The Gaming Den

There are many ways for a combat system to represent "making multiple attacks". Most games mix several systems, usually to their detriment, and each system has its own problems. Which one (or which combination) do you think is best, and why?

1. One attack per limb

This is how natural attacks work in 3.x. It should not be necessary to look beyond Hydras or True Dragons (seriously, Bite, Wing and tail attacks against the same character? That's one acrobatic dragon) to point out how this becomes a hot mess. When the amount of arms your Monk has becomes a critical balance issue you've gone wrong.

2. Attacks are a function of level

This is how weapon attacks work in 3.5, except that two-weapon fighting also incorporates number of limbs -I blame the Marilith lobby. It works decently well for characters, but it restricts your design space a lot -it notably means you can't have low-level monsters with multiple attacks or any monsters at all which get an abnormally high (or low) number of attacks -both of which are pretty nice things to have.

3. Extra attacks come from abilities

You might have a choice of many different attacks, but you only get to make one attack per turn, no matter how many arms or experience points you happen to have, unless you have an ability like Whirlwind Attack or Cleave that says otherwise. I think 4e works this way? That's the impression I get from what little I've read about it, but I've never actually played 4e so I don't know.

I think this is potentially the best solution, but it's conceptually inelegant because it's essentially arbitrary how many attacks you get, and it's vulnerable to bad implementation (see also: 4e) because there are no guidelines with any real force for the designer. It's up to you to make sure that monsters are both balanced and consistent so it doesn't work out that the Hydra gets more attacks than the Hekatonkhire or the ranger's and the Balor's TWF work in different ways.

4. You only get one attack per turn, but it might represent several.

Manyshot in 3.5 and Autofire in M&M (and many other games with Automatic weapons) work this way. You only have one attack, but if you're attacking with two weapons at once or you're the Hydra and that "one" attack is actually eight bites or something, the attack is a special move -often one that deals extra damage based on your margin of success, or lets you trade attack bonus for damage. It's elegant if you can write the "multiattack" maneuver to be balanced, but it can easily be very swingy, it's not compatible with all systems and it doesn't deal well with mixed attacks - you can do "2 claws" or "8 bites", but it's harder to do "claw/claw/bite" or "dagger and whip" unless those attacks are already equivalent in the first place. This can make it feel samey -and in fact, even making "2 claws" and "8 bites" work differently beyond the damage expression makes it that much harder to balance.

I think you covered all the options there pretty well.

I'm generally against multi attacks because even if you somehow manage to balance them, they slow the game down drastically and that's an unforgivable sin. But some people like slow games.

Well, for one, monsters don't need to follow the same balance and advancement guidelines as PCs. Having a monster advancement scheme (either internally or between monsters) that's consistent and predictable is a good thing, but not at the cost of versatility -- especially in a game that has as much violence as D&D.

So it's okay to mix-and-match #2 and #3 for monsters even if it makes the extra attack paradigm muddled and random. What's important that monsters are balanced against PCs and because you don't want to mostly have cookie cutter monsters that can be mathhammered without a playtest anyway you can just throw them into to 'needs to be individually playtested' pile.

Well, for one, monsters don't need to follow the same balance and advancement guidelines as PCs. Having a monster advancement scheme (either internally or between monsters) that's consistent and predictable is a good thing, but not at the cost of versatility -- especially in a game that has as much violence as D&D.

So it's okay to mix-and-match #2 and #3 for monsters even if it makes the extra attack paradigm muddled and random.

Yeah, that you want monsters to work like PCs was an unstated assumption in the OP, sorry about that. I've come to accept that this isn't automatically true but I don't really like to diverge from it. Partly that's fetishism but it does have genuine advantages for flexibility and adjudication.

(seriously, Bite, Wing and tail attacks against the same character? That's one acrobatic dragon)

Ashkulain turned towards Era and slashed at her with his both of his claws, gouging deep wounds. He then sank his teeth into her and lifted her into the air. While holding her in his mouth, he struck at her with both of the spikes on his wings, before tossing her up into the air and then smashing her to the ground with his tail.

How i described it in one of my games.

Most important is how the different kind of multiple attacks interact with damage bonuses (like sneak attack), Damage reduction, damage spikes (misses, crits etc) and possible targets.

Though I prefer my melee combat to be more involved than just attacking, but for a simple 3.x type dragon rewrite. I'd do something like (numbers taken out of my ass) :
[2 Claw 1d6 + str] [bite 1d6 + str*2 + improved grab] [Tail slap 1d6+ str + knockback]

With each attack between the brackets being exclusive, thus you can't attack the same target with both your tail slap and bite etc.

Most important is how the different kind of multiple attacks interact with damage bonuses (like sneak attack), Damage reduction, damage spikes (misses, crits etc) and possible targets.

"Now you can flatten light ammunition against body armour faster than ever before!"

I remember this argument coming up during the last time I ran Orpheus. There's a power in that which gives you extra actions, and a power which sets you on fire. The power which sets you on fire adds a damage bonus to your melee attacks due to you being on fire, which is fair enough. We had a disagreement over whether the damage bonus should be once-per-round (fire doesn't burn you more because the fuel is moving faster, that's not how high temperature works) or once-per-attack (because the fire is merely the cosmetic fluff on a damage-increasing power.)

This was also the moment I realised that extra attacks on PCs are simply a bad idea from start to finish.

an attack per limb is the worst way to do it.

I think 4e works this way? That's the impression I get from what little I've read about it, but I've never actually played 4e so I don't know.

4e is mostly option 4 where everyone usually gets 1 power to use per turn and those powers are things like "Cleave: Hit a guy then do 5 damage to someone standing next to him" or "make one attack on everyone within your reach".


Option 3 and 4 basically sound like the same thing to me. I figure the Best thing to do is stick with your action economy and try to have as much overlap as possible so a drow ranger with two swords and a demon with two swords both make the same two swords attack, or a greatsword wielding berserker and a rampaging dinosaur both make the same "hit everyone within their reach once" attack.

In other options, there are
*systems where you can have multiple attacks, without it being level-based (for instance off a score like SPD in HERO).

*systems where number of attacks is based off your initiative roll e.g. 1E Shadowrun (I'm not sure about later editions), or IIRC Feng Shui.

*systems with one attack, you can take more but at a penalty to-hit or whatever for each (Talislanta).

One attack per limb can get out of hand (yeah, Hecatoncheires...) but the plus side of 'one attack per limb', I suppose, is that you can give different weapon damages to different attacks, without low-damage attacks becoming a waste of time (e.g. in Palladium a monster might have 2d6 bite and 3d6 claws - so obviously, it'll just attack with claws over and over).

Schleiermacher wrote: 1. One attack per limb

2. Attacks are a function of level

3. Extra attacks come from abilities

4. You only get one attack per turn, but it might represent several.

(1) sounds like modeling (more pointy bits = better ability to do harm). (2) and (3) sound like modeling (more badass/greater SPD attribute/better weapon training = better ability to do harm). What do you want to model? Do more attacks mean a greater wealth of tactical options, or just the ability to hit more targets or inflict more damage in a round?

I don't really like treating "more pointy bits" and "faster" the same way, but you certainly could. 3.5 converts extra attacks from high BAB and from multiple weapons into the common idiom of iterated attacks.

(4) sounds like a way of trying to escape the problem via abstractions. For example, there could be a single "attack" phase that is resolved at the end of a round, with the order and effect of each character's attacks determined by the abilities they chose to activate that round. So a Kung Fu master could activate the "fists of fury" ability to add the modifier "targets up to 6 other dudes" to their attack. This allows you to roll "more pointy bits" and "faster" into the single mechanic of "apply <modifier> to attack." I'm not very familiar with 4e, but it sounds like it tried to take a similar route and failed.

OgreBattle wrote: I figure the Best thing to do is stick with your action economy and try to have as much overlap as possible so a drow ranger with two swords and a demon with two swords both make the same two swords attack, or a greatsword wielding berserker and a rampaging dinosaur both make the same "hit everyone within their reach once" attack.

So, what about interaction with the action economy? "Multiple attacks" could mean:

1. Multiple actions, as in systems where attacks are just generic actions. In this case, whatever powers a character's ability to take multiple actions (extra limbs or weapons, character level, good initiative roll, a speed attribute) is the source of their ability to take multiple attacks.
2. Multiple instances of some kind of action. This permits a specialized attribute to empower a character with multiple attacks, without permitting four-armed creatures to make two Open Lock checks per round or whathaveyou.
3. Special modifiers to a single action. It might cost some non-action resource to add modifiers like "hits more than one guy".

For pulp sci-fi or near-modern settings, I'm fond of how the WEG D6 system handles multiple actions, because it's simple (declare N actions at start of round, declare what each action is as it comes up, -1D to all dice pools per action after the first) and lets characters exercise a reasonable variety of tactical options, but it suffers from weird synchronicity problems and issues of balance. For games that focus on a martial setting, I could see (3) working, but I haven't played in a system that has done it to my liking.

CCarter wrote:In other options, there are
*systems where you can have multiple attacks, without it being level-based (for instance off a score like SPD in HERO).

That's one I forgot, yes. 7th Sea works like this, except it's not just attacks, it's all actions. Seems like it would have a lot of the same problems as option 1, only with different failure points. I.e, very hard to balance because that stat would be very difficult to cost right compared to the other stats, and you can't have a high [whatever stat governs attacks] for whatever other reasons you might want that, without also being a walking blender. (7th Sea fails big time at this, for the record.)

*systems where number of attacks is based off your initiative roll e.g. 1E Shadowrun (I'm not sure about later editions), or IIRC Feng Shui.

In the implementations I've seen, which includes Feng Shui, that's actually either option 4, or no multi-attacks at all. You make one attack per turn, you just get a lot of short turns.

*systems with one attack, you can take more but at a penalty to-hit or whatever for each (Talislanta).

This is an interesting case. It's technically a variant of option 3 where the "multiple attacks" ability is a general combat option that everyone has access to, but in practice it works very differently because there's no comparing the haves and the have-nots -everyone is using the same ability. As such it's harder to balance across all cases, but easier to write coherent design for. In terms of differentiating different characters, monsters and combat styles though, this is a lot like not having multiple attacks at all -unless there are extra stipulations on what kinds of attacks you can combine, how many attacks you can make, options for what you give up to do so etc, in which case the question you should be asking is what part of your stats determines those variables.

One attack per limb can get out of hand (yeah, Hecatoncheires...) but the plus side of 'one attack per limb', I suppose, is that you can give different weapon damages to different attacks, without low-damage attacks becoming a waste of time (e.g. in Palladium a monster might have 2d6 bite and 3d6 claws - so obviously, it'll just attack with claws over and over).

That is an advantage, but I don't think it's a distinguishing advantage, because you could do the same thing without having multiple attacks at all, if you just made it so no attack is the universally best one. E.g dragon claws deal the most damage, but their bites can grab, their wings can knockback and their tails have additional Reach.[/b]

Sure, I'd agree with that pretty much. I'm listing them for the sake of completeness - I'm not going to claim any any of these are usually good (at least, not without a lot of work ).

On SPD stat based # attack systems: I haven't seen any particularly good versions of these either. Extra attacks generate more damage proportionately while spending points elsewhere (STR, say) generates extra damage fairly linearly, so usually there will be a breakpoint above which more SPD is better. In games which have large-ish soak or armour as DR the effective breakpoint might shift a bit depending on what sort of target you're facing, but its a very difficult balancing act.

Penalty to hit for extra attacks: Having a penalty to-hit in exchange for extra attacks/actions is also potentially problematic in that your penalty means lower to-hit but with an extra to-hit chance on the second action: a penalty that's too low, and it may always be advantages to make two attempts. Even if two actions isn't always optimal, which to go for (once or twice) is an equation that's potentially solvable for highest DPS. Which players may stop to do mid-battle.
(In Talislanta specifically that's more complicated because actions are also used for defense -whether you opt to parry may depend on who is trying to hit you and how much armour you have).