The Gaming Den

The essential issue with multi-attacks is the concept of "Action Economy" or "what can I do in a round?". 3.X made inrounds with limiting and defining action economy.Things like swift actions were introduced to expand it. 4E took it a step furhter and hard-defined the action economy into 3 actions per round: A standard, move, and minor. a multiple attack fighter still exists in 4E, but it bound the action economy into a standard action, the multiple attacks come from a power that lists multiple targets.

Note that a standard can be downgraded to a move or minor, and a move can be downgraded to a minor.

I would liketo see the action economy adjusted such that a standard = 3 minor and move = 2 minors. So if you stood still and did nothing else, you could take 2 standard actions on your turn. A 4E type of power could be done with a standard action.

Alternatively you could do 6 minor actions. For the multi-atack fighter type, this might be 6 seperate attacks, similar to a basic attack in 4E with some tweaks to bring it in balance (no str bonus to damage, or 1hp dmg, or perhaps only str damage each hit, etc).

I would think things like immediate actions would be minors as well and you have to "hold on" to one or two if you want to be able to use them before the start of your next turn. So if you want to be able to do a Opportunity attack on a creature if it moves away, you better hold a minor action in reserve.

Minor could be used to move 1/2 your speed value, or perhaps only a shift.

Wizard types should be built with more sustain like powers rather than the old 1E-3E random number of rounds, but also get rid of the 4E "until end of next turn" mechanic. Use a minor to sustain, period.

Things like fireball could be upgraded on the fly. Standard action to cast, use a minor action to increase damage by 1d6, use minor action to increase range by 5 squares, use minor action to increase burst radius by 1. and so on.

by providing more "Action Currency", things that used to be handled by feats (metamagic in 3E e.g.) can be handled by spending the action currency. Leaving feats for more hard-wired customization and/or flavor (upgrading a class feature, or expanding deeper into a theme).

It does have the potential to bog each players turn a bit, but I think you'll feel more able to make "quick" decisions and if it was not ideal, still have enough "currency" to correct.

I can see a fighter/wizard build saying:

"I shift 1 (minor action) to avoid an Opportunity attack from the ogre. I cast Shout (standard action) to stun the ogre and the nearby orcs (rolls made to resolve, ogre is stunned, orcs are not). I move 3 squares ( minor action to move 1/2 speed) and I attempt to bonk the wounded (but not stunned) orc with my mace (minor action for basic attack with mace called "bonk") for 1 point of damage."

I like multi-attack fighters too, but the old iterative but less effective attack paradigm doesn't need to stay. It was a decreasing chance to hit for equal damage. Instead, an equal to hit iterative attack, but lower damage/effectiveness hit is better in that the last few attacks don't seem so hopeless/useless. The net effect of the old model was you would be able to hit low level mooks and waste them with a multi-attack, but if you used it against a single high level target, the others were hail mary's for a crit. Keeping the hit roll high, but the damage dropped allows you to waste low level mooks (low hps) but still be able add damage to the single high level target.
Being able to mx the high damage single attack and a few iterative atacks in a single round in my high "action currency" approach would make the game feel like you have plenty of options to choose from, and ways to react during your turn to a changing battle space.