One Progression to Rule Them All....

[Atlatl Jones]

That would mean that most, if not all, his abilities are going to be based on providing something other than a numerical advantage. If he gets too many +1s to hit, he'll break the progression, so his abilities have got to do something other than just beef up his attacks. From what we've already seen of the fighter, this isn't a surprise. He seems to have abilities that give him extra attacks and make his attacks hit harder, but no mention of abilities like Weapon Focus/Greater/Uber/Ultra/Epic/etc. that keep pushing his attack bonuses higher and higher.

That does sound likely, and IMO it's a good thing. Numerical bonuses are boring.

We will probably see conditional numerical bonuses, based on powers. Some of the Bo9S maneuvers do things like "make a jump check against a larger opponent and get +4 to hit and +6d6 damage", and I wouldn't be surprised if some of the 4e powers work the same way.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I expect that there may be a master chart where your character level determines your BAB and "heroic save bonus" and your class level determines your one-time bonus to saves, sporadic bonus to BAB for fighters and what class abilities you gain.

If so, that would be like Rolemaster where depending on the edition, you either get base bonuses to certain aspects or cheaper point buys for certain skills.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I like the idea. I had toyed about with doing this for FFZ, but dismissed it as being "too not like D&D."

But that was in 3e. In 4e, they've gone the same route. And yeah, it handily fixes the "escalating differences" problem nicely.

Lookin' forward to this.

 

[DreamChaser]

That does sound likely, and IMO it's a good thing. Numerical bonuses are boring.

QFT

 

[Sadrik]

BAB is gone...

In favor of your stat/2 -5 +1/2 level.

Strength is used for melee and Dexterity is used for ranged.

Then, your class may give you a flat bonus to hit:
Defenders
+4 combat
Strikers
+3 combat
Leaders
+2 combat
Controllers
+1 combat

Further, for paragon you double the bonuses and for epic triple the bonuses.
So a 30th level defender with a 20 strength will have: +32 to hit. That seems a bit high and the creature from the miniature card didnt seem to have a static bonus tacked on so this is probably not likely.

The only other speculation is that the bonus tacked on is simply extra bonuses to hit from maneuvers.

So if a defender does an accurate attack maybe it is +4 to hit. But if it is a power attack it would be -4 to hit but +4 to damage. Then these abilities scale as you become paragon and scale up again when you become epic.

 

[Delta]

Didn't OD&D have only one hit dice?

Well, all hit dice and damage were units of d6 -- but not necessarily the same units.
Fighters: 1+1, 2, 3, 4, 5+1, etc.
Clerics: 1, 2, 3, 4, 4+1, etc.
Wizards: 1, 1+1, 2, 2+1, 3, etc.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Further, for paragon you double the bonuses and for epic triple the bonuses.

This would re-introduce the scaling problem, though not to a major level (the difference between a Defender and a Controller would be 11 points at the highest levels...)

 

[FireLance]

This would re-introduce the scaling problem, though not to a major level (the difference between a Defender and a Controller would be 11 points at the highest levels...)

IMO, an 11-point spread is still manageable, given the base assumption of a d20 as the randomness factor. This means you can tinker the DC, AC, or whatever is the target number to give the most specialized character a small chance of failure, and the least specialized character a small chance of success.

 

[BASHMAN]

BAB is gone...

In favor of your stat/2 -5 +1/2 level.

Strength is used for melee and Dexterity is used for ranged.

Then, your class may give you a flat bonus to hit:
Defenders
+4 combat
Strikers
+3 combat
Leaders
+2 combat
Controllers
+1 combat

Further, for paragon you double the bonuses and for epic triple the bonuses.
So a 30th level defender with a 20 strength will have: +32 to hit. That seems a bit high and the creature from the miniature card didnt seem to have a static bonus tacked on so this is probably not likely.

The only other speculation is that the bonus tacked on is simply extra bonuses to hit from maneuvers.

So if a defender does an accurate attack maybe it is +4 to hit. But if it is a power attack it would be -4 to hit but +4 to damage. Then these abilities scale as you become paragon and scale up again when you become epic.

So Fighter w/ 18 STR at level 1 gets: +8 to hit?
Wizard w/ 7 STR at level 1 gets: -1 to hit

At level 10, Fighter w/ 18 STR gets +13 to hit
At level 10, Wizard w/ 7 STR gets +4 to hit

Level 1 Fighter w/ 10 STR (for some reason) Gets +4 to hit, and +9 at level 10
Level 1 Wizard w/ 10 STR gets +1 to hit, and +6 at level 10.

It definately makes stats much more important than leveling this way-- but I like that average characters don't have really huge differences.

Just thought of something-- would a Wizard using a spell get to use INT as the stat to hit? That'd be neat. Maybe a fighter using his wuxia special abilities would have to use a stat other than STR or Dex. That'd be neat too.

 

[A'koss]

This would re-introduce the scaling problem, though not to a major level (the difference between a Defender and a Controller would be 11 points at the highest levels...)

Actually that would be a 9 point difference, but factoring in expected stat disparities that will easily head into 13-14+ point differences and that is too much. Plus, suddenly doubling your bonus at Paragon (11th) and Epic (21st) levels is too large a single level jump as well.

However, I would expect a 1st level class bonus on top of a Base Attack Progression that applies to all characters. Expected stat differences and perhaps minor additional bonuses will provide all the meaninful difference you'd need between the classes. Once you go beyond ~10 point difference between your weakest and strongest characters you start running into problems.