Full Iterative attacks as Standard action?

[Knightofvictory]

Not to beat a dead horse, but I am trying to balance melee/casters a little in pathfinder/3.5.


The more I think about it, it is really in the action economy that melee types lose the most. In MY experience running games, casters seem well matched with melee types levels 1-6 or so. It is when casters start getting 4th level spells and up that melee starts to suffer, as casters get stronger and stronger abilities as their standard action, while melee types get slightly more damaging charge/attacks.

I have started using a glaive with all my fighter/barbarian types (even a fighter/monk once!) and was pleasantly surprised how much it helped them stay relevant through mid levels. A barbarian with combat reflexes can get 2 or 3 extra attacks a round on their opponents turn, and turns them into a significant threat. So to my thinking, maybe melee classes just need more attacks.

THE POINT:
Has anyone on the forum ever tried allowing full iterative attacks as a standard action? This means melee types suffer no penalties for movement, feats like two-weapon fighting and spring attack get a huge boost, and a caster now has to be extra careful to prepare their anit-melee defenses. It should only takes one round for a high level melee to really mow through a casters low hitpoints now. Heck, monks might even be decent if they could run 50 ft and unload their full flurry of blows in one round. The only disadvantage I can think of to this is it means that ogres and dragons and other monstrous critters become increasingly dangerous, perhaps raising the value of AC boosting feats and items for players.

Any experiences using this quick fix? Any foreseen problems? Thanks! :smallcool:

[Dralnu]

No problem at all. In fact, having a "full attack" as a standard action is something WOTC addressed with Tome of Battle's maneuvers (among other things), so there's a precedent for this sort of fix, moving and attacking at full potential.

It's an easy and good fix.

[Dryad]

I.. Don't really agree with it.
What makes casters so terrible is not their damage potential. It's their instant-kill potential, and the ability to combine all sorts of effects.
Example: Meteor Swarm does not actually deal all that much damage. Yes, yes, it's AoE, so when you count it all up, those 24d6 damage on everything looks like a hell of a lot of damage. But against an enemy, it's still 'only' 24d6, which averages out at (12x4)+(12X3)=84 damage, plus an additional (4X4)+(4X3)=28 bludgeoning damage, IF the ranged touch attacks hit. That's a ninth level spell; good for an average of 112 damage.
It's extremely potent when used among commoners, when destroying cities, laying waste to what-have-you, but for single-target damage... I'd say a full attack from a fighter could do much, much more.

Yes, there is a balance problem. Yes, martial characters are indeed left behind at some point. But that doesn't mean there's something wrong with the martial design. It's the magic design that simply needs a complete overhaul.

[Knightofvictory]

@ Dryad: I see what you mean. Ideally, I think casters should have to take full round actions (or even a whole round to give meleers a chance to 'interrupt') to cast, say, any spells of 5th level or higher. Aren't wizards supposed to go all chanty-chanty for a while to do some of that crazy stuff in typical fantasy? As a game designer I would think anything with the potential to insta-kill/cripple someone should have a chance to be interrupted. But trying to get a caster nerf like that would go over in my group like a lead baloon. :smallsigh: Plus it'd be a lot more work to implement.

[Metahuman1]

Tried it, and yes, it did help a bit. It's far form the only thing, for example it does nothing to help the out of combat utility problem, but it helped in a fight.

An additional fix would be too boost the latter gained Iterative attacks, but only for classes that are combat oriented and get full BAB. This helps them since now that extra attack that use to be meaningless except on a nat 20 from the third forth and fifth improvements too BAB, the one's that top out at +10 +5 and +1 BAB respectively, actually have value cause you have a realistic chance to hit and thus to do damage with them.

[YouLostMe]

I play with the homebrew sourcebook Races of War, which changes all iterative attacks of full BAB - 5. So a full attack lineup would be more like +20/+15/+15/+15 instead of +20/+15/+10/+5. That's a big boost at higher levels. In addition, someone else suggested that every iterative attack should instead grant an extra move action, and that one can make an attack as a move action at a -5 penalty.

I'd give that last suggestion a shot instead of full attacking as a standard action.

[Yitzi]

You can't get two standard actions in a round anyway, and if they try to move away they provoke an AoO, so making a full attack as a standard action shouldn't change so much.

The real reason that casters get so ahead is that they have access to debuffs that automatically scale with the target's level (a -2 to attack is just as bad for a level 20 enemy as a level 1 enemy.) And then their spells advance together with that, hence they over-scale.

[Jeraa]

Ideally, I think casters should have to take full round actions (or even a whole round to give meleers a chance to 'interrupt') to cast, say, any spells of 5th level or higher.

Thats what I did in my houserules, except it started with 3rd level spells. You get third level spells around the same time non-casters must take a full round action to get their second attack, so making spellcasters take the entire round to cast their spells seems fine too. (I also removed AoOs totally, so making most spells take 1 round casting time instead of a full round action like full attacks gives an opportunity to disrupt them as well.)

[lightningcat]

While I like the idea of having spellcasters spending full round actions to cast their spells, I haven't implimented anything along those lines yet.

I have implimented a standard attack being the normal iterative attacks, and a full attack granting an additional attack at full BAB and the penalty for each iterative attack is reduced by 2.

[Ashtagon]

Iteratives as a standard attack just makes sense to me.

I also do some weird stuff to iteratives.

My houserule:

Instead of iterative attacks, you roll multiple d20s for your attack, and take the best result. So if you have three attacks (main +2 iteratives, such as from having BAB +16), you roll 3d20 and take the single best roll. Yes, this does mean a maximum of one "hit" per attack sequence. Oddly, within the typical range of level-appropriate encounters, this is also statistically equivalent to within a few percent.

If you have two or more attacks from different weapons, these are still resolved separately.

[Roderick_BR]

While I like the idea of having spellcasters spending full round actions to cast their spells, I haven't implimented anything along those lines yet.

I have implimented a standard attack being the normal iterative attacks, and a full attack granting an additional attack at full BAB and the penalty for each iterative attack is reduced by 2.

I've been working on something similar to a small homebrew project (kinda in limbo for some months now).
As a default action, you can use all your iterative attacks with a cummulative -5 penalty to each attack after the first. A character with a base attack of +13 will attack +13/+9/+3.
As a full round action, you can use all your iterative attacks with no additional penalty. The same character will attack at +13/+13/+13.
Extra attacks from effects like haste, are added at full bab as normal.
Extra attacks from two weapon fighting are added as normal as well, applying the same penalties. You get weapon 1: +11/+7/+1 and weapon 2: +11/+7/+1 (-2 penalty included), as a standard action; and weapon 1: +11/+11/+11 and weapon 2: +11/+11/+11 as full round actions.

It pretty much turns meleers in meat grinders. That is what they should be. Does increase dice-rolling and book-keeping, though.
I didn't get much chance to playtest it, though, as all my groups are spread apart busy with work and school.

On a second note, if you think druids and clerics would benefit too much from it, here's a few extra rules to add:
These bonuses apply only to iterative attacks, not natural attacks, so druids won't get that much better.
If Divine Might gets clerics out-fighting meleers, have clerics be the Cloistered variant, and divine might only increases their BaB from 1/2 to 3/4, instead of the normal 3/4 to full.

[T.G. Oskar]

Completely agree. The thing on which I dissent is on how to deal with full attacks.

Normally, I allow only dedicated martial characters (those which have full BAB, or medium BAB but enough traits to consider martial such as Monks, PsyWars or Swordsages, and that have taken about 6 levels in those classes) the ability to make their iterative attacks as a standard action, at the standard penalties. If the character makes a full attack, it makes all attacks at their highest BAB, since there's no reason for penalties. Thus, the attack routine would seem as follows on a full BAB character at 20th level:

Standard: +20/+15/+10/+5
Full attack: +20/+20/+20/+20 plus extra attacks (Haste, Rapid Shot, etc.)

In the case of Two-Weapon Fighting, things are a bit more stringent, but they usually get all their iteratives with both weapons, and Imp. Two-Weapon Fighting allows fighting with two weapons whenever they would get a melee attack (such as with Imp. Trip, attacks of opportunity, etc.) They still need to get that strong martial dedication, so that means some classes (namely, all casters plus most of the medium BAB characters such as Rogues or Bards) can't get the same benefit.

[Yitzi]

If Divine Might gets clerics out-fighting meleers, have clerics be the Cloistered variant, and divine might only increases their BaB from 1/2 to 3/4, instead of the normal 3/4 to full.

Or make it not increase BAB at all, but rather give a luck bonus like the Pathfinder version does.

[Hiro Protagonest]

If Divine Might gets clerics out-fighting meleers, have clerics be the Cloistered variant, and divine might only increases their BaB from 1/2 to 3/4, instead of the normal 3/4 to full.

You mean Divine Power? I don't know where you got the idea it only increases BAB by one step. It clearly says "your base attack bonus becomes equal to your character level".