Rapid Shot and Flurry should go away.

[Username17]

When you make your first attack of a Full Attack Action, you get to see how it went before you decide whether to complete the Full Attack Action or not. If you get great success, or your opponent has DR, you can abort to a move action after your first attack.

This is a fine mechanic, but it runs into two problems:

1. At low levels, people don't have a second attack. This heavily undermines the Full Attack action.

2. Some abilities give you a modifier to your first attack, and can only be used in a Full Attack Action. When you flurry, your first attack is at -2 because you get a bonus 2nd attack. But if you flatten someone with a crit on the first attack, what the hell is supposed to have happened? You now get to abort to a move action, at which point you couldn't have gotten a penalty on your first attack.

The second problem gets even weirder with Full Attack actions which give a bonus to the first attack - such as Dirty Fighting.

Conceptually, none of this should happen. Here's what I propose:

1. People get an additional attack at -5. I don't have a problem with a 1st level Fighter having an attack at +1 and an attack at -4. This way, everyone with a BAB is going to be giving up something by taking a Full Attack action.

2. Abilities which currently give you penalties on Full Attack actions in order to gain extra attacks will instead provide large bonuses to your later attacks. Rapid Shot, for instance, can provide a +5 bonus to-hit on your second attack in a Full Attack Sequence (thus a 2nd level Archer with Rapid Shot could fire at +2/+2, while a 6th level Archer could fire at +6/+6/-4). Additional abilities could give larger bonuses to later attacks.

3. Having multiple weapons should not give you penalties nor should it give you multiple attacks. Having additional weapons should simply give you a bonus to-hit.

-Username17

[Mole_2]

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This is a fine mechanic, but it runs into two problems:

1. At low levels, people don't have a second attack. This heavily undermines the Full Attack action.

2. Some abilities give you a modifier to your first attack, and can only be used in a Full Attack Action. When you flurry, your first attack is at -2 because you get a bonus 2nd attack. But if you flatten someone with a crit on the first attack, what the hell is supposed to have happened? You now get to abort to a move action, at which point you couldn't have gotten a penalty on your first attack.

-Username17

I failed my int check bigtime, I have no idea why the above represents a problem at all, let alone a serious enough problem to warrant such a fundamental change to the BAB system :

1. How is an option available to higher level characters undermined by the fact it is not available to lower level characters ? Sounds tautological.

2. Well if you drop your opponent on your first attack then the -2 penalty has not harmed you at all, it is as if it wasn't there. So why is that a problem ?

[Username17]

1. Because the option is available to lower level characters. It is available to everyone. But since it doesn't actually do anything to most people, it essentially is not there.

2. It's a chicken/egg problem. And remember that you don't have to drop your enemy to decide you'd rather move than complete your full attack. If you roll a natural 16 and miss, I for one would not fault your decision to bug out to a move action rather than complete a Full Attack. It's entirely possible for you to be harmed significantly by the penalty without getting the benefit - despite the fact that supposedly the penalty is only available if you receive the benefit, and vice versa.

-Username17

[The_Hanged_Man]

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3. Having multiple weapons should not give you penalties nor should it give you multiple attacks. Having additional weapons should simply give you a bonus to-hit.

-Username17

That is so true. That's the heart of the problem w/ TWF, flurry, etc. Iterative attacks don't make a lot of sense once you start factoring in attacking with more than one limb.

Frank, do you have any thoughts on a TWF system that works w/o adding attacks? I've tried various bonus systems, but they've fallen down b/c teh bonus to hit ends up being used mostly to get expertise, power attacks, and so on.

[Username17]

Sort of.

Concept:

Shields give you a bonus to AC.
Greatsword give you a bonus to damage.
Off-hand weapons give you a bonus to-hit.

Ideally, all of these can be roughly the same. However, as you noticed, Power Attack and Expertise makes a bonus to-hit somewhat superior to a bonus to AC or damage because it can be traded back anyway.

So what you are looking at is:

Shields give you a base +2 bonus to AC, plus a bonus for magic.

Greatswords give you a base average +2 bonus to damage, plus half your strength.

Off hand weapons give you... perhaps a +1 bonus to attack with additional plusses based on something or other?

One thing I was seriously considering is dropping the shield enhancement bonus altogether, making magical shields do something else entirely (give bonuses to saves or grant energy resistance or something), and then make:

Greatswords: +2 base damage, + 1/2 Str mod to damage.
Shields: +2 base AC, +1/2 Con mod to AC.
Off Hand Weapon: +1 base attack bonus, +1/2 Dex mod to attack rolls.

That way each of the fighting styles is roughly balanced, shields don't scale into crazy town at high levels, and the light fighter dextrous type really considers fighting dagger and sword like he's supposed to.

Bucklers can then subtract one from your attack roll, and add in a +1 AC bonus - but keeping you on the 1/2 Dex bonus to attack rolls. And now the light fighter who goes in with dagger, buckler, and rapier doesn't look quite so dumb.

That's just the beginning of an idea, obviously it still has problems.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

Interesting concepts you've got here. I'll be interested to see how this idea works out in the end after the kinks are worked out.

It'll definitely solve quite a few problems with the game from the imbalance between TWF and THF and the fact that all rogues are forced into using TWF.

[The_Hanged_Man]

Just for comparison, I was trying to even out THF and TWF. I wasn't very happy with it.

Basic system:

W/o a feat, you couldn't use TWF. With a feat, you could fight with a light and a one-handed weapon. One weapon was primary, one secondary. You got a +2 to hit and +1 to damage w/ the primary weapon, basically the reverse of old-time specialization. That basically let you keep up w/ THF.

Blowing another feat got you an AC bonus that didn't stack w/ expertise, of +1, up by +1/five levels.

With another feat, you got the ability to choose to attack with the secondary weapon at -5. T