So full attack you take your whole round to attack as many times as your BAB (and other buffs) allows. It is so effective that other options are just far to inefficient to justify doing. I could disarm you but why when I can full attack and pump out 100+ and kill you outright. this is the reason i believe that some people don't like the idea of full attack it takes away from mobility and fluid motion of cinematic combat. in 1st there was no full attack you moves then you could make all your attacks as you wanted. pounce is a thing you can get and copy that option (and most would agree pounce and other similar options are quite strong and can be tricky to get) what i want to know is what would be the alternative combat system to handle increasing martial damage with level without using full attacks so that combat can flow assume everything else remains the same. would just getting extra attacks at certain levels be enough (and the other minor annoyance the 20/15/10/5 why not have it be the same bonus across for simplicity sake.) also it would have to be balanced with the current so just have a standard action to 20/20/20/20 is definitely not acceptable. saga edition used a damage scaling with level but that seemed problematic too. bonus points if your way balances damage with maneuvers and other combat options
TL/DR what is another system that could make martial improve as they level while getting rid of full attacking.
Hmm is that without a feat?
yeah that doesn't sound good I don't know if i called it looking for a home brew but i suspose so.i was curious if anyone had any ideal of a system to replace the iterative attacks and remove the necessity of get close then full attack your heart out until you win.
yeah that doesn't sound good I don't know if i called it looking for a home brew but i suspose so.i was curious if anyone had any ideal of a system to replace the iterative attacks and remove the necessity of get close then full attack your heart out until you win.
I'm still not sure what you're complaining about.
If it's the need to get close -- that's implicit in the fact that you're swinging a sword, not firing an artillery piece. You can't attack someone twenty meters away using a sword unless you throw it, in which case you don't have your sword any more.
If it's the fact that moving limits you to a single instead of multiple attacks, either provide everyone with charge, or simply allow everyone to make as many attacks as they are entitled to with an ordinary attack action.
i'm not complaining i'm just thinking of alternatives. its not the need to get close that i'm curious about I just noticed a lot of complaints (in the forums) about full attacks limiting the cinematic of combat. i don't think your giving everyone pounce option is best without taking away something elsewhere otherwise it might be unbalancing. its just a thought exercise no need to get hostile.
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Well Revised Action Economy pretty much removes them. It gives you three actions, you can use all three to attack with cumulative -5 penalty, but you can never have more attacks with just high bab so you aren't required to do the "five foot step full attack" dance thing. I consider it nice trade off for being able to move and hit twice, or just move, hit, move xD
I like that a lot but doesn't it nerf martials? you would get one less attack (granted it is your -15 attack so not a lot)although the trade off would be better able to get in and out of combat. i guess youd have to redo how pounce or drop it all together (i think only like a few archtypes actually have it a an option anyways right?)
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Path of War introduced Martial Maneuvers wich for the most part are standard action attacks that are at least as good as full-attacking.
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path of war I've heard of it but never looked into it. I might have to now.
yeah that doesn't sound good I don't know if i called it looking for a home brew but i suspose so.i was curious if anyone had any ideal of a system to replace the iterative attacks and remove the necessity of get close then full attack your heart out until you win.
At this point, you'd be looking at so many changes to the system that you'd be better of moving to something like D&D 5th Edition.
What if you could full attack as a standard action at a -2 penalty to all attacks (maybe throw in a clause including monk flurry)?
I like that a lot but doesn't it nerf martials? you would get one less attack (granted it is your -15 attack so not a lot)although the trade off would be better able to get in and out of combat. i guess youd have to redo how pounce or drop it all together (i think only like a few archtypes actually have it a an option anyways right?)
It nerfs +16 BAB full attacks, but how often do you play with those? It enhances most of your combat options outside of that situation.
The revised action economy also nerfs spellcasters, who no longer can standard action cast, quicken a spell, and move in one turn. Overall the change helps martials vs. casters.
There is a supplement for 3.5/Pathfinder called Trailblazer.
It is $4.95 and has some nice house rule options.
http://www.badaxegames.com/2009/12/29/trailblazer-now-available-in-print/
General descriptions:
Combat
Players’ turns take too long to resolve; combat is no fun when you spend
most of your time waiting for your turn.
Combat is faster—you can move and act more freely, and there are fewer
iterative attacks. We’ve simplified a lot of the combat mechanics that
required two or more rolls to resolve—in fact, in some cases where the roll was a foregone conclusion, we’ve done away with the roll entirely. Most importantly, we have added some Combat Reactions which encourage you
to stay engaged on other players’ turns.
Iterative attacks slow down combat.
We’ve changed iterative attacks to both reduce the number of attacks
and, more importantly, to streamline the math. All attacks use the same
attack bonus.
Get the PDF for the particulars.
in 1st there was no full attack you moves then you could make all your attacks as you wanted.
This is a pretty common misconception, but it's just that - a misconception. It forgets that characters more than 10' (1" in 1e scale) from their target had to take a round closing in which they could make "an attack". As in one attack. 3e and, by extension PF, have made the behavior clearer, but 1e wasn't really all that different with regards to move+attack or just attacking within close range.
That said, I can see the argument for increasing the dynamism of martial combat. I think a lot of benefit could be drawn from increasing the benefit of attack actions that otherwise don't damage an enemy. Perhaps combat maneuvers like bull rush, overrun, even disarm, could inflict some damage on the target so that simply killing the target with more damage isn't nearly always the most attractive option.
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The concept of maneuvers (even if you don't love the specific implementation) from paths of war/tome of battle is the answer here. You wouldn't even need to remove full attacks from the equation, you just need to add a viable alternative.
Maneuvers have all the right elements: They are standard actions, they offer a variety of effects and impacts besides simply MOAR DAMAGW, choosing one is not a huge investment of character resources (akin to a sorcerer picking a spell known) and they are usable resources so they can be balanced again other finite resource abilities in the game.
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I like that a lot but doesn't it nerf martials? you would get one less attack (granted it is your -15 attack so not a lot)although the trade off would be better able to get in and out of combat. i guess youd have to redo how pounce or drop it all together (i think only like a few archtypes actually have it a an option anyways right?)
Not really. Besides one attack not hitting anything anyway, this system allows you to move and attack instead of just five foot step. So martials have a lot more mobility than they otherwise have plus they can do three attacks since first level.
But yeah, pounce is pretty pointless with that system except for monsters with natural attacks.
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Chalk up another vote for Path of War. Absolutly fantastic system.
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I'm going to reiterate the Path Of War recommendation. The stuff from the first book is available on the pfsrd, but it's more than worth buying that book plus the second book, which includes rules for adding maneuvers to the core classes.
you guys have sold me pretty hard on path of war. trailblazer also sounds interesting thanks all!
I have to warn against the Trailblazer solution. Removing iteratives with declining bonuses has the downside of narrowing the relevant AC band. Without them AC less than two more than your attack bonus just doesn't matter at all.
The problem is that iteratives are ever not used (or that the range of the random number source used by the d20 system is too small relative to the modifiers).
There are other possible solutions to the problem, such as directly applying overflow accuracy to damage in some fashion, but Pathfinder doesn't have any such option and 3.5 power attack was even more difficult to use than iteratives.
Thank you for the warning i always theorized that the way to do higher level play a lot to move the die up to a d30 and so forth to keep luck involved :D.
If Full-Attack wasn't a thing the game would be better off. It's significantly impairs weapon-based classes the most and is one of the key reasons there's even a C/MD in the game.
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The concept of maneuvers (even if you don't love the specific implementation) from paths of war/tome of battle is the answer here. You wouldn't even need to remove full attacks from the equation, you just need to add a viable alternative.
Maneuvers have all the right elements: They are standard actions, they offer a variety of effects and impacts besides simply MOAR DAMAGW, choosing one is not a huge investment of character resources (akin to a sorcerer picking a spell known) and they are usable resources so they can be balanced again other finite resource abilities in the game.
I honestly don't think I could play and enjoy Pathfinder WITHOUT the Path of War supplement. Sort of like how I really don't enjoy martials without the Tome of Battle of v3.5. It's really THAT good of a book!
There are 2 attacks under the Trailblazer solution [that would normally be at -0 and -5]. They just get rid of the 3rd and 4th that happen at -10 and -15. And they average out the attack penalties on the first two attacks, so your To Hit vs. the opponent's AC is constant. This would allow you to make two attack rolls simultaneously and be done with the To Hit section of your combat round, speeding up play.
The math in the book says it even averages out slightly in the players favor to reduce the penalties. I haven't actually played it, but I take their word for it.
If Full-Attack wasn't a thing the game would be better off. It's significantly impairs weapon-based classes the most and is one of the key reasons there's even a C/MD in the game.
I disagree. The biggest reasons that there's disparity between martial and caster is:
1) The ability to, even at low levels, target saving throws instead of hit points and armor class with fight-ending spells. Toss in a bit of knowledge to find the weakest save and you can reliably shut down combats quickly.
2) Ridiculous utility spells. Invisibility, flight, enhanced senses, polymorphing, crowd control, etc., are all simple with magic and basically non-existent for martials.
3) Breaking action economy with Quicken Spells and summoning.
Especially the out of fight utility. If the party stands at a chasm, it doesn't matter how many attacks or how much damage the fighter does, you need a caster with fly or something like that.
That said, the FAA is responsible for most of the inter-martial imbalance. Archery is king because it can always full attack. Two-handed weapon is the best melee style because it only looses 40% of it's damage if it has to move and not 67% like TWF with two individual weapons does (example numbers for lvl8 fighter).
The FAA not responsible for everything (weapon cost and lack of offensive benefits weaken TWF and one-handed weapons, respectively), but is the biggest problem.
If Full-Attack wasn't a thing the game would be better off. It's significantly impairs weapon-based classes the most and is one of the key reasons there's even a C/MD in the game.I disagree. The biggest reasons that there's disparity between martial and caster is:
1) The ability to, even at low levels, target saving throws instead of hit points and armor class with fight-ending spells. Toss in a bit of knowledge to find the weakest save and you can reliably shut down combats quickly.
2) Ridiculous utility spells. Invisibility, flight, enhanced senses, polymorphing, crowd control, etc., are all simple with magic and basically non-existent for martials.
I don't disagree with any of these. These are also problems that relate to C/MD. They're bigger factors than the full-attack, sure, but that doesn't mean that a full-attack vs. standard attack isn't a problem either. Especially in lower-level games where by 6th level wizard's spells are becoming more prevalent per encounter and now the Warrior's efficiency is starting to decline.
Like I said, it's one of the reasons, not THE reason or even the biggest reason.
3) Breaking action economy with Quicken Spells and summoning.
Personally, I"m OK with Quicken Spells in PF and 3.5 because you're getting a 1st level spell at 5th level and while low-level utility spells are nice, I personally don't think they're worth a 5th level spell slot. As for Summoning, I really hate the rapid-casting of those spells, which is supposed to be a big factor in their balance. Remove that and all of a sudden the board is flooded with tons of creatures, all getting their own attacks and what-not.
Regardless, I think we can agree that the full-action attack is more of a hindrance to melee-based characters than anyone else and they're more penalized because of it instead of allowing them their full attacks per round.
I'll pitch a vote for Path of War/Expanded while I'm here.
soo if say there were to be a second edition (not that i feel there needs to be) one thing that might help would be:
1. move action and then make all attacks your capable of making.
2. summon spells taking longer to cast (full action maybe even two rounds?)
3. give martial's a way of breaking action economy.
i say a second i feel these changes would be to extensive for house rules (but maybe not the action economy thing seems like its helpful)
as far as the martial/caster disparity I was under the impression that it was more of a out of combat problem then an in combat problem. (also for the example of the chasm the fighter could still get some rope and repel! )
but that is all kind of away from what I was working on once I need to get a look at path of war I think.
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I'm using the standard action economy for my game.
But, if I had a table of players well-versed in the rules, I would try out the Revised Action Economy with a house rule that affected the number of Reactions available to a PC based on their BAB.
Basically, per round, my RAE would allow:
3 Acts
1 Reaction
Free actions
And players would gain another Reaction at BAB 6, 11, and 16.
*Finally, under this system, I would allow more complicated (multi-Act) Readied actions. For example, "If the goblin moves towards my ally, I will charge him!"
*This last house rule for Readied actions can be done entirely without the RAE, btw.
Good luck in your exploration!
We need a thread that compiles all the homebrew around the revised action system.
I've been using it since it came out, and through various house rules and variations we've landed on a system that everyone at my table likes.
Haste causes confusion with the necessary attack act, which is something I intend to work on.
There's also rules for enabling more mobile combat by taking cumulative penalties during a full round attack to allow movement.