Combat Dominance
by paladinnMost every edition of D&D up to 3e had some form of this, even if it was in a footnote somewhere. BECMI didn't allow it till L12 (!) and didn't allow straight-up extra attacks. C&C has it; it's called Combat Dominance (CD), and it's different than a straight-up extra attack, which fighters also get.
For my hybrid game, I'm looking at many of the fighter class features from these older editions and trying to incorporate and tweak so they play nicely together. I'm not going to use "cleave" ala the 3e feat, because I'm also going to adapt some of the "weapon mastery" special properties from OneD&D, and one of those properties is cleave.
So for CD, it seems there are several questions to answer when implementing something like it. What level does it start? What HD creatures can be affected? How many attacks? How are the results determined? Most of these are simple. I allow CD from L1, as it has been since 1e, unless using fighter sub-classes. Then it's from L3, when the subclasses branch off. I allow it against creatures of 1/2 the fighter's HD or less (round down). Since HD goes up to 10 in C&C, that limits to 5HD creatures max. Traditionally a fighter can make up to his/her level in attacks. That actually may be excessive; so I'm thinking to limit that to the fighter's number of HD; i.e. a max of 10. In my game, a CD lasts until a fighter fails to drop a foe, or attacks a foe that exceeds the HD limit.
That last part is what I'm pondering now. A 10th level fighter ends up making 10 attack rolls. On one hand, it allows for a mix of creatures with different HD and AC; on the other it's 10 rolls! So here's what I'm thinking: the L10 fighter is facing a group of orcs. The DM figures the best AC/HD of the group and the fighter rolls Once against that. If s/he hits, roll damage. If s/he drops the one, s/he drops up to 10. If the one doesn't drop, the fight goes on against that one. Only one CD allowed per encounter.
I think it's a workable model that doesn't take much in-game time. Am I off base?