Hello, here's a little system I'm thinking about...
I would like to test what happen if you remove full attack action with all iterative attacks and limit a lot of dice throwing, so characters can move more and players can play quickly...
Removing iterative attacks
At BAB+6 you automatically gain Vital Strike
At BAB+11 you automatically gain Improved Vital Strike
At BAB+16 you automatically gain Greater Vital Strike
These 3 feats are modified to exclude natural attacks and off-hand weapons.
Natural Weapons
Same rules as before, so you can have multiple attacks but cannot benefit of Vital Strike.
Two-Weapon Fighting
You have only one bonus attack and the feats work differently, completely modified and don't allow more attacks.
Two-Weapon Fighting : This feat don't change.
Improved Two-Weapon Fighting : This feat allow the benefit of Vital Strike to the off-hand attack (and still -2, not -5).
Greater Two-Weapon Fighting : This feat allow the benefit of Improved Vital Strike with the off-hand weapon (and still -2, not -10)
For example, at BAB+17, with Greater TWF, you have a primary weapon attack at full BAB that deals (4x damage dice)+str+misc and an off-hand attack at full BAB-2 that deals (3x damage dice)+str+misc
You lose a little damage you can do, but as you can do Vital Strike and TWF as a standard action, you are more free to do something else with your move action, you are not locked to "go into melee, full attack full attack full attack".
These modifications can be done quickly while playing for monsters, so monsters and PCs will be equal, so no balance problems about it.
The balance problem could be between casters and non-casters but the problem is already here and I plan to use Spheres of Power/Might, so...
What do you think about it ?
Two weapon fighting becomes always strictly better than not two weapon fighting.
You also lose a lot of damage. Not just a bit.
Most damage in PF comes from static modifiers, not damage dice, unless you are specializing in vital strike like a giant hippo, or some warpriest builds, and some others.
This basically massively reduces the effectiveness of a bunch of class features across the board that focus on adding statics to multiple attacks.
If you are using spheres of might there should be plenty of incentive not to just full attack.
Honestly I feel you are just invalidating a bunch of builds and forcing a few styles of play.
For 1 all ranged characters get shafted as you cant use vital strike with range.
Any itterative based fighting style is invalidated.
Anyone who wants to do damage in melee is highly incentivised to go TWF.
You are unbalancing heavily towards other styles like reach builds and natural attack builds.
Attacks of opportunity are now king in damage output if you can get enough of them.
That's the type of reply I appreciate, thanks.
Let's try to adjust before renouncing...
You lose a lot of damage, but enemies too, the reduced effectiveness is the same for enemies..
Not sure about martial-caster disparity for damage.. at level 11 a fighter will do 6d6 with a greatsword... same as destructive blast for the destruction sphere from spheres of power (and with str bonus !).
Vital strike can be used with ranged attacks as far as I know... I just rechecked in forum questions and in the "Practical Guide to Vital Strike, http://rpgbot.net/pathfinder/characters/vital_strike.php ).
For TWF, let's stay at lvl 11 :
Greatsword : 6d6 + STR*1.5 + MISC
2 Longswords : 5d8 + STR*2 + MISC*2
You are right, more damage, not sure how to balance that. Note you need the Improved TWF feat, so maybe a feat that give STR*3 instead of STR*1.5 to two-handed weapons could work...
Invalidating iterative based fighting style is not a problem, it's normal if we remove iterative attacks so, it's not a problem for me.
Reach builds and natural attack builds ? As natural attacks don't benefit from vital strike (my modified version), I think it's not so terrible for natural attacks builds... As always it'll be good at first levels then decrease in power... right ?
About reach build... not sure to understand what it'll gain.. they lose iterative attacks too, so, the balance is the same, reach+iterative vs not_reach+iterative and now reach vs. not_reach..
I may miss something I think...
You're right also about "to do more damage than your single attack, the more viable thing is to do a lot of AoO", but I'm not sure "AoO is king in damage output" is worst than "iterative melee is king in damage output"... The problem I see here is for ranged builds that cannot AoO. Still a problem needed to balance.
In short, and thanks to your comments, my conclusion is (sorry it will not be "bad idea let's forged it", I want to try :) )
- Maybe a feat is needed to do more damage for "not-TWF" melee and ranged weapons, as Improved TWF add more damage to TWF builds (via STR+misc dmg from 2nd attack).
- Need to identify what is the problem with reach build (help me !)
- Need to identify if I underestimate the balance with natural weapons unvitalstrikeable (help me !)
- Find a solution to the issue "No iterative ? Let's invest in doing a lot of AoO !" / "Good for you, but I can't, I can't AoO with my bow, you'll always hit more than me".
Thanks !
Archers can take snap shot and improved snap shot to threaten out to 15 ft. So they can become AoO monsters as well.
You are right on vital strike and ranged. I for some reason always thought it was melee only.
Ranged has an issue though, unless they are specifically going for massive crossbows or orc hornbows they only get like 4d8 damage.
Honestly the best damage output in the game probably becomes slings with TWF and snap shot/improved snapshot.
You need to decide how rapid shot will work in your game.
A reach build is basically an AoO build which is why I mentioned it. It becomes much mroe powerful than prety much anything else you can do.
Lets do some maths:
6d6 from the greatsword gives us an avg damage of 21.
6*3.5
With a 24 strength, and rage, and a +3 weapon: 28 str=+9
Average damage +13+3+6*3.5=37
Now lets compare this to a natural atatck creature at cr 11.
Adult Cave Dragon CR 11
bite +23 (2d8+10), 2 claws +21 (1d8+5), 2 wings +21 (1d6+5), and 1 tail slap +21 (1d8+5)
That is an average of 58.
Elder Earth Elementsl Cr 11
2 slams +26 (2d10+12/19–20)
Average of 46
Giant emperor Scorpion CR 11
Melee 2 claws +18 (2d6+11 plus grab), sting +18 (2d6+11 plus poison)
Average of 54
And for the Kicker.
A Druid optomised to take advantage of Natural Attacks:
He turns into a giant octopus.
He has 8 tentacles and a bite. He also has the multiattack feat.
BAB +8
He starts at 18 str, gains +4 from wildshape to turn into a large creature, has a +4 belt, and +2 from levels.
This puts him at 28 str. +9
He has an amulet of natural armor +2.
Weapon focus tentacle.
Attack routine:
Bite: +8+9+2-1(large)=+18; 1d8+11
Tentacle: +8+9+2+1-1-2=+17; 1d4+6
Avg is 4.5+11+8*(2.5+6) = 83.5
If I go druid 6 barb 5 instead it looks like:
28 str +4 from rage: 32str = +11
BAB=+9
Bite: +9+11+2-1(large)=+21; 1d8+13
Tentacle: +9+11+2+1-1-2=+17; 1d4+7
Avg is 4.5+13+8*(2.5+7) = 93.5
Now if for laughs I decided to cast a spell called natural rythm on myself...
The maths gets fuzzy, but for the sake of explanation, lets say that each of my attacks hits, that spell adds +0+1+2+3+4+5+5+5+5 = 30 damage the first round, and if I get a second where they all hit it adds 45.
This show how powerful small damage bonuses are on this build.
Lets go for something simpler though. A bard buffing our octopus.
A level 11 bard has inspire courage +3.
That on its own adds a potential +27 damage on a full attack routine.
In a magical world where everything comes together our octo of doom has a potential damage output in a round of: 1d8+13+3+5+8*(1d4+7+3+5) for an average damage of 165.5 a round.
Compare that to the maximum the greatsword fighter could get with the bard buff = 6*6+11+5+3+3=58
Both of those numbers are without crits, but if we include them the octo comes out ahead again as he has 9 chances to crit vs the fighters 1.
TLDR For above.
Every natural attack routine comes out ahead on average damage compared to the vital strike greatsword
It took me a while to make the above post because maths and looking up monsters at cr11
Thanks for the time taken to do this !
Let's add that a normal barbarian with a greatsword does on average 69 with 3 iterative attacks at lvl 11.
( 2*3,5 + 13 + 3) * 3 = 69
So, right, 37 is a lot less than 69 !
A TWF has Improved Two-Weapon Fighting to take in order to "vital strike" his second attack.
Let's use a feat slot for the 2-handed weapon user too.. Let's say a feat (we'll find a name later) that double your STR bonus to damage.
So :
greatsword 2d6, vitalstriked = 6d6
str + rage = + 9, doubled because of feat *1,5 because of two handed = 18 * 1,5 = 27
+3 weapon = +3
total = 6d6 + 27 +3 = 61
61 vs 69... damage are more in line with the iterative barbarian.
vs the buffed druid octopus :
165.5 vs 69 on a side
165.5 vs 61 on the other side...
as broken as ever :)
This system don't change anything else except, 1d20 thrown, 8 dmg less but 1 move action more.
Let's not forget that at first round you can go to melee and still do 61 dmg vs the standard action of the iterative barbarian doing 21 !
so, for example, for killing alone a monster with 100hp.
iterative barbarian going to melee : 21+69+69, 3 rounds.
non-iterative-vitalstriked-poweredupbyunnamedfeat : 61+61, 2 rounds.
seems balanced with this new feat (how to name it ? :p)
Powerful Blow.
It needs to only work on single attacks though, if it works with two weapon fighting that becomes too powerful again.
We now also have the issue of dex melee builds not really being viable.
I suppose the TWF side kinda works for them.
Rogues kind of get shafted in this system.
I am now going to do some maths to try poke holes in this new feat
We are optomising for strength again.
So, Barb 2, Alchemist 1, druid 8
We start at 18 str, +2 from level, +4 from belt, +4 Rage, +4 mutagen, +6 huge creature.
Total Str =38 = +14
I turn into a huge hippo. 4d8 bite.
Attack routine: +8 + 14 +2(Amulet of might fist) = +24
Damage without feat: 4d8*3=4*4.5*3=54
54+2+21=77
Damage with Feat:
54+2+42=98
That is for a druid with 1 feat spent.
98 vs 61
There are other ways to boost strength that also become come scary with this feat.
Powerful Blow, good :)
If you are doing a single attack as a standard action on your turn, double your ability modifier for calculating damage. This does not work for natural attacks.
("Ability modifier" and same feat for dex and str or should be better to do 2 feats ?)
As we have seen, the problem is with non-natural, non-TWF damage, so limiting the feat to "single attack" and "not natural attacks" is logical.
If the hippo cannot use the feat (because natural attack), do you see something that could break ?
Hmmm.
Not really.
It helps a lot giving a bunch of power to single attacking to try keep them on par.
I think it might work well actually.
You need to decide how things like cleave, rapidshot, manyshot, etc work.
I think maybe gate the vital strike feats behind BAB rather than level?
There is still an issue, builds that normally go natural attacks, or build to abuse the free vital strike causes issues.
We saw the druid even without that feat is at 77 avg damage.
If we have our druid cast the spell strong jaw,
The 4d8 scales to 6d8 with impact.
That goes to 18d8 at level 11 for free.
That is an average of 81 BEFORE stattic mods.
You are looking at giving a druid a potential 81+2+21=104 damage attack, at the cost of a spell and 0 feats.
If you want a name for t to be used with all stats and not just strength call it Masterful Blow.
nerfing martials is not a good way to go and if your going to replace all iritatives they also need the mythic versions of vital strike as well
Comparing NPCs from NPC codex :
Elf Paladin 11
Iterative attacks : 31,5 dmg (but first attack 10,5) [3 attacks rolled]
Vitalstriked attack with new feat : 26,5 dmg all the time [1 attack rolled]
Gnome Ranger (TWF) 11
Iterative attacks : 24 dmg (but first attack 11) [3 attacks rolled]
New-Imp. TWF : 17 dmg all the time [1 attack rolled]
Half-Orc Barbarian (TWF+bite) 11
Iterative attacks : 74,5 dmg (but first attack 28,5)[7 attacks rolled]
New-Imp. TWF + bite : 69,5 [3 attacks rolled]
It seems to be roughly equivalent (less than 10 dmg each time, a lot more damage using a standard action -first attack after moving to an enemy still useful, less crit chances, but less fumble chances too). In fact, you do more damage during the first rounds (example paladin : 10,5+31,5+31,5 = 73,5 dmg on 3 rounds vs 26,5*3 = 79,5 on 3 rounds).
Until higher levels....
Human barbarian 18 (two handed weapon)
Iterative attacks : 92 dmg (1st attack 23) [4 attacks rolled]
Powerful blow : 53 dmg ! [1 attack rolled]
Big difference !
With a superpowerful blow (STR x3) it's better, 68 dmg.
With 3 rounds starting by a standard action because of moving to the enemy :
23+92+92 = 207
68+68+68 = 204
And let's not forget it's 23 vs. 68 each time you move !
And if only 3 iterative attacks connect (usually last don't) it's 69 damage (vs the 68 with the superpowerful blow).
I think it's fair, you won't full attack an immobile dragon at 18th level...
Lot more mobile, lot less dice rolled, damage similar until mid-levels, loss of damage compensated by the possibility to move more and still doing "full attack" damage when going into melee.
And let's not forget that with 4 iterative attacks, your are not guaranteed that all 4 hits will blow, but usually your full bab attack will, for almost full damage.
J4RH34D I don't understand the example with the druid... It's natural attack right ? So, not affected by me revision of vital strike.
Lady-J it's not nerfing, it's "freeing" you from "going into melee, full attack full attack full attack" and launching 1d20+dmg per turn instead of 4, with no useless roll because BAB-15 is too low, and "almost" full attack damage on 1 standard action.
Sometimes you'll hit more, sometimes less, it becomes almost situational (if you need to move to the enemy, you can't full attack, but here, you still do at least as damage as if you hit 3 iterative attacks out of 4).
The goal is not nerfing but doing almost as damage, considering you can still have a move action and only 1 full-bab roll and not 0/-5/-10/-15 rolls with a possibility to miss and lose 1/4 dmg each time you miss.
You have to judge if the "almost" is worth it :)
Remember that if you need to go to the enemy, you do :
"1 attack dmg, full attack dmg, full attack dmg" during the 3 first rounds.
Here you do "almost full attack dmg, almost full attack dmg,almost full attack dmg" and until higher levels it's in fact, more damage !
The loss at higher level is worth it in my opinion because you are more mobile, do "almost full attack dmg" on standard action and with iterative attacks most of the time you don't land 4 blows out of 4, so damage are more consistent.
EDIT : Oh, and the mythic part of vital strike is done via a new feat, in order to balance with TWF that need the modified Improved TWF feat to stay balanced.
You revised the powerful blow, not vital strike.
You would need to rewrite vital strike to not affect natural attacks if you wanted to avoid that 104 damage hippo
Sorry, I mixed what I say in this topic and my evernote document in the other window :D
Actually I rewrote vital strike to exclude natural weapons and off-hand weapons. Sorry !
EDIT : Your mistake in fact :p First post : "These 3 feats are modified to exclude natural attacks and off-hand weapons."
Ah whoops. Missed that bit.
Then you have issues where a large portion of druid builds become incredibly lackluster.
So, the remaining problem is with "hitting with 1 natural attack once, but with vital strike" ?
Written this way, is the problem resolved ?
Vital Strike
When you use the attack action without using an off-hand weapon at the same time, you can make one attack at your highest base attack bonus that deals additional damage. Roll the weapon’s damage dice for the attack twice and add the results together before adding bonuses from Strength, weapon abilities (such as flaming), precision-based damage, and other damage bonuses. These extra weapon damage dice are not multiplied on a critical hit, but are added to the total.
- Attack action is a standard action, so it's valid for "natural weapon, 1 hit" but not valid for a "full attack with natural weapons".
- TWF is excluded, but I'm not sure my way of saying it "without using an off-hand weapon at the same time" is elegant.
The way you had it at the top, doesnt effect natural weapons at first.
Then maybe once you get improved vital your normal vital works on 1 natural a round, and then when you get greater your improved works on 1 natural a round.
OK, let's redo it from scratch, after this interesting conversation.
First, the original design goal :
- Don't roll too much d20 and resolve too many attacks, it takes too much time.
- Allow more freedom to melee combatants.
Now.
We talked about natural attacks, about TWF.
We gave Vital strike for free, after modifying it, to exclude these things.
It became unclear and too complicated, and giving as much damage as a full iterative attack as a standard action is basically giving pounce to everyone and is invalidating builds based on mobility.
Here's the solution I plan to actually playstest :
We can replace iterative attacks (and only iterative attacks, not natural or everything else) with this :
Iterative attacks
Iterative attacks are still a full-round action and are replaced by a single attack with :
BAB +6 : damage x2
BAB +11 : damage x3
BAB +16 : damage x4
The damage are not rolled twice, or thrice or four times, the total damage is multiplied per 2, 3 or 4 (you don't roll 8d6+80, you roll 2d6+20 and then multiply per 4).
Max damage and min damage appear more often, the more we launch dice,
the more we approach from the average... Results are more monotonous,no good or bad surprises (0.000059% to have 8 or 48 with 8d6....) and a lot more dice to launch and to add, more dice on the floor too...
Note : Not multiplying all damage (sneak attack,...) and only dice + STR bonus makes some class useless (around 30 dmg vs 100 dmg for the rogue 18 on npc codex, with one dagger). Moreover, this way, there's a smaller gap in damage (for paladin 11, 31.5 vs 29, for barbarian 18, 92 vs 83) comparing with what we discussed earlier
Critical hits: You add [crit multiplier -1] to the damage multiplier for all damage except precision damage (such as from a rogue’s sneak attack class feature) and additional damage dice from special weapon qualities (such as flaming).
Example : With a x3 critical, and BAB +6, your damage modifier becomes x4 (2+2) for damage dice and STR bonus and magic weapon bonus, but still x2 for your 4d6 sneak attack and your 1d6 flaming dagger (doing already 8d6 and 2d6 damage respectively).
Any feature that would remove an iterative attack decrease these multipliers by one. (for example, Rapid Attack from Mobile Fighter)
You can decrease the multipliers by one or more, in exchange for a move at 1/3 your speed per point substracted. This movement doesn't provoke an AoO. The move can be done before, after the attack or between attacks (if you have an off-hand weapon for example) but must be done at once.
Example : at BAB +16 with a longsword and a bite attack and a 30 ft. speed, you can make a x2 attack with your sword, move 4 squares and bite (but cannot move 2 squares, x2 attack with your sword, move 2 squares and bite).
This enable more mobility, without invalidating Mobile Fighter archetype (for example) and without giving pounce to everyone.
Natural Attacks
Natural attacks don't change with this system, same number of attacks, same damage, but you can give up a natural attack in exchange for a move at 1/3 your speed.
Two-Weapon Fighting
You have only one bonus attack and the feats work differently, completely modified and don't allow more attacks.
Two-Weapon Fighting : This feat don't change.
Improved Two-Weapon Fighting : x2 damage dice to the off-hand attack (and still -2, not -5 to hit).
Greater Two-Weapon Fighting : x3 damage dice to the off-hand attack (and still -2, not -10 to hit)
An off-hand attack cannot be traded for moving at 1/3 speed.
You can still take vital strike in order to do more damage as a standard action.
In short :
- Only the iterative attack is replaced, no free feat, no invalidated feats, no feet needed to make damage similar to what was with 4 iterative attacks. Free for all, and no big changes in rules or definitions of things, it doesn't become a standard action. (Good)
- Only one attack at full BAB to do all the damage. (A lot better)
- Less damage but not a lot in most cases. (Slightly worst)
- Only one chance to make a critical hit. (Worst)
- Only one chance to make a fumble. (Better, no more ridiculous "the more I'm competent, the more I fumble")
- More choice, more mobility possible at the cost of damage without being too powerful like full-attack+move action for everyone which would invalidate a lot of alternate actions from PoW or SoM.(Better)
- A lot less attack to resolve, quicker game (BETTER).
The only modified thing is the full-attack, so if there was a problem with natural attacks or crazy minmaxing, it's still there.
In my opinion, the only type of build losing something are crit fishers. Good for me, as rolling 4 attacks, confirming 4 criticals and rolling 72d6 sneak attack is exactly what I want to avoid.
Comments and critics welcome :)
You can already move and full attack. It is called pounce. There are numerous ways to get it. Also mounted archery. Being a spellcaster and not caring.
This is trying to fix a problem that doesnt exist.
For playing faster you can use digital dice rollers. I know of several that let you put in preset dice sets.
Your system with natural attacks makes them the best in you modified game.
Example half orc natural weapon ranger
Toothy and rasortusk
Get claws from bonus feat.
We now have a character with 4 natural attacks at level two. This isnt even min maxing. We can go metamorph alchemist the rest of the game. Thatll get you pounce and youll be a caster.
Also any half orc or various other races can give up garbage natural attacks to shift 10 feet for free. Our second level example can five foot step and give up our natural attacks to effectivly teloport 45 feet. And then full attack with our actual manufactured weapons.
I dont intend to be hostile. Its just that this would actively make mobile fighting harder and martials in general weaker.
Lets take a look at a dervish dancer bard who like to get up in mellee. Lets say like anyone in this class they get dervish dance and arcane strike. If human they pick up rivening strike. Now dervish dancer bards are effectively permanentlty hasted when making a full attack.
If you pick up some traits you can load up bonus damage on crits and be a fast attacking crit fishing build that debuffs with every hit so you can follow up with some save or suck bard spells.
But your "fix" kills any damage it gets from its crits on flaming burst and make the debuff from rivening strike completely inconsistent. There are various others builds that your fix ruins. This is a straight debuff to mellee martial classes in both constiency and damage.
In short your proposal doesnt solve the problems it sets out to and attempts to adress problems that dont exist.
Instead of houseruling why not show your players the more mobile options avaible to them that are alreafy in the game.
Il give examples for ways to speed up crit fishing builds and make more mobile melee.
For crit fishing builds roll two dice for every attack with a note on which is the confirmation. If you arent doing this already roll damage when you roll to hit.
For making more mobile melee perhaps look at pummeling style or unchained monk(flying kick) for the unarmed folks.
For the more stabby types swashbuckler has some repositioing stuff all the archetypes for this combat style are there. You can pick coardinated charge and get mobility.
Mounted combat in general exists. Sohei monk can get you mounted skirmisher at first level dip any class with a mount for 2nd and get horse master at third level. First level you buy a horse second it is a little weaker and from third on it is full strength.
You can even do a mounted archer that gets point blank master and plays like a melee character.
You can fix your dice rolling gripes with digital dice rollers or more effiecient rolling and the mobility by having your players look at the options.
Halek wrote: You can already move and full attack. It is called pounce. There are numerous ways to get it. Also mounted archery. Being a spellcaster and not caring.
This is trying to fix a problem that doesnt exist.
It's not a "problem" it's a preference, an alternative to "go into melee, full attack, full attack again".
Path of War and Spheres of Might are solution to this problem that doesn't exist, too, it's just a matter of preference, I'm not writing "Pathfinder 2.0" and forcing it to everyone, I said what are my design goal and needed advice to attain them, replying "don't do houserules and play by the rules, it's better" is not a satisfying reply for me !
But as your reply give arguments, it's a welcome reply and I'll try to say where I agree and I disagree.
Quote: For playing faster you can use digital dice rollers. I know of several that let you put in preset dice sets. Not a satisfying solution to enforce it, we all know it's more fun to roll the dice :)
Imagine if in Pathfinder Unchained the rule for "removing iterative attacks" was "just use a dice roller and dont remove anything, lol"...
Quote: Your system with natural attacks makes them the best in you modified game.
Example half orc natural weapon ranger
Toothy and rasortusk
Get claws from bonus feat.
We now have a character with 4 natural attacks at level two. This isnt even min maxing. We can go metamorph alchemist the rest of the game. Thatll get you pounce and youll be a caster.
I don't touch to natural attack damage, so this is as it has always been...
Quote: Also any half orc or various other races can give up garbage natural attacks to shift 10 feet for free. Our second level example can five foot step and give up our natural attacks to effectivly teloport 45 feet. And then full attack with our actual manufactured weapons. Interesting case, manufactured weapons + bad natural attacks to trade against a move, for full damage to weapon hit...
You're right, maybe allowing to trade a natural attack against a move is going too far, and moreover, it's touching something else than iterative attack... I should remove it, you're right.
Quote: I dont intend to be hostile. Its just that this would actively make mobile fighting harder and martials in general weaker. I don't understand why... Martials can do damage almost worth of 4 attacks damage with a full BAB roll.. Or have the choice to move and still do worth of 2 ou 3 attacks without investing in a feat...
Why is mobile fighter harder or martials weaker ?
Quote: Lets take a look at a dervish dancer bard who like to get up in mellee. Lets say like anyone in this class they get dervish dance and arcane strike. If human they pick up rivening strike. Now dervish dancer bards are effectively permanentlty hasted when making a full attack.
If you pick up some traits you can load up bonus damage on crits and be a fast attacking crit fishing build that debuffs with every hit so you can follow up with some save or suck bard spells.
But your "fix" kills any damage it gets from its crits on flaming burst and make the debuff from rivening strike completely inconsistent. There are various others builds that your fix ruins. This is a straight debuff to mellee martial classes in both constiency and damage.
Ok, so the dervish dancer hit once with 4x damage + 1 attack from haste
with 2 chances to do a crit.
Instead of hitting 5 times with 1x damage, with 5 chances to do a crit.
You're right, it's less. Can't say anything more. :)
But out of the 4 iterative attacks are you sure 4 will hit ? No.
So damage wise, I think it's not a big loss, but "crit fishing" wise, you are right, it's a loss.
That's why I said that I didn't care about it in the definition of the system. Crit fishing and crit fishing builds are losing a lot here, by design. It's incompatible with "not a lot of rolls per turn" and it's ok for me or likely-minded people. Again, I'm not forcing anyone to use this "not even final" houserule, our tastes may differ !
Quote: Instead of houseruling why not show your players the more mobile options avaible to them that... Because I want any martial with an alternative to "go into melee, full attack full attack full attack" without investing in feats, and I want to reduce the number of dices rolled at higher levels !
One thing that posts doMt cover, you may be cutting out damage of PCS and NPCs equally, but not spellcasters. They don't need this buff.
If you want to remove full attacks, try something like the Revised Action Economy. Although Players may still get up to 3 attacks in a turn, they can choose to move and attack twice or move twice and attack. This also doesn't change spellcasters except for thosw that spam quickened spells whole using their normal move and standard action.
Sorry can't understand, what is doMt ?
You don't really cut damage 95% of the time.
1 attack with damage x4 (all damage, even precision damage etc..)
with 1 full BAB roll
instead of 4 attacks with normal damage with rolls at 0/-5/-10/-15.
You do the 4x damage each time is very important to the balance.
The problem is with criticals.
You avoid a lot of critical and fumbles, so for x2 criticals, on average, it's balanced.
But x3, X4 and so on, makes less damage, sure.
And again, not really sure because if you do 1 critical x3 you do 5x damage with this system.
With iterative attacks, if 1 attack is a critical x3, 2 are hit and 1 is miss, you do 5x damage too...
It's a choice, I think on average, it's not such a big loss, considering you can, for example, attack with triple damage and kill a foe, move 2 squares without provoking and be ready to full-attack another enemy next round, as a full attack, instead of having to move and attack once next round.
New options open to martials, for example with an off-hand weapon and haste and zero feat investment, you have 3 attacks doing respectively x4 damage, x3 damage and 1x damage with a possibility to reduce the multiplier of one attack to move without provoking. Imagine the number of times you full attack an enemy to death and waste your last attacks without being able to hit someone else because the enemies are set up to make you use a move action to reach them next round. Here you can even kill one foe with double damage, moving 4 squares without provoking and hitting another foe twice, once at triple damage and once normally.
I don't really see it as an obvious buff to casters !
Don't* cover. Mobile is fun. It is a buff to spell casters near the front. You lowered everyone's damage EXCEPT theirs, so that is a buff.
Applying all hits as one goes way beyond Vital Strike. At this point, you are hugely buffing damage dealing martial. Haste also giving another 4x attack seems insanely powerful. At this point, martial will be destroying most enemies. The game becomes rocket tag. First to more wins.
Applying all hits as one, but still as a full attack. So, compared to iterative, it's the same damage as all iterative hitting.
It's more damage each round (because not sure you'll land all 4 blows each rounds with normal iterative attacks), sure, but less chance to crit.
And it's still a full attack, you have to sacrifice damage if you want to move.
Haste give only one standard attack, not a full attack. So you have 1 attack 4x damage and 1 attack standard damage.
You hit once, you make 4x damage but 1 chance to crit only.
You hit 4 times, you make 1x damage 4 times but 4 chances to crit.
Mythic Vital Strike with improved vital strike at level 11 is damage x3 and 1 move action on a round.
Mobile Fighter archetype at level 11 is doing 3 attacks and 1 move action on a round.
My iterative variant, at level 11, is doing damage x2 and 1/3 move action on a round or damage x3 and not moving.
It seems in line... Both Mythic Vital Strike or Mobile fighter are better, even.
Am I really breaking the game here ?
There are suggested rules for removing iterative attacks in Pathfinder Unchained.
They're not perfect, but they try to address a number of the same issues dealing with. There is even a Mobile Melee variant that sounds like it might be of interest.
If nothing else, it may give you another example of how someone has tried to "fix" the system of iterative attacks.
paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/unchained/gameplay/replacingIterativeAttacks.ht ml
Thanks Cheburn, I know it, don't really like it but it's nonetheless an interesting read. :)
Another Option:
Instead of eliminating the attack dice, eliminate the damage dice. Just apply average damage for each attack.
Example: A character swinging a great sword for 2d6+20 does an average of 27 damage per attack. Instead of rolling the 26d, just set the damage on a successful attack to be 27.
If a character attacks three times (three d20 rolls), they do 0, 27, 54, or 81 damage, depending on how many attacks hit.
It is easy to roll the three d20s at once and quickly determine how many attacks hit. This eliminates lots of dice rolling (the prime objective) and fits completely in the existing framework without changing lots of rules.
Some issues I see:
1) I think overkill will come a lot more prelevant. I mean overkill in the sense that lot of damage will be wasted. For example if you normally need a full attack+1 attack to kill a foe, then all the rest of itearitives will be wasted.
2) Related to the above is that it will come a lot more common for people to die instantly instead of going to negative hitpoints and dying.
3) Archery, this can probably be worked out from the TWF rules above.
4) Value of attack bonus is greatly reduced since all attacks will be made with the the characters full bab.
5) While AC bonus is all or nothing now. Normally investing enough will cut down damage cause it deals with iterative attacks, but now you need to go all in or just not bother at all.
6) Furious Focus, second chance and improved second chance feats. (Though I am sure there are others too that would need looking at, mostly naming some to give examples.)
Rory, interesting idea, don't like the loss of randomness tough :)
Wultram, some issues you evoke are really important.
1) Overkill, I saw it the other side, with only one foe in melee, your attacks are wasted, but by giving up on the multiplier, you can move a little and attack someone else with a off-hand attack. So, not sure which case is prevalent.. but...
2) Totally right. I didn't think about it. Full attack could kill easily a player.
3) Archery, 1 arrow at x4 damage, same rules as it's an iterative attack.
4) Don't understand why, to-hit is still the same... Maybe I didn't understood.
5) Totally right. AC can help avoid 1,2 or 3 (or 4) iteratives attacks and mitigate damage. With this system, it's all or nothing as you said. Either you invested a lot in it, either don't even bother to wear an armor...
6) Some feats should be broken, either banned or modified, right.
2) et 5) are killing my system !
The raider (human barbarian 6 from gamemastery guide) doing a critical and using his anima fury rage power, can hit on average for 48,5 dmg, and max 64 dmg.
Two raiders, one just hitting and the other doing a critical can kill another raider in one round if they do 12 points more than the average only, else they kill him next round without being dying before..
And let's not talk about the optional rules for massive damage...
I am going to use my numbers to easily reference what talking about.
3) I was talking about how manyshot and rapid shot for example works.
4) Okay so normally let's say you have an attack bonus of 25/20/15, and for giggles let's say that includes +5 weapon.(The numbers most certainly don't fit but they are not important to the point.) So normally that +5 weapon makes your itearitives actually cabable of hitting something, when you are always using your +25 to hit, it is kind of wasteful to use lot of money or character resources to increase your to hit number. So for example normally the core monk really struggles with flurry of misses, but with these rules he is now making all those rolls with their highest to hit number, so that totally changes how effective that tactic is. In short ignoring certain details that 25/20/15 essentially turned into 25/25/25.
mekka2000 wrote: Rory, interesting idea, don't like the loss of randomness tough :) Is it more or less random?
Remember, at a higher level game, which is what you are targeting, weapon damage dice becomes irrelevant compared to static bonuses anyways.
Let's compare...
In the latest system you listed, the character gets one attack roll (95% chance to hit due to being full BAB) for one weapon damage roll (multiplied by 3 due to three attacks).
95% chance to hit is not very random. The damage is decently random at 2d6+5 damage. It's not nearly as random at 2d6+25 damage, which is the higher level game.
Vs.
If you roll to hit and use average damage, iterative attacks don't auto hit. You won't experience a 95% chance to hit for all damage. You have more range in resultant damage because some hits can and will miss. This randomness never goes away.
But the best features:
- it's simpler, you do not need to make any other game changes
- all the problems you are encountering are 100% eliminated
The best of both worlds might be to have the first hit be random (2d6+20) damage while each additional hit is average (+27) damage.
You are seeking to massively change the game when simply using the already existing archetypes and feats will give the desired result.
You can use dice rollers if some players have massive issues adding up simple numbers quickly. They can add it up for them.
These two adress all your problems and dont have 3001 knock off effects on the system.
One such effect is every weapon like the boulder helmet becomes a free 10ft shift.
Magus just cries in a corner not knowing what to do. True strike is even better. Monsters can just shift past reach builds and ignore them.
I could go on but this changes more than you think.
Rory, I'm almost convinced...
It's a track I'm more and more interested to follow...
Maybe speeding up combat by doing average damage from enemies.
Halek, as the first time, your objections are right and interesting, but your solution is not appropriate. I don't want a few archetypes or feats mandatory to resolve the "problem", I want a solution for everyone.
As Wultram, you have good points now against my system (this time, it's your point about true strike and the fact that reach builds lose a lot that convince me...).
So, let's say we keep iterative attacks, monster damage are average and no dice rolled. Players roll first attack and average the others.
Now, what about to renounce to your first iterative attack (or your first primary natural attack if you have only natural attacks) to gain a move at 1/3 speed, PROVOKING as normal ?
Why not ? does it break something ?
And renouncing to 2 attacks for 2/3 speed ?
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