Combining base attack bonus. Is it Possible?

[Grendelkhan11]

Hey guys, I was thinking about base attack bonus the other day, is there a way you could combine your attacks together for stronger or more accurate attack? So you're a fighter with a base attack bonus of 6/1 for example. You could do two attacks of 6 and 1 respectfully or combine them together to do a 7? Is this possible somehow? I think it would be cool to do something with power attack like this. A heavy and powerful hit but not a lot of them. This isn't for optimal building, just really cool crunch to go with nice flavor. I really want to do something full power.

[Grod_The_Giant]

The Decisive Strike Monk ACF from the Player's Handbook 2 is sort of like this, maybe? As a full-round action, you make a single attack that does double damage.

[Crake]

If you're playing pathfinder, or your GM allows pathfinder backporting, the vital strike feat does exactly this. You get one attack at your full attack bonus, and deal double wepaon damage (as in, you roll the weapon damage twice, then add modifiers, it's not just straight up double your damage), instead of two attacks. It's not generally seen as the best option, because it's less effective than hitting twice, but it still is a nice option, as it allows you to move and attack, since the action is a standard action, and thus gives you a better attack when full attacking isn't an available option.

There's also improved and greater vital strike, which do the same thing, but require 11 and 16 bab respecitvely, increasing your weapon damage to x3 and x4. Can get really hilarious if you're wielding an oversized platinum greataxe or something, where your base weapon damage is 4d6, and you greater vital strike for 16d6+bonuses.

[flappeercraft]

In PHB2 there is a fighter ACF called Overpowering attack that basically does that.

[Zaq]

So you’re not talking about combining iterative into one high-damage attack so much as combining iteratives into a single high-accuracy attack? Interesting. Someone better at stats than I am could probably come up with a formula that could help you calculate when, from a DPR standpoint, it’d be better to take your full set of iteratives versus when it’s best to take a single high-accuracy swing that does no more damage than any one of those iteratives, with the variables in question being target d20 value needed to hit and average damage on a successful hit.

The reason we’d want those numbers would be to figure out how underpowered (or overpowered, but my gut says underpowered on a standard beatstick) this would be, thereby giving us an idea of how bad an idea it would be to implement such a rule.

[Fizban]

Manyshot is the closest thing (aside from the monk and fighter ACFs*), letting you make a single attack that multiplies the damage in exchange for a penalty on that single attack- but its also a standard action bow-only feat that increases damage, not accuracy.

The assumption in 3.5 is that if you are a full BAB character, your first attack already has a high chance of hitting and doesn't need to be boosted further. As you level up it's possible that your first attack will be so accurate that it only fails on a natural one, and your second or even third attacks become very likely to hit. You can "sacrifice" those extra attacks in order to move (since you only get multiple attacks if you stand still), but making your first attack even more accurate has no point, and those final low bonus attacks aren't supposed to be worth anything- they're an incentive to increase your attack bonus, not a resource that should be exchangeable for more attack bonus.

Even assuming this rule is written basically just for two-handed power attackers, you still need a massive bonus to compensate for those lost attacks damage output, like +4 minimum just to make up for losing 2d6+1 even if you had all of 12 str. On the other hand, you could turn this into a massive AC boost against all attacks with Combat Expertise, and with splats Improved Combat Expertise, to the point of being an invincible chip machine. It takes what is at least a fairly stable maximum attack bonus and throws that stability out the window, popping up a whole new spectrum of edge cases.

If I could figure out a "manystrike" that wasn't so good everyone should take it and didn't walk all over the spring attack line, I would. The main balancing factor of Manyshot is that your standing full attack is by definition already better than Manyshot since it has Rapid Shot as a prerequisite and bows can usually full attack from round 1 without moving. Melee is the opposite of all that. Ironically I had a +dice feat I made a long time ago (based on the Powerful Charge feat) that it turned out was eerily similar to Pathfinder's Vital Strike (aside from my specifically brewing it for non-two-handers while Vital Strike is, as usual, best for two-handers).

*Incidentally, anyone else notice how those PHB2 Fighter ACFs seem suspiciously like a single scaling class feature that was chopped up into separate entries? They all have the exact same activation method, and I could see it being possible that someone designed them under the assumption they'd stack, but that got lost in carving them up to replace fighter bonus feats. Because if you stack them together they've got perfect synergy and actually make solid go at a reduced rolling defensive fighter, to the point that I find it difficult to believe whoever wrote them actually intended each to be exclusive from the others.

[Gruftzwerg]

While it is not real combining, there are several single attacks that consume either a standard or full attack action. Imho it still fits the fluff.

Maneuver strikes from ToB use for the most part a standard attack.

Whirlwind Attack (feat or weapon enchantment) lets you do a single attack at highest BaB against all enemies in reach.

[KillingAScarab]

Hey guys, I was thinking about base attack bonus the other day, is there a way you could combine your attacks together for stronger or more accurate attack? So you're a fighter with a base attack bonus of 6/1 for example. You could do two attacks of 6 and 1 respectfully or combine them together to do a 7? Is this possible somehow? I think it would be cool to do something with power attack like this. A heavy and powerful hit but not a lot of them. This isn't for optimal building, just really cool crunch to go with nice flavor. I really want to do something full power.


So you’re not talking about combining iterative into one high-damage attack so much as combining iteratives into a single high-accuracy attack? Interesting. Someone better at stats than I am could probably come up with a formula that could help you calculate when, from a DPR standpoint, it’d be better to take your full set of iteratives versus when it’s best to take a single high-accuracy swing that does no more damage than any one of those iteratives, with the variables in question being target d20 value needed to hit and average damage on a successful hit.

The reason we’d want those numbers would be to figure out how underpowered (or overpowered, but my gut says underpowered on a standard beatstick) this would be, thereby giving us an idea of how bad an idea it would be to implement such a rule.Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't smite evil exactly the sort of addition to both attack and damage bonus we're looking for? Once again, there's something in Player's Handbook II which we can point to. The paladin alternate class feature Charging Smite will allow you to do even more damage than smite evil already allows, when you would only get one attack... normally. I will leave it up to others to figure out how to get this to function with destruction domain smite or get it to work on pounce.

[Fuzzy McCoy]

There's also the ability of the targeteer fighter (found in one of the Dragon mags) to sacrifice attacks in order to increase critical threat range. It's a little unclear whether it's base range or added on after the fact though.