Min/Max Boards

Complete Arcane: Hideous Blow provoking attacks of opportunity.

Never mind, scooped.  -- Pteryx

Annoyingly, law and chaos didn't get the attention in WotC published material that good and evil did, as near as I can tell; I've been combing for such things myself on account of a Lawful Good prosecutor-cleric who emphasizes the lawful side.  That being said, on the subject of both homebrew and Tome of Battle, if you go that route there's Quicksilver Aegis to consider, particularly if you can have it alongside the lawful side of Devoted Spirit.  -- Pteryx

The iterative system is a bit of an annoyance, but the main problem is still the fact that it limits tactics due to full attacks being full-round actions compared to casters getting more powerful spells that are still standard actions.

Honestly, I've considered the idea of having "standard action" spells take an amount of initiative count to cast equal to the spell level, adjusting init accordingly and making some rules for wrapping around to the next round, but no one in my group seems game for it.  The idea that a 9th-level spell just might be that much more valuable a use of time and that giving fighter-types the time to actually interrupt spells might be a good thing didn't go over well...  Oh well, at least they agree that 5' steps, defensive casting, and Concentration checks to maintain a spell when interrupted are one too many layers of protection, even if we don't all agree which one to drop.  (Personally, I'd go with nerfing the Concentration check so the spell is disrupted no matter what, you're just rolling to see if the spell is expended or not.)  -- Pteryx

Where does it say you're supposed to get better at multiple attacks? (I ask under the assuption that getting more attacks for some reason isn't considered getting better.)

I could have sworn I once read something in design notes from around the 3.0 transition comparing 2e's take on multiple attacks and 3.0's, but I can't seem to find it.  (Then again, a lot of that stuff was from the early days of what is now ENWorld, and some of my Dragons from around that time seem to have gone missing, so I can't easily verify whether I'm misremembering or just lost track of it.)

More attacks are only a partial solution to me.  The math works well enough at single-digit BAB, but... well, let's put it this way.  For a fighter-BAB character, an attack at your full BAB is level-appropriate while an attack at -5 (with no commiserate bonus to something else in return) is something you could do five levels ago.  Gaining another attack at -10 means your shiny new attack is only as good as something you could do ten levels ago -- not especially relevant save for representing a new chance to roll a 20.  Conversely, if it's at -8 while your old secondary attack becomes -4, then not only is the new addition less outdated, but your old secondary attack is just a little bit closer to par than it used to be.

I'm not sure what you're getting at. in 2E, you'd get extra attacks (fewer than in 3E at the same level), but they'd all hit with the same accuracy, and they'd be usable after movement. It would be akin to removing all attack penalties for iteratives and allowing full attacks as a standard action.

As I recall, in 2e, you typically gained new attacks at an every-other-round rate (so 1 attack per round, 3 attacks per 2 rounds, 2 attacks per round, etc.).  However, while this was pretty enough mathematically, not everyone grasped it readily and it meant having to track what you did last round in order to know what you can do in the current round.  By my understanding, a desire to create a solution that was easier to grasp and play with while preserving a more gradual improvement than gaining full-powered new attacks, combined with a transition to a less abstract round, is where new attacks at a lower bonus came from.  By that logic, the best equivalent to the 2e way of doing things would be a switch to -0, -0/-5, -0/-0, -0/-0/-5... but I'd prefer a solution that bears closer resemblance to cleaning up 3.x than to backporting a 2e rule -- in part because it would mean less system-rewriting and less explanation.

If you prefer Pounce for everyone, the basic math of a progression of -0, -0/-5, -0/-4/-8, -0/-3/-6/-9 isn't incompatible with such.  -- Pteryx

Or make all iteratives simply a -5. So at +16 BaB you will have +16/+11/+11/+11.

Yeah, I've seen that one many times before, but I feel it misses the point.  The original idea, as I recall, was an improvement in multi-attacking capability that was more gradual than just gaining a full-fledged new attack every now and then, but was easier to manage than 2e's "X attacks per Y rounds".  The problem is that you never actually get better at multiple attacks as you reach the double digits -- you just get new sucky ones tacked on.  The way I describe, not only are the new ones not as inaccurate as in the RAW, but the old ones improve slightly.  Making all iterative attacks be at -5 merely delays the suddenness of getting new attacks.  -- Pteryx

..apparently these things are required here.  Oh well.

Anyway, I'm Pteryx, my childhood sucked because the US school system does (and it's only gotten worse), and one of the big things keeping me from seeking employment is that the laws surrounding the businesses that would interest me also suck.  As such, I grew up to be a roleplayer on the Internet instead.  I've played both freeform stuff and system-based stuff; obviously I'm here to talk about the latter.  My home medium is Internet Relay Chat.

The 3.x family is closest to what I want out of D&D so far, though I acknowledge its faults and like most people have been accumulating house rules.  I like Eberron, clerics, beguilers, skill points, and urban adventures.  I dislike rogues having become "strikers" (and yes, I do acknowledge that 3.0 started it with Sneak Attack being usable merely by flanking).  -- Pteryx