Replacing Combat Dominance

[Mark Hall]

I'm not a fan of the combat dominance ability, largely because, by the time you acquire it, it's somewhat less useful. By the time you GET an extra attack against 1HD creatures, most of your enemies are much higher HD, and you seldom miss the little guys, anyway.

What I have done instead is give my group's fighter an extra attack every second round. Does that sound like a reasonable replacement?

[Breakdaddy]

Its pretty much how they did it back in the day with AD&D (2nd ed, I think?), so yeah it should be fine.

[Relaxo]

You could try the way they do it in Swords and Wizardry, white box:
Combat Machine: Against foes of one hit dice (HD) or fewer, Fighters get one attack per level each combat round.

so it starts stacking up at 2nd level....
I might cap it at 5 attacks per round, because it's only 10 seconds long, that round.

[gideon_thorne]

I moved Combat dominance to first level. And gave it to the Ranger as well

Course, I also use multi attacks in my game, and a lot of other hold overs from the AD&D days.

[Treebore]

This is what I have been doing with the Fighter for the last few years:

Fighters:
They get to use their BtH to make combat related SIEGE checks, plus their specialization bonuses when using that weapon. All other classes use just their BtH.

Fighters can also learn to master (specialize) a new weapon every 3 levels. So at 4th, 7th, 10th, and so on they can master a new weapon. They only get the +1 to hit and damage. These additional weapons never increase to +2 like your first weapon does. Unless you use one of your additional "mastery's" to do so. So if you want to be +2 with the bow, you can use your 4th and 7th level mastery to do so. To be clear, the 7th level bonus can only be used to up your fist chosen weapon to +2, or you keep it at +1 and chose a different weapon to have a +1. You do not increase your first weapon to +2 and pick an additional weapon to +1, you do not get both.

Combat Dominance is now "Mass Combat Dominance". They get multiple attacks per round whenever the Fighter is taking on 3 or more opponents at one time. Irregardless of HD. 1 attack per opponent, this replaces any other attacks.

[zarathustra]

Looks like alot of people are giving the fighter a little boost. I tried to keep it pretty simple.

● Combat dominance functions against creatures of 2HD or less. ● Fighters also gain # 3/2 attacks against any opponent at 5th level.

[Sir Osis of Liver]

I'm playing around with encounter design for my homebrew. One of my thoughts is to favor bigger encounters with increasing numbers of low HD instead of just putting the party against one big guy. Tucker's kobolds...muahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Go0gleplex]

...kobolds...muahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now that's just evil.

[Ogre]

I replaced combat dominance with cleave from 3rd ed, and than at your next level step great cleave.

Basically you can make another attack if you kill a monster, and than at the next level step you can do it as much per round as permitted without moving.

[Treebore]

Looks like alot of people are giving the fighter a little boost. I tried to keep it pretty simple.

Yeah, I figured moving them a little closer to fireball throwing mages couldn't hurt.

[zarathustra]

Looks like alot of people are giving the fighter a little boost. I tried to keep it pretty simple.

Yeah, I figured moving them a little closer to fireball throwing mages couldn't hurt.

You're right. The good ol' fighter always seems to lack a bit of the glamour, versatility and punch of the other classes in most editions I have played of D&D.

I haven't got a long haul look at C&C yet so I am keeping alot of the ideas in this thread in the back of my mind should I decide to tweak the fighter some more.

[AGNKim]

By the time you GET an extra attack against 1HD creatures, most of your enemies are much higher HD...

While I understand what you are saying, if you don't use hordes and hordes of kobolds on your high level characters, you are really missing out on some fun.

In a dungeon:

Rogue: Hold up, guys... I see something ahead.

Fighter: What is it?

Rogue: Kobolds.

Fighter: (Laughs) Kobolds? Bring 'em on!

Rogue: Looks like about... 100, maybe 120.

Fighter: (stops laughing) Oh...

[serleran]

I've modified combat dominance completely. HD of the enemy is no longer a function of the system; level, and magical weapons, are the critical components. A fighter will progress to dealing one additional die of damage per 6 levels. A magic weapon deals 1 additional die per plus (and the odds of finding anything +2 or greater is extremely reduced). Foes within X feet of each other can be affected on a deathblow so that residual damage from one can be given to another. This makes it somewhat like cleave from 3rd edition but retains usefulness against high HD opponents as the fighter will simply deal more damage to them.

I should say that, in this method, all weapons deal 1d6 damage except for two-handed weapons.

[Relaxo]

Maybe adding cleave at 2nd level and combat dominance as is at 4th would be workable?

[segfault]

Long time lurker, first time poster.

What I have done is to expand just a little what combat dominance covers. It's my 'less than half' rule. A fighter will get multiple attacks on those with less than half of his HD. So a level four fighter would get two attacks against a one HD creature. Half of level four is two, less than two is one. ( 4/2 = 2 ; less than 2, so 1) this keeps in line with the original rule except there is not a d6 HD limit. The rest would go like this...
Lv4 : 2 atks on 1Hd
Lv5 : 2 atks on 2Hd and lower (5/2 = 2.5; less than 2.5, so 2)
Lv6 : 2 atks on 2Hd and lower (I moved +2 weapon specialization to level 6 rather than 7)
Lv7 : 2 atks on 3hd and lower
Lv8 : 3 atks on 3hd and lower
Lv9 : 3 atks on 4Hd and lower
Lv10: 3 atks on 4Hd and lower (Fighter gets 'Extra Attack' at this level)
Lv11: 3 atks on 5hd and lower
Lv12: 4 atks on 5hd and lower

I guess I would continue and add a 5th attack at 16 level for one attack every two seconds in a 10 second round, but I have never had any PCs make it that far. I don't think this expansion over powers the fighter and it makes it much more useful against cannon fodder.

[Treebore]

I like that. Not going to use it because I like mine better, but I do like that idea.