[3.X] Everyone Gets Full BAB

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Tue Oct 29, 2013 8:08 pm

Simple change.
Everyone gets full Base Attack Bonus.

Non-weapon users will most likely be using spells anyway and it only affects Rays so no change there. Rays become a near guarantee hit every time.

I predict the biggest change would be for those in the middle with normally 3/4 progressions such as Bard or Monk.
They would be rewarded for making attacks.

I would tack on another rule of adding 2x level to damage per hand used to wield a weapon but that's something else beyond a simple change.
Something to make damage scale with level.

Stinktopus · Post by **Stinktopus** » Tue Oct 29, 2013 8:56 pm

You're right, we need to somehow buff Clerics and Druids. They're falling behind.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Tue Oct 29, 2013 9:14 pm

Indeed. I don't get what is motivating this or how it is anything but a buff to spellcasters and makes non-spellcasters even less relevant.

Damaging scaling would be good, however, but it is completely unrelated to this idea.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Oct 29, 2013 9:19 pm

4e's idea of putting all attacks on the same schedule was pretty good. The implementation was... terrible. But the idea was pretty good. Medium BAB classes multiclass really poorly, which is a shame because there isn't much reason other than the shitty attack bonuses that you couldn't be a Rogue/Assassin/Scout.

Tentatively, I'd be in favor of it. Certainly if I was making an edition of D&D from scratch and wanted to do open multiclassing I wouldn't have different attack bonus progressions.

-Username17

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Tue Oct 29, 2013 9:48 pm

It'd be workable with a lot of other changes, but just adding it in to the otherwise unaltered 3.x class system doesn't make much sense.

Its one of the things that almost-sorta-works for 5e, simply because additional attacks are implemented separately and stat prioritization keeps a fairly strong barrier between classes. But for 3e, full BAB is a serious class feature, even though it is one of weak points of the 3e class system.

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Tue Oct 29, 2013 10:08 pm

It would be fine if the current Full BaB classes had powers and abilities worth using.

NineInchNall · Post by **NineInchNall** » Wed Oct 30, 2013 12:18 am

Stinktopus wrote:You're right, we need to somehow buff Clerics and Druids. They're falling behind.

Clerics already have full BAB. Druids, well, yeah, it's a buff to them, but ... It's also a buff to all those shit-tastic multiclass combinations that effing suck as things stand, and I'm totally willing to go all Rawlsian and measure our progress by the degree of improvement to the worst off.

What it does is negate "Full BAB" as a thing that has any sort of balance consideration. So no one gets to say, "Well, the Fighter may not get good special abilities or spells, but that's okay because he gets full BAB."

In the proposed world, that would be, "Well, the Fighter may not get good special abilities or spells, but that's okay because he gets the same BAB as everyone else. ... Oh. My bad. Yeah, we need to give him more special abilities or spells."

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Wed Oct 30, 2013 1:16 am

As far as CoDZilla goes I assumed melee was a subpar option for them anyway.

Insomniac · Post by **Insomniac** » Wed Oct 30, 2013 2:44 am

sigma999 wrote:As far as CoDZilla goes I assumed melee was a subpar option for them anyway.

It doesn't change the fact that even as a possibly subpar option that they still do it better than classes whose entire schtick is fighting. The raison d'etre of a Fighter is pure combat. Clerics and Druids already do it just as well if not better than fighters with buffs, debuffs, battlefield control, utility spells, great self healing, better skill lists, domains, etc.

A Druid and a Fighter would differ by 10 HP and 6 feats. In comparison the druid can...

Heal himself
Automatically use scrolls and wands on its spell list
Have an Animal Companion roughly comparable to or superior to a poorly built Fighter in combat. He can just accidentally have that happen.
Wild Shape into better ability scores and great abilities
Cast, assuming 20 Wisdom, 59 level's worth of spells, 4 of them 5th and 4th.

You completely negate Fighters, Barbarians, Paladins and Rangers in the core book while giving mild boosts to Monk, Bard and Rogue.

If you want to argue that...

Full Arcane=Low BAB
Full Divine=Medium BAB
6 levels of spells or less=Full BAB

Now that I think I can get on board for.

But you're still negating Full BAB classes.

That and dipping and prestige classing will be tremendously attractive, even moreso than now.

NineInchNall · Post by **NineInchNall** » Wed Oct 30, 2013 2:55 am

Insomniac wrote:You completely negate Fighters, Barbarians, Paladins and Rangers in the core book while giving mild boosts to Monk, Bard and Rogue.

...

But you're still negating Full BAB classes.

Under the core rules, the full BAB classes are already negated by not offering anything besides full BAB.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Wed Oct 30, 2013 4:08 am

So, what, give the other classes full BAB in recognition that the non-spellcasters have to be completely rewritten? We already knew that.

Omegonthesane · Post by **Omegonthesane** » Wed Oct 30, 2013 11:08 am

Voss wrote:So, what, give the other classes full BAB in recognition that the non-spellcasters have to be completely rewritten? We already knew that.

Many of them have, in fact, already been completely rewritten in a way that satisfies the Denizens.

Taped onto 3.Tome, this would devalue the martial classes' power of "get full benefit from scaling Martial feats", however I'm not instantly certain how big a deal that is compared to having actual class features that aren't "pick from the universal list five times as many feats as you actually want".

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Wed Oct 30, 2013 8:35 pm

NineInchNall wrote: Under the core rules, the full BAB classes are already negated by not offering anything besides full BAB.

Precisely. There's a lot left wanting.

If full BAB is the only selling point for a Fighter then I won't play it.

Insomniac · Post by **Insomniac** » Thu Oct 31, 2013 1:06 am

Full BAB meant more. Fighters used to be the only people who could use magical weapons. Now you can't imagine any character using anything but a magical weapon.

Iterative attacks used to be their thing, too. Now everybody gets them. Same with feats. Everybody gets 'em, fighters just get a few more.

Every single one of their core schticks was whored out.
They're basically an NPC class right now but with more Full BAB
options, oof.

What do you do with splat book stuff? Do they all get Full BAB, too?

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Thu Oct 31, 2013 11:14 am

The classic (post-1985) fighter advantages were the best stat mods with the best boosters, best weapons, best attack and damage and hit point and AC bonuses available, best number of attacks from level 1 and forever after, ... you weren't just a little better at fighting, it was huge. Things that could take down a fighter alone would walk all over the other three together, assuming they were stupid enough to try.

3e didn't just give all that to everyone else, it nerfed the fighter all the fucking way. 2e is 4-5 auto-hitting attacks dealing death on every blow against most monsters, 3e is 4 attacks where 3 of them miss and you need to hit about eight times to kill anything.

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Thu Oct 31, 2013 7:50 pm

tussock wrote: 3e didn't just give all that to everyone else, it nerfed the fighter all the fucking way. 2e is 4-5 auto-hitting attacks dealing death on every blow against most monsters, 3e is 4 attacks where 3 of them miss and you need to hit about eight times to kill anything.

I don't recall deathblows in AD&D but you're right about the missing.

The 3.X equivalent would be a full bonus on every extra attack, not that diminishing shit.

nockermensch · Post by **nockermensch** » Thu Oct 31, 2013 7:57 pm

Deathblows happened because hitpoints were a joke before 3e. Giants and dragons had like 10d8 hp, without con bonuses. And by the level you were supposed to be killing giants and dragons, fighters were hitting for like 3d6+10 damage.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Fri Nov 01, 2013 9:03 am

I suppose most of my monsters were weaker too, individually. Big fights against scores of baddies resolved pretty quickly when many PCs could one-hit or one-spell bunches of them per round. You can't run those fights in 3e, so they end up facing smaller number of bigger HP and AC, the Wizard switches to save-or-lose and the Fighter becomes a speed bump.

And even still.

AD&D Hill Giants have 33 hp, 2nd edition 54, 3e's 102, 4e 159.
AD&D Fighters approach 30 average damage (50 for Rangers), 2e maybe 35, and 3e can hit 50 or so. 4e drops down to 30 again. Not winning.

Wait! 5e Hill Giant has 76 hp, vs Fighter's ... WTF? Where did the damage bonus go? I seem to be doing 10 damage, maybe 13 at 20th level? Whut? Why? Where did my fucking 6d6+20 bonus damage go? Uck.