3.5 Solutions [Iterative Attacks]

[beastman]

So, lets discuss the problem of too many attacks when using the full attack action in 3.5, resulting in dice-roll-orgies and time-consuming calculations.

A first step would be to reduce the number of attacks. So here is a first proposal:

1) If you are able to make more than one attack with your main-hand weapon as indicated by your BAB, you instead make only one attack with a penalty: -4 for two attacks, -8 for three attacks, etc. If you hit, you deal additional damage: double damage if you would have made two attacks, thrice the damage if you would have made three attacks. etc. This "multi-attack" would still be a full-round action. Treat multiple attacks with an off-hand weapon accordingly.

Not nore about the numbers from above. Also, if you miss, you would essentially miss with all attacks and if you hit, you would essentially hit with all attacks. Another point: this rule would deny you the possibility of attacking more than one foe (except if attacking with two weapons, so that you can attack one foe with the main weapon and a second one with the off-hand weapon).

2) Another way to resolve this "problem" would be to cut down the number of additional attacks by one (so just ignore the last part of a BAB entry). To compensate for this, there are some ideas floating around but not sure about their impact: either double weapon damage for the first attack or increase the weapon damage die type by 1 (or 2) step(s).

I think i like number 2 better the more i think but am still unsurre about damage. 2) lets you still attack more than one enemy...

Any thoughts?

ok. so in 2) i suggested about increasing weapon's damage dice. i came to the conclusion, this is a bad isea, because of high casuality ratings at low character levels (1st to 3rd) even with the optional rule of HD-roll + CON-score for 1st level characters...no other sulution as of yet...

[hedgehobbit]

The best solution to this problem, IMO, is to just give the fighter extra attacks at the normal chance to hit. It seems to me that iterative attacks were designed the way they were to counter the problem with a high level fighter auto-hitting. It seems silly now to create a complicated subsystem to fix a problem with another sub system.

So, I would suggest given Fighters an extra attack at 6th, 12th and 18th levels. Other classes get this bonus attack when their BAB is +6, +12 or +18 respectively.

Fighters auto-hitting at high level can be addressed seperately.


Aaron

[brasten]

I do not see a problem with rolling multiple dice. There are many places where this occurs in D&D and I don't see a valid reason to hunt them all down just for the sake of supposedly speeding up the game. There is a reason players are supposed to write stuff down on their character sheets.

The actual problem I've seen with multiple attacks isn't multiple dice and calculations (I've had games with characters that had 4 arms and perfect multi-weapon fighting, bless epic). The problem is that many of these extra attacks are simply rolled to see if they come up 20s, which means they're excessive. A very quick way to reduce the volume of these extra rolls is to penalizes a bit more evenly. Kind of like calculations required in proposal 1 only with multiple rolls, not a single one.

The basic idea would be to require a character to declare a full-attack and the number of extra attacks(based on BAB and others) being used, at full BAB for each attack. All rolls suffer a -2 * n penalty, where n is the number of extra attacks. This should make more attacks useful while keeping the number of dice rolled optimized for the situation. A player could choose the flailing option of throwing all the dice they can just to see if they come up 20s, but it would really only be about seeing those 20s.

This would greatly reduce the power of 4 armed multi-weapon fighters since a full-attack with everything would net a -34 or -36 penalty for 16 rolls. If the foe has a higher AC you may as well only roll four at -10 or -12.

This also reduces the number of calculations that need to be done when totaling up bonuses and penalties, which I would guess is the real aim. You generate on total bonus number for the roll and then roll all the dice.

An additional modification to the current rules would be that natural 20s do not threaten unless they would actually hit normally, no more nat 20 + nat 20 crits. This is to further discourage flailing.

I would also like to point out that under the current 3.5 system a player/character does not have to declare a full-attack from the start. I recommend this be changed since I've rarely seen that 'wait and see' option used, nor does it make since in a situation where multiple 'swings' are made in 6 seconds or less. Either you commit to the attack routine or you don't.

I do agree with the reduction in attacks, gaining multiples at BAB +6, +12, and +18. concerning epic play, just extend that to an extra attack every 6 BAB.

[beastman]

brasten said:

I do agree with the reduction in attacks, gaining multiples at BAB +6, +12, and +18. concerning epic play, just extend that to an extra attack every 6 BAB.

So any proposal? There are a few possibilities:
- Limit max. number of attacks to, say 3 + DEX bonus
- Increase BAB requirements (say gaining more attacks at BAB +7, +14, +21)
- Others?

[Kerrick]

I've been looking for a way to reduce iterative attacks too. I like the idea of applying a straight penalty to all attacks if you make more than one. The fighter's fourth attack seldom hits anything anyway, and the mid-BAB is even worse. Plus, this would reduce the ridiculous amount of dice-rolling that comes with TWF. Applying the same penalty to all rolls would definitely curb the "auto-hit" syndrome; even better, there's already precedent for it (Manyshot and the monk's flurry of blows).

Adding extra attacks at +6/+12/+18 could work too; mid-BAB would get their third attack one level later than normal, and poor BAB would get their second two levels later.

[dagretto]

The thing my group has been talking about is simply giving fighters (all classes for that matter) a bonus to damage rather than multiple attacks. FREX, a fighter might have the class ability: Weapons Familiarity. With this, a fighter adds bonus damage equal to his level on weapon attacks (thus a lvl1 fighter with 18 STR using a longsword does 1d8+4+1 damage...average 9pts per a successful attack; OTOH, a level 15 fighter with a +3 longsword and a 20 STR does 1d8+3+5+15 for an average damage of 27 per hit). We haven't playtested this yet, but the idea is pretty basic and cuts down on multi-rolling for iterative attacks.

Damon.