Better than the best BAB? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Better than the best BAB? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
TheDarkPrince
07-31-07, 02:25 AM Has anyone made a class that has better than the best BAB progression? Like instead of 1:1, what about 1:1.5?

I know it would seem unbalanced, and saying its not unbalanced when compared to a druid is not justification enough, so what would you say in order to argue for/against it?

Thanks, Cheers! :D
Enchanter_Tom
07-31-07, 02:43 AM No.

Why? Because it doesn't fit the standard formula of D&D. There's a reason that all classes have the same save progression and only two classes have no BAB progression (the warhulk and the survivor).

It's just how it is.

Breaking the mold can be a good thing. Breaking the mold with dumb mechanics is not (though I intend no offense towards you in saying that).
TheDarkPrince
07-31-07, 02:47 AM None taken, I was just wondering if anyone had done it. Why doesnt the warhulk get BAB? Whats the balancing factor? And why, if a class can have no BAB, couldn't a class get better BAB?
Ninetails Demon
07-31-07, 02:48 AM It would slow the game down. Here's a section from the Epic Level Handbook that explains it pretty well. However, it might be possible to come up with a reasonable way to do it, such as capping the number of attacks the same way epic does. Also, it would probably need to be limited to a prestige class that can only be taken after 10th level.

BEHIND THE CURTAIN: A LIMIT TO ATTACKS
AND SAVES
Why don’t base attack bonus and base save bonus increase
after 20th level? Ultimately, these are game play issues.
If base attack bonuses continued to increase, every character
would eventually have so many attacks per round that the
game would slow to a crawl. What’s worse, only the first few
attacks would be significant, because the drop-off in attack
bonuses means that later attacks have almost no chance to
hit. For this reason, the rules establish a cap on a character’s
base attack bonus, because the base attack bonus determines
the number of attacks per round a character can make. After
20th level, your base attack bonus never improves. You gain
epic and other bonuses to your attack roll, but these don’t ever
increase your base attack bonus and thus never grant you
additional attacks.

This limit doesn’t apply to the base attack bonus derived
strictly from a monster’s Hit Dice. For instance, a titan with 21
HD using the monster advancement rules in the Monster
Manual has a base attack bonus of +21. Thus, another cap
exists: A high base attack bonus never grants a creature more
than four attacks with any given weapon using the full attack
option. Other effects (such as haste, certain feats, and class
abilities such as the monk’s special unarmed attack progression)
may grant additional actions or attacks that exceed this
limit. But regardless of how high a creature’s base attack
bonus gets, it can never make more than four attacks with that
weapon using a full attack action.

The limit to the base saving throw bonuses is also a game
play issue. Because saving throw bonuses progress at different
rates (“higher” versus “lower” saves), the difference between a
character’s base save bonuses will eventually grow so great
that two different situations with the same save DC would
present two threats of wildly differing magnitude. The difference
between the higher and lower saving throw bonuses for a
60th-level character, for example, is 12 points (+32 versus +20).
Add in the bonuses from high ability scores and magic items
that a character probably has, and you can expect the gap to
widen further. This leads to situations where a character might
succeed at a given Fortitude save with a die roll of 2 or higher,
but might require a roll of 20 to succeed at a Reflex save
against the same DC. For this reason, base save bonuses don’t
increase after 20th level, although the epic save bonus
increases at a fixed rate for all epic characters.
Leress
07-31-07, 03:03 AM None taken, I was just wondering if anyone had done it. Why doesnt the warhulk get BAB? Whats the balancing factor? And why, if a class can have no BAB, couldn't a class get better BAB?

The war hulk gets a strength bonus every couple of levels to slight off set that (it is more about hitting hard than often, hence 'hulk')
TheDarkPrince
07-31-07, 03:08 AM Ok, thanks. I might include that in some PrC in the future, but I could use some help thinking of balancing features.
Lotusblossom
07-31-07, 04:23 AM The war hulk gets +2 Str every level. The class does have some downsides though.
Aryxbez
07-31-07, 04:31 AM In the Munchkins Roleplaying game, the warrior class they have has a Bab that starts at +2 and they end up with six attacks in the end. Of course, that is munchkins, so it was kinda expected.

I think it would be a decent idea, not really dumb, sure it might give off more attacks, but what does it really matter? I mean spellcasters get all the cool crap anyway.
TheDarkPrince
07-31-07, 04:55 AM Thats what I was thinking. Since wizards and others can do all that stuff (I mean.....Wish anyone?) why not give certain classes really good BAB. I'm sure it would help in finally bringing the fighter up to par.
RobbyPants
07-31-07, 10:20 AM Has anyone made a class that has better than the best BAB progression? Like instead of 1:1, what about 1:1.5?

I know it would seem unbalanced, and saying its not unbalanced when compared to a druid is not justification enough, so what would you say in order to argue for/against it?

Thanks, Cheers! :D
It changes a few things that (some say) are paramount for game balcance:

It would allow for faster entry into many PrCs. The nice thing about BAB as-is is that you know that a PC can't have a BAB higher than their level. It's a very easy way to limit the level for martial PrCs without having to resort to class level.
It would allow for BABs higher than 20 (unless you also put that in as a limitation). Note how when you begin an epic progression, you instead get a bonus to your attack roll rather than your BAB. This is to keep people from getting more than four itterative attacks. As soon as your BAB climbs to 21+, you get a 5th attack.
On a more minor note, it makes it easier to balance a monster's AC against appropriate leveled PC's BAB. This one isn't nearly as big a deal as the first two points, as stat increases, spells, and other bonuses will make the total attack number vary quite a bit.
RealSorceror
07-31-07, 10:52 AM Actually, yes. Two classes come to mind.

The Assimilated, from the DragonMech setting, allows a character to fuse his body into a steampunk-style mecha.
The character slowly loses his normal BAB, which is replaced by a "mech BAB" which jumps from 0 to +5 to +10/+5, and finally to +15/+10/+5 in just five levels (this stacks with any previous Mech BAB, meaning an Assimilated could potentially have a BAB higher than 20).

The other is a similair class called the Mech Symbiote, which gains a Mech BAB of +6 in five levels.

Of course, neither of these classes are WotC material.

The only other thing I can think of is the Maho-Bushi from Oriental Adventures. This class has a normal Fighter BAB, but at 7th level the character gets a bonus on attack rolls equal to half his Taint score, which is usually pretty big by this point.
ArochanoX
07-31-07, 10:57 AM How about it was no base attack bonus, just attack bonus with all weapons? That means, no 5th attack, and nice 1 3/4 AB progression.

lvl - BAB - AB - total AB
1 - 1 - +0 - 1
2 - 2 - +0 - 2
3 - 3 - +0 - 3
4 - 4 - +1 - 5
5 - 5 - +1 - 6/1
6 - 6 - +1 - 7/2
7 - 7 - +1 - 8/3
8 - 8 - +2 - 10/5
9 - 9 - +2 - 11/6/1
10 - 10 - +2 - 12/7/2
11 - 11 - +2 - 13/8/3
12 - 12 - +3 - 15/10/5
13 - 13 - +3 - 16/11/6/1
14 - 14 - +3 - 17/12/7/2
15 - 15 - +3 - 18/13/8/3
16 - 16 - +4 - 20/15/10/5
17 - 17 - +4 - 21/16/11/6
18 - 18 - +4 - 22/17/12/7
19 - 19 - +4 - 23/18/13/8
20 - 20 - +5 - 25/20/15/10
RealSorceror
07-31-07, 11:01 AM How about it was no base attack bonus, just attack bonus with all weapons? That means, no 5th attack, and nice 1 3/4 AB progression.
Actually, the Wasp Clan Bounty Hunter does that, but the bonus only applies to bows.
clash42
07-31-07, 01:07 PM How about it was no base attack bonus, just attack bonus with all weapons? That means, no 5th attack, and nice 1 3/4 AB progression.

This was done in Iron Heroes, released by Malhavoc Press. Great book IMO.
Enchanter_Tom
07-31-07, 02:55 PM To the OP:

The standard way of getting additional attacks in D&D is by giving class features that grant extra attacks (see the bladesinger) or feats (rapidshot). Like another poster mentioned, increasing BAB would allow much faster entry into PrCs and would overpower melee classes (not that it would hurt high-level games much).
TheDarkPrince
07-31-07, 03:58 PM Ok, then what about a PrC with better BAB? That way, any base class would still have to meet the Pre-req.

Cheers! :D
Morwen
07-31-07, 04:11 PM I
It would allow for BABs higher than 20 (unless you also put that in as a limitation). Note how when you begin an epic progression, you instead get a bonus to your attack roll rather than your BAB. This is to keep people from getting more than four itterative attacks. As soon as your BAB climbs to 21+, you get a 5th attack.

You actually don't. There's a rule in the Epic Level Handbook, just below the one that says "we needed to use Epic Attack Bonus because of iterative attacks" that says "since monsters can still get a BAB of 21+, we had to make another rule that says you can never have more than 4 iterative attacks".

So, in fact, the entire Epic Attack Bonus rule would not be needed, since they added that second rule in addition to it :)
TiwazTyrsfist
07-31-07, 04:17 PM Nay saying aside, he's a little PrC idea.

Brawler

Prereqs: BAB +10
Feats: Proficiency with all Martial Weapons.

Lvl BAB Fort Ref Will Ability
1 2 0 0 0
2 4 0 0 0
3 6 1 1 1
4 8 1 1 1
5 10 1 1 1 Attack Mastery

Attack Mastery: When the characters BAB reachs +21, he gains an extra attack as part of a full attack action, for attacks at +21/+16/+11/+6/+1. This superceeds the normal limit of 4 attacks per full attack action regaurdless of BAB. He does not gain more attack from high BAB past this point, even if he somehow manages to get his BAB over +26.
TheDarkPrince
07-31-07, 04:38 PM Nice start, thanks.
Yue Ryong
08-03-07, 08:31 AM There's a PrC in Swashbuckling Adventures by AEG that gets up to +15 BAB over 10 levels, called the 'Champion of Rhys' or something. Of course, one of the prereqs for entry is the possession of two major artifacts. It also has a horrible ability to kill you in a single hit so long as you aren't immune to fear (3.0 Vorpal + Fear Aura + Anyone who is scared of fear aura is automatically critted).
JadeSpider9643
08-03-07, 06:36 PM the only reason to give a better than full BAB would be to qualify for PRCs/feats before you're intended to be able to. Anything else the BAB grants can be achieved in a much smoother fashion thru other means. Increased attack bonus? add an additional stat or class level bonus to it. (like Intuitive strike, or Zen Archery) And to increase your number of attacks? that's even easier, haste, speed enchantment, monk's flurry, TWF, manyshot, rapid shot...

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
TheDarkPrince 07-31-07, 02:25 AM	Has anyone made a class that has better than the best BAB progression? Like instead of 1:1, what about 1:1.5? I know it would seem unbalanced, and saying its not unbalanced when compared to a druid is not justification enough, so what would you say in order to argue for/against it? Thanks, Cheers! :D
Enchanter_Tom 07-31-07, 02:43 AM	No. Why? Because it doesn't fit the standard formula of D&D. There's a reason that all classes have the same save progression and only two classes have no BAB progression (the warhulk and the survivor). It's just how it is. Breaking the mold can be a good thing. Breaking the mold with dumb mechanics is not (though I intend no offense towards you in saying that).
TheDarkPrince 07-31-07, 02:47 AM	None taken, I was just wondering if anyone had done it. Why doesnt the warhulk get BAB? Whats the balancing factor? And why, if a class can have no BAB, couldn't a class get better BAB?
Ninetails Demon 07-31-07, 02:48 AM	It would slow the game down. Here's a section from the Epic Level Handbook that explains it pretty well. However, it might be possible to come up with a reasonable way to do it, such as capping the number of attacks the same way epic does. Also, it would probably need to be limited to a prestige class that can only be taken after 10th level. BEHIND THE CURTAIN: A LIMIT TO ATTACKS AND SAVES Why don’t base attack bonus and base save bonus increase after 20th level? Ultimately, these are game play issues. If base attack bonuses continued to increase, every character would eventually have so many attacks per round that the game would slow to a crawl. What’s worse, only the first few attacks would be significant, because the drop-off in attack bonuses means that later attacks have almost no chance to hit. For this reason, the rules establish a cap on a character’s base attack bonus, because the base attack bonus determines the number of attacks per round a character can make. After 20th level, your base attack bonus never improves. You gain epic and other bonuses to your attack roll, but these don’t ever increase your base attack bonus and thus never grant you additional attacks. This limit doesn’t apply to the base attack bonus derived strictly from a monster’s Hit Dice. For instance, a titan with 21 HD using the monster advancement rules in the Monster Manual has a base attack bonus of +21. Thus, another cap exists: A high base attack bonus never grants a creature more than four attacks with any given weapon using the full attack option. Other effects (such as haste, certain feats, and class abilities such as the monk’s special unarmed attack progression) may grant additional actions or attacks that exceed this limit. But regardless of how high a creature’s base attack bonus gets, it can never make more than four attacks with that weapon using a full attack action. The limit to the base saving throw bonuses is also a game play issue. Because saving throw bonuses progress at different rates (“higher” versus “lower” saves), the difference between a character’s base save bonuses will eventually grow so great that two different situations with the same save DC would present two threats of wildly differing magnitude. The difference between the higher and lower saving throw bonuses for a 60th-level character, for example, is 12 points (+32 versus +20). Add in the bonuses from high ability scores and magic items that a character probably has, and you can expect the gap to widen further. This leads to situations where a character might succeed at a given Fortitude save with a die roll of 2 or higher, but might require a roll of 20 to succeed at a Reflex save against the same DC. For this reason, base save bonuses don’t increase after 20th level, although the epic save bonus increases at a fixed rate for all epic characters.
Leress 07-31-07, 03:03 AM	None taken, I was just wondering if anyone had done it. Why doesnt the warhulk get BAB? Whats the balancing factor? And why, if a class can have no BAB, couldn't a class get better BAB? The war hulk gets a strength bonus every couple of levels to slight off set that (it is more about hitting hard than often, hence 'hulk')
TheDarkPrince 07-31-07, 03:08 AM	Ok, thanks. I might include that in some PrC in the future, but I could use some help thinking of balancing features.
Lotusblossom 07-31-07, 04:23 AM	The war hulk gets +2 Str every level. The class does have some downsides though.
Aryxbez 07-31-07, 04:31 AM	In the Munchkins Roleplaying game, the warrior class they have has a Bab that starts at +2 and they end up with six attacks in the end. Of course, that is munchkins, so it was kinda expected. I think it would be a decent idea, not really dumb, sure it might give off more attacks, but what does it really matter? I mean spellcasters get all the cool crap anyway.
TheDarkPrince 07-31-07, 04:55 AM	Thats what I was thinking. Since wizards and others can do all that stuff (I mean.....Wish anyone?) why not give certain classes really good BAB. I'm sure it would help in finally bringing the fighter up to par.
RobbyPants 07-31-07, 10:20 AM	Has anyone made a class that has better than the best BAB progression? Like instead of 1:1, what about 1:1.5? I know it would seem unbalanced, and saying its not unbalanced when compared to a druid is not justification enough, so what would you say in order to argue for/against it? Thanks, Cheers! :D It changes a few things that (some say) are paramount for game balcance: It would allow for faster entry into many PrCs. The nice thing about BAB as-is is that you know that a PC can't have a BAB higher than their level. It's a very easy way to limit the level for martial PrCs without having to resort to class level. It would allow for BABs higher than 20 (unless you also put that in as a limitation). Note how when you begin an epic progression, you instead get a bonus to your attack roll rather than your BAB. This is to keep people from getting more than four itterative attacks. As soon as your BAB climbs to 21+, you get a 5th attack. On a more minor note, it makes it easier to balance a monster's AC against appropriate leveled PC's BAB. This one isn't nearly as big a deal as the first two points, as stat increases, spells, and other bonuses will make the total attack number vary quite a bit.
RealSorceror 07-31-07, 10:52 AM	Actually, yes. Two classes come to mind. The Assimilated, from the DragonMech setting, allows a character to fuse his body into a steampunk-style mecha. The character slowly loses his normal BAB, which is replaced by a "mech BAB" which jumps from 0 to +5 to +10/+5, and finally to +15/+10/+5 in just five levels (this stacks with any previous Mech BAB, meaning an Assimilated could potentially have a BAB higher than 20). The other is a similair class called the Mech Symbiote, which gains a Mech BAB of +6 in five levels. Of course, neither of these classes are WotC material. The only other thing I can think of is the Maho-Bushi from Oriental Adventures. This class has a normal Fighter BAB, but at 7th level the character gets a bonus on attack rolls equal to half his Taint score, which is usually pretty big by this point.
ArochanoX 07-31-07, 10:57 AM	How about it was no base attack bonus, just attack bonus with all weapons? That means, no 5th attack, and nice 1 3/4 AB progression. lvl - BAB - AB - total AB 1 - 1 - +0 - 1 2 - 2 - +0 - 2 3 - 3 - +0 - 3 4 - 4 - +1 - 5 5 - 5 - +1 - 6/1 6 - 6 - +1 - 7/2 7 - 7 - +1 - 8/3 8 - 8 - +2 - 10/5 9 - 9 - +2 - 11/6/1 10 - 10 - +2 - 12/7/2 11 - 11 - +2 - 13/8/3 12 - 12 - +3 - 15/10/5 13 - 13 - +3 - 16/11/6/1 14 - 14 - +3 - 17/12/7/2 15 - 15 - +3 - 18/13/8/3 16 - 16 - +4 - 20/15/10/5 17 - 17 - +4 - 21/16/11/6 18 - 18 - +4 - 22/17/12/7 19 - 19 - +4 - 23/18/13/8 20 - 20 - +5 - 25/20/15/10
RealSorceror 07-31-07, 11:01 AM	How about it was no base attack bonus, just attack bonus with all weapons? That means, no 5th attack, and nice 1 3/4 AB progression. Actually, the Wasp Clan Bounty Hunter does that, but the bonus only applies to bows.
clash42 07-31-07, 01:07 PM	How about it was no base attack bonus, just attack bonus with all weapons? That means, no 5th attack, and nice 1 3/4 AB progression. This was done in Iron Heroes, released by Malhavoc Press. Great book IMO.
Enchanter_Tom 07-31-07, 02:55 PM	To the OP: The standard way of getting additional attacks in D&D is by giving class features that grant extra attacks (see the bladesinger) or feats (rapidshot). Like another poster mentioned, increasing BAB would allow much faster entry into PrCs and would overpower melee classes (not that it would hurt high-level games much).
TheDarkPrince 07-31-07, 03:58 PM	Ok, then what about a PrC with better BAB? That way, any base class would still have to meet the Pre-req. Cheers! :D
Morwen 07-31-07, 04:11 PM	I It would allow for BABs higher than 20 (unless you also put that in as a limitation). Note how when you begin an epic progression, you instead get a bonus to your attack roll rather than your BAB. This is to keep people from getting more than four itterative attacks. As soon as your BAB climbs to 21+, you get a 5th attack. You actually don't. There's a rule in the Epic Level Handbook, just below the one that says "we needed to use Epic Attack Bonus because of iterative attacks" that says "since monsters can still get a BAB of 21+, we had to make another rule that says you can never have more than 4 iterative attacks". So, in fact, the entire Epic Attack Bonus rule would not be needed, since they added that second rule in addition to it :)
TiwazTyrsfist 07-31-07, 04:17 PM	Nay saying aside, he's a little PrC idea. Brawler Prereqs: BAB +10 Feats: Proficiency with all Martial Weapons. Lvl BAB Fort Ref Will Ability 1 2 0 0 0 2 4 0 0 0 3 6 1 1 1 4 8 1 1 1 5 10 1 1 1 Attack Mastery Attack Mastery: When the characters BAB reachs +21, he gains an extra attack as part of a full attack action, for attacks at +21/+16/+11/+6/+1. This superceeds the normal limit of 4 attacks per full attack action regaurdless of BAB. He does not gain more attack from high BAB past this point, even if he somehow manages to get his BAB over +26.
TheDarkPrince 07-31-07, 04:38 PM	Nice start, thanks.
Yue Ryong 08-03-07, 08:31 AM	There's a PrC in Swashbuckling Adventures by AEG that gets up to +15 BAB over 10 levels, called the 'Champion of Rhys' or something. Of course, one of the prereqs for entry is the possession of two major artifacts. It also has a horrible ability to kill you in a single hit so long as you aren't immune to fear (3.0 Vorpal + Fear Aura + Anyone who is scared of fear aura is automatically critted).
JadeSpider9643 08-03-07, 06:36 PM	the only reason to give a better than full BAB would be to qualify for PRCs/feats before you're intended to be able to. Anything else the BAB grants can be achieved in a much smoother fashion thru other means. Increased attack bonus? add an additional stat or class level bonus to it. (like Intuitive strike, or Zen Archery) And to increase your number of attacks? that's even easier, haste, speed enchantment, monk's flurry, TWF, manyshot, rapid shot...