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ummmmmm sorry, but you lost me. I dozed off somewhere in there. That is way too complicated to read.
My first question is this: What problem does multiple dice rolls present?
Commonly a Fighter gets 4 attacks only when he is 16th level or higher. Dual wielding can add a few extra attacks. So let's say the Fighter gets to attack 6 times. By 16th level most fighter players will have picked up extra and matching dice. So, he rolls 6 d20s and 6 d8s at once then matches the damage dice to the attack dice. He adds up the damage dice that scored a hit and he's done. Add an extra die for say flaming sword or something and potentially we have a total of about 18 dice total (could be a few more depending upon circumstances).
I have never played in a high level game where the fighter takes more time than a caster to complete his turn. So, I assume that the problem is not time. Nothing seems simpler to me than just roll a few dice and add them together for damage.
Your argument that there are too many dice rolled makes me wonder what your plan is for reducing the rolls for many spells of 8th level and higher.
For example, Prismatic Wall:
1st: roll 2d4 for rounds characters under 8HD are blinded.
2nd Caster level check for Spell Resistance
3rd: the first effect requires a Reflex save for half
4th: Caster level check for Spell Resistance
5th: second effect Reflex save for half
6th: Caster level check for Spell Resistance
7th: third effect Reflex save for half
8th: Caster level check for Spell Resistance
9th: fourth effect Fort save or die
10th: if made save roll 1d6 CON damage
11th: Caster level check for Spell Resistance
12th: fifth effect Fort save
13th: Caster level check for Spell Resistance
14th: sixth effect Will save (look up Insanity spell)
15th Caster level check for Spell Resistance
16th: seventh effect WIll save
potentially 19 dice per creature within 20 feet
and I picked that spell at random :) lol
Let's look at Sunburst a more "straightforward" spell. Everyone in a 80 ft radius makes a SR check. 80 ft radius can include a LOT of NPCs and PCs. Then everyone of them that failed on the SR must make a Reflex save. Roll anywhere from 6d6 to 25d6 (in our case 16d6 assuming no modifiers) and applying the damage based upon each NPC's and PC's Reflex roll. Destroy whatever is destroyed and negate darkness spells as appropriate. This spell is not as simple as saying X number of rolls. Let's be simple and say 3 PCs and 4 NPCs are in the effect, so we have potentially 30 dice rolled or there abouts and applied multiple times to different effects.
So, we have seen that a Fighter can roll fewer dice than a wizard of the same level (16 in this example) and in all likelihood takes a lot less time.
So, my question is simple, why should the iterative attacks be replaced?
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I can see the reasoning I suppose, but disagree that it is a time waster. I have played in epic games and just have never seen the time spent on melee fighting to be an issue.
And yes, those spells are exaples of what is usually a one shot deal. However, every single round the casters have to decide what one shot spells they are going to cast, cast it and resolve the issues involved in that particular spell.
Melee combat tends to be pretty simple and is used all the time so it is familiar and takes far less time than having a huge variety of options that have to be uniquely resolved every single round.
I think high level magic is a far larger problem with wasted time than iterative attacks.
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To rehash one of my previous posts on this very ubject: The last time this subject came up, I suggested making iterative attacks into feats. Below is an example of how I would structure them.
Improved Attack [General]
Prerequisites: BAB +6.
Benefit: You gain a second attack at a -5 penalty.
Normal: Without this feat, you only get a single attack.Greater Attack [General]
Prerequisites: BAB +11, Improved Attack.
Benefit: You gain a third attack at a -10 penalty.
Normal: Without this feat, you only get a single attack.Superior Attack [General]
Prerequisites: BAB +16, Improved Attack, Greater Attack.
Benefit: You gain a forth attack at a -15 penalty.
Normal: Without this feat, you only get a single attack.
Doing this would necessitate some changes to the Two-Weapon Fighting feats (mainly the prerequisites, but it also touches the Ranger). Again, my thoughts are below.
Improved Two-Weapon Fighting [General]
Prerequisites: Dex 17, BAB +6, Improved Attack, Two-Weapon Fighting
Benefit: You get a second attack with your off-hand weapon, albeit at a -5 penalty. See the Two-Weapon Fighting special attack.
Special: A fighter may select Greater Two-Weapon Fighting as one of his fighter bonus feats.
A 6th-level ranger who has chosen the two-weapon combat style has taken the Improved Attack feat is treated as having Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, even if he does not have the remaining prerequisites for it, but only when he is wearing light or no armor.Greater Two-Weapon Fighting [General]
Prerequisites: Dex 19, BAB +11, Greater Attack, Improved Attack, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, Two-Weapon Fighting.
Benefit: You get a third attack with your off-hand weapon, albeit at a -10 penalty. See the Two-Weapon Fighting special attack.
Special: A fighter may select Greater Two-Weapon Fighting as one of his fighter bonus feats.
An 11th-level ranger who has chosen the two-weapon combat style and has taken the Greater Attack feat is treated as having Greater Two-Weapon Fighting, even if he does not have the remaining prerequisites for it, but only when he is wearing light or no armor.Superior Two-Weapon Fighting [General]
Prerequisites: Dex 25, BAB +16, Greater Attack, Greater Two-Weapon Fighting, Improved Attack, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, Superior Attack, Two-Weapon Fighting.
Benefit: You get a forth attack with your off-hand weapon, albeit at a -15 penalty. See the Two-Weapon Fighting special attack.
Special: A fighter may select Greater Two-Weapon Fighting as one of his fighter bonus feats.
A 16th-level ranger who has chosen the two-weapon combat style and has taken the Superior Attack feat is treated as having Superior Two-Weapon Fighting, even if he does not have the remaining prerequisites for it, but only when he is wearing light or no armor.Two-Weapon Rend [Combat]
Prerequisites: Dex 17, BAB +11, Double Slice, Improved Attack, Improved Two-WeaponFighting, Two-Weapon Fighting.
Benefit: If you hit an opponent with both your primary hand and your off-hand weapon, you deal an additional 1d10 points of damage plus 1-1/2 times your Strength modifier. You can only deal this additional damage once each time you use Two-Weapon Rend.
Additionally, I'd like to see Fighters get some bonus damage (similar to Rogues) to help beef-up their damage output, especially in light of removing iterative attacks. With iterative attacks gone, the Full-Round Attack option doesn't mean much since a FRA becomes a single attack (or an on-hand/off-hand attack for two weapons). Without itertaive attakcs, I can imagine that Fighters would be more motivated that Rogues to take the entire iterative attack feat tree, plue they will likely be power attacking, cleaving, etc. Their bonus damage wouldn't have to be as high as that of a Rogue. Also, I would think it wouldn't be precision-based.
Fighter Ability: Stand & Fight
When executing a Full-Round Attack, a 1st level Fighter adds an additional 1d6 to all attacks made as part of that attack action. This bonus damage increases to 2d6 at level 6, 3d6 at level 11, to a maximum of 4d6 at level 16. Bonus damage is physical damage of the same type as the weapon used to deliver it (slashing for a longsword, piercing for an arrow, etc.) and is affected by Damage Reduction as normal. Should a Fighter score a critical hit, this bonus damage is not multiplied.
This bonus damage applies to ranged attacks only if the target is within 30 feet.
This bonus damage does not apply to attacks made to deal nonlethal damage.
To keep the playing field somewhat level, the iterative attacks of monsters would have to be toned down. I haven't given too much thought to how best to handle that aspect of removing iterative attacks.
What I am sure of is that removing iterative attacks would be a huge change and would have a big impact on melee character effectiveness, PC-monster balance, and backward compatibility. However, I welcome the idea of it.
-Skeld
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I've thought about this a lot, and I have come up with two ways to axe the extra attacks without sacrificing combat effectiveness.
Method # 1: Have everyone get a bonus on damage with all weapons (not spells) equal to half of their BAB rounded down. This is similar to the way Star Wars SAGA does it. Extra attacks can be had through feats such as double attack, cleave, great cleave, two-weapon fighting and whirlwind attack.
Method # 2: Everytime you would get an extra attack from BAB, intstead add another die to your (or two for greatswords, etc) base weapon dice. So at 11th level a greatsword wielding fighter would have one attack at that does 6d6 plus all other modifiers instead of three attacks at 2d6 plus modifiers. This is similar to the vital strike feats and many 4th edition powers.
I lean towards one because the math is simpler and there is less time spent rolling gobs of dice.
Anyway, that's how I would do it. It might take some tweaking, but I think it's at least a good place to start.
Number of rolls is simply being replaced by more complicated math. I really don't see a net saving of time or the process being streamlined here.
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Iterative attacks can do things more than just the usual whack-a-monster. You can Trip (much more effective under 3.5), Sunder and Disarm, even start a Grapple which as defined is almost impossible to fail at.
So, use your first two attacks to hit and inflict damage. You know the next attack has a lower chance of success to why not use it to try and Disarm the opponent, and the last attack has almost no chance to hit, so try a Grapple and you are almost guarenteed to succeed (even at a -15 to hit you have great odds).
If you get that Grapple in you control his next round and prevent him from usinghis best attacks. When it gets to your turn again you drop the Grapple and repeat the above.
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Number of rolls is simply being replaced by more complicated math. I really don't see a net saving of time or the process being streamlined here.
Resolving one attack with either a static bonus to damage or a few extra die of damage if you hit is way faster than resolving 3-7 attacks with different modified attack rolls. Serioulsy, this is a no-brainer. Compare the time it takes for a fifth level fighter to resolve his one attack to a 16th level fighter resolving his four attacks, plus maybe one more from haste.
Number of rolls is simply being replaced by more complicated math. I really don't see a net saving of time or the process being streamlined here.Resolving one attack with either a static bonus to damage or a few extra die of damage if you hit is way faster than resolving 3-7 attacks with different modified attack rolls. Serioulsy, this is a no-brainer. Compare the time it takes for a fifth level fighter to resolve his one attack to a 16th level fighter resolving his four attacks, plus maybe one more from haste.
Point noted; good catch.
However I also agree with Krome. Melee combat rolls are few compared to rolls required for spells. Much more time is spent rolling, crunching numbers, and adjudicating spells.
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Just commenting on Krome's original list, but I thought that you only rolled Spell Resistance once per spell, then just used that number whenever it was called into question?
Normally yes, however in the spell descrption it specificallly calls for individual Spell Resistance checks. Another reason why iterative attacks are irrelevant time wise- the casters have to read every single lousy spell to check the rules on it.
Yes a Fighter at Level 16 takes longer to resolve his round than a Fighter at level 5.
A Wizard at level 16 takes a LOT longer to resolve his round than a wizard at level 5.
Everything at level 16 takes longer than it does at level 5. That is why it is 11 levels higher.
If people find combat too long at higher levels they need to look at where the time is really spent and resolve those issues. Casters take far more time than fighters (et al).
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Yes, spells do take a long time, usually longer than full round attacks. Spells do involve a lot of die rolling, and they really bring the game to a halt when the player has to look up and read a spell description. But this thread isn't about spellcasting, that should be it's own thread. Surely you agree that replacing extra attacks with just one attack that does more damage or maybe something else more interesting will definitely save time, especially with two-weapon fighters with gobs of attacks.
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Method # 1: Have everyone get a bonus on damage with all weapons (not spells) equal to half of their BAB rounded down. This is similar to the way Star Wars SAGA does it. Extra attacks can be had through feats such as double attack, cleave, great cleave, two-weapon fighting and whirlwind attack.Method # 2: Everytime you would get an extra attack from BAB, intstead add another die to your (or two for greatswords, etc) base weapon dice. So at 11th level a greatsword wielding fighter would have one attack at that does 6d6 plus all other modifiers instead of three attacks at 2d6 plus modifiers. This is similar to the vital strike feats and many 4th edition powers.
I lean towards one because the math is simpler and there is less time spent rolling gobs of dice.
I love option 2, just having extra dice of damage for a primary attack rather than secondary attacks. It would have to be noted that these extra dice would be added like sneak attack dice, *after* any doubling for Criticals. :)
As for method 1, I've considered adding that as well, but only for Fighters and to make it every odd level of Fighter, so that it starts at +1 damage for a 1st level Fighter and ends at +10 damage for a 19th level Fighter, applicable to damage with melee weapons, ranged weapons and unarmed attacks.
Power creep is hard to stop. It used to be a big deal when a fighter got his second attack, and he was the envy of everyone else. Now everybody gets them. Why? It detracts from the fighter (and monk) class.
Keep multiple attacks for fighters, rangers, paladins, and monks. When their BAB hits 10, they get a second attack at 0. When they hit 20 they get a third attack 20/10/0.
Monsters have attack groups that they use like fighters use attacks.
Bite, Appendages, Grapple, Special. To allow a monster to bite/claw/claw/tail bash all in one round suggests that the monster is blindingly fast at all times, or is making inaccurate/less than full power attacks to keep an opponent off balance.
It is only a 6 second round. The rationale used to be that you could make one telling blow during the round, and that there were swipes, jabs, feints going on. I do not play any games of 1 second combat rounds for good reason--I want to do something during the session other than have a single battle.
The goal of 4th ed was an admirable one. Just because it failed is no reason to abandon the goal of making combat a little less time consuming. Less detail will take less time and still be fun.
Personally I'd prefer adding weapon dice, or adding one attack per 10 points of BAB... they'd have to be full BAB however and I'm not sure whether it doesn't weaken the fighter at certain levels in comparison to casters again.
Hmm.. loose my multiple attacks.. Or repeatedly sac-tap myself with a carpet hammer.. Decisions decisions..
This should have been included in my Neceros' Core Upgrade post, but was left out. Thus, without further adieu:
7. Iterative Attacks
When indicated to get another attack from your class table, you gain the attack as normal per your BAB score. However, instead of the -5 to attack, the character receives a -2 penalty per attack starting with the second attack. For example, a 16 level Fighter has a BAB of 16, as his table indicates he has four attacks: +16/+11/+6/+1. Instead of the normal -5 down the line, instead replace that with a -2, so it would be as follows: +16/+14/+12/+10. You still follow your table to determine how many attacks you get, but not the modifier to said rolls.
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Yes, spells do take a long time, usually longer than full round attacks. Spells do involve a lot of die rolling, and they really bring the game to a halt when the player has to look up and read a spell description. But this thread isn't about spellcasting, that should be it's own thread. Surely you agree that replacing extra attacks with just one attack that does more damage or maybe something else more interesting will definitely save time, especially with two-weapon fighters with gobs of attacks.
It can save, what, 1 minute?
You replace iterative attacks which is more than just hitting a target and doing damage, with limiting it to just doing damage? I am never for restricting choices and abilities. Sorry, just not. The fighter is already nerfed enough with many of the core feats being castrated. Granted some great new feats are introduced, but time will tell if they can replace the basics.
And if the purpose of this topic is to save time and reduce the number of dice rolls than casters should be discussed. But if the purpose of this topic is how to restrict options for the fighter classes, then this topic is poorly inspired and should just be ignored.
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Ok, then on topic:
Don't change iterative attacks. I want my fighter to have as many choices in combat as he can have. I want to be able to run a 11th level city-based 3.5 module in Pathfinder without retooling every martial NPC to fit some new formula. I want my monsters and players use same or similar mechanics feel of 3.5.
I don't see benefit of eliminating iterative attacks vs. its cost to me as a DM running 3.5 modules in PF.
I like the fact that as an 11th level martial character who rolls a 1 on his first attack, I still have a few more tries to whack the monster.
5% chance of missing completely, no matter what. That's one of the costs of removing this mechanic from the game.
Typically, time spent by martial characters during a round is much less than time spent by other character types, so I'm not buying the importance of saving time by eliminating this mechanic. Typically, a well-prepared Martial Character's Player can be ready to roll all the dice he needs to roll at once and rolling a lot of dice is "hella fun" so I'm not buying the need to reduce the number of dice rolled.
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Let's not forget that if you apply 1 or 3 with monsters and villians (definitely go with 1 here), you will get significant reduction in the time it takes to resolve attacks on the DM side of things. Maybe players won't save a whole lot of time, but the DM running more than a few non-casters could definitely save a lot of time. Add them both up and you get faster combats with less player downtime between their turns to sap the excitiement. It's a win win situation.
Personally I'd prefer adding weapon dice, or adding one attack per 10 points of BAB... they'd have to be full BAB however and I'm not sure whether it doesn't weaken the fighter at certain levels in comparison to casters again.This:
"4. And finally, decrease the number of attacks by adding one per 10 points of BAB."And this:
"4. is overall nerfing of iterative attacks to the point of negligence."Calc or Excel sheets are your friend. I have made a simulation of damage output of hundred attacks vs various to-hit values (from 1+ to natural 20). Whenever your fighter would hit on 10+, his further attacks would lose any significance (damage output from other attacks falls below 4% of total damage output).
Therefore using 10 as step decrease in progression (i.e. 20/10/0) nerfs iterative attacks absolutely while offering only 1/4 of reduction in resolution steps.
Sorry, Zmar. This is not a viable proposition.
Regards,
RuemerePS. On the other hand, you're the 3rd person who voted for BAB/2 damage bonus.
Aehm, I didn't vote for BAB/2 bonus, please reread my post
"Personally I'd prefer adding weapon dice..." = Instead of iterative attack roll the damage for the first attack twice.
"...or adding one attack per 10 points of BAB... they'd have to be full BAB however..." = At level 11 you'd get second attack at +11 bonus, so he'd have +11/+11 attacks.
Another thing could be combination of both:
level 6 - 2W damage
level 11 - 2 attacks with full BAB
level 16 - 3w damage
level 20 - 3 attacks with full BAB
Of course that this may need some ballancing and Im not sure about backwards compatibility.
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Let's not forget that if you apply 1 or 3 with monsters and villians (definitely go with 1 here), you will get significant reduction in the time it takes to resolve attacks on the DM side of things. Maybe players won't save a whole lot of time, but the DM running more than a few non-casters could definitely save a lot of time. Add them both up and you get faster combats with less player downtime between their turns to sap the excitiement. It's a win win situation.Definitely... but, crikes, I like it big. Huge. Epic even.
In my games, when you rest your sword and wipe blood from your forehead, there are bodies lying everywhere. From beneath caved in walls come whimpers of accidental survivors and your friendly cleric apologizes the wounded for being unable to heal them anymore.
It's almost never the single tough monster to face against, it's almost always a laughing in your face enemy general, supported by mob of bloodthirsty underlings.
Though, during last session it was a single vrock dropping statues from hundreds of feet above characters, and they were too busy trying to get the ... out of steel construction coming down around them. Matrix style, with frozen shots showing various moments of... like the guy, who told the girl to hold him tightly and jumped off the ledge trying to slow down the fall... or the wizard using his body (and power of flying spell) to cushion the fall of his friends... or dwarf and cleric trying to outrace the caving in contruction to save their comrades.
:)
It's big, it's huge, it's epic. Single one-shots need not apply.
Regards,
I'm a little confused. Nothing I said precludes you from having an epic battle. I was just suggesting ways to save time and keep the action going during epic battles. The more enemies you have, the more time you save. Less rolling for those second and third attacks that most likely won't hit anyway and more time spent on strategy and vivid descriptions of the battle is a good thing in my book.
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A few comments related to ruemere's post, since it sums up much of what has been said for replacing iterative attacks.
1. With 20 or 40 higher level fighters involved you get so many iterative attacks per round (and threats to confirm, and older version cleaves), that any simplification makes a huge difference.
And don't even think about bringing into this a horde of 7th level Orc Barbarians. In addition to standard gripes, you get 20-40 rages to keep track of and 20-40 hitpoints totals to adjust.
To be fair, these are probably the simplest mechanics to keep track of. Hypothetically, in a battle with 20-40 high level casters, you could be rolling 200-400d6 per round, so by extension your example shows that melee fights are actually the easiest to run.
2. Whenever any fighter with several iterative attacks faces an opponent of close CR to his level, his further iterative attacks become statistically negligible. Yes, you can score a great critical from time to time, you can enjoy a lucky hit... but in overall picture, laws of probability kick in and you get several empty rolls. Monks get exceptionally shafted here, with their weak BAB progression and additional penalties they are required to take for use of their class features.
In my view, the point of iterative attacks is not to use the full-attack action on fighters that are as powerful as you. Their purpose is two-fold - to allow multiple special actions (grapple, trip, etc) that are normally not as useful when used on a single opponent. Second, they allow a high-level fighter to apply massive amounts of damage to lightly-armored opponents such as mages and rogues. Fighter-verus-Fighter doesn't matter, since optimally they will be dealing the same average damage to each-other. In terms of high-AC opponents, I agree, iterative attacks are ineffective. But against lower AC opponents they are devastating.
The other problem I have with eliminating iterative attacks is that it makes combat very hit-or-miss, giving the warrior very little chance to redeem himself if he rolls poorly with his only attack.
This said, I am fully in favor of getting rid of iterative attacks for non-warrior classes (or even make it Fighter-only).
I like iterative attacks. Alot of the fantasy I remember reading/watching involved the warrior characters making multiple attacks at a time.
That said, I do think only the melee classes should get them, possibly allowing other classes to do so with a feat (possibly at a greater penalty to their roll). Or a Fighter only thing, with a feat option for other melee classes.
I can't remember who posted the "-2" instead of "-5" suggestion, but I agree with it.
This is way too complicated.
Melee characters need to be able to do more as a standard action, but I'd just suggest eliminating Devastating Blow (broken, bad for gameplay) and making standard-action attacks do 2x damage at level, say, 8, and 3x at level, oh, 15.
You could base it off BAB if you wanted to give it to Fighters/Barbs/etc earlier than to others.
Hardwires it into the system, makes it easy, and eliminates the "full attacks are too necessary but hard to get" problem.