In the sacred cow thread, several people discussed the clunkiness of iterative attacks as a mechanic and wanted some replacement. Let's hash one out here.

As a (too simple) start, using three basic archetypes because I'm in a True20 mood right now:

Warriors get 3 points of BAB per level, Experts 2; Adepts 1. At leveling, the character allocates those to attack and defense to reflect training in a fighting style (this preserves feats that allow for reallocation on the fly).

A character faced with multiple foes must split up attack and defense values among all the enemies (which makes being ganged up on rather dangerous). So a L4 fighter with a +2 DEX, 8 offense and 4 defense, when fighting three opponents, might put all 8 points of attack on one target (hopeing to take the enemy out quickly), but must spread defense around more evenly (2, 1, and 1, with the Dex bonus added to each one, giving defense bonuses of 4, 3, and 3 against each attacker).

To this could be added some bonus for really good hits--for example, adding half the weapon damage dice amount for each +10 the to hit roll exceeds the number needed. So exceeding to hit by 20 (with higher bonuses per level for warriors this may not be really hard) would add 8 pts of damage to a hit by a long sword, and 4 by a dagger.

Well, this obviously needs a lot of work, if not rethinking altogether. And I need more coffee.

I could see where it'd be interesting in a game built from the ground up to handle it.  I just wouldn't want it anywhere near my d20.  It doesn't "feel" right.

While I do agree that itterative attacks are somewhat broken.  This solution seems to be more clunky then just dealing with it.  It also means that you'd have to redo BAB's as fighters progress since 10/6/1 (whatever) would loose all meaning.

Well, it's certainly showing me why the mechanic has persisted despite its clunkiness--it's more of a pain to rework everything that's built on that attack pattern.

I was actually more interested in a brainstorming thread than a "what do you think of my idea" thread.

Here's another idea, perhaps simpler: Keep one attack at +1/level for warriors, but give them bonuses to damage at certain levels. A high level fighter swings once, but can do massive damage with that one swing. Whatcha think?

Quote from: willpaxHere's another idea, perhaps simpler: Keep one attack at +1/level for warriors, but give them bonuses to damage at certain levels. A high level fighter swings once, but can do massive damage with that one swing. Whatcha think?

Again I don't know if I see a need for it. With the available feats out there they can already pull that off more or less, on every strike if they want to with just combining Power Attack and Improved Critical Strike Range, plus Weapon Focus etc...

I think if you want to start messing around with BAB I'd take a page out of True20 or Conan - basically take those sets of rules that are built around it and work from there.  Much easier then changing the rules for stock D20 and then having to rebalance all the classes to handle it.

But in the vein of discussion Ideally I'd work D20 combat in one of two ways either the Shadowrun Dice Pool concept or more fixed Warhammer concept.

First in Warhammer you get a set number of attacks (no fiddling around with degradding bonuses) but you can either actively defend a couple times by dodging and parrying or fight partially/fully defensive so that you either have reduced attack but marginally better defense overall or you all out defend and not attack.

This isn't too far off of the options already available in D20 but it's far less fiddly in Warhammer because there is drastically reduced number crunching and feat management to deal with.

The dice pool methond (not suggesting you flip D20 to dice pools).  You have a fixed attack/defense stat that is made up based on your Stat plus specfic training.  It's going to be a relatively lower number and not increase as drastically.  You then have a 'pool' number that is a bonus that increases based on your class and level (however not as rapid as it currently does).  Similar to the way BAB works now in D20 (though it wouldn't break down to 10/6/1 like it currently does).

To attack you'd roll your base attack + however many points you allocate from your pool.  Compared to your attackers base defense plus points from his pool.  When you run out of points in your pool you can no longer attack. And everytime you defend once your pool has run out you suffer an increasing penalty.

Damage then would be determined by base weapon type + strength mod + difference between attack and defense roll.

Yes this is crunchy and requires more management then current systems.  However the 'Pool' portion would be easily represented by showing a current value on a die or with counters.

I really don't have an issue with d20's iterative attacks or the BAB mechanic.  I'm afraid I'm not going to be much help.
 
Now, if you want to talk AC and HP, then I might be of service.

Here's my basic premise: the more dice that are rolled in a round, the longer combat takes, and the more clunky it feels.

Honestly, on some levels I feel that 2nd edition had it right. don't tie the number of attacks you get per round to your bonuses, but to your class levels. only high level members of the warrior group got in 2 attacks / round, and it never went beyond that.

I think that multiple attacks per round should be a class perk, somewhat like weapon specilization. I also feel like significantly reducing the effectiveness of two-weapon fighting by dropping it back down to only one off-hand attack per round, period, is a good idea. I feel like a 20th level fighter should be very happy if he manages to get four attacks in one round. perhaps making multiple attacks linked to a feat that requires a certain base attack bonus in order to get.

The BAB mechanic itself is basically a thac0 progression, just presented a little differently. It's a solid simplification mechanic, and I definetly like it. I think that adding fractional BAB into the game as a standard rule (from Unearthed arcana) would help the viability of multiclassing. I like the unified "roll high on a d20" concept - keeping that around means keeping ac in the positives and keeping BAB as an ascending bonus.

In the same vein, I think reducing the number of possible attacks of opportunity in any given round is a good thing - specifically, I think that removing all AoO's tied to movement would significantly reduce their impact. leave them in for spellcasting, attacking with a ranged weapon while threatened, and standing up.

Willpax - I think that, given the ammount of damage high level fighters dish out, it's a bit redundant togive them even further damage bonus. yes, the kind of changes I'm talking about do require a massive game rebalance, but I'm considering it in a 4th edition kind of way - massive rebalance will be needed anyway. Since I dislike the standard/move/swift/free action method of dividing up a round (as it encourages the stand back and prepare an attack when the enemy moves into range philosophy), reducing the number of attacks per round but making it a basic perk of high level fighting classes seems like a decent compromise.

Sobek - I'm quite willing to talk about AC as DR, but on some odd level I like the hit points mechanic, as opposed to WP/VP. what do you have in mind there?

Quote from: ThjalfiHonestly, on some levels I feel that 2nd edition had it right. don't tie the number of attacks you get per round to your bonuses, but to your class levels. only high level members of the warrior group got in 2 attacks / round, and it never went beyond that.

I think that multiple attacks per round should be a class perk, somewhat like weapon specilization. I also feel like significantly reducing the effectiveness of two-weapon fighting by dropping it back down to only one off-hand attack per round, period, is a good idea. I feel like a 20th level fighter should be very happy if he manages to get four attacks in one round. perhaps making multiple attacks linked to a feat that requires a certain base attack bonus in order to get.

Have you ever played Spycraft?  It works almost exactly that way...

In Spycraft, they got rid of the difference between standard action and move actions...  There's only half actions and full actions.

Attacking is a half action, there is no such thing as a full-attack, and you never get more attacks from high BAB.

So anyone can take two attacks in a turn, if they are willing to use up two half actions to do so and not move more than 5 feet.  However, if you want more attacks than that, you need to collect feats and class features to do so.  Seeing a Spycraft character who can deal out more than 3 or 4 attacks in a round is pretty rare.

Quote from: ThjalfiHonestly, on some levels I feel that 2nd edition had it right. don't tie the number of attacks you get per round to your bonuses, but to your class levels. only high level members of the warrior group got in 2 attacks / round, and it never went beyond that.

What bothers me about that is, the leap from 1 attack per round, to 2 attacks per round, is a big leap; suddenly, with the gaining of one level (e.g. for a fighter, from 5th level to 6th), you're combat effectiveness is practically doubled.

What if instead, we had a more graduated number of attacks per round. For fighter characters, we'd have a table like this...

[FONT=Courier New][B]Figher Level ... Attacks Per Odd/Even Numbered Rounds[/B]
   1-4  ... 1/1
   5-8  ... 1/2
   6-12 ... 2/2
  13-16 ... 2/3
  17-20 ... 3/3[/FONT]
Similar tables would exist for the other classes, as well as for monsters.

Then, the DM would lay out some kind of large marker in front of his DM's screen, for all the players to see. One side of the marker would say "ODD", the other, "EVEN". A combat encounter, on round 1, would begin with the "ODD" side facing up. Then, at the beginning of each successive round, the DM would flip the marker over.

Quote from: CynosureWhat bothers me about that is, the leap from 1 attack per round, to 2 attacks per round, is a big leap; suddenly, with the gaining of one level (e.g. for a fighter, from 5th level to 6th), you're combat effectiveness is practically doubled.

What if instead, we had a more graduated number of attacks per round. For fighter characters, we'd have a table like this...

Code Select Expand

[FONT=Courier New][B]Figher Level ... Attacks Per Odd/Even Numbered Rounds[/B]
   1-4  ... 1/1
   5-8  ... 1/2
   6-12 ... 2/2
  13-16 ... 2/3
  17-20 ... 3/3[/FONT]
Similar tables would exist for the other classes, as well as for monsters.

Then, the DM would lay out some kind of large marker in front of his DM's screen, for all the players to see. One side of the marker would say "ODD", the other, "EVEN". A combat encounter, on round 1, would begin with the "ODD" side facing up. Then, at the beginning of each successive round, the DM would flip the marker over.

not a bad idea, but I want fewer dice rolled overall. howbout.... letting them have two attacks per round at 9th level, and 3 at 18th, and chucking the standard action / full attack options? yes, it's a doubling in combat effectiveness, but engineer the increases to happen at points when viable encounters start getting nastier, and it means that the increased effectiveness is needed.

I think I am going for increased speed of play through minimalism at the moment, as a philosophy. don't worry, I'll get over it soon.

I have found that having differing numbers of attacks based on which round it is gets confusing fast... it makes game play, that is combat specifically, far more involved than it already is.

You can't just track even/odd rounds, because you can have people that enter and leave combat all the time, or do 'non-combat actions' in the middle of a fight (dig out the widget of doom from their backpack) which should interupt THEIR round count.


I was working on a similar idea to this myself. I was not planning to expand upon the BAB progression as you were, but the 'point allocation' I WAS planning on using. To me, the serious flaw with D&D is taht while your ability to attack goes up as you level, your ability to defend yourself is static, being only influenced by your equipment.  

Anyway: My idea included the basic premise of 'spending' Bab to make attacks, with unspent BAB going to defense. Running out of defense opened you up for an AoO (the 'he overextended himself' idea...) which suggested that everyone should have at least one point at teh start of the game.


What I found out was that I very nearly wound up with the core mechanic of combat that was a whole new game, unrelated to D&D except for the relic term 'BAB'.

How about something along these lines:

make 1 attack roll/round

Every X points by which the attack roll exceeds the defender's AC is another hit.

-Stuart

I have two thoughts, one with multiple rolls and one with one roll:
 
Multiple Rolls: The player decides how many actions that the character will take and is penalize -X to each additional action (could be a skill roll - tumble and two attacks, for example). The "X" could be -2...-5...how strict do you want to be? In the parenthetical example, if X = 4, the tumble check and two attack rolls would each be at a -8 (two additional actions).
 
Single Roll: Once again, using a -X per additional action, but this time only roll one die. Apply the -X and add any modifiers. For example, take the tumble and two attacks above and put X = 4. I roll one d20 and get a 15. I subtract 8 (for two additional actions) and get a 7. I add any applicable modifiers to the 7 for each action. My tumbling check might end up a 16 (+3 for dex and +6 for ranks). My attacks might each be a 14 (+5 BAB and +2 for strength).
 
I've done something similar to the second one in True20 back in early 2006, but I've never done anything like this in d20. I just thought that I'd throw it out there. I know that WEG Star Wars allowed for some sort of penalty to take additional actions and I will soon be starting a Serenity PbP that also allows for a penalty to take additional actions. I don't know how elegant either option would be, but I may look at them again in the future.