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When a character performs a full attack the attack goes Full BAB/Full -5/Full -10/Full -15. Why does your skill degrade as you attack routine carries on?
Mechanically I understand why this is the way it is, but what would it hurt to make all extra attacks at full base attack bonus? Natural attacks get that benefit why shouldn't battle hardened martials?
I also understand that it might seem ridiculous with paladins, rangers, and Monks but does hitting a lot put them on the same level as any full caster?
I also apologize if this has been brought up before but my search didn't show anything promising.
*EDIT* Maybe I should ask a question. What do you all think?
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Because it keeps Armor Class as a relevant statistic at higher levels.
Natural Attacks do not ever increase in number.
At the end of the day, making iterative attacks at full bonus would harm PCs way more then it would help them.
I'm not saying that you are wrong but I'd like to argue a couple things.
Keeping armor relevant is an obvious answer that I oddly didn't think about. How about all attacks suffer a -1 for each attack after the first for all attacks that would be made. It brings down the best and brings up the worst.
Natural Attacks may not increase in number but they usually, or at least it seems they do, have more natural attacks than I have swings.
Harming the PC's more than helping them. I guess this may vary from others experiences but I've noticed GM's having to bump numbers to make CR Appropriate challenges actually challenging.
Really the only reason I suggest this is because I feel that Casters are leagues ahead of Martials in terms of power. And this seems significant enough to maybe help them out in the total balance of things.
In my experience, even with the -5 progression of full attacks, most enemies can't handle more than a couple full attack actions before they are toast. I would rather not have to deal with that. Letting everyone do iterative attacks at full BAB would require a rework of the system to balance. If they didn't adjust AC's or didn't increase them enough, combat would become much deadlier with everyone taking almost every attack from a full attack action. Adjusting ACs too high would make characters without a fast progression BAB have even more trouble hitting and would probably set them back in damage further than they already are.
I haven't really found the number of natural attacks creatures have to go up as CR increases. Generally they will receive other mechanics and abilities instead as well as high damage numbers on the natural attacks they had anyway. Granted that there are some monsters with a lot of natural attacks, but if they do, usually several of them are secondary attacks with the -5 penalty.
Overall, I don't see any reason to change the iterative attack penalties at all. If a full BAB class isn't hitting often enough, then either the enemy is just way too powerful for them or they are doing something horribly wrong in my experience. Removing the penalty would help the 3/4 BAB classes, but it would probably also make them worse in comparison to the full BAB classes than they are now.
As far as "closing the gap" in power level between any martial and a full progression caster, I don't think that will be achieved until they give martial characters a way to create Save or Die and Save or Suck effects by hitting something with a sword or shooting it with an arrow.
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@Dominigo Shouldn't Full BAB Classes be deadly when they go ape$^#% on someone's face with a greatsword. Which would you fear more? A Heavily armored guy standing next to you with a weapon ooooorrrrr... a guy in a bathrobe flying through the air that casts time stop and you cease to exist in the blink of an eye?
Are you suggesting that martial characters can't produce damage when they go crazy on someone, because I have a Kingmaker campaign that would like its dignity back from the barbarian that routinely embarrassed almost every "big bad monster" in it by killing it in one to two rounds.
Also, if I had to choose between a fight between a guy with a sword and someone with direct control over reality, maybe I'm weird for taking my chances in a sword fight 100% of the time.
Greater invisibility raging barbarian with a keen weapon for the win ...
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Are you suggesting that martial characters can't produce damage when they go crazy on someone, because I have a Kingmaker campaign that would like its dignity back from the barbarian that routinely embarrassed almost every "big bad monster" in it by killing it in one to two rounds.
Also, if I had to choose between a fight between a guy with a sword and someone with direct control over reality, maybe I'm weird for taking my chances in a sword fight 100% of the time.
Oh lawd no I've seen melee characters absoultly wreck big scaries. But then again those characters had to get up to the baddies, survive until next turn, and then unleash a torrent of hurt upon their faces. And then I've seen casters hover out of melee reach and perform an oribital bombardment on droves of enemies (some times while invisible). Heck with the possible exception of the Paladin, a caster could spend a spell and turn any wrecking ball of a martial into a personal play thing and then continue his scorched earth campaign.
That's pretty much why I said the gap won't really be able to be closed until a martial character can SoD people by swinging his sword. In terms of raw damage, a caster can't hope to keep up with a martial unless he is fighting enough enemies to make area of effect spells effective. Simple movement differences can be made up with magic items, though a caster's may be more reliable since he can activate them more readily and easily most of the time, as can more minor spell effects. The advantage of the caster lies in the vast range of options they have both in and out of combat. Giving a fighter the ability to hit more often isn't going to change the fact that all he does is swing a sword. All it will do is make the poor saps he manages to get his hands on die a round sooner then they might have before.
Martial characters don't really need a buff in damage. If they need improvement, it is in utility. I realize that isn't the purpose of this thread, but my point is the iterative attack penalty doesn't really hurt martials that badly. The first attack will almost certainly hit, the second probably will, and any other attacks may hit with some luck. With the damage bonus you can get on each attack, most enemies die pretty quick. I don't really see why you would want to make that even worse. If anything, enemies need to be able to survive a little longer in my opinion.
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That's pretty much why I said the gap won't really be able to be closed until a martial character can SoD people by swinging his sword. In terms of raw damage, a caster can't hope to keep up with a martial unless he is fighting enough enemies to make area of effect spells effective. Simple movement differences can be made up with magic items, though a caster's may be more reliable since he can activate them more readily and easily most of the time, as can more minor spell effects. The advantage of the caster lies in the vast range of options they have both in and out of combat. Giving a fighter the ability to hit more often isn't going to change the fact that all he does is swing a sword. All it will do is make the poor saps he manages to get his hands on die a round sooner then they might have before.
Martial characters don't really need a buff in damage. If they need improvement, it is in utility. I realize that isn't the purpose of this thread, but my point is the iterative attack penalty doesn't really hurt martials that badly. The first attack will almost certainly hit, the second probably will, and any other attacks may hit with some luck. With the damage bonus you can get on each attack, most enemies die pretty quick. I don't really see why you would want to make that even worse. If anything, enemies need to be able to survive a little longer in my opinion.
*cough* *hack* ala TOME OF BATTLE *cough* whew :D
That's what I use, it generally does what I want it to =)