to this:

* Most classes can make more than one attack with a -2 penalty when the BAB for the class reaches +6. Period. No getting better, no dropping off. Just the way you have it.

* The fighter-type classes get a bonus of +1 at 11th level and another one at 16th level (_basically the same as the OP_) and capping the number of attacks per round at 3 and not four.

One related question, how do you deal with movement in a round when making a full attack in this set-up?

I also like the idea of dropping back a bit with critter hit points as well.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Feb 13, 2009)

Hey Max!

Read on... Most of what you ask for is covered in the thread (and my proposal).


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## GlassEye (Feb 13, 2009)

Your system (which seems quite accessible and easy to me) describes an extra attack at 6th level then decreasing the negative modifier at 11th level and 16th level.  Is this for all characters or just the fighting types?  Would it make much of a difference (or was it your intent) that the extra attack and decreases to penalty occur at +6 BAB, +11 BAB, and +16 BAB?


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## Wulf Ratbane (Feb 14, 2009)

GlassEye said:


> Your system (which seems quite accessible and easy to me) describes an extra attack at 6th level then decreasing the negative modifier at 11th level and 16th level.  Is this for all characters or just the fighting types?  Would it make much of a difference (or was it your intent) that the extra attack and decreases to penalty occur at +6 BAB, +11 BAB, and +16 BAB?




All characters-- it's based on BAB.

But note that wizards will only achieve +10 BAB, and Clerics/Rogues +15.


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## GlassEye (Feb 14, 2009)

Thanks for the clarification.  I like this; it sounds like a very workable fix.  I plan on bringing it up at my tabletop game and seeing if they'd be willing to give it a shot.


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## Runestar (Feb 14, 2009)

Has anyone tried implementing a manyshot variant for melee attacks? Maybe you can make all your attacks as a standard or full action, but you take an attack penalty. How might it work? I think it may be a tad too strong (it is okay for ranged since archers are already virtually assured of full attacks regardless of where they stand on the battlefield, but it is harder for melee to ensure that they can consistently make full attacks while staying within reach of their foes). 

But then, warblades and swordsages can initiate diamond blade nightmare at lv15+, so it doesn't quite seem as bad...


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## Max Money AWA (Feb 16, 2009)

Max Money AWA said:


> One related question, how do you deal with movement in a round when making a full attack in this set-up?
> 
> I also like the idea of dropping back a bit with critter hit points as well.






Wulf Ratbane said:


> Hey Max!
> 
> Read on... Most of what you ask for is covered in the thread (and my proposal).



Read through the whole thread and didn't really find anything on how you run movement and full attacks.

Do you run it old school and full movement with full attacks, or do you only allow partial movement (something less than a full move) with full attacks?


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## genshou (Feb 17, 2009)

Since no change is proposed, assume the standard rules apply.  Any time you are making more than one attack, you must take a full attack action unless a special ability or feat states otherwise.


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## Max Money AWA (Feb 17, 2009)

genshou said:


> Since no change is proposed, assume the standard rules apply.  Any time you are making more than one attack, you must take a full attack action unless a special ability or feat states otherwise.



So now a full-attack action is worse than before, if what you say is true, because you get one or two less attacks and can only take a five foot step in that round. <looks for the Mr. Yuck face>

If you are going to use this version of iterative attacks, then up to normal movement should be allowed.


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## freyar (Feb 17, 2009)

Max Money AWA said:


> So now a full-attack action is worse than before, if what you say is true, because you get one or two less attacks and can only take a five foot step in that round. <looks for the Mr. Yuck face>
> 
> If you are going to use this version of iterative attacks, then up to normal movement should be allowed.



How is it worse just to get fewer attacks if those attacks are actually worth more?  From Wulf's simulations, the average damage is actually higher in most cases for his system.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Feb 17, 2009)

Max Money AWA said:


> Read through the whole thread and didn't really find anything on how you run movement and full attacks.
> 
> Do you run it old school and full movement with full attacks, or do you only allow partial movement (something less than a full move) with full attacks?




Here:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...n/248004-iterative-attacks-4.html#post4629723

(You may have overlooked it because I was brief.)


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## Qualidar (Mar 15, 2009)

Coming in a bit late to the discussion, but I was thinking about the edge cases this morning: at what point could you add and extra attack (or 2), balanced by  a penalty, and have it equal out to the old expected damage output with the iterative attacks? 

I'm wondering if having the option to start wildly swinging would work: 3 attacks at -10 each or four attacks at -15 (or whatever statistically works) as an alternative for when you just need to swing for the fences against a horde of low level orcs or a powerful dragon you need to get lucky to hit.


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## Quartz (Mar 25, 2009)

Here's another edge case: what about the character who goes for the Spring Attack tree? They can eventually get 4 attacks too, each separated by movement.  This is the sort of character who takes a shot or two at the BBEG then leaps away to hammer a mook. A high-level monk with this - or worse, a high level monk with a few fighter levels - is just plain nasty.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Mar 25, 2009)

Quartz said:


> Here's another edge case: what about the character who goes for the Spring Attack tree? They can eventually get 4 attacks too, each separated by movement.  This is the sort of character who takes a shot or two at the BBEG then leaps away to hammer a mook. A high-level monk with this - or worse, a high level monk with a few fighter levels - is just plain nasty.




How does anyone get more than one attack while moving and forgoing a full attack action?


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## Michael Silverbane (Mar 25, 2009)

Wulf Ratbane said:


> How does anyone get more than one attack while moving and forgoing a full attack action?




There's a couple of feats that allow this in Player's Handbook II.  Bounding Assault allows two attacks during a spring attack.  Another feat allows a third, and so on.


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## tomBitonti (Mar 26, 2009)

Hi,

My experience with multiple attacks wasn't that there was a problem for fighter attacks; there was a huge problem when special actions were added.

For example: The combination of Whip + Rapid Shot (why, oh why?) + Haste + This is a touch attack + Followup Trip Confirmation Roll.  Then add on to that: Crack of Fate + Splat book extra attack.  Then: AOO for standing up + Combat Reflexes.  We had a player who could use more of the resolution time than all of the other players combined.  He did _awesomely_ hold off a huge horde of goblins, orcs, ogres, and giants, at a choke point, but it wasn't fair to the other players how much time he used.

My fix for this is to make special attacks (e.g., Power Attack and Trip) standard actions and be done with it.

Would you consider simply adopting flurry of blows as a single unified mechanic for making multiple attacks?

Also: Can we answer what is the basis for multiple attacks in the first place?  What immersion are we trying to engender?

Also: Wasn't the combat round a _lot_ longer in 1E?  I think the justification for multiple attacks is reduced because of the shortening of rounds.

I do like this probabilistic argument for multiple attacks (which subsumes Cleave): For a portion of your round, if you miss someone, then you used all of your effort in that portion of the round to try for a hit, and you were unable to succeed.  You ought not to get an additional attack.  If you do get a hit, then chances are you expended less than your full effort on that attack, and you should get a followup attack (with a subtraction, since you only have so much effort left over).  I would still want to allow you to divide your effort to make several less focused attacks.

Has anyone put the range of combat options on an axis:

Power Attack (-hit +dmg)
Normal Attack
Precise Attack (+hit -dmg) [don't think this currently exists]
Defensive Attack (-hit +ac) [Weapon Finesse, Fight Defensively, Full Defense]
Light Attack (extra attack, -hit) [Flurry of Blows]

Edit: Ok, here is a question: When going from a single attack (@+5BAB) to a second attack (@+6BAB) how much does that change your damage output?  How much of an attack bonus is that equivalent to?  Also, I can imagine that the maths work our very differently at this point if multiple attacks are disallowed, or are reduced.

Thx!

TomB


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## Wulf Ratbane (Mar 26, 2009)

tomBitonti said:


> Would you consider simply adopting flurry of blows as a single unified mechanic for making multiple attacks?




Good catch-- that's pretty much exactly what I have done.



> Also: Can we answer what is the basis for multiple attacks in the first place?  What immersion are we trying to engender?




For me it's a mechanics/balance issue. The fighter types need damage output at high levels.


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## tomBitonti (Mar 26, 2009)

I keep getting back to a number of fundamental changes that 3E introduced.  My understanding is that melee damage was increased in order to give fighters greater damage output, so to allow them to compete better with spell casters.

Looking at the primary sources of damage at higher levels, I can see:

From 1e:

Sword base damage: 1d8
Possible Magical Add: +0 to +5
Possible Strength Add: +0 to +8 (what is the high end here)
Damage multiplier from iterative attacks: x1 to x4?? (I don't remember the high end from 1E)
Sneak Attack: +0 to +xd6 (don't know the high end)

From 3e:

Add Power Attack: +0 to +40, per attack
Add Higher Strength: up to +13 (Half-Orc barbarian: 36 == 20 + 4 + 6 + 6)
Add Criticals: +0 to +90 (for a x3 battleaxe from a raging barbarian with improved critical)
Add Multiple Sneak Attacks

I'm thinking that where this goes wrong is with the _combination_ of the damage adds with iterative attacks, which gives you a non-trivial second-order add to damage.


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## Kid Charlemagne (Mar 27, 2009)

Wulf Ratbane said:


> The TWF feats are designed to let your off-hand mimic what your main hand is doing at the same bonus for the same iterative attack. Mechanically, that wouldn't change.
> 
> Since your main hand isn't making a 3rd or 4th attack, Greater and Superior TWF would go away-- or need to be altered (e.g., lessening the off-hand penalties by 1 each).




OK, so just to be sure I'm getting this straight:

A Ranger (or any fighter with 2-wpn fighting) would look like this:

6th level (2-wpn fighting)
+2/+2/+2/+2 (+6 BAB, -2 to attack for multiple attacks, -2 for 2-wpn fighting, extra off-hand attack due to Improved 2-wpn fighting)

11th level (assuming no adjusted greater 2-wpn fighting)
+8/+8/+8/+8 (+11 BAB, -1 to attack for multiple attacks, -2 for 2-wpn fighting, extra off-hand attack due to Improved 2-wpn fighting)

16th level (same asumptions)
+14/+14/+14/+14 (+16 BAB, -0 to attack for multiple attacks, -2 for 2-wpn fighting, extra off-hand attack due to Improved 2-wpn fighting)

Incidentally, I like the idea of altering Greater and Superior TWF in the manner you propose.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Mar 29, 2009)

Kid Charlemagne said:


> OK, so just to be sure I'm getting this straight:
> 
> A Ranger (or any fighter with 2-wpn fighting) would look like this:
> 
> ...




It's early and pre-coffee, but that looks right.

As you mention, with the alteration to GTWF and STWF, he'd be +16/+16/+16/+16 at 16th level.

One more +16 with _haste_. 


All attack rolls always at the same attack modifier-- that's the important point. If they're not, you (or I) messed up somewhere.

The ranger is easy. I really should review this against the monk. (This is much closer to the monk's attack progression.)


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## Sturm_Brightblade (Apr 22, 2009)

Hi Wulf!

First of all... Great work! I've been following your ideas since the old "Encounter Simplified" thread (ages from now) and I'm anxiously expecting the final release of _Trailblazer._

Now, on the topic of Iterative Attacks, how would a BAB progression look like, using this replacement? I mean, how this could possibly affect classes that do not have the BAB=Level progression?

If you could post some table, I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks a lot (in advance) for all your tweaks to 3.5/Pathfinder.

Best regards,

Sturm.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Apr 22, 2009)

Sturm_Brightblade said:


> Now, on the topic of Iterative Attacks, how would a BAB progression look like, using this replacement? I mean, how this could possibly affect classes that do not have the BAB=Level progression?




The same way it works now, Sturm.

At +6 BAB you can make two attacks at -2/-2 each.
At +11 BAB you can make two attacks at -1/-1 each.
At +16 BAB you can make two attacks at -0/-0 each.


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## mxyzplk (Jun 8, 2009)

Wulf Ratbane said:


> It's the same mechanic as the monk's extra unarmed strikes. I didn't review it for clunky appearance, just the expected damage.




I like the idea in general but I'm really tempted to simplify it even more by saying "one extra attack at normal BAB at level 10".  Period, end of story.  Makes the curve jaggier but - I have to say, I'm getting sick of all the 3.5 math and details.  Not quite enough to go to a retro-clone but enough that I'd like to see a lot of the clunkiness stripped out.


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## Scurvy_Platypus (Jun 8, 2009)

Question about how this compares to another "fix" option that's been floated...

A while back there was this big ol' long thread talking about iterative attacks. The whole thing basically boiled down to 2 solutions, both of which involved doing away with iterative attacks:

1) Add 1/2 BaB as a Damage bonus. I seem to recall this had traction with the folks that basically wanted something that would perform about the same level as iterative attacks, but much shorter and easier to remember.

2) Add full BaB as a Damage bonus. This wasn't as popular with folks, but I happened to like it personally, as it seemed like it put the combaty types back up to doing decent amounts of damage in comparison to the casters.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Jun 8, 2009)

Scurvy_Platypus said:


> Question about how this compares to another "fix" option that's been floated...
> 
> A while back there was this big ol' long thread talking about iterative attacks. The whole thing basically boiled down to 2 solutions, both of which involved doing away with iterative attacks:
> 
> ...




Neither of those solutions comes anywhere close to performing "about the same level" as iterative attacks.

If you add 1/2 BAB as a damage bonus, that's 10 points of damage *max *at +20 BAB. If your 20th level fighters were only doing 10 points of damage, combined, with their 2nd, 3rd, and 4th attacks... well, you are not playing anything resembling a normal D&D campaign. 

Ditto for full BAB as a damage bonus. Still not even close.

This one fails even a cursory analysis, but just such a cursory analysis is available on the first page of this thread:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-rules-discussion/248004-iterative-attacks.html#post4612174


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## Scurvy_Platypus (Jun 8, 2009)

Wulf Ratbane said:


> Neither of those solutions comes anywhere close to performing "about the same level" as iterative attacks.
> 
> If you add 1/2 BAB as a damage bonus, that's 10 points of damage *max *at +20 BAB. If your 20th level fighters were only doing 10 points of damage, combined, with their 2nd, 3rd, and 4th attacks... well, you are not playing anything resembling a normal D&D campaign.
> 
> ...




Thanks for that. Not sure how I missed that cursory analysis the first time around... I'll blame it on moving overseas and call it good.

Bear with me if I seem slow, but I guess I have to wonder... why do we need iterative attacks in the first place? If it's just to deal with the fact that monster have lots of hit points, then a solution is to either increase the amount of damage that's done (either by giving a bigger flat damage bonus or iterative attacks) or scale back the hit point inflation on the critters.

When Pathfinder first came out, they chopped back the skills (apparently similar to Star Wars Saga) and people freaked; the amount of nerd-rage was astonishing (to me at least). So now we've got Trailblazer and your apparent goal isn't so much compatibility as Pathfinder and more "fixing stuff". So, what is it exactly that iterative attacks are bringing to the game, other than it's one of those things (like the skill list) that people insist (for some reason) be there.


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## Scott DeWar (Jun 8, 2009)

as wizards get to do more damage with their spells and eve the chance to wield duel wands for double attacks, the rogue is doing extra sneak attack damage and the druid gets to have an army of animal companions and followers, why should the fighter get stuck with just : I hit with my sword: Whack!

I is hard enough that the fighter is the meat shield for the party, being up on the front line in the mids of spells zinging around him, and gods only know what else. why shouldn't his expertise show some pazaz and get multi attacks as he has learned how to skillfully weave with his weapon through the defenses of his opponant?


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## Qualidar (Jun 8, 2009)

Scott DeWar said:


> as wizards get to do more damage with their spells and eve the chance to wield duel wands for double attacks, the rogue is doing extra sneak attack damage and the druid gets to have an army of animal companions and followers, why should the fighter get stuck with just : I hit with my sword: Whack!
> 
> I is hard enough that the fighter is the meat shield for the party, being up on the front line in the mids of spells zinging around him, and gods only know what else. why shouldn't his expertise show some pazaz and get multi attacks as he has learned how to skillfully weave with his weapon through the defenses of his opponant?




I think Scurvy's point was "why not just do more damage with the one attack as the solution".

Off the top of my head: it restricts you to attacking just one opponent.


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## ValhallaGH (Jun 8, 2009)

Qualidar said:


> I think Scurvy's point was "why not just do more damage with the one attack as the solution".
> 
> Off the top of my head: it restricts you to attacking just one opponent.



It also restricts your effectiveness for the entire combat round to the whims of a single d20 roll.  As anyone who's rolled a d20 knows, they are utterly unpredictable in any single instance.


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## Scurvy_Platypus (Jun 9, 2009)

Scott DeWar said:


> as wizards get to do more damage with their spells and eve the chance to wield duel wands for double attacks, the rogue is doing extra sneak attack damage and the druid gets to have an army of animal companions and followers, why should the fighter get stuck with just : I hit with my sword: Whack!
> 
> I is hard enough that the fighter is the meat shield for the party, being up on the front line in the mids of spells zinging around him, and gods only know what else. why shouldn't his expertise show some pazaz and get multi attacks as he has learned how to skillfully weave with his weapon through the defenses of his opponant?




Errr... I get the impression you feel the need to defend the Fighter's right to be cool or something. I'm not questioning that; I refuse to play casters in d20 and usually play fighters. I'm all about fighters not sucking and being redundant/useless/whatever negative you care to call it.



Qualidar said:


> I think Scurvy's point was "why not just do more damage with the one attack as the solution".




Sorta. So, the casters do damage in part pased on their level. Rogues do a sort of scaled bonus damage as well. Fighters... oh, they have to make an additional roll.

And of course, because of the way it's set up, it's not that _Fighters_ get to attack multiple folks at once... no, it's tied to BaB which means anyone that can pump up their BaB gets to tap into iterative attacks. Rogues and casters have their bonus damage "protected" from poaching by forcing people to invest levels in specific ways.

So I have to wonder if maybe it's not just better to scrap the whole iterative attack thing altogether. It slows down the game, everyone is doing it, and the way things are now, it's got to be fixed in some fashion that not everyone can agree to, although Wulf's fix seems reasonable enough to me.

In other words, it seems to me like Iterative Attacks are just there because they've always been there; it's a sacred cow. I'm trying to figure out why it _shouldn't_ be killed.

Now, if iterative attacks became a class feature of the Fighter... that's something I can see.

And before someone says, "It doesn't really slow things down that much"... with one person? Probably not. But every person at the table has to do iterative attacks, and that's where things really start slowing down. Especially since not everyone has all the bonuses for everything pre-figured (Bard Song, Haste, other stuff) so that means that instead of having to add up all those bonuses for a single attack, they do it for 2 and 3 attacks.

Yeah, you can complain that people should be more "prepared" or whatever, but let's face it, the world isn't perfect.



Qualidar said:


> Off the top of my head: it restricts you to attacking just one opponent.




And I think _that_ is a pretty good point. But I still find myself thinking, "So?" It seems like there's a general tendency to use a small number of opponents in the first place. By default, 3.x doesn't have rules for mooks for example and most GMs seem to abhor the idea of having a lot of smaller minions that characters can chew through and look cool while doing it. In other words, they're using bigger monsters.

Just like I shouldn't have to make a Balance check to walk down the street, I'm not sure I should really have to roll the d20 3 different times just to whack one creature for a whole bunch of damage.

Pathfinder's Cleave feat seems to handle the attacking multiple targets too, so.... yeah. I guess everyone but me understands why Iterative Attacks for everyone is such a great idea.



ValhallaGH said:


> It also restricts your effectiveness for the entire combat round to the whims of a single d20 roll.  As anyone who's rolled a d20 knows, they are utterly unpredictable in any single instance.




This is 3.x. There's all kinds of stuff that affects/restricts your effectiveness. Last game, I was given the lovely opportunity to fail a Will save (that had to be over 21) for my Fighter or flee in panic after dropping my weapon (Thanks "Rise of the Runelords"). The basic premise of 3.x seems to be that at low levels, you're at the whim of the d20 roll. At higher levels, it's all about stacking bonuses.

By the time you're at the point where Iterative Attacks seem to matter (I'm currently 9th level), the d20 roll is instead functioning more like a random bonus, and it's more about having a massive starting bonus in the first place.

Or maybe I'm just a complete idiot. But that's how it seems to me.

Sorry Wulf, I'm not trying to hijack your thread here. I _think_ it's topical to your poll, but if this is pulling discussion away from what you want to focus on, I'm happy to start a new thread.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Jun 9, 2009)

Scurvy_Platypus said:


> Sorry Wulf, I'm not trying to hijack your thread here. I _think_ it's topical to your poll, but if this is pulling discussion away from what you want to focus on, I'm happy to start a new thread.




No problem at all.


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## Papa-DRB (Jun 9, 2009)

My guys just hit 6th level 2 sessions ago and the last session was the first one where they used this. The only "problem" and that was easily worked was making sure they added 2 to their "to hit" if they took a single attack. After a few move/attacks or full round attacks they all had it right...


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jun 9, 2009)

ValhallaGH said:


> It also restricts your effectiveness for the entire combat round to the whims of a single d20 roll.  As anyone who's rolled a d20 knows, they are utterly unpredictable in any single instance.




That is mostly a problem if it takes a long time to resolve each round.

So I guess it _is_ bad for D&D 3E, unless you fix that, too.

How would it work to add BAB to damage and increase the damage dice number by 1 at 6th, 11th and 16th level? 

In addition, characters can always make two attacks at a -5 penalty, maybe a third at 11th level, and you don't get the extra damage dice then.

A nice "simulation" side effect: It might be more useful to make multiple attacks with small weapons, since the damage dice is not really all that impressive. 

Feats like Two-Weapon Fighting would basically reduce this penalty to -2 _if_ you make one of the attacks with your off-hand. 


Example: 
Against AC 24 Monster: 
Fighter 6, Str18, Greatsword +2, Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialisation: 
- Single Attack: +13 melee, 4d6+14 damage (28 damage avg)
- Multiple Attacks: +8/+8 melee, 2d6+14 damage each (15 damage avg)


Rogue 6, Str14, Dex18, Shortsword +2, Weapon Finesse, Two-Weapon Fighting
- Single Attack: +10 melee, 1d6+10 damage +3d6 sneak attack (9.6 damage)
- Multiple Attacks: +8/+8 melee, 1d6+10 damage +3d6 sneak attack (12 damage)

Against AC 25 monster
Fighter 8, Str18, Greatsword +2, Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialisation: 
- Single Attack: +15 melee, 4d6+16 damage (28 damage avg)
- Multiple Attacks: +10/+10 melee, 2d6+16 damage each (15 damage avg)


Rogue 8, Str14, Dex18, Shortsword +2, Weapon Finesse, Two-Weapon Fighting
- Single Attack: +12 melee, 2d6+12 damage +4d6 sneak attack (13.2 damage)
- Multiple Attacks: +10/+10 melee, 1d6+12 damage +4d6 sneak attack (14.75 damage)

Hmm... needs work.


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## Cheiromancer (Jun 9, 2009)

Wulf Ratbane said:


> Playing around with possible speed fixes for iterative attacks, I've found something that works pretty good for me personally:
> 
> 
> At 6th level, you get a 2nd attack, but both attacks suffer a -2 penalty (-2/-2 instead of 0/-5).
> ...




I'm late to the discussion, but I want to say that I think this is a freakin' BRILLIANT piece of design. I really hope it is included in Trailblazer when it is released.

I wish I knew the reasons why people opposed this change.  I suspect that some may have replied to the poll before they understood what its implications were.  E.g., they thought it would hose fighters or something.


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## Hrothgar Rannúlfr (Jun 9, 2009)

Hi, Wulf.

First, I really like your idea for "fixing" multiple attacks in 3.x.  This is one thing that has bothered me about 3.x since first playing 3.x at levels high enough to have multiple attacks.

Above, you and Kid Charlamagne were talking about Two-Weapon Fighting's impact on this.



> A Ranger (or any fighter with 2-wpn fighting) would look like this:
> 
> 6th level (2-wpn fighting)
> +2/+2/+2/+2 (+6 BAB, -2 to attack for multiple attacks, -2 for 2-wpn fighting, extra off-hand attack due to Improved 2-wpn fighting)




I like how this works, too.  Especially, how the penalties for two weapon fighting are different for differently weighted weapons.

So, I was just wondering if you'd thought about using different penalties for multiple attacks based on the weapon categories (similar to how TWF's penalties are different if the weapon isn't light)?  For example:

*-0* Unarmed Strikes & Light Melee Weapons & Simple Ranged Weapons
*-2* One-Handed Melee Weapons & Martial Ranged Weapons
*-4* Two-Handed Weapons​
I realize this isn't as simple as a flat +2 across the board.  But, it gives an additional incentive to use something other than a Two-Handed Weapon.


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## ValhallaGH (Jun 9, 2009)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> That is mostly a problem if it takes a long time to resolve each round.



Not really.

I play a lot of Mutants and Masterminds (I'm leaving in 20 minutes to run a session), so I'm used to characters only having one attack per round.  I'm also used to bonuses and DCs being such that characters have to roll between 8 and 12 to connect.  I'm used to characters having everything riding on one d20 roll (either to hit or to save against attacks), and I know just how much it sucks to be totally neutered by a plastic polyhedron.  There are few gaming events worse than having your character rendered totally useless by a roll of the dice.

Now, where M&M and D&D differ the most (from a philosophical view, there are a host of mechanical differences) is in where and how you get to control the randomness that the d20 roll represents.  
D&D makes you control the bonuses, providing scores of bonus types and amounts for  you to milk until you have the biggest possible bonus (and thus the least reliance upon the d20); in fact, it's gotten so bad that the rules now _assume_ that you're collecting as many bonuses as you can, to the point that it is necessary, rather than advisable.
M&M, on the other hand, gives the player (some) control over the d20 roll itself.  Specifically in the form of Hero Points, a limited resource that can, among other things, guarantee a d20 result between 11 and 20.  This doesn't guarantee success, but it can let you come through in those "clutch" situations.  Yes, M&M has bonuses too, which are largely situational (tactics, teamwork, environmental, etc), and can limit or remove the need to use Hero Points to control the d20; this is generally regarded as your "reward" for good tactics.

D&D combat has one more way to give mundane combatants control over the d20 roll.  Specifically, by allowing characters to roll multiple d20s each round with a chance to hit on each one.  The designers, for whatever reasons, chose to make this "second chance" a constant option rather than one saved to redeem failure.  To limit abuse, a price had to be attached; they chose a combination of action requirement and decreasing probability on subsequent attacks.
(I realize this view is probably not the intent of iterative attacks.  Nevertheless, I see it as the best and primary feature of them, and is the view that seems most relevant to this phase of the discussion.)
If you remove iterative attacks completely then you should replace them with some other form of dice control to maintain at least the illusion of parity.

Man, I hope that makes sense.


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## Scurvy_Platypus (Jun 10, 2009)

ValhallaGH said:


> It also restricts your effectiveness for the entire combat round to the whims of a single d20 roll.  As anyone who's rolled a d20 knows, they are utterly unpredictable in any single instance.






ValhallaGH said:


> D&D makes you control the bonuses, providing scores of bonus types and amounts for  you to milk until you have the biggest possible bonus (and thus the least reliance upon the d20); in fact, it's gotten so bad that the rules now _assume_ that you're collecting as many bonuses as you can, to the point that it is necessary, rather than advisable.




Yeah, but 3.x programmed this sort of thing into the game system. ACs increase faster than most characters ability to hit them "naturally", forcing people to try and stack bonuses as much as possible. So people start doing so, and WotC goes "Oh, everyone stacks bonuses like mad... huh. Ok, we'll just add [X, Y, Z] since people are doing this, and that way the creatures will still be a 'challenge' for them."

I mean, we know they lied about the CRs on dragons for example, in order to make the fight feel more "epic" or whatever. So jiggering ACs, giving creatures "save or suck" abilities and so on, that's just a normal part of their design approach. Basically, as people have ramped up to try and catch up to the critters, the critter makers inflate things to try and keep it "challenging". All that's happened is the cycle of inflation.



ValhallaGH said:


> D&D combat has one more way to give mundane combatants control over the d20 roll.  Specifically, by allowing characters to roll multiple d20s each round with a chance to hit on each one.  The designers, for whatever reasons, chose to make this "second chance" a constant option rather than one saved to redeem failure.  To limit abuse, a price had to be attached; they chose a combination of action requirement and decreasing probability on subsequent attacks.
> (I realize this view is probably not the intent of iterative attacks.  Nevertheless, I see it as the best and primary feature of them, and is the view that seems most relevant to this phase of the discussion.)
> If you remove iterative attacks completely then you should replace them with some other form of dice control to maintain at least the illusion of parity.
> 
> Man, I hope that makes sense.




So what goes through my mind is, this is a design problem. Err, that sounds stupid. I mean that following the chain of reasoning (as I understand it), basically they made things tough and then went "Oh, we should do something so people don't feel completely screwed."

Either that or they said, "Huh... you know, earlier versions of the game had Iterative Attacks and we're going to keep them in this version, so... why don't we do something so that Fighters are needed explicitly because of their ability to do Iterative Attacks better than anyone else?"

If the basic problem is that ACs are inflated, then isn't it a better solution (or at least one worth considering) to simply say, "Because of the different design assumptions between Trailblazer and other OGL games, when using monsters from another OGL source, you'll want to make a few adjustments. The following chart will help:" And then follow with a chart that lists AC from X to Y, Hit Points....whatever the problem bits are.

Does it mean there's a bit of work for the GM? Yup. But there's work for the GM no matter which way you cut it, and I think it's better to slide a bit of it into Prep time as opposed to trying to fix a system that's not working, monster designers have already effectively reduced the effectiveness of (by building monsters with the assumption that folks are going to be Iterative Attacking with a massive stack of bonuses) and that's slowing down things at the table.

In the Pathfinder game I'm in, there's 6 of us players, we're level 9, and we have roughly 4 hours of play on a weeknight. This translates to basically a bit of rp and usually one combat. 2 combats if the encounter is supposed to be "easy". In a couple of cases, combat has taken 5+ hours to sort through.

Slow down in the game isn't only about Iterative Attacks. It's just one point among many. Critters that cause characters to flee with a failed save extend things out. Tactical movement between critters that are fast (over 30) and slow (20 like my !%#$% dwarf) extend things out. Trying to figure out spells extends things out. Damage Resistance if you don't have the secret weapon extends things out. And so on.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is, Monster design seems to have fueled a bunch of different things in the game. Given the importance that killing them has within the d20 rules, I wonder if the solution really is to nibble around the edges and try to fix a problem (Iterative Attacks) that's an attempt to address another problem (inflated monster stats).

Like I said, if Iterative Attacks were a special ability of the Fighter Class, then sure, I'm down with fixing it. But since they're a mechanic that everyone is tapping into, I have to wonder why we should bother keeping the mechanic instead of scrapping it and dealing with the problem directly.

If it's just "sacred cow" status and it's just a given that Iterative Attacks are going to stay period.... *shrug*... well, it's the will of the masses then.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Jun 10, 2009)

Scurvy_Platypus said:


> If the basic problem is that ACs are inflated...




It's not. There shouldn't be anything in this thread to give you that idea.



> If it's just "sacred cow" status...




It's not. 

There were 4 iterative attacks, each with a different bonus.

Now there are two attacks, with the same bonus. 

Or three with flurry attack. Or four with TWF. Or maybe even five with TWF, Flurry and Haste. Or maybe even six with TWF, flurry, and haste... all with the same bonus.


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## Scurvy_Platypus (Jun 10, 2009)

Wulf Ratbane said:


> It's not. There shouldn't be anything in this thread to give you that idea.




Sorry, it sorta seemed to me like ValhallaGH was implying/suggesting that.



Wulf Ratbane said:


> It's not.
> 
> There were 4 iterative attacks, each with a different bonus.
> 
> ...




Well, I didn't mean "sacred cow" necessarily in the sense that "we can't change Iterative Attacks"; you've got a decent sounding change suggested. I meant it more in the sense of "we need to keep Iterative Attacks".

That's what I'm unsure about. It seems to be a foregone conclusion that they should be kept, as well as that they need to be modified instead of being kept in their current form.

I'm just trying to figure out why they need to be kept is all. The reason for keeping them might suggest an alternative approach. Does that make sense? I feel like I'm kinda off to one side in the dark here and missing something that everyone else knows and takes for granted.

Are they being kept because without them Fighters become more of a chump class to take? (I say this being a guy that usually plays Fighters in 3.x)

Are they being kept because ever since Rules Cyclopedia (and the Weapon Mastery) there's been a form of Iterative Attacks?

Apparently it's not because of monster stat inflation.

Some other reason I'm missing? Iterative Attacks _do_ something; they're included in the game for a reason. As they stand they're not working, or they could be made to work a better way.

If I could figure out what they're doing in the first place, it'd be easier for me to say "Yeah, this option rocks!" or "What about doing [whatever] instead?"



Wulf Ratbane said:


> Or maybe even five with TWF, Flurry and Haste. Or maybe even six with TWF, flurry, and haste... all with the same bonus.




Errrr... these look the same to me. Am I missing something else?

Sorry for being the slow person in the thread... I'll go back and drool quietly in the corner while I wait.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Jun 10, 2009)

Scurvy_Platypus said:


> I'm just trying to figure out why they need to be kept is all.




I actually had a longer reply typed for you yesterday, but the BSOD ate it.

They don't _need _to be kept-- except in the sense that rejiggering all the monster ACs and hit points for a rule system with 10 years of supplements would certainly be the "hard way" as opposed to what I finally settled on.

But they _should _be kept because they improve the play experience. The game feels "sweetest" when combat is a series of infrequent failures, combined with successes of varying degrees, all contributing to the slow but inevitable ablation of resources. 

As opposed to a boolean system where each roll is either hit and kill, or miss and suck; where each roll is either save and nothing happens, or you fail and die.

Victory should come like the dawn, not like a light switch.

You want a system that can be swingy without breaking: A system that will support a run-of-the-mill hit for 10 points of damage _and _a power attack critical for 50+ points of damage.

There are other reasons-- economy of actions, meaningful tactical choices, etc. Iterative attacks are part of a design package I'd call, "More fun."

When iterative attacks were slowing down the game, *more fun* was being suppressed. It was_ less fun _because nobody wants to sit and wait on the player to roll multiple times and recalculate each hit or miss on the fly. Designate ONE target number you're looking for on the dice, and throw the batch. 

My change was made to speed up play, not to remove some specified number of attacks and reduce it to a smaller "correct" number of attacks. Why did I choose two attacks? Because I found that to be the right number of attacks at the attack penalty that produces results the most similar to the damage output I wanted to see. 



> Errrr... these look the same to me. Am I missing something else?




Funny, in the light of a new morning they look the same to me, too. I think I was rattled by the BSOD when I came back to post a reply. Substitute some other way of getting an additional attack.


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## Scott DeWar (Jun 10, 2009)

Wulf Ratbane said:


> edit...
> As opposed to a boolean system where each roll is either hit and kill, or miss and suck; where each roll is either save and nothing happens, or you fail and die.... edit




Caution: Humorous  comment approaching:

[sblock=this is only a joke!]
what about nand gates and nor gates? do they exist in dice rolling?

hit and suck or save and die

are schmidt triggers found on traps?
[/sblock]

hope it was worth a chuckle.


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## ValhallaGH (Jun 10, 2009)

Scurvy_Platypus said:


> Sorry, it sorta seemed to me like ValhallaGH was implying/suggesting that.



I wasn't.  I was talking about player controls over probabilities, that's all.  The "inflated AC" thing was all you. 



Wulf Ratbane said:


> The game feels "sweetest" when combat is a series of infrequent failures, combined with successes of varying degrees, all contributing to the slow but inevitable ablation of resources.
> 
> As opposed to a boolean system where each roll is either hit and kill, or miss and suck; where each roll is either save and nothing happens, or you fail and die.
> 
> Victory should come like the dawn, not like a light switch.



...
That is a brilliantly elegant summation of where most gaming is fun.  I'll just be sticking that into my sig now....


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## kerleth (Jul 4, 2009)

In general I agree with your replacement for Iterative attacks wulf. One point, though. If I'm not mistaken you can make your first attack and then decide whether or not to continue into a full attack action. While I suppose it rarely matters, your system would not allow that since you have to decide beforehand whether or not you'll take the penalty on your first attack.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Jul 6, 2009)

kerleth said:


> In general I agree with your replacement for Iterative attacks wulf. One point, though. If I'm not mistaken you can make your first attack and then decide whether or not to continue into a full attack action. While I suppose it rarely matters, your system would not allow that since you have to decide beforehand whether or not you'll take the penalty on your first attack.



You're right. You can't do that anymore.

You're either going to "hurry" your attacks (-2/-2), or you're not.

You can either aim for the bullseye, or you can squeeze off two shots. You can't do both.


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## Kid Charlemagne (Jul 6, 2009)

You could allow the option to abort the second attack to take a move action - meaning that you'd take the -2 penalty on the first attack but wouldn't totally lose out if you drop the foe in one blow.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Jul 6, 2009)

Kid Charlemagne said:


> You could allow the option to abort the second attack to take a move action - meaning that you'd take the -2 penalty on the first attack but wouldn't totally lose out if you drop the foe in one blow.




Of course.


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## Papa-DRB (Jul 25, 2009)

My search-fu stinks.... With that in mind, When can I purchase this, and Where will it be available via PDF... thanks


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## Hrothgar Rannúlfr (Aug 7, 2009)

Download the free Trailblazer preview from drivethrurpg.com, rpgnow.com, or the enworld.org store.


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## Set (Aug 8, 2009)

Seems like a nice workable system.

My own tweak was to allow anyone able to make an iterative attack to instead make a Mighty Blow as a full attack action.

For each iterative attack lost, the single attack gets bonus damage equal to the base damage of the attack.

Example: Tyra the 11th level Paladin has BAB +11 and would normally get three attacks, at +11/+6/+1 with her Greatsword.  Instead, she makes a Mighty Blow as her full attack action, making one swing at her full attack bonus, and getting +4d6 damage added to her base damage of 2d6 +Str +enhancement bonus +smite, etc.

This only works with iterative attacks.  Extra attacks from _haste_ or two-weapon fighting (etc.) cannot be combined with a Mighty Blow.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Aug 9, 2009)

Set said:


> Seems like a nice workable system.
> 
> My own tweak was to allow anyone able to make an iterative attack to instead make a Mighty Blow as a full attack action.
> 
> For each iterative attack lost, the single attack gets bonus damage equal to the base damage of the attack.




There's nothing _wrong _with that approach per se, but as I mentioned upthread (a few times) it will dramatically undercut the amount of damage your melee classes can dish out.

If your 2nd, 3rd, 4th iterative attacks previously included power attack, or flaming, aligned, holy, or sneak attack dice, you're losing all that damage. Adding in any amount equal to "the base weapon" means that anybody with more than +2d6 in bonus damage loses out in the bargain.

This is important because high-level monsters are *designed *to get hit. They don't survive contact with the PCs by making the PCs miss; they survive contact with the PCs by having an assload of hit points. If you curtail the damage of the fighting classes, combat will last longer. See various 4e "grind" threads for evidence of the unpleasant side effects. And 4e at least has the advantage of not having a lot of save or die effects; increasing the duration of combat by "just a couple of rounds" in 3e might mean "just a couple of rounds" of extra save-or-die effects coming at you.


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## Blue (Aug 10, 2009)

I really like this.  Came here from a link so I missed the meat of the discussion.

Another place this is interesting is places where cumulative attacks have special meaning, like grapple.  If makes changing from grappled to pinned and vice versa a bigger state change since you only have two attacks to do so instead of more.

I've got a couple of corner cases that I wonder if someone familiar with the math can look at.  The system looks to work from my side, these are occasional things.

1.  Value of "other" attack types.  For example, tripping an opponent gives a bonus to hit for later attacks, but if you only have one other attack max that seems to devalue this.

2.  Mixed normal and touch attacks.  I've seen players do normal attacks for 1st and 2nd iterative attacks and then things like trips for the low end because it's touch attacks so still has a reasonable chance to hit.

3.  Power attack, combat expertise and others that "spend" attack bonus.  It seems like CE becomes more powerful (since you have a better overall chance to hit over your attacks), but it's not underpowered.  PA has it's balance changed.  Higher AB for some but lower for that first strike, and less attacks to add to.  Don't know if it's weaker, stronger, or just has different balance points.


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## Forgefly (Aug 15, 2009)

I am really impressed with the solution and am excited to implement it in my games.  I do however have one player who will howl with frustration at the proposed change and wonder if someone could explain how the proposed change impacts the improved critical rapier fighter. 

Just on the surface it seems that his damage will mirror the curve described by Wulf earlier across the center of the bell, but that the damage will be much lower against the high ac opponents.

Is this accurate?  Does his damage output in the corner cases drop more than the "average" fighter

Secondly how does this impact character classes like the duskblade who get to cast a rider spell into each strike? 

My understanding is that most characters will see an increase in hits per round across the majority of cases and so such a character will be better off (even though they are giving up an extra two swings which might be carrying phantasmal killer or disintegrate)

I appreciate any answers to these questions which will help me start using this idea much sooner.  That and my Probability-fu is very weak.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Aug 15, 2009)

Forgefly said:


> I am really impressed with the solution and am excited to implement it in my games.  I do however have one player who will howl with frustration at the proposed change and wonder if someone could explain how the proposed change impacts the improved critical rapier fighter.




Critical damage is accounted for in the DPS calculations.

Yes, your player will 'lose' more damage strictly in numbers, but he loses the same percentage of damage as everyone else. He also gains more damage than everyone else against "the field" of average monsters (about 15%).



> Is this accurate?  Does his damage output in the corner cases drop more than the "average" fighter?




So, again, yes it drops "more." If he loses 10% of 30 damage, he's lost 3 points; and the fighter loses 10% of 20 damage, he's only lost 2 points. 

3 is certainly more than 2.

I suppose how he feels about that will depend on how he feels about, say, progressive taxation rates. 



> Secondly how does this impact character classes like the duskblade who get to cast a rider spell into each strike? My understanding is that most characters will see an increase in hits per round across the majority of cases and so such a character will be better off (even though they are giving up an extra two swings which might be carrying phantasmal killer or disintegrate).




Your understanding is spot on. Damage that goes "asymmetrical" like that is certainly going to take a bigger hit against the edge cases, because you haven't just lost a chance to do X damage, you've lost a chance to do "infinite" damage (ie, save or die).

Those are the absolute worst cases of the edge cases-- when you really just want more actions, period. No way around that-- but one could argue that such builds are pretty broken to begin with.

(Of course my understanding of the duskblade was that he could cast spells as a swift action, and you only get one swift action per round, so he would not be affected at all.)


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## Forgefly (Aug 16, 2009)

Many thanks.

I love the idea and I was hoping your explanation would provide me an easy way to sell it to him, but the simple elegance of the solution may sway him over to it even so.

(Vis a vis the Duskblade it is the Arcane channeling full attack which allows him to cast a spell into his weapon and have the spell effect everyone hit that round, thus iterative disintegration at high levels)


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## Wulf Ratbane (Aug 16, 2009)

Minor quibble, but Arcane Channelling only works on touch spells. Under the spell description, *Range *will say *Touch*.

Don't let the inmates run the asylum up there at your home game, bub. Crack down.


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