Why do casters get BAB?

[kitcik]

As an intelligent person who also fights, I find this entire thread highly offensive.

I apologize that my vision of a wizard as a fantasy game mechanic is insulting to your real life experiences as one.

I understand now that a wizard must be good at everything or many people find the result unacceptable.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

I had a thought that led to a possible solution for the fighter wizard imbalance.
There are way to many weapons thrown in the 'Exotic' bin and way to few ways to get into that bin. It's just not worth a feat for one.
If Fighters suddenly gained access to a small number of Exotic Weapons of their choice at midlevel, that jump in power and versatility might put them closer to equal footing with Wizards. What do you think?

First of all, Fighters should get Weapon Aptitude like Warblades do, to change what weapon they're good with any given day. I do this, I suggest every one does so.

The things that annoy me about exotic weapons are:
1. Having martial proficiency doesn't matter, all you need is BAB +1 to take the feat
2. With the exception of the spiked chain, the kusari-gama, maybe the whip and whip-dagger (debatable), and a few other splat exotic weapons like the Dwarven Warpike and Dragon (or Scorpion Chain...I forget) Chain...exotic weapons SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK! Most of the time, you're paying a feat for +1 damage or something lame like that. That's terrible! Of course, any exotic weapon that's actually worth a feat ended up getting lambasted on the internet for "being overpowered". Cause god forbid the martials be able to get a cool weapon that lets them threaten a massive area or initiate grapple checks from reach, or some other cool and unique ability.


I suggest re-doing all exotic weapons and using the spiked chain as the balance point for how good they should be and changing the EWP feat so thatthere's no BAB requirement but it requires proficiency with all martial weapons, or proficiency with at least 10 martial weapons...something to give the edge to the fighter type classes but not necessarily preclude splat classes that get a lot of martial proficiencies but not all of them...and give Weapon Aptitude as a Fighter class feature at 1st level, and make it a low BAB (+4, maybe?) required feat for anyone else that wants it.

And that's an extremely tiny fix for martial-caster imbalance, not the be all, end all solution.

Next fix would probably involve allowing people with (required CL +3) ranks in an appropriate craft skill to take Item Creation feats and use craft checks to make stuff (with a creation speed close to / on par with casters' magic item creation speed). Either that or to enshrine the concept of magic Walmart. Lack of magic items hurts noncasters more.

 

[Jackinthegreen]

I apologize that my vision of a wizard as a fantasy game mechanic is insulting to your real life experiences as one.

I understand now that a wizard must be good at everything or many people find the result unacceptable.

They are not "good" in terms of BAB though. After all, they have the poor progression.

 

[kitcik]

They are not "good" in terms of BAB though. After all, they have the poor progression.

If by "poor" you mean fully 1/2 as good as someone dedicated to fighting, then you are correct. So, let's take a fan of ultimate fighting, who watches it ALL the time, and throw them in the ring and see if they are 1/2 as good.

Remember that a fantasy world full of magic and monsters has never actually occurred in human history and we are trying to build a balanced game mechanic. Saying fighters can't have ANY spells because they are non-magical, but wizards can fight 1/2 as well as fighters seems a tad unbalanced. Not that BAB is actually the unbalancing factor, mind you, but it's just very odd to me to gear such strong objections to wizards losing something they don't much need just cuz.

 

[Buugipopuu]

If you gained experience for merely observing fights, you'd have a point, but you don't.

 

[Jackinthegreen]

If by "poor" you mean fully 1/2 as good as someone dedicated to fighting, then you are correct. So, let's take a fan of ultimate fighting, who watches it ALL the time, and throw them in the ring and see if they are 1/2 as good.

Remember that a fantasy world full of magic and monsters has never actually occurred in human history and we are trying to build a balanced game mechanic. Saying fighters can't have ANY spells because they are non-magical, but wizards can fight 1/2 as well as fighters seems a tad unbalanced. Not that BAB is actually the unbalancing factor, mind you, but it's just very odd to me to gear such strong objections to wizards losing something they don't much need just cuz.

BAB doesn't cover everything though. It's unlikely a wizard will have the Strength to power the things fighters do, including Power Attack.

Let's compare that random UF fan to a wizard though. Said fan will probably be equivalent to 1st level, maybe 2nd commoner. 0 or 1 BAB is fitting, and an equal level wizard would be in the same boat. Neither is even proficient with unarmed strikes, so -4 attack right there and provoking AoO's. Neither is likely to be able to lift more than 100-130 pounds over their head (Strength 10-12). And they both have crap HP with d4.

The actual fighters though? They're proficient with their unarmed attacks, they've got Improved Unarmed Strike, and they've probably got Weapon Focus and Power Attack too. They're at least 3rd or 4th level with full BAB, and have d8 or better health. They have at least 14 Strength, going up to 18 for some of them.

Let's compare their attack bonuses: commoner and wizard are at -4 to -2. The UF guys are at +5 to +9. Take away the BAB from the wizard and he's still in the negatives. Put the wizard up to BAB +5 at 10th level and his attack in this case is only +2 at most unarmed without his magic, which is still only a third or fourth the capability of the fighter. For emphasis, even if the wizard is double the level of the fighter, he's still less than half as good at typical combat without his spells.

Combat is far more than BAB. The wizard is fine where it is, as are the other casters.

 

[kitcik]

If you gained experience for merely observing fights, you'd have a point, but you don't.

Casters gain XP for fights whether or not they melee. If they never melee, why does their BAB increase.

Again, this is a game mechanic, not a life simulator.

 

[kitcik]

BAB doesn't cover everything though. It's unlikely a wizard will have the Strength to power the things fighters do, including Power Attack.

Let's compare that random UF fan to a wizard though. Said fan will probably be equivalent to 1st level, maybe 2nd commoner. 0 or 1 BAB is fitting, and an equal level wizard would be in the same boat. Neither is even proficient with unarmed strikes, so -4 attack right there and provoking AoO's. Neither is likely to be able to lift more than 100-130 pounds over their head (Strength 10-12). And they both have crap HP with d4.

The actual fighters though? They're proficient with their unarmed attacks, they've got Improved Unarmed Strike, and they've probably got Weapon Focus and Power Attack too. They're at least 3rd or 4th level with full BAB, and have d8 or better health. They have at least 14 Strength, going up to 18 for some of them.

Let's compare their attack bonuses: commoner and wizard are at -4 to -2. The UF guys are at +5 to +9. Take away the BAB from the wizard and he's still in the negatives. Put the wizard up to BAB +5 at 10th level and his attack in this case is only +2 at most unarmed without his magic, which is still only a third or fourth the capability of the fighter. For emphasis, even if the wizard is double the level of the fighter, he's still less than half as good at typical combat without his spells.

Combat is far more than BAB. The wizard is fine where it is, as are the other casters.

Wizards MAY, pursuant to the rules, have high STR and take fighter feats (albeit less of them).

Fighters MAY NOT get spells.

The mechanics need fixing. Admittedly, BAB is only the tip of the iceberg, and may not be worth changing at all, but I still think that a wizard learning to melee 1/2 as well as a fighter is absurd.

 

[Buugipopuu]

Actually there are feats in Complete Arcane which give limited SLAs and have no prerequisites. And many fighter feats have a minimum fighter level either explicitly or implied by their other prerequisites, so both of those things are wrong.

 

[kitcik]

Actually there are feats in Complete Arcane which give limited SLAs and have no prerequisites. And many fighter feats have a minimum fighter level either explicitly or implied by their other prerequisites, so both of those things are wrong.

SLAs are not spells and the SLAs available from these feats are not equivalent to 50% spellcasting (or even 5% spellcasting), unlike the wizards' 50% BAB.

Feats that require fighter levels are: weapon specialization, greater weapon specialization, greater weapon focus and necropotent. Not exactly a wealth of exclusivity. By "implied by other prerequisities" I assume you mean BAB, which casters get.

Although I have agreed with your overall point that the caster/non-caster fix is much bigger than the OP, the "points" you make in this post are ridiculous and wrong.