Prak_Anima wrote:actually, I think it's perfectly fine to have 6+ level martial characters doing their full attack routine, but on the last attack switching to defense mode.
Radiant Phoenix wrote:
Simple solution: the maximum penalty to BAB you can take on an iterative attack decreases according to the pattern that 3e BAB follows. If you do it on your third attack, the maximum penalty you can take is 10 less than your BAB.
I thought about this, but it leaves some problematic interactions with other tome stuff.
Firstly, Tome 2wf BAB +1 gives you a pair of attacks made at full BAB, so for BAB +1 through +5, a 2wf character can just writeoff their offhand attack as a "hope to roll a 20" and gain their BAB as a dodge bonus to AC.
Compare to a sword and shield user who took Elusive Target with their feat choice, and took a Dragonscale Shield (best tome shield bonus on a less-than-great shield)
At BAB +1, the 2wf character gets +1 dodge to AC, the s&s character gets +2 dodge and +3 shield bonus, coming out 4 AC points ahead. This is fine, since the 2wf character is getting an additional attack and presumably the shield character was prioritizing defense and the 2wf offense
At BAB +2, the 2wf character gets +2 dodge to AC, vs the s&s character's +2 dodge +3 shield
At BAB +3, the 2wf character gets +3 dodge to AC, vs the s&s character's +2 dodge, +3 shield
At BAB +4, the 2wf character gets +4 dodge to AC, which would mean they've caught up, but by now the S&S character has likely acquired a Magic Shield with an Enhancement that scales as per BoG, and in that case the S&S character has a +5 shield bonus and a +2 dodge bonus, putting them still 2 AC points ahead.
At BAB +5, the 2wf character gets a +5 dodge to AC, closing to within one point.
At BAB +6, a couple things happen. The characters both get the +6 abilities, so the 2wf character is now gaining a +2 shield bonus when not flat footed and the S&S character becomes immune to Power attack. At this point the 2wf character is getting a +6 dodge bonus and a +2 shiled bonus compared to the s&s character's +5 shield and +2 dodge, so 2wf provides better defense whenever the 2wf character makes a less-than-full attack. However, both characters get iteratives, so the 2wf character is now sacrificing multiple attacks in their full attack routine to flailings in order to get the AC boost.....
Or are they?
If you go with Core, then the
Srd on full attack specifies highest to lowest attack bonus, meaning that limiting the Expertise bonus to BAB - iterative penalty means that the 2wf character is either only getting a +1 dodge to AC, or eating a pretty meaningful -6 penalty to highest offhand attack, -5 onhand attack and -5 offhand attack. (barring other trickery like taking Blitz to reduce the iterative penalty)
However, we're talking about TOME here, and that's where things get muddy
this very Races of War thread wrote:
Bonus Attacks and BAB
The bonus attacks that characters get for hitting a BAB of 11 or 16 are not good. I don't know what that was about, but I can only assume that it had to do with a fundamental lack of playtesting past level 10. Anyway, the penalty for taking a bonus attack in a Full Attack action should never rise above -5. So if you have a BAB of +17, your attack routine should look like this: +17/+12/+12/+12. Really.
This is meaningful for BAB +11 and up characters, but doesn't change the +6 BAB 2wf example I was pondering
Tome PDF, page 270 wrote:
Full Attack
If you get more than one attack per round because your base attack bonus is high enough, because you fight with two weapons or a double weapon or for some special reason you must use a full-round action to get your additional attacks. You do not need to specify the targets of your attacks ahead of time. You can see how the earlier attacks turn out before assigning the later ones. The only movement you can take during a full attack is a 5-foot step. You may take the step before, after, or between your attacks. If you get multiple attacks because your base attack bonus is high enough, you may make the attacks in any order you want. All extra attacks derived from base attack bonus are made at a {5 penalty. If you are using two weapons, you can strike with either weapon first. If you are using a double weapon, you can strike with either part of the weapon first.
( curiously, my search function doesn't turn up the Races of War thread quote in the PDF, nor the PDF quote in this nor other Tome threads, )
Now this is a serious powerup to 2wf Expertise at +6 or better BAB, since such a character can take their attacks in an order that puts their primary offhand attack last to eat the Expertise penalty and still gets full bonuses with all other attacks.
So with that in play, even with expertise taking the iterative penalty, the 2wf character is getting +6 dodge, +2 shield bonus vs the S&S character's +2 dodge, +5 shield bonus after any attack, whether full or not. Offensively they two characters are hitting at the same bonus for the same damage with their onhand weapons. On a less-than-full attack, the 2wf character is getting an offhand attack which is at an unlikely to matter -6, and on a full attack, the 2wf character is getting a secondary offhand attack at -5 and then taking a -6 to their primary offhand attack for the AC. Now attacks at -5 and -6 are unlikely to matter against armored opponents, but are meaningful against animals and oozes and are at least chances to roll a nat 20 that the s&s character isn't getting.
Now from their, the 2wf character is going to gain +1 dodge every level, and the S&S character is going to gain +1 shield at 7th and every 3rd level
So with those rules and interpretations in place, from BAB +6 and up, 2wf becomes is a better AC boost than using a shield is save for the case of flatfooted characters. This doesn't sit well with me, especially since 2wf is also pocketing additional offensive attacks - and it means that all shield characters should also probably take 2wf, since using expertise to turn a shield bash into a dodge bonus is going to be a better AC buff than elusive target from BAB +3 and up.
***
Moving on, at BAB +11 or better, allowing Expertise to add to AC for a single attack tradeoff gets problematic.
Even with limits in place, so that sacrificing a non-primary attack means that a character only gains a dodge bonus of BAB-5 to their AC via expertise, an 11th level character is still gaining a +6 dodge to AC.
That's better than the armor bonus provided by any of the Tome Light Armors and better than all but one of the Medium armors. By level 14, it's bigger than all but the three heaviest armors in Tome. This means, that for the relevant characters, going first is a bigger deal than wearing Sun Plate or Demon Armor.