Epic Base Attack/saves

[Three_Haligonians]

I'm about to have my first character go epic, so I was reading up on some of the epic rules, and noticed an odd quirk with base attacks/saves. I understand that all classes start increasing their base attacks/saves at the same rate, to keep characters from eventually having so much of a gap between their best and worst saves that they can always make a will save, but never make a fortitude save, etc. But think about it this way: if you are drawing up a 40th level character who is a wizard/monk and you decide they took 20 levels in monk first, and then 20 levels in wizard, their base attack/saves would be significantly higher than if they took all wizard levels first. That just doesn't make any sense to me. I guess I just feel ripped off because my character is straight class sorceror

Anyway, am I right about this? Is this how it works? Seems kind of strange . . .

Thanks,

R from Three Haligonians

 

[Caeleddin]

That is exactly how it works. When you hit CHARACTER level 20, all your BAB and saves stop, regardless of what level of each class you are in, and you can increase them only via feats, spells (or similar spell-like stuff like bard song), magic items or epic bonuses.Some DMs also rule that spell per day progression stop after character level 20 (this isn't explicitly stated either way and the wording of where it is stated, in the Epic part of the DMG, is ambiguous at best), so if you went 20 levels of Monk first, your Wizard is hosed. Assuming that your DM rules that way, that is. I personally don't.

 

[Alzrius]

But think about it this way: if you are drawing up a 40th level character who is a wizard/monk and you decide they took 20 levels in monk first, and then 20 levels in wizard, their base attack/saves would be significantly higher than if they took all wizard levels first. That just doesn't make any sense to me. I guess I just feel ripped off because my character is straight class sorceror

Anyway, am I right about this? Is this how it works? Seems kind of strange . . .

That is indeed how it works. This is why, if you're making an especially high-level character (40 levels or more), you're best served to take a class such as Fighter, Barbarian, Monk, etc. first to get the best BAB possible, and then get a class with a lesser BAB progression after that.

This is one of the very, very few times (if not the only time) when the order that you take class levels in makes a significant difference to how your character ends up.

 

[Kerrick]

Welcome to epic play :\ . We use straight progression (no change when you hit 21) and it works just fine - after all, the even if the DM doesn't give out good enough magic items, the characters have more than enough money to buy items to shore up those poor saves.