D&D 4E Number of attacks and 4E

[DerHauptman]

Agreed

Yes it is. But that doesn't mean everyone can play everything. I'm not saying forbid the player, I'm saying find a character that is best suited for the player. If one person is slowing the game down and causeing problems for the group, it then becomes which is more important that one player or the group. It's the group's game as well.

I agree that not all characters are for everyone but they can try to play them in my game. Of course, I agree with ya that if the group is a bunch of impatient people that will not help a player out there will be a needs of many vs. needs of few delema.

A simple mater of slow math or lack of whitty reparte' is not gonna exclude them from an option they want to persue at my table - perhaps they can get better after some time

I would hope that the group would just figure out that "Roy" sucks at math and help him out rather than get frustrated and relegate him to a support role becasue of it. I am of course an optimist. I say support role becasue the role cited by the OP was a fighter and in a high combat game he (the math challenged) may not want to play anything else.

I think all players have at least one inherent weakness if they help each other in real life at the admin stuff, helping the table run smoothely, like thier characters are supposed to be doing in game all will go well. Heck I even appreciate players helping me whip out the math when I DM it makes the game go smoothe. Like I might throw 10 d6s in a box and ask a player to add them up while I start the actions of the next bad guy. It works for us.

I respect your opinion and your point of view and if it works for you and yours all is well. You don't need me to say that though, please dont take it in a condecending maner. There is no sarcasm here - k.

With that I wish you happy gaming - no need to debate further. Happy New Year!

Look forward to future participation - I am new and loving the place.

DerHauptman

 

[MarauderX]

Just finished a night of 4 hours of battle... rounds 8 through 19. The party level is 14-15, and they are fighting a ton of bad guys. What usually takes the least time is the iterative attacks, depending on the player. What takes the most is calculating spell effects, special combat manuevers (we are experts on all of them, still a lot of rolls & resolutions), and adding in all the bonuses that stack or don't stack.

To me iterative attacking melee guys are the easy ones... it's the summoning druid with 4 elementals moving around, a brace of unicorns healing and the druid getting 3 attacks to grapple a caster that takes longer. Calculating in the bard's song, haste, magic bonuses, DR, resistance spells and all the other things add to the mess. I'm glad to hand all of that off to the players, and they calculate it all before their turn, thankfully. As a DM I find that doing the same calcs on the fly are rough and typically not worth the effort in the time it takes. That usually ends up with bad guys buffed a little less or with more rigid tactics when dealing with the party.

After all of the bad guys' spells, abilities, critter qualities, etc., I look forward to resolving the simple melee bad guys with iterative attacks.

Most players figure out the classes to guess at the baddies strengths and weaknesses to stop/exploit respectively. Keep the fighters from closing to melee, stop the casters from casting, cast spells with Will saves vs. the rogues... little in the way of surprises, really. 4E better be an experience-point buy system so I can scrap having to build specific traits to get a goofy one-trick-pony PrC.

 

[Kunimatyu]

Well, a number of people(and perhaps my original post, for that matter) implied that my player with the eight attacks is somehow bad at math, or has improperly-set-up dice -- that's not the case. He's got precisely color-coded dice, and does in fact roll them on other people's turns to prevent his full attacks from slowing down the game too much. He's got a decent head for math, so I can't really fault him there either. It's just that twenty dice rolled in a turn, no matter how well-set-up, strikes me as rather...inelegant. As something that's perhaps more complex and clunky than it really has to be, especially when those iterative attacks at low BAB rarely, if ever, hit.

I don't think a good solution is available in 3.5, as changing the way iterative attacks work does send ripples through the whole structure, BUT I think it's interesting to think about this stuff for 4E, when sacred cows can be tipped effectively. I don't pretend to understand all the ins and outs of design, but it seems to me that a good attack system does the following two things:

One, it has a good way to differentiate the sword-and-board fighter from the two-handed weapon fighter from the two-weapon fighter. The "feel" and tactics of each of the three types should be different, and not in a really abstract way with bonuses and penalties -- preferably, different feat/technique options and difference in the number and method of dice rolled.

Two, it keeps the number of dice rolled on a player's turn to a reasonable number, such that a calculator program isn't by far the better choice. This is a pen and paper game, not a computer RPG, and as such, the level of numerical complexity should stay within certain bounds.

 

[Ranger REG]

I prefer a faster round in general.

I agree with you, it can be tedious even with prerolling.

I'd like to see one attack per round max, with shorter rounds.

Shorter rounds? Now you're being both unrealistic and unfair to certain weapons that require ammo-reload time.

 

[Ranger REG]

Ya, the weapon has to be moved but moving some weapons is easier then others.

I'd argue that if you're trying to move a weapon that you're not well-muscled for it, then you shouldn't be dealing with such a weapon in the first place.

And no, just because a dagger is fast, it cannot beat the reach of a longsword.

I noticed, that in a simple effort to keep the number of attacks allowed per round down (to two), you compensate by overcomplicating the other aspects of attack resolution, in this case the initiative check and/or attack rolls.

 

[Crothian]

I'd argue that if you're trying to move a weapon that you're not well-muscled for it, then you shouldn't be dealing with such a weapon in the first place.

Correct, but the game doesn't address these issues

And no, just because a dagger is fast, it cannot beat the reach of a longsword.

speed and reach are not the same, so again correct. But the game treats them the same on these particular wepaons.

I noticed, that in a simple effort to keep the number of attacks allowed per round down (to two), you compensate by overcomplicating the other aspects of attack resolution, in this case the initiative check and/or attack rolls.

I think when games in the past tried this, people ignored them

 

[Ranger REG]

Correct, but the game doesn't address these issues

We don't need to, at least I don't. I mean, how many more values do we need to add to weapon's stats?

I think when games in the past tried this, people ignored them

Well, I don't know about you, but that's a good thing.