The cost of bab for sorcerers; is 16 bab worth 695,500 gp? Is 15 bab worth 635,000 gp?


Advice


Double the price if the party doesn't craft the items. This is how much it costs you if you want to restore the lost spells per day and spells known. This ignores bloodline powers, feats, stat differences, and other things gained from classes since you can't really compare them. Wizards and arcanists lose much less money but cannot make up for lost spells prepared without exploits.

The minimum cost for 16 bab is 695,500 gp. If you take 2 levels of hell knight signifier and use fractional bab, you could get 16 bab when combining it with 10 levels of ek and 1 level of a full bab class to gain proficiency with all martial weapons. The last sorcerer level is taken at 20th level to minimize costs.

2 lost levels of spells per day/spells known
--------------------------------------------------------------
243,000 gp - 9th level runestone of power x3
81,000 gp - 9th level page of spell knowledge x2
--------------------------------------------------------------
324,000 gp - total

lost bloodline spells
--------------------------------------------------------------
40,500 gp - 9th level page of spell knowledge
32,000 gp - 8th level page of spell knowledge
24,000 gp - 7th level page of spell knowledge
18,000 gp - 6th level page of spell knowledge
12,500 gp - 5th level page of spell knowledge
8,000 gp - 4th level page of spell knowledge
4,500 gp - 3rd level page of spell knowledge
--------------------------------------------------------------
139,500 gp - total

lost favored class bonus spells
--------------------------------------------------------------
96,000 gp - 8th level page of spell knowledge x2
48,000 gp - 7th level page of spell knowledge x2
36,000 gp - 6th level page of spell knowledge x2
25,000 gp - 5th level page of spell knowledge x2
16,000 gp - 4th level page of spell knowledge x2
9,000 gp - 3rd level page of spell knowledge x2
2,000 gp - 2nd level page of spell knowledge x1
--------------------------------------------------------------
232,000 gp - total


The minimum cost for 15 bab is 635,000 gp. This is using another class to get proficiency with all martial weapons. If not using fractional bab, this class needs to have full bab. The last 3 levels of sorcerer were taken at the end to minimize cost.

2 lost levels of spells per day/spells known
--------------------------------------------------------------
243,000 gp - 9th level runestone of power x3
81,000 gp - 9th level page of spell knowledge x2
--------------------------------------------------------------
324,000 gp - total

lost bloodline spells
--------------------------------------------------------------
40,500 gp - 9th level page of spell knowledge
32,000 gp - 8th level page of spell knowledge
24,000 gp - 7th level page of spell knowledge
18,000 gp - 6th level page of spell knowledge
12,500 gp - 5th level page of spell knowledge
--------------------------------------------------------------
127,000 gp - total

lost favored class bonus spells
--------------------------------------------------------------
96,000 gp - 8th level page of spell knowledge x2
36,000 gp - 6th level page of spell knowledge x2
25,000 gp - 5th level page of spell knowledge x2
16,000 gp - 4th level page of spell knowledge x2
9,000 gp - 3rd level page of spell knowledge x2
2,000 gp - 2nd level page of spell knowledge x1
--------------------------------------------------------------
184,000 gp - total


Interesting idea, but what is it you are looking to do with a build like this? Or is this more of a thought experiment?


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I'm a little lost here. What are you actually analyzing against, and why? What's valuable about BaB on a full spellcasting progression class?


I'm just calculating the cost of being a standard gish that uses sorcerer. It is a really high cost and has always been considered suboptimal. I have never seen a gp cost analysis of all the spells they lose which offers another perspective. They lose a lot more than gold and don't gain much for it.


If you are trying to make some sort of melee sorcerer, then you almost certainly don't need the spell casting of a sorcerer because you are spending your actions doing melee attacks, not spell casting. In that case, it certainly isn't worth what you are spending.

If you want to be a caster, then you don't need BAB, and the money you spend to restore your casting would have been better used somewhere else and you shouldn't have taken the other classes to begin with.

I could see fun and useful builds going either direction, but I can't see any where this sort of expenditure would be the best choice for a character, except possibly in a game where you wanted to be a melee guy but had so much money that you couldn't find anything to spend in on. But there are millions of GP I would spend on items before these.


A different route would be a level dip into oracle and pick up a ring of revelation with

Spirit of the Warrior (Su)::
You can summon the spirit of a great warrior ancestor and allow it to possess you, becoming a mighty warrior yourself. You gain a +4 enhancement bonus to Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution, and a +4 natural armor bonus to AC. Your base attack bonus while possessed equals your oracle level (which may give you additional attacks), and you gain the Improved Critical feat with a weapon of your choice. You can use this ability for 1 round for every 2 oracle levels you possess. This duration does not need to be consecutive, but it must be spent in 1-round increments. You must be at least 11th level to select this revelation.

Use UMD and moment of prescience, should be easy to get a 60-80 ish UMD check. Your effective level for the revelation is that check -20. Easy 40+ BAB for 1 level dip.

The reason for the level dip is the consternation surrounding Rings of Revelation and UMD. The most official clarification I have gotten on this working is here.
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2r7kg&page=37?Ask-Mark-Seifter-All-Your-Que stions-Here
Mark states you would need to be an oracle of a different mystery.
So in this case choose anything other than ancestors.

Some/most DMs may have a problem with this, but from a theoretical optimization standpoint it is the only way I know to get a BAB that high. And frankly for pretty cheap.


With power attack and a BAB in the 40s-60s you don't even need strength.

I do not advise this exploit be used in an actual game unless the point of that game is to find and use exploits. Rings of Revelation were probably designed without UMD in mind. This is a pure Theoretical Optimization type idea along the lines but not nearly as bad as Pun Pun. There are a lot of revelations that can get out of hand with UMD, hence the raging arguments.

BAB of 50 with 13 strength and power attack with a 2HW would give you +38/+33/+28/+23; 1d10+40. And that is if you had 13 str the min for PA.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16

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Your question is at the very heart of martial/caster disparity.

You have hit the nail on the head with what the BAB number DOES, rather then the progression.

What you are doing is saying "Wait, I give up 12 spells, some of them very high level, for +6 to hit and 2 more iterative attacks? When I could use those spells to give me the same bonuses when I need them?"

Since BAB can be subbed for in so many different ways by the appropriate spells, the answer is no, it's not worth it.

And yet Sorcs and Wizzies are still Tier 1 classes, while the full BAB classes are Tier 3 at best.

==Aelryinth


Most sorcs are considered tier 2, exceptions include razmiran priests and half elf paragon surge sorcerers.


The prepared/spontaneous disparity in cost for gishes in spells lost is huge. 126,415 gp is the cost to copy every 1st through 9th level spell in Core, APG, UM, and UC for a wizard or arcanist for the first time. I think this doesn't even count spells wizards and arcanists get for free. The cost for a backup set of spellbooks is 25,000 gp. The cost of 5 lost bloodline spells is 127,000 gp for the sorcerer vs the 717 spells the wizard and arcanist get for less.

Runestones of power, the pearl of power equivalents, are twice the price for spontaneous casters (arcanists are forced to use runestones) but don't require an extra standard action. The cost of pearls of power to help cover the loss of 9th level spells for a wizard is 81,000 gp. 285,000 gp buys an exploiter wizard 2 spell slots of every level besides cantrips to equal a sorcerer's output. At least, wizards being able to cast any spell costs them an extra full round action if they don't have it memorized, or sorcerers would be complete garbage by comparison.


For all that why not cast form of dragon 3? Or maybe be a Dragon disciple to have the same effects?


Johnny_Devo wrote:
I'm a little lost here. What are you actually analyzing against, and why? What's valuable about BaB on a full spellcasting progression class?

Yea, I think this post is missing something pretty key. Like the goal, or what it's talking about. I'm confused.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16

MichaelCullen wrote:
Most sorcs are considered tier 2, exceptions include razmiran priests and half elf paragon surge sorcerers.

That's true if you totally ignore gear and specific feats.

Rings of Spell Knowledge, Versatile Spontaneity, and Mnemonic Vestment means any Sorcerer is Tier 1 the instant he has 1 or 2 of the above, because they can then step and fetch from a spell book, just like a wizard, AND have all the flexibility of spell slots instead.

I notice you did include Paragon Surge, but not Versatile Spontaneity, which is arguably more useful.

So, for all practical purposes, they are Tier 1.

==Aelryinth

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16

Malignant Manor wrote:

The prepared/spontaneous disparity in cost for gishes in spells lost is huge. 126,415 gp is the cost to copy every 1st through 9th level spell in Core, APG, UM, and UC for a wizard or arcanist for the first time. I think this doesn't even count spells wizards and arcanists get for free. The cost for a backup set of spellbooks is 25,000 gp. The cost of 5 lost bloodline spells is 127,000 gp for the sorcerer vs the 717 spells the wizard and arcanist get for less.

Runestones of power, the pearl of power equivalents, are twice the price for spontaneous casters (arcanists are forced to use runestones) but don't require an extra standard action. The cost of pearls of power to help cover the loss of 9th level spells for a wizard is 81,000 gp. 285,000 gp buys an exploiter wizard 2 spell slots of every level besides cantrips to equal a sorcerer's output. At least, wizards being able to cast any spell costs them an extra full round action if they don't have it memorized, or sorcerers would be complete garbage by comparison.

That's really not a true comparison.

Spells Known by a Sorc are far more powerful then spells in a spell book.

You'd have to compare Versatile Spontaneity, which allows sorcs to memorize spells, to do a 1 on 1 that way.

The comparison for the bloodline spells would be the same as a wizard losing his school spec spells, i.e. what's the cost of the wizard losing an additional Spell per level, and having to replace it? Greater then a Pearl of Power, which just allows you to recast a spell, not add a completely new one.

==Aelryinth

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