D&D, multiple attacks, and an alternative

[Kaelik]

Are you fucking high? How are you gonna do better than Attack to AC? Like Kaelik said, any time someone uses Heedless Charge, they're going to boost their AC as high as possible. It seems like you want to do AC to Attack, which is... questionable. It's like a Barbarian's Reckless Attack from 5e, except you're even more likely to get hit. It's gotta be a hell of an attack bonus to be worth deliberately exposing my asshole like that.

Are there uh.... a lot of typos in here, because this has a lot of wrongness.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

I did type it first thing in the morning, so that's incredibly possible. Please tear my asshole open.

[Kaelik]

I did type it first thing in the morning, so that's incredibly possible. Please tear my asshole open.

I mean.... you don't increase AC with shocktrooper and you definitely don't boost it as high as possible. The entire point is you power attack for full to lower you AC as much as you can for more damage.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

I did type it first thing in the morning, so that's incredibly possible. Please tear my asshole open.

I mean.... you don't increase AC with shocktrooper and you definitely don't boost it as high as possible. The entire point is you power attack for full to lower you AC as much as you can for more damage.

Oh, I just can't fucking read. That's pretty obviously what it says.

[Kaelik]

This thread is making me feel like the most boomer ass person. There was a time when no one who posted on any gaming forum could possibly not know about ubercharger builds and apparently there are entire people who have never interacted with this discussion at all.

[JonSetanta]

Personally, no, I have never played, DMd, or played with anyone that made an "Uber charger", but I have seen mention of it on various forums, such as here.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

This thread is making me feel like the most boomer ass person. There was a time when no one who posted on any gaming forum could possibly not know about ubercharger builds and apparently there are entire people who have never interacted with this discussion at all.

It's been a couple years since I really dug through the forums that far back. I wish I could get some sorta 3e spinoff game going.

[Kaelik]

Personally, no, I have never played, DMd, or played with anyone that made an "Uber charger", but I have seen mention of it on various forums, such as here.

I mean there's a reason I said "posted on gaming forums" not "played D&D" but you looking at Shock Trooper and being like "wow this sucks" surely means you didn't pay much attention (which is perfectly fair) but then AA also didn't know what Shocktrooper was, so I feel old.

[JonSetanta]

Ah ok.
But to be fair on Ubercharger builds, Shocktrooper, and your experience with the matter, I was comparing the feat to classes such as Wizard and Druid, which could simply fly or whatever out of reach of said lunging Barbarian.
Hell, the charge tactic is even restricted to "can they spot the Rogue" with a class build that has no ranks or spells for stealth detection.

Hence, that's why I said it was stupid.

To quote Frank, "melee is a chump's game".

[Foxwarrior]

If the wizard deigns to cast Fly on the ubercharger then the ubercharger can potentially charge in the air.

[JonSetanta]

If the wizard deigns to cast Fly on the ubercharger then the ubercharger can potentially charge in the air.

That's more of an issue of party composition than inherent ability.
I suppose if a character was of a race that has wings at low level, the outcome would be the same, but there's also spells such as Displacement and similar defense options. By level 10, Resilient Sphere is perfectly capable of shutting down any noncasters, and of course it just gets worse with Forcecage.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

I mean there's a reason I said "posted on gaming forums" not "played D&D" but you looking at Shock Trooper and being like "wow this sucks" surely means you didn't pay much attention (which is perfectly fair) but then AA also didn't know what Shocktrooper was, so I feel old.

In my defense, it's been about 10 years since that would have been relevant to me. I used to make dumb fighters in 3.5...

[JonSetanta]

I played an AD&D Paladin throughout most of the late 90s, then when 3e came out it was only casters for like a decade, from Sorc to Wizard to Cleric with the occasional Psion, but the first time I tried a vanilla Human Fighter or Orc Barbarian was when 5e stabilized, and I noticed that indeed it STILL SUCKED to be a noncasters, then went back to Warlock or Sorcerer.

[erik]

I played an uber charger in Living Greyhawk. Got to instruct a lot of people firsthand not to discount a halfling with a lance. There was just about no creatures in all the modules I played that I couldn't kill in 1 round and I was a -1 druid as on top of it. Didn't have Shock Trooper, but it woulda been overkill anyway.

I had a dire bat animal companion mount with hover, and druid casting at sorcerer progression so I didn't depend on other characters for buffs.

So poo poo on any arguments about being inferior to casters, or not even being casters. All I needed was 1 fighter level.*

* though to be fair, I did start out as with a second fighter level but then 3.5 happened and we were allowed to rebuild our characters so I got to replace a fighter level with a druid level since I was high enough level that I didn't need the bonus feat to get spirited charge ASAP anymore, so I got the best of both worlds- spirited charge-power attack super early, and then better druid progression later.

[Kaelik]

This whole like "wizards can cast spells to lock up an ubercharger or fly away" thing has always been dumb.

You aren't playing arena fights.

Uber chargers are a bad overpowered edition to most parties and games because they auto one shot most monsters and make the best action anyone else can do to enable them.

But oh well 3.5 and tome are horribly balanced anyway so shrug.

But its weird to look at a level 10 character doing 2k damage and say "this is underpowered because if they fail a save against a niche spell they are shut down.

[erik]

Yeah, the number of monsters that have Resilient Sphere is incredibly small. If you are doing a campaign against a cabal of wizards then you may see that happen more, but that's not my experience. And if they don't immediately assign existential threat status to the halfling druid on a bat then next round they're dead.

I didn't ratchet my damage up to 2k because it wasn't necessary. 200-300 will kill most things or at least tee them up so another party member can have some glory. Instead built around being resilient and consistent and only busted out the spirited charge if the party approved since my goal was for everyone to have a good time (originally it was to be as abusive as possible, wrecking all modules, but I decided that that was a dick move and I wouldn't enjoy being that guy, so I changed goals). I never added pounce to my repertoire because it would have been overkill.

Anyways, if I can do that in the closest thing there was to a "standard" game, it's very doable to make a spirited charger that doesn't have trouble with spotting rogues/monsters, doesn't have trouble with saving throws, doesn't have trouble with mobility/flight, doesn't have trouble fitting into dungeons, and can summon mounts as needed.

[JonSetanta]

Ok. So, Shocktrooper aside, I'm scrapping the "reduce AC" idea, as well as not going the path of "reduce accuracy", but instead do a resource pool concept that loses 1-2 points per strike but regains 1 when a miss is rolled.
This will allow limited damage increase for melee, unarmed, thrown, or fired attacks without affecting the RNG.

[deaddmwalking]

So can I miss 10 times outside of combat to build up a huge pool before the next fight?

[JonSetanta]

I forgot to add, was out all day, should be a clause like "miss an attack against an enemy of equal or higher level", and the resource would best be limited to like... 3+BAB per hour.

But the point is to do "burst damage" more like a 5e Paladin Smite, spending a spell slot, which is a limited but conditionally renewable resource, to deal more damage, rather than every round.

Whatever I call this resource, be it Stamina, Resolve, Grit (gee, how original), Heroics, Effort, Calories, I really can't decide... it's going to be spent on pretty much everything from strikes to movement types to defenses to anything exotic.

[deaddmwalking]

If you want players to walk into a fight with it, require a full action to refill 1-2 up to a relatively small maximum (like STR mod). If you dump all 6 in round 1, you can do it again, but it'll take you doing something else (besides deliberately 'missing').

[JonSetanta]

.... Yeah, maybe "miss an attack roll" is a terrible concept. I recall discussions from years ago about resource pools where LAGO mentioned something about attack rolls being a possible refuel source, but someone else said something in reply (to paraphrase) "This would lead to players having mock battles right before the BBEG fight to build up their Rage Meter"

The other end of this is a Dragonball "powerup" moment where a character just stands there and shouts for a bit, then goes for an attack. Not sure if that kind of wasted action economy is the right idea.

[deaddmwalking]

Miss an attack roll is a terrible concept. But fundamentally, a missed attack is a wasted action. What you're trying to avoid is making that 'wasted action' seem silly.

The system is set up to make 'hitting' a desirable result in most cases; does it make sense that a high level warrior is not able to 'charge up' against a particular foe that a lower level warrior is? Built in increases in BAB make missing harder... Essentially, if the goal is to miss, players are going to feel bad when they 'accidentally' hit. In order to ensure they miss when they want to, they'll 'invent' challenges to make it that much more difficult to succeed.

There may be games where trying to chop down the mightiest tree with a herring is the intended action, but in a more serious game, less so.

If my character built up power by missing attacks, I would do things that give me more attacks (like two-weapon fighting) so I could miss twice as often. I would take abilities that give me penalties to attack rolls (so I could use them when 'charging up), and I would specifically target high-AC allies who aren't going to hit me back if I accidentally hit them. If you intend for the PCs to defensively stance/full attack/two-weapon fighting with improvised weapons against their allies to build up their rage meter, great! If that's not what you want you need to re-tool the mechanic.

[JonSetanta]

How about using Cantrip-like Maneuvers, free attack boosts essentially, that increase the resource, then using the "supermoves" once enough points are accumulated?

In 5e, I noticed an interesting Wizard mechanic that rewards casters for using L1 slot, then a L2, then a L3, since using a higher slot refills a lower slot.
They'll still run out, but it encourages varied spell use rather than spamming Magic Missile.

[deaddmwalking]

How about using Cantrip-like Maneuvers, free attack boosts essentially, that increase the resource, then using the "supermoves" once enough points are accumulated?

How about it? Building up toward a combo can be good design. Doing something minor that still helps the party is better design than having someone sit around doing absolutely nothing (I'm looking at you, assassin). But the longer it takes to build to a combo, the less likely you'll pull it off (especially if it requires focusing on a single target). Likewise, if you do enough to 'build up' that you don't need to do your super move, what's the point?

For example, if I have a 'minor attack' that does 10 damage, and a 'super attack' that does 100 damage, it really matters how long the charge up is. If it takes 10 attacks, I've already done 100 damage. If the opponent has 110 hit points, I can just dink them again. The special ability would only really matter if they have 110-200 hit points total... But when does combat ever last 10+ rounds? If I can't ever use the combo, that sucks, too.

In our hearbreaker, we did want to encourage 'special attacks' like disarm. Our warrior gets a follow-up attack if they succeed on a combat maneuver (like trip or disarm). Since it is a free extra attack we've built an incentive to specialize in those attacks and we get a combo-like feel without having to track build-up.

In 5e, I noticed an interesting Wizard mechanic that rewards casters for using L1 slot, then a L2, then a L3, since using a higher slot refills a lower slot.
They'll still run out, but it encourages varied spell use rather than spamming Magic Missile.

A mechanic like that is designed to encourage you to use your lower level spells, rather than just using your highest level spell, which was definitely a problem in 3.5. One reason that Wizards rely on their highest level spell is that the DC to resist a spell is based on the spell level rather than the cater level. I think that was adjusted in 5th edition; you want low-level spells to have the same resist DC as high-level spells to encourage them to be used. Spamming 'magic missile' hasn't really ever been a problem, but the move has been toward making that possible. Cantrips that are 'at will' are along those lines.

Since higher level spells are, by definition 'better' than lower-level spells, wizards have a lot of incentive to cast their highest level spells, then take a long rest and get them back.

From a design perspective, you want to start with what you want players to do, then design the system to reward them for doing that. Too often, designers think 'there's a right way to play, I'll tell the players what to do, then build rules that PUNISH them for doing things the way they want them to'. Your suggestion to build up power by missing tends to fall in that category. It can be well-intentioned: if players miss, they feel bad, so giving them a small power-up will make them feel better. But the ultimate consequence is that players will look for ways to miss and your game becomes silly.

If casting their 'nova spell', then resting for 24-hours is the optimum strategy, players will do it. More critically, THEY SHOULD DO IT. If they don't play optimally, they risk character death. There are a lot of ways you can build incentives mechanically. The most critical piece is trying to figure out what you want players to do and then consider whether your mechanic achieves that goal.

If I have a 4th level spell that has a 50% chance of ending the fight and a 5th level spell that has a 100% chance of ending the fight, giving me back my 4th level slot when I use my 5th level slot encourages me to 'take a chance'. That probably ensures that there is more variety in the spells cast, so it's probably a mostly good thing - not every fight is casting the 'I win button' automatically... But if I cast the 4th level spell then the 5th level spell, I still have an incentive to rest and recover my 5th level spell slot. The actual percentage chance of ending the combat isn't really important - the INCENTIVE is still the same.

Taking this as an example - I want wizards to cast more variety of spells and cast more low-level spells than high level spells - you can begin considering what mechanical incentives you offer. First off, making low-level spells 'better' helps. Damage scaling for example, means that a 1st-level touch spell may do as much damage as a 2nd level ranged-touch spell. If the damage is the same, there's some incentive to cast the lower-level spell (circumstances permitting). Save DCs matter, too. If a wizard can cast all of their spells from a single resource pool (ie, not Vancian), costing spells differently can make a difference. If I can cast three 5th level spells/day OR 15 1st level spells/day choosing the lower-level spells has some upside. But building a timer/power up feature can work, too. Just be careful that tracking the timer isn't itself a major hurdle. Games like Chrono-Trigger rewarded you for casting spells of the same school in succession; tracking that in a video-game is relatively straight forward, but it would be tricky to implement at the table. Offering a 'reserve feat' type ability might also help - if you have a spell prepared and it gives you a 'lesser ability' until it is cast you have an incentive to use the lesser ability. Ie, if I have fireball prepared, I can do burning hands at will (until fireball is cast) I have an incentive to use the lower-level spell and save the higher level spell until there is a real need. You can brainstorm all kinds of incentives; then it's a matter of TESTING, TESTING, TESTING. Sometimes what you think is a pretty clear incentive to encourage a particular behavior turns out not to work as intended (see Bag of Rats Fighter).

[JonSetanta]

So far in this thread I've gathered that the following is ideal:
1. Give warriors the option each round between "normal number of attacks", which when combined with rider effects such as debuffs and +1 resource point per success would reward a PC for starting combat as such, and one big Supermove, which would cost maybe 2 points.
2. Be careful about damage output, especially with area effects. And maybe it's best not to apply riders to area effects, just have straight out damage in varied types and shapes.