Zomg, i fixx'd figtrz!!!

[Visigani]

Why not allow bonus attacks from natural BAB to be used for move actions and immediate actions and some standard actions.

A fighter with 6/1 could sacrifice the +1 attack to intimidate an opponent.

A fighter with 15/10/5 could sacrifice the +10 attack to take an additional five foot step.

With actions being among the most valuable currencies in D&D... why not use BAB in the same vein as you do caster level and translate them to bonus actions.

There are other additional things you could do.

For example you could "Ready a block", doing so would sacrifice your attack with the lowest BAB, but in doing so once per round you would gain that BAB as a shield bonus to AC or a reflex save against a single attack.

 

[Buugipopuu]

A fighter with 15/10/5 could sacrifice the +10 attack to take an additional five foot step.

Dervish gets that on every attack without sacrificing attacks. Swordsages and Warblades get Wolf Pack Tactics and Press The Advantage which let you do that without giving up attacks. Perhaps you'd be better off with refluffing Warblade than fixing Fighter? Or making a Martial Adept that's less focussed on the mystical Weeaboo Fightan Magic aspect.

For example you could "Ready a block", doing so would sacrifice your attack with the lowest BAB, but in doing so once per round you would gain that BAB as a shield bonus to AC or a reflex save against a single attack.

Core already has Fighting Defensively, Combat Expertise, both of which let you convert BAB into not being shanked, and there are many abilities which are printed in splatbooks which do similar things (I won't bother to list all the parrying-related abilities in the ToB). Do we really need another form of defensive ability that represents blocking stuff? Letting characters somehow get bonuses from Cexpertise to Reflex saves sounds good, but I seem to find that in general "allows a reflex save" is already equivalent to "does nothing", so more reflex-save boosting abilities aren't really what the game's missing.

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

That sounds plausible enough to at least playtest for it's effectiveness.

 

[Visigani]

Dervish gets that on every attack without sacrificing attacks. Swordsages and Warblades get Wolf Pack Tactics and Press The Advantage which let you do that without giving up attacks. Perhaps you'd be better off with refluffing Warblade than fixing Fighter? Or making a Martial Adept that's less focussed on the mystical Weeaboo Fightan Magic aspect.



Core already has Fighting Defensively, Combat Expertise, both of which let you convert BAB into not being shanked, and there are many abilities which are printed in splatbooks which do similar things (I won't bother to list all the parrying-related abilities in the ToB). Do we really need another form of defensive ability that represents blocking stuff? Letting characters somehow get bonuses from Cexpertise to Reflex saves sounds good, but I seem to find that in general "allows a reflex save" is already equivalent to "does nothing", so more reflex-save boosting abilities aren't really what the game's missing.

The idea here is conversion of actions into another action. This is an attribute the wizard would have difficulty duplicating.

Having "combat expertise" is one thing... bring able to say "i'm going to parry/block incoming attacks and sacrifice an action to do it is significant and feels much more actiony.

Under my proposed system you could take a swipe at a foe and make a "war howl" or whatever to intimidate all in the span of a full round action.

And that's at lvl 6.

There's numerous "combos" that could eb engaged in and tinkered with.

 

[Empirate]

You are aware of BAB +16, 9th level spells gish builds, aren't you? Furthermore, you know that Divine Power changes BAB to equal character level (regardless even of caster level)? You just gave Clerics, Favored Souls, and everybody with Arcane Disciple (War Domain) a massive powerup...

 

[Noir le Lotus]

You are aware of BAB +16, 9th level spells gish builds, aren't you? Furthermore, you know that Divine Power changes BAB to equal character level (regardless even of caster level)? You just gave Clerics, Favored Souls, and everybody with Arcane Disciple (War Domain) a massive powerup...

Even a straight wizard could use this houserule past level 11.

"Let's now cast 3 spells per round !!"

 

[Hassassin]

How about converting Fight Defensively, Combat Expertise and Total Defense into attack actions?

Note, I named the bonuses, so stacking rules are obvious. One problem is that total defense no longer makes you unable to AoO...

Fight Defensively (Defensive Attack?)

By taking a -4 penalty to one attack you gain a +2 defense bonus to AC for one round. If you have five ranks in Tumble the bonus increases to +3.

Total Defense (also needs a rename)

By sacrificing an attack you get a +4 defense bonus to AC for one round. If you have five ranks in Tumble the bonus increases to +6.

Combat Expertise

By taking a -X penalty to one attack you gain a +X defense bonus to AC for one round. X must be no more than your BAB or +5, whichever is lower.

By sacrificing an attack instead, the defense bonus is equal to double your BAB or +8, whichever is lower.

 

[kitcik]

How about making the ToB classes harder to multiclass into (maybe by somehow making non-ToB class levels only impact your initiator level if they are non-casting classes), then giving them more powerful 8th and 9th level abilities that further break the action economy?

I mean the best thing a melee class guy can do right now is use White Raven tactics to give casters extra actions...

 

[Mon]

Same idea discussed here...