High (Epic) level character question

[Luncelot]

Okay so last time my group and I gamed we found that we each read the rules differently for epic level advancement. Most specifically Base attack bonus and saving throws.

(For an example character I will use level 20 Samurai / 7 dragon shaman, one of my players characters)

I and one other read the rules as such from the Samurai levels the BAB is 20/15/10/5 and from the Dragon Shaman levels the BAB for that is +5 so the total would be 25/20/15/10 plus all relevant bonuses and such.

Whereas three others in the group read the rules as after you pass ECL (or total level 20) you only receive the Epic level attack and save bonuses. +1 at every odd level for attack so from the above example the final BAB would be 24/19/14/9.

I know the final numbers don’t look all that different and but it derailed the game for a good 45 minutes and the conversation got a little heated.

So I was hoping to get some others players and GMs input to this mater.

[Tiny Coffee Golem]

There are no officiali pathfinder rules, but if you're referring to the epic level handbook 3.5 I believe that it only matters if the player is taking a 21st+level in a class. I believe that since both classes have BAB progressions already you just add them as if they were not epic.

Barbarian 20 / Ranger 20 has a BAB of +40 for example.

Thata's how I'd run it anyway. No need to overly complicate things.

[John Woodford]

I interpret it the way the others did, not the way you did. Although if I ever ran a game up to those levels, I'd probably houserule that the Epic level attack bonuses count as BAB until BAB reaches 20. Not sure how that'd play out, though.

ETA: I found my copy of the 3.5 SRD. I quote (with emphasis added):

SRD wrote:

Epic Attack Bonus: Similarly, the character’s base attack bonus does not increase after character level reaches 20th. However, the character does receive a cumulative +1 epic bonus on all attacks at every odd-numbered level beyond 20th, as shown on Table: Epic Save and Epic Attack Bonuses. Any time a feat, prestige class, or other rule refers to your base attack bonus, use the sum of your base attack bonus and epic attack bonus.

That is, in TCG's example, BAB from the two classes doesn't stack because character level has long since left 20 behind.

OTOH, the way I read that rule you get iterative attacks for every five points of epic attack bonus over BAB=20.

[Tiny Coffee Golem]

Then again, I've never played or DM'd an epic game.

[Jerry Wright 307]

I believe that my interpretation of the epic rules supports the others in your group.

But I never believed in epic level play. The few GMs in our group who have run games at that level simply add things the way you did and move on. After all, there is already that 4-attack cap built into the basic rules. Unless you really want epic-level feats, I've never seen the problem with continuing with the basic rules and classes.

[Tequila Sunrise]

Your group has the correct interpretation. Yeah, it screws over a lot of PCs.

But hey, nobody said epic is balanced!