Epic Attacks

[Kai Lord]

I don't know why people don't like it. Sure you get the worst BAB, but you do get the best saving throws in all three. Improving every other level is the good saving throw progression. So, bad attack, great saving throws. Balance.

I think its quite obvious why people don't like it; its a limitation that makes no sense within the context of the rules. Apparently the designers decided that four attacks per round was the maximum a warrior should have from BAB, just like six spells per day was the maximum a sorcerer should be able to cast.

Rather than saying that your attacks top out at four, they just cut off all progression after 20th character level. The spellcasters get to advance beyond 20th to their maximum scripted spells per day, it only makes sense that warriors should be able to do the same. There really is no logical reason why a fighter 20/wizard 20 should be dramatically different than a wizard 20/fighter 20, especially when there is no difference whatsoever between a fighter 10/wizard 10 and a wizard 10/fighter 10.

It doesn't matter much to me because I tend to play warrior types, but I definitely understand the irritation of others.

 

[Jondor_Battlehammer]

I think the idea behind it was to emulate real life learning. The older you get, and the more you focus on one thing, the harder it is for you to learn anything new. On the other side, cross classing in epic levels would only widen the gap between what a 12th fighter/12th wizard can do vs. his pure counterparts. No epic spells as opposed to 10 levels worth of epic casting possibilities, and not enough of an attack bonus to get some of the best epic fighter feats.

 

[gtJormungand]

There is at least one good thing about going Wiz20 then Ftr20:

you can take Epic Feats as Fighter Bonus Feats, provided you meet the requirements.

 

[Kai Lord]

There is at least one good thing about going Wiz20 then Ftr20:

you can take Epic Feats as Fighter Bonus Feats, provided you meet the requirements.

Yes, one of the requirements being you must have 20 class levels of fighter before you can take Epic Feats as Class Feats....

 

[Grazzt]

I would think that characters would still be able to eventually gain the +20/+15/+10/+5 attacks.

Nope- once you reach 20th-level (character level, not class level) your iterative attacks stop. If you only had one (I know impossible, but just for argument's sake ) that is all you get. From character level 21+ you gain an epic bonus to your attack rolls, but your number of attacks never increase.

So- if you took a sorcerer or wizard all the way to 20th level without any other classes (BAB = +10/+5) you will only have two attacks.....no matter if you become a Wiz100/Ftr50 for example.

There is a sidebar in the ELH that explains why attack progression stops at 20th level.

 

[Crothian]

I think its quite obvious why people don't like it; its a limitation that makes no sense within the context of the rules. Apparently the designers decided that four attacks per round was the maximum a warrior should have from BAB, just like six spells per day was the maximum a sorcerer should be able to cast.

It gives Fighters an advantage. And a person who goes 20 wizard then 20 fighter is not the same as some one who does it in reverse. Wizards are different then fighters. So spending your first 20 levels as one verse the other (even if the next 20 you pick up the other half of this) things will be different. It's about character growth and about caps of human learning. The guy who took 20 levels of fighter first will have the attacks, but a terrible will save. Probably have a lower Int as well. The first 20 levels he won't be picking up any new spells where the person who does wizard first will be able to write new spells in his spellbook for all 40 levels.

 

[Kibo]

Stupid is like a box of chocolates.

It gives Fighters an advantage. And a person who goes 20 wizard then 20 fighter is not the same as some one who does it in reverse. Wizards are different then fighters. So spending your first 20 levels as one verse the other (even if the next 20 you pick up the other half of this) things will be different. It's about character growth and about caps of human learning. The guy who took 20 levels of fighter first will have the attacks, but a terrible will save. Probably have a lower Int as well. The first 20 levels he won't be picking up any new spells where the person who does wizard first will be able to write new spells in his spellbook for all 40 levels.

If a level represents a certain level of mastery and the accumulated wisdom, experience, and good old fashioned know how that goes with that, then 20 W/ 20 Ftr, should be exactly equivalent to 20 Ftr / 20 W. Otherwise that 20 Ftr doesn't represent the same level of mastery in both cases. Or to put it more plainly 2 Oranges and 3 Apples isn't the same as 3 Apples and 2 Oranges. Order matters in a case where it doesn't make sense for order to matter. There are cases where timing is important, language for instance, but learning after adolecense AFAIK doesn't change that much. And if you wanted to invoke ideas like that, then someone who went 5 Ftr / 5 W would level to 20 / 20 faster than someone who went 20 Ftr then 20 / 20. But even at the end of that the two individuals would still have roughly equal understanding of their crafts.

And that's the extreme. It's even more offensive when one consideres more mundane cases like 15 Ftr / 5 W going to 20 Ftr / 5 W Was the time frame really that critical then too? If so why isn't there some table for factoring years beyond adolecense, race, intelligence, wisdom, upbringing into some sort of experience matrix for characters? It'd be stupid. I'll be throwing the stupid out with the stupid.

 

[jayaint]

just suppose..?

ok... question for ELH level-thread-people who are smarter than I...

My character: aasimar cleric7/divinedisciple4/contemplative7/hierophant1....

20 ECL (including +1 for aasimar), 18 caster levels (-1 for aasimar and -1 hierophant)...

so, basically the ELH says that I CANNOT take cleric8 as my next level, I have to take epiccleric1.... is that correct? I CANNOT continue to take core-book caster levels until I have hit the 20th caster level ceiling?

This seems strange... that at some point in my cleric's life, that he is all of a sudden going to think, no.. i don't WANT any more spell slots, etc I am just going to start cooking up spells with triple digit spellcraft DC's... *shrug* This is NOT that major of a problem with this char, as i WILL have access to 9th lvl spells... but would really like to be able to pony up to 20th caster level, before heading off to epic-union-land...

will there be any DM's out there who allow this? Will WotC make any provisions for this? I understand an arbitrary "limit" to the power of casting (20th level) but I don't understand a concrete switch-over point that caps how far I can take my core-book-clerical powers...

just curious, thx.

 

[Kai Lord]

Re: just suppose..?

ok... question for ELH level-thread-people who are smarter than I...

My character: aasimar cleric7/divinedisciple4/contemplative7/hierophant1....

20 ECL (including +1 for aasimar), 18 caster levels (-1 for aasimar and -1 hierophant)...

so, basically the ELH says that I CANNOT take cleric8 as my next level, I have to take epiccleric1.... is that correct? I CANNOT continue to take core-book caster levels until I have hit the 20th caster level ceiling?

No, that isn't correct. You are considered an "epic character" when you're at 21st character level, and can choose Epic Feats as one of your character feats every three levels.

But you only are an "epic cleric", with access to the extra Epic feats that each class awards when you have 21 cleric levels. So your next level would be cleric8, and you would continue on until cleric21 before the class itself is in epic territory.

 

[jayaint]

thx

got it... once i hear it in non-WotC-ese it makes a lot sense. Thanks KL.