Multiple natural attacks

[Legacy_meaglyn]

               

Hi Folks,

              Has anyone been able to make creature multiple attacks work right? The engine does not do the right thing according to my reading of the rules.  Take for example a troll.  claw/claw/bite. In old school DnD, where I started, that would be three attacks per round all with normal to hit chance. In 3.5 that should be  3 attacks per round too, but with 2 claws as primary at full BAB and 1 secondary bite at -5.   The engine does 0/-5/-10/-15 etc.

 

Haste does not seem to help. Nor does setting the number of attacks (using the misnamed SetBaseAttackBonus).

 

So I tried giving the second claw item a +5 to hit. But there seems to be no logic about which order the creature weapons are used. (This could have been partly an artifact of having SetBaseAttackBonus(3) before applying haste, thus giving 4 attacks per round spread across 3 weapons -- i'll undo that later when I do more testing).  But I'm seeing things like:  13/3/3/-7  and  8/3/-2/-2   and 13/8/3/-7  (the creature's BAB is currently .  Those numbers show the same +5 claw being used multiples times, sometimes in a row. (13/8/3 for example).  W/o the +5 and with 4 attacks it should be 8/3/-2/-7.

 

What I'd like to see is 8/8/3  repeating (I have not added the required +5 to the bite yet. I'll put a +1 on that for more testing so I can see which attack uses the bite).

 

Has anyone still around fought this battle before?

 

Edit: I have read (on posts on these boards) but not yet tested that EffectModifyAttacks does not add full BAB attacks as stated in the lexicon. I will try that too but I expect it to add attacks using the -5 progression as well.

 

 

Thanks,

 

meaglyn

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_bdtgazo]

               

Heya,

 

I have never worried about this, but the workaround that comes to mind is using the ai scripts to cancel normal attacks and then launch  effective attacks with the AB that you want at specified intervals.

 

Lot of scripting though, I think.

 

Is there a way to 'catch' the hit roll on an attack, and negate it if its too high or too low, and either reset it or adjust it?  The attacks are clearly processed, I just don't know enough about how or by what.  But it may be something to look at.

 

Barring that, you might just use the illusory effect of (napkin) math application - which solves a lot of problems for me - and then use a combat script to apply any special attack function.  Looking at the mean on the ABs, what ranges are you seeing now, and what ranges would you see if you were successful in this endeavor?  Same for damage. 

 

Hope this helped in some way.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

afaik which creature weapon is used each attack is random. 33% if there are 3, 50% if there are two

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Proleric]

               

Thanks for this insight. I always wondered why my "rip-your-head-off" monsters seemed a bit feeble!

 

My pragmatic kludge is to level up the monster a bit (I appreciate that will be taboo for some folk).

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_meaglyn]

               

Thanks guys. Shadooow: that's the conclusion I was coming too.  That makes it hard to work around. I guess I'll just beef them up a bit and probably give the primary attack items a bit of a bonus besides to simulate the primary/secondary and then just let the laws of probability smooth it all out.

 

Rewriting the combat engine in nwscript does not seem like a good use of time '>