Pondering Multiple Attacks

[cadriel]

This is mostly me thinking out loud about several options for how fighters get multiple attacks.

There are several methods that I'm interested in, and I see good and bad to each. I'm trying to sort out exactly the best way to do that.

First, there's the OD&D FAQ method. Against enemies of 1 hit die or less, the fighter gets 1 attack per hit die. (This is used in Swords & Wizardry among other games.) I like the 1 attack per hit die, but I don't like limiting it to enemies of 1 HD or less. It makes too much of a leap between monsters with 1 HD and monsters with 1+1 HD. (It also tells the player information about the monster's hit dice, which I'm not crazy about.)

Second, there's the Empire of the Petal Throne chart that gives extra damage dice depending on a comparison between the attacker and defender. Basically, once you're roughly 3 levels higher you get a bonus die, and then another for every 2 levels beyond that. Since this will tend to reduce 1 HD enemies to a fine mist, it only makes sense when you consider EPT has a "damage overflow" mechanism where extra damage goes toward the next enemy. I find the way damage is distributed to simplify things, but the chart is rather complicated. (You can see the chart over at my blog.)

Third, there's Dave Arneson's house rule from this play report, which says that Arneson gave everyone "cleave," the D&D 3e feat that lets you attack a new enemy when the previous one goes down. This is similar in effect to the damage overflow from EPT, but involves rolling a new attack roll each time. It also doesn't really tie into HD like the FAQ and EPT methods.

OK, so I think there is merit and problems to each of the methods. FAQ is most limited, EPT is the most intricate, and cleave is the simplest. Each gets toward the same basic goal: fighters can take down a bunch of bad guys, like Conan going to town on a bunch of 0-level guardsmen.

One thing I've considered is extending the OD&D FAQ rule, so that once a fighter reaches Hero level (4), they can take on up to their hit dice in enemies. So a Hero gets one swing on an Ogre, two swings on a pair of Gnolls, and four swings on four Orcs. But I think this can unbalance things a bit in favor of the Hero.

Another twist I've thought about is limiting the "cleave" style attacks to the fighter's hit dice. So if a Hero is facing two gnolls, and kills the first, he gets a shot at the second. If he is facing four Orcs, he kills the first one, he gets a shot at the second. If he kills that one in a single blow, he can move on to the third. But if he misses orc #3, or only injures it, the chain stops there.

The last thing I've been kicking around is using a simplified EPT type of system, where at Hero a fighter gets an extra d6 of damage, and a second bonus at Super-Hero or Lord, and then having damage always roll over onto the next enemy. This is probably on average a bit more powerful than EPT's chart, but it's a lot less bookkeeping than figuring the damage every time, and it would allow use of Greyhawk style variable damage dice.

So, which of these systems works best in everybody's mind? Any thoughts or ideas are appreciated.

[hedgehobbit]

I think you already know this but I use the EPT/Arneson overflow method along with increased damage. Characters (not just fighters) get double damage at 4 hit dice (double the dice to roll, not roll then x2), triple damage at 8 hit dice, quadruple at 12, etc. The same rule applies to monsters.

So that's similar to what you're talking about. I like it because it maintains a fairly stable ratio between a PC's damage and his hit points. So battles between high level characters won't last overly long.

One thing I've been considering is to remove the +1s to damage and just have the die increase in size. So a +1 sword will do d10 damage instead of d8. That way you are always rolling whole dice. Do doing double damage with a +1 sword would be 2d10 damage rather than 2d8+2. Same average.

[The Red Baron]

Cleave doesn't explicitly tell you anything about a monster's HD (like multiple attacks vs 1 HD monsters), yet it is much more effective against low HD monsters.

It would work nicely with a raised damage at higher levels, and the best way to do this might be giving magic weapons a higher damage die than a d6. However, cleave also makes damage bonuses for strength too powerful, so I would stick with od&d's ability score modifiers.

[tetramorph]

I'm not sure how what I do fits in, you guys let me know.

Once all the characters of a given party have leveled up at least once I almost never roll HD for 1 or less HD NPCs.

If they hit, they kill. If a FM hits he kills a number of 1 or less HD NPCs equivalent to the player's damage roll total (after mods, etc.). So, if a FM has a +1 magic sword and rolls a 6 then he knocks out 7 skeletons in a single round.

This helps combat move. And I get to throw mobs of 1HD or less creatures on them!

[merias]

I like the Delving Deeper interpretation of 'normal' being fewer than 3 hit dice, beefing up the FMs multiple attacks a bit, since they now include all 2+ HD creatures. But I like the cleave rule as being the simplest.

Feb 19, 2015 14:54:56 GMT -5 tetramorph said:

I'm not sure how what I do fits in, you guys let me know.

Once all the characters of a given party have leveled up at least once I almost never roll HD for 1 or less HD NPCs.

If they hit, they kill. If a FM hits he kills a number of 1 or less HD NPCs equivalent to the player's damage roll total (after mods, etc.). So, if a FM has a +1 magic sword and rolls a 6 then he knocks out 7 skeletons in a single round.

This helps combat move. And I get to throw mobs of 1HD or less creatures on them!

This is one of the core Scarlet Heroes mechanics that allows one-player/one-dm games to work well, although it is expanded so that all monsters have HPs equivalent to the number of HD they have. There is also a so-called 'fray die' which allows PCs a free attack each round against enemies of equal to or less than their own hit dice - so a 2nd level fighter gets an extra attack against any 1 or 2 HD opponent.

[waysoftheearth]

Feb 19, 2015 6:51:17 GMT -5 cadriel said:

First, there's the OD&D FAQ method. Against enemies of 1 hit die or less, the fighter gets 1 attack per hit die.

We see this stated frequently but I'm still not convinced it's quite so straight forward.

In OD&D fighters get 1 attack per hit die versus normal-types.

Any figure that can fight on Chainmail's FCT is fantastic/heroic, any figure that can't is normal. But alas this doesn't translate into a "neat" definition of who is normal in terms of number of OD&D HD.

Yes, all the usual troops of 1 HD man-types are normal. But what about the 2 HD man-types? If we ran a gnoll or caveman or lizardman army in a Chainmail battle, it's a fair bet they'd all be classified as normal troops. Horses are normal too.

Furthermore, M&T has 20-200 Gnolls and 30-300 cavemen appearing. These are the kind of numbers associated with all the other normal man-types, and vastly more than the fantastic-types.

Cavemen are also listed as "men" in U&WA and gnolls are given as an example of a "person" in the charm person spell description.

S&S (p6) goes on to explicitly group veterans, elves, hobgoblins, and gnolls together as elite troops but declares that bugbears are not elite troops. So S&S draws a line between 2 HD gnolls and 3+1 HD bugbears.

Perhaps most significantly M&M makes the distinction between the normal fighting capability of 1st-2nd level fighters versus the heroic fighting capability of 3rd+ level fighters. In my view this is compelling since it is precisely this fighting capability which makes a figure either normal or heroic/fantastic in the combat system that defines these terms.

U&WA (p27) also makes the distinction between the 1st-2nd level types versus 3rd+ level types under the missile critical hit table.

Feb 19, 2015 6:51:17 GMT -5 cadriel said:

Second, there's the Empire of the Petal Throne chart

Another element to the EPT overflow method is that damage is described as being applied to the weakest enemy first. The example on p32 says:

the referee then rolls to determine the hit dice the three Kurgha can take: let us say a 6, a 4, and a 2, totally 12. If the fighter scored a total of 10 on his two dice, he would kill the two weakest Kurgha and leave the strongest one with only two points remaining!



More generally, I think the really tricky part to handling multiple attacks is how (or whether?) to combine attacks per HD with rounds of combat per turn and/or blows struck per round. I don't immediately recall any example of this... I think what we usually see is that one side of the multiple attacks equation, or the other, is completely dropped from play. Combining them would be fun though


As for house rules... I'm in agreement with the general sentiment that it's nice if damage scales up along with HD. I believe others have reported (and I agree) that one damage die per 4 HD works out quite well.

I've trialed multiple attack rolls versus multiple damage dice in play over the course of a year or so.

Mathematically they produce the same average outcome (because Nx1 == 1xN), but practically it turns out to be more efficient to throw just one attack rather than many attacks. It also tends to be more dramatic when hits are "bigger" (I was initially skeptical of this, but after trying it I found it to be true).

I don't much like the "cleave" approach because it can prolong the resolution stage; each fighter may have to roll again, and possibly even again and again... before the next guys gets his turn.  This might be okay in a smaller group, but with a larger group the players will appreciate getting to each of their turns as quickly as possible.

So ultimately, I agree with hedgehobbit: increased damage combined with an EPT-style damage overflow mechanism has worked well for me.

[True Black Raven]

I just run it that 2nd levels get two attacks versus 1 Hit Die or Less, 3rd Levels get two attacks versus less than 2 Hit Dice, 4th levels get 4 attacks versus 1 Hit Die or less and two attacks versus 2 Hit Dice or less and then it progress from there. Natural 20s are double damage.

[El Borak]

Feb 19, 2015 14:54:56 GMT -5 tetramorph said:

I'm not sure how what I do fits in, you guys let me know.

Once all the characters of a given party have leveled up at least once I almost never roll HD for 1 or less HD NPCs.

If they hit, they kill. If a FM hits he kills a number of 1 or less HD NPCs equivalent to the player's damage roll total (after mods, etc.). So, if a FM has a +1 magic sword and rolls a 6 then he knocks out 7 skeletons in a single round.

This helps combat move. And I get to throw mobs of 1HD or less creatures on them!

tetramorph, a 2nd level fighter taking out 7 skeletons on a single melee round seems overpowered to me. One HP skeletons hardly seems worth putting into a game.

[El Borak]

Mar 14, 2023 1:00:07 GMT -5 True Black Raven said:

I just run it that 2nd levels get two attacks versus 1 Hit Die or Less, 3rd Levels get two attacks versus less than 2 Hit Dice, 4th levels get 4 attacks versus 1 Hit Die or less and two attacks versus 2 Hit Dice or less and then it progress from there. Natural 20s are double damage.

I like this, it beefs up the fighter, but doesn't jump the shark.

[El Borak]

Feb 19, 2015 10:58:29 GMT -5 hedgehobbit said:

I think you already know this but I use the EPT/Arneson overflow method along with increased damage. Characters (not just fighters) get double damage at 4 hit dice (double the dice to roll, not roll then x2), triple damage at 8 hit dice, quadruple at 12, etc. The same rule applies to monsters.

So that's similar to what you're talking about. I like it because it maintains a fairly stable ratio between a PC's damage and his hit points. So battles between high level characters won't last overly long.

One thing I've been considering is to remove the +1s to damage and just have the die increase in size. So a +1 sword will do d10 damage instead of d8. That way you are always rolling whole dice. Do doing double damage with a +1 sword would be 2d10 damage rather than 2d8+2. Same average.

hedgehobbit I like this idea and will give it a try.

[El Borak]

Feb 19, 2015 10:58:29 GMT -5 hedgehobbit said:

I think you already know this but I use the EPT/Arneson overflow method along with increased damage. Characters (not just fighters) get double damage at 4 hit dice (double the dice to roll, not roll then x2), triple damage at 8 hit dice, quadruple at 12, etc. The same rule applies to monsters.

So that's similar to what you're talking about. I like it because it maintains a fairly stable ratio between a PC's damage and his hit points. So battles between high level characters won't last overly long.

One thing I've been considering is to remove the +1s to damage and just have the die increase in size. So a +1 sword will do d10 damage instead of d8. That way you are always rolling whole dice. Do doing double damage with a +1 sword would be 2d10 damage rather than 2d8+2. Same average.

No, I can't go with this, non-fighters do not need their melee ability beefed up. I like the big distinction between fighters and everyone else.