So there were four of us in the game. The warlock, the duskblade, the ranger and the cleric. We had worked our way up to 16th level but even before then combat was starting to wear us down. Now even though this was 3.5, we could be talking about pathfinder also.
The Ranger alone had (i believe) five or six attacks PER TURN. Even if he used mulitcolored dice (he did) and rolled them all at once(he did) it still took an insane amount of time for him to determed his attacks and damage.
SO I was looking over the 1st edition d&D book and realised that the game use to be playe with ONE attack and fighters had two maybe three at the highest levels. What whould be so bad about going back to that?
So there were four of us in the game. The warlock, the duskblade, the ranger and the cleric. We had worked our way up to 16th level but even before then combat was starting to wear us down. Now even though this was 3.5, we could be talking about pathfinder also.
The Ranger alone had (i believe) five or six attacks PER TURN. Even if he used mulitcolored dice (he did) and rolled them all at once(he did) it still took an insane amount of time for him to determed his attacks and damage.
SO I was looking over the 1st edition d&D book and realised that the game use to be playe with ONE attack and fighters had two maybe three at the highest levels. What whould be so bad about going back to that?
Going back to playing 1E? Nothing. Sounds like fun.
Restricting fighters to one attack (or two at upper levels) in PF? Involved. There's a lot of things you'd have to consider/tweak.
So there were four of us in the game. The warlock, the duskblade, the ranger and the cleric. We had worked our way up to 16th level but even before then combat was starting to wear us down. Now even though this was 3.5, we could be talking about pathfinder also.
The Ranger alone had (i believe) five or six attacks PER TURN. Even if he used mulitcolored dice (he did) and rolled them all at once(he did) it still took an insane amount of time for him to determed his attacks and damage.
SO I was looking over the 1st edition d&D book and realised that the game use to be playe with ONE attack and fighters had two maybe three at the highest levels. What whould be so bad about going back to that?Going back to playing 1E? Nothing. Sounds like fun.
Restricting fighters to one attack (or two at upper levels) in PF? Involved. There's a lot of things you'd have to consider/tweak.
Like?? I'm not talking about taking away the two weapon feat(and those related to it). But please give examples
Like the CR balance removed by taking away iterative attacks, which the CR system assumes exist and is designed for. Like the further widened gap between fighters who can now only damage with one attack and casters who could already use one action to equal or surpass said fighters' full attack damage. And those are just off the top of my head.
And I don't see why there's so many difficulty issues for multiple attacks. I've only seen that problem once, and it was simply because I was playing a changeling warshaper, and had more natural attacks than everyone else put together (which I would not normally do, nor would I advise doing it - it was just an anti-DM measure, as the DM seemed out to kill off the party before said character was made).
Check out the Vital Strike feats in the Pf Core Rulebook. They let you make just one attack for extra damage. Might alleviate some of the issues.
Check out the Vital Strike feats in the Pf Core Rulebook. They let you make just one attack for extra damage. Might alleviate some of the issues.
These become feat taxes to play a fighter instead of neat options, which just isn't cool.
You could though, give all fighters (or fighter-types) Vital Strike (as well as Improved and Greater) so that they make less attack rolls but do effectively similar damage. That way it reduces the number of attack rolls made but keeps average damage relatively stable.
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TWfers are the worst! By 10th level they have a ton of attacks and usually a bunch of Sneak attack dice to roll....My group is getting in 2 maybe 3 encounters in a typical 4 hour session with maybe an hour or so of actual Roleplay. I really hate playing past 10th anymore with 3.5 or PRPG...
I have been considering using a stripped down version of d20 like Microlite20 instead but my players are hesitant...
But as an option to streamline the game, you could give each of these feats as an automatic bonus feat when a character would have otherwise received a new iterative attack. They're not limited to fighter, only BAB. I might just mention that to my own group and see what they think.
You could though, give all fighters (or fighter-types) Vital Strike (as well as Improved and Greater) so that they make less attack rolls but do effectively similar damage. That way it reduces the number of attack rolls made but keeps average damage relatively stable.
I like that idea
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When analyzing how a change effects a system, you have to follow how that change will cascade through the system.
By removing some or all iterative attacks from melee characters, you lower the damage they deal to enemies. This weakens them in combat. Some options to rectify this are:
I. Lower the number of hit points enemies have.
A. This cascades through to spells that effect targets with a certain number of hit points.
B. If the system is to remain consistent, it lowers the number of hit points that player characters have.
1. This in turn raises the power of healing spells, as they heal a greater proportion of a character's hit points as character hit points have fallen
2. This creates the need to examine enemy damage, as the same damage will kill player characters more quickly
C. Spells that deal damage become much more powerful as monsters have fewer hit points as buffer
1. Spells could have their damage lowered
2. Spellcasting could be made more difficult or inhibited in some way to prevent spells from being cast as often / as easily
3. Monster defenses versus spells could increase
D. Save or Suck spells relative efficacy to damage spells is lowered, and they have already been quite nerfed in Pathfinder. This will effect the balance of spellcasting schools for arcane casters, especially.
E. Burst damage from single hits becomes much more important. Rogues with sneak attack will deal better damage than fighters and barbarians without rules changes. Fighters will be forced to concentrate almost exclusively on large critical hits to get good damage with the removal of iterative strikes.
F. The value of +1 BaB / level will decrease as attacks far outstrip enemy AC - with no iterative attacks and their dropping bonuses to keep the rising BaB relevent, the BaB bonus becomes useless, given the changes to power attack from 3.5.
etc. etc. etc.
The rules system is complex. Small changes have surprisingly large effects. Changes may be made, but I urge a careful analysis of how much the change affects game play for better or for worse - be open minded and willing to listen to objections. Be willing to switch back to RAW or try new additions to correct the new problems as you go.
When analyzing how a change effects a system, you have to follow how that change will cascade through the system.
By removing some or all iterative attacks from melee characters, you lower the damage they deal to enemies. This weakens them in combat. Some options to rectify this are:
I. Lower the number of hit points enemies have.
A. This cascades through to spells that effect targets with a certain number of hit points.
B. If the system is to remain consistent, it lowers the number of hit points that player characters have.
1. This in turn raises the power of healing spells, as they heal a greater proportion of a character's hit points as character hit points have fallen
2. This creates the need to examine enemy damage, as the same damage will kill player characters more quickly
C. Spells that deal damage become much more powerful as monsters have fewer hit points as buffer
1. Spells could have their damage lowered
2. Spellcasting could be made more difficult or inhibited in some way to prevent spells from being cast as often / as easily
3. Monster defenses versus spells could increase
D. Save or Suck spells relative efficacy to damage spells is lowered, and they have already been quite nerfed in Pathfinder. This will effect the balance of spellcasting schools for arcane casters, especially.
E. Burst damage from single hits becomes much more important. Rogues with sneak attack will deal better damage than fighters and barbarians without rules changes. Fighters will be forced to concentrate almost exclusively on large critical hits to get good damage with the removal of iterative strikes.
F. The value of +1 BaB / level will decrease as attacks far outstrip enemy AC - with no iterative attacks and their dropping bonuses to keep the rising BaB relevent, the BaB bonus becomes useless, given the changes to power attack from 3.5.etc. etc. etc.
The rules system is complex. Small changes have surprisingly large effects. Changes may be made, but I urge a careful analysis of how much...
I understand what you are saying, but there has to be a simple answer because the way it is right now makes it very unfun to play.
I understand what you are saying, but there has to be a simple answer because the way it is right now makes it very unfun to play.
The problem is that there is no simple answer. The d20 system, whether 3.x, PF, or some other derivative, is complicated, and often ends up with horrendous ripple effects from seemingly small changes.
Ignoring the realism of iterative attacks seems silly also. I'm a reasonably competent fighter with a sword (not great, but I can hold my own). The idea of only making one attack in a six second span, even when defending myself, it almost silly.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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One solution I've seen used is to roll only once for each hand's attack, assuming that the iterative attacks would have rolled identically. So, if your character's base attack would hit on a roll of 7 or above, then a roll of 7-11 indicates one hit, 12-16 is two hits, and 17-20 would be three hits.
Potential criticals are confirmed one at a time. Damage is rolled independently for each successful attack.
Combat is much faster, and swingier. (A bad roll means all your attacks miss.)
That campaign used Action Points, and this house rule encouraged players to spend APs on moderately successful rolls, in order to capture another iterative attack.
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I understand what you are saying, but there has to be a simple answer because the way it is right now makes it very unfun to play.
There is not always a simple answer. Some problems are irreducably complex.
Some possibilities other than my example above:
1. Up the damage dealt by weapons, depending on their class base attack bonus. Problems: a. Damage becomes extremely swingy as damage is either horrendously high or nothing each round. Lots of healing to keep the people taking hits at nearly full hit points is needed or they will go down due to greatly increased "burst" damage. b. AC becomes even more useless than it already is, as it can't protect you from "part" of the damage (avoiding iterative attacks). You will see a lot of high crit weapons, and people will give up on defenses except for percent miss chances such as AC becomes useless to lessen damage taken.c. DR becomes nearly irrelevent, as even a dagger will do significant amounts of damage and power through DR if it deals 4[W] damage due to high BaB.d. If strength bonuses to damage are not multiplied along with weapon damage (strength bonuses stay flat with vital strike, for example), then strength becomes nearly irrelevent to fighters. Barbarian's rage bonuses to strength are significantly weakened, and the barbarian class's main feature becomes nearly useless past about level 6.e. How are you dealing with monster attacks? Does the dragon still get bite / claw / claw / wing / wing / tail? Or does he get one attack each round that deals 6d8 damage to include all the damage from these attacks?
2. Remove iteratives, or greatly reduce them (cut them in half so wizards never get an iterative, and rogues only get them from level 16+, and a fighter's second attack at level 11 is the only one he'll ever get. To keep it from being too unfair that casters keep their spells, increase casting times - standard spells take a full round, full round spells take two rounds, etc. Problems: This suggestion has mostly the same problems as the solution above, only it proceeds at a slower pace. It also has the problem of completely reworking the spell system.
Any change you make to this fundamental mechanic will have far reaching effects. It will most likely empower spellcasters farther and remove the combat effectiveness of fighters, who already struggle at high levels due to the dearth of abilities that add status effects, mobility issues and the lack of much of the fantastic utilities that spellcasters have available
What JessDoor is saying makes a lot of sense to me. I've thought about the very same questions that you (The OP) has, but came to the conclusions Jess brought up.
Sure, in 1st edition fighters got 1 attack...2 per round at level 13+ if Specialized in a weapon....but a Pit Fiend had 13 (d8) hit dice. And monsters didn't get any kind of constitution bonus to Hit Points either.
Even hit HD monsters dropped pretty quick in 1st edition. Thats one of the reasons between 1st edition and 2nd edition you saw a lot of monsters get beefed up in HD while the Attacks per round didn't really change. If anything, they reduced it a bit by keeping the really powerful (i.e. unbalanced) classes like the 1st edition Barbarian and Cavalier out of the mix. As for an example of HD increase, look at the Balor (Class VI Demon) from 1st edition, it had 8+8 HD. That means 8d8+8 Hp (Max of 72).
In 2nd edition, Balors HD increased to 13 (13d8 = 104 Hp) which made them a good deal tougher. Their AC also increased from -2 in 1st edition to -8 in 2nd edition.
Thats why when they first came out with 3.0, Balors and Pit Fiends still had the same 13 HD they had from 2nd edition. The designers didn't quite realize just how much damage potential had increased for characters.
Changing the system like that, without using it as an Option like with Vital Strike seems a bit tough.
The simplest fix I can see would be this. If you want to, just give the Full BAB Classes Vital Strike as a feat for free at certain levels.
You could work out a progression if you wanted to, similar to the requirements for the feats and just take the feats themselves out of the system for Warrior types. That way, if you feel this is necessary, you don't have to use feats to take these abilities.
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Okay, I just had an odd idea.
Assume average for attack and damage rolls on iterative attacks. (round down, thus 10+attack bonus is your attack on each d20 roll).
Then have the defender roll AC. Add the d20 roll to your AC-10. Your choice whether that defense applies to all attacks for the round, or you roll for each attack. Natural 1 means you confirm, if you got hit again you just got critted. Natural 20 means they miss no matter what.
Mandy the Monk has an AC of 21. She's being attacked by two thugs. Mandy's "Armor Bonus" is 21-10, or 11.
Thug #1 has a BaB of 3, and uses weapon finesse at a +2 to hit. He has one attack per round with a rapier at 1d6+2d6 sneak attack + 1 damage. His "default" attack is 15, his average damage (rounded down) is 11 (we'll assume they're flanking Mandy, and able to sneak attack her).
Thug #2 has a BaB of 6 and gets another +2 from strength with his bastard sword. He has a +9 to hit with weapon focus, and deals 1d10+3 damage. Default attack is 19, average damage is 8.
If Mandy rolls a 1, the thugs deal critical damage. I'm not sure how to handle the increased threat range of rapiers, though. does she possibly get crit on a 2 and 3 also? If she rolls a 5, thug #1 would miss, thug #2 would hit. If she rolls 9 or higher, they miss.
I don't know, the issues with crits is thorny, and you'd still want confirmations.
You really only save rolling damage, I guess. You could try to speed things up by calculating the average damage of each type of attack you have and apply that on hits, and double, triple or quadruple it on crits.
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Okay, I just had an odd idea.
Assume average for attack and damage rolls on iterative attacks. (round down, thus 10+attack bonus is your attack on each d20 roll).
Then have the defender roll AC. Add the d20 roll to your AC-10. Your choice whether that defense applies to all attacks for the round, or you roll for each attack. Natural 1 means you confirm, if you got hit again you just got critted. Natural 20 means they miss no matter what.
Mandy the Monk has an AC of 21. She's being attacked by two thugs. Mandy's "Armor Bonus" is 21-10, or 11.
Thug #1 has a BaB of 3, and uses weapon finesse at a +2 to hit. He has one attack per round with a rapier at 1d6+2d6 sneak attack + 1 damage. His "default" attack is 15, his average damage (rounded down) is 11 (we'll assume they're flanking Mandy, and able to sneak attack her).
Thug #2 has a BaB of 6 and gets another +2 from strength with his bastard sword. He has a +9 to hit with weapon focus, and deals 1d10+3 damage. Default attack is 19, average damage is 8.
If Mandy rolls a 1, the thugs deal critical damage. I'm not sure how to handle the increased threat range of rapiers, though. does she possibly get crit on a 2 and 3 also? If she rolls a 5, thug #1 would miss, thug #2 would hit. If she rolls 9 or higher, they miss.
I don't know, the issues with crits is thorny, and you'd still want confirmations.
You really only save rolling damage, I guess. You could try to speed things up by calculating the average damage of each type of attack you have and apply that on hits, and double, triple or quadruple it on crits.
So basically make attacks a constant set number and leave the AC as the variable instead of the opposite like it is now? So each round the player would state that he is attacking the Goblin, who has an AC of 15, or now a +5 modifier to AC rolls. The attacker would state that his attack is 15 (10 +2bab+2str+1weaponfocus=15) then the DM rolls a d20 for the goblin and adds 5. This would speed it up and I think if you just used the inverse threat ranges on the AC roll you wouldn't have too much change in crits(example, longsword would crit on an AC roll of 1 or 2, player rolls confirmation rolls or a falchion would crit on a 1,2,or 3 AC roll...
not too bad except when the players decide to toss attacks at several opponents... and there is still the issue of rolling damage (5d6 sneak +1d6 energy +1d6 weapon +str mod,etc.. on several hits is still a lot of rolling)
You want to make combat simple again? Its easy.
Start a new campaign at 1st level and use the slow XP chart or not even award XP anymore. Level the PC's as it fits your campaign and kill the campaign off at around 10th-12th level. The most memorable fights are the ones between 5th and 8th level as far as I am concerned, but thats just me.
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So basically make attacks a constant set number and leave the AC as the variable instead of the opposite like it is now? So each round the player would state that he is attacking the Goblin, who has an AC of 15, or now a +5 modifier to AC rolls. The attacker would state that his attack is 15 (10 +2bab+2str+1weaponfocus=15) then the DM rolls a d20 for the goblin and adds 5. This would speed it up and I think if you just used the inverse threat ranges on the AC roll you wouldn't have too much change in crits(example, longsword would crit on an AC roll of 1 or 2, player rolls confirmation rolls or a falchion would crit on a 1,2,or 3 AC roll...
not too bad except when the players decide to toss attacks at several opponents... and there is still the issue of rolling damage (5d6 sneak +1d6 energy +1d6 weapon +str mod,etc.. on several hits is still a lot of rolling)
Not quite. :) Yeah, looking at it, it didn't really save anything on attack rolls - you just switched from attack to defense rolls. The second component of it was to average damage.
Bob has a +1 flaming rapier and a +2 stregnth modifier. His average rapier damage is 1d6+1d6+3 = 7+3 = 10.
If he has 2d6 sneak attack on sneak attack hits, add that in: 7+7+3 = 17.
round down on fractional averages (3d6 = 3.5x3=10.5, 10 rounded down). You get rid of damage rolls, and if the player calculates out all their permutations (power attack? sneak attack? Vital strike? Crit?) they're good.
I suggest the following to the OP:
1) get rid of iterative attacks at BAB +11 and BAB +16. In return, increase the damage dice of the weapon you use once at BAB +11 and once again at BAB +16. (Similar to how the Vital Strike feats work). For example, take PC who fights with a longsword. At BAB +11, instead of getting a third attack at -10, increase the base damage from the longsword to 2d8 for both attacks. At BAB +16, increase the base damage to 3d8 for both longsword attacks.
2)Get rid of the extra attacks from IMP TWF and Gtr TWF. In return, reduce the attack penalties by -2 for Imp TWF and allow Gtr TWF to give a second attack as a standard action.
That should reduce the number of attacks you make at the highest levels yet still put out similar damage overall.
You want to make combat simple again? Its easy.
Start a new campaign at 1st level and use the slow XP chart or not even award XP anymore. Level the PC's as it fits your campaign and kill the campaign off at around 10th-12th level. The most memorable fights are the ones between 5th and 8th level as far as I am concerned, but thats just me.
Theres a reason for that. They're relativly fast pace and dynamic at that level.
One solution I've seen used is to roll only once for each hand's attack, assuming that the iterative attacks would have rolled identically. So, if your character's base attack would hit on a roll of 7 or above, then a roll of 7-11 indicates one hit, 12-16 is two hits, and 17-20 would be three hits.
Potential criticals are confirmed one at a time. Damage is rolled independently for each successful attack.
Combat is much faster, and swingier. (A bad roll means all your attacks miss.)
That campaign used Action Points, and this house rule encouraged players to spend APs on moderately successful rolls, in order to capture another iterative attack.
This, I think, is my prefered option, if I start seeing it as a problem in game. A single d20 roll, with the iterative attack modifiers added in to that roll.
Of course, I am planning on running online via Maptool or something, so the rolling and such may not even be an issue (since most online die rollers/whiteboards have dice options to roll and add modifiers for you).But this one seems simple, and while it can be whiffier than rolling each attack by itself, it also has the benefit of not dealing with cascading effects on the game, as with removing iteratives.
Just a couple suggestions:
We do combat in two parts per round, each player goes through the initiative order declaring what they are doing in two or three words during their declaration phase, after declaring actions and moves (to which the GM gives DCs and ACs) the player rolls their rolls and adds the results. Meanwhile the other players are declaring actions.
Next part is the result phase: each player either confirms success or fail. If success, the GM desribes it, if fail, the player describes it. This makes it fell like less down time and cuts down on waiting while calculating. It's one of the only way we could stand playing with a hasted two weapon fighter at higher levels.
The other suggestion: an action sheet. A sheet or piece of paper with all the different sets of attacks with the dice colors marked and totals. This laminated worksheet with a block for modifiers, roll and total, that can be done with a dry erase, this could quicken multi attacks too.
Both these combined, when it hits their result phase, they're ready to go. I hope this is useful to some of you.
I suggest the following to the OP:
1) get rid of iterative attacks at BAB +11 and BAB +16. In return, increase the damage dice of the weapon you use once at BAB +11 and once again at BAB +16. (Similar to how the Vital Strike feats work). For example, take PC who fights with a longsword. At BAB +11, instead of getting a third attack at -10, increase the base damage from the longsword to 2d8 for both attacks. At BAB +16, increase the base damage to 3d8 for both longsword attacks.
2)Get rid of the extra attacks from IMP TWF and Gtr TWF. In return, reduce the attack penalties by -2 for Imp TWF and allow Gtr TWF to give a second attack as a standard action.
That should reduce the number of attacks you make at the highest levels yet still put out similar damage overall.
I like this suggestion- another I have seen (Badaxe or trailblaizer or something) is that when you get to bab+6 you may as a full attack option get two attacks at -2 (not one at 0 and one at -5) it saves a bit on maths. At bab +11 you still only get 2 attacks but the penalty is -1. At bab 16 you have no penalty. twf gives you an extra attack with the off hand but at another -2 to all attacks, ITWF reduces this penalty to -1, greater twf to 0
so a full attack 16th level twf (with all the feats) gets 2 attacks with their primary weapon and one with their off hand all at full
apparently the iterative attacks generally dont do too much as they miss a lot anyway and this just saves the rolling.