Post/Author/DateTime	Post
penchant 09-07-07, 06:00 PM	One of the main stated purposes of the Tome of Battle was to give fighters something other than simply saying, "I attack again." So they give up the iterative attacks in trade for the use of assorted cool abilities. Make a standard action and add 4d6 fire damage to the blow, etc. And I guess 4e is supposed to move away from that, but since I won't be seeing that for a while I had another idea. Every fighting video game is based upon combo systems that allow you to rack up a number of hits without your opponent being able to react (without the required combo breaker). And this is actually realistic. Both armed and unarmed combat forms rely on stringing together combos of attacks that break down an opponents defenses to allow you one really good hit. Instead of counting on your first hit to work and the rest of your attacks (this round) are throw aways, you expect him to block your first or second strike and hope that this action opens up his defenses so you can get in that elbow or knee. Well, standard iterative attacks can be used to do the same thing with any fighting class without the need to have a special class or feats. The balance is there, you just need to use it. Since iterative attacks get progressively harder to accomplish, it is more difficult to complete all of them, so a system where you forego damage on your first hit to set up the opponent for a more devastating followup attack can be balanced because the next attack has less chance to hit. What I would like are some suggestions for putting this together. Some ideas: Combo maneuvers are added by BAB (1 per) and are selected from a combo tree. Included are combo breakers (immediate actions), special attacks, movement options (to gain ground or flanking bonuses), disarms, etc. The damage of the actual hit should be more than that possible of simply hitting with all your iterative attacks to counter the fact that it becomes an all or nothing endeavor. There should be "Ultimate Fighting Moves" followed by "Ultimate Fighting Move Counters". This may or may not work in monster combat depending on how much you focus on counters and counter-counters... hmmm. No juggles. Its just not fun.
Bowmore 09-08-07, 02:27 PM	I like the cut of your jib. One extremely simple method that could represent the combo is to reverse the order of iterative attacks. Rather than have your biggest, best-aimed attack first, start off with the lowest attack; this means an 11th level fighter who normally has a base attack bonus of +11/+6/+1 would now have +1/+6/+11. It's pretty simple but I think it could be an option in portraying how combination attacks are supposed to work. I'm not sure what other implications there would be, however. Perhaps if characters had the option of reversing their attack bonuses on a given full attack? Or if a character has an ability that applies on their "next attack" and they take a full attack action, they choose which attack their ability applies to?
InkBlot 09-08-07, 04:49 PM	Tactical feats. Tactical feats were created to represent these kinds of combos. A lot of tactical feats work like this: On the first round you do something risky. If it's successful, then you get a bonus to do something else in the second round. If that's successful, then you get a huge bonus to do yet another thing in the third round. The thing you do in the third round is extra cool. If think combos shouldn't take 18 seconds (three rounds) to set up and pull off, then there's also weapon style feats. They're like tactical feats, but only take one round to set up and execute. In D&D, you generally have to make your own combos and they usually stretch over a few rounds. Like the classic trip, disarm, power attack, attack of opportunity combo.