Evasion at lv2 for full BA classes

[billd91]

That would have been my sentiment, too, however I don't think Evasion is all that worthwhile. I'd draw the line at class abilities like Wildshape, Familiar, Hide in Plain Sight etc., but Evasion isn't that big of a deal IMO.

I might agree that evasion for an NPC or monster isn't that big a deal, but for a PC, I think it is. There are a lot of spells and supernatural abilities (like dragon breath) that involve Reflex saves that PCs will have to make over the course of their careers, particularly with respect to the sorts of things DMs will willingly throw at PCs. Tossing stuff at them that ablates their hit points is easy, keeps all of the players in the action, gives them chances to rethink their strategies compared to the save-or-sit spells that target the other saves. I think anything that presents a significant defense against those can't be taken lightly.

 

[Empirate]

This seems to be an issue of playing style. In a longish campaign I DMed, one of the PCs was a Rogue. Evasion came up three or four times, tops, over the course of one and a half years.

 

[Gray Lensman]

Couldn't the Feats Dodge and/or Mobility be used to sub for Evasion instead?

After all, we ALL house rule stuff!

So, if you as the DM don't want to muck with changing a class just so someone could dip it to get an ability, then HR it. Could even say they could grab One of the above at their next feat and RETRAIN for the other.

Dang my fingers are ffat today!!

 

[the Jester]

Uh... my instinct is to give a big fat "HELL NO" to this.

I'm astonished that evasion isn't seen as a good ability by some of you- calling it equivalent to a feat seems to highly undervalue it. After all, which feat? Dodge? Lightning Reflexes?

Yeah, dip into rogue and suck up the -1 BAB or else suck up the lack of evasion. He wants full BAB and total defensive burliness together. That's fine, but it ain't no "Bam! Second level and I've got it made!" scenario in my book.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

I'm astonished that evasion isn't seen as a good ability by some of you- calling it equivalent to a feat seems to highly undervalue it. After all, which feat? Dodge? Lightning Reflexes?

Leadership?

Yeah, dip into rogue and suck up the -1 BAB or else suck up the lack of evasion. He wants full BAB and total defensive burliness together. That's fine, but it ain't no "Bam! Second level and I've got it made!" scenario in my book.

She.

Or she can just buy a ring of it for 25000 gp. Because Evasion is such a weak class feature, they considered it not broken to pay money for it.

Again, I think losing 1 BAB is not so bad, but I also don't think Evasion's that hot. I'd be fine letting her swap stuff if she really didn't want to lose the BAB.

 

[Dandu]

I'm astonished that evasion isn't seen as a good ability by some of you

Evasion only works on AOE damage spells. This is a problem when people are throwing around Charm Person, Sleep, Color Spray, Glitterdust, Slow, Hold Person, Entangle, Web, Ray of Enfeeblement, Stinking Cloud, Sleet Storm, Phantasmal Killer, etc.

On the plus side, the dragon is going to have to eviscerate you with his claws instead of strafing you to death.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Assuming the dragon doesn't have Slow breath or something like that.

 

[Plane Sailing]

FWIW one of my favourite 3.0e characters was a Ranger/Monk - 1st level ranger, then a level of monk, then back to Ranger all the way. The monk class skills were flavoured as 'bare knuckle brawler', and against humanoid opponents he was very likely to use 'headbutt' as his stunning 'fist' unarmed strike

Back in 3.0e land the monk got evasion at 1st level, so for that character it was an added benefit which came in quite useful, and I never regretted being that 1 BAB point behind the full fighters.

Cheers