The weird things:
1)Monsters often have dramatically high Natural Armor scores, which frequently begin to feel gamist to keep pace with their CRs.
2)Every single PC gains at least +1/2 BAB per level, leading to the odd situation where a high level wizard gets progressively better at attack rolls, despite the fact he hasn't used his dagger since 2nd level and the Touch ACs he does roll attacks against are mostly static.
3) Characters have no innate AC gain, relying on protective magic gear for scaling. (A fully-equipped PC gains ~1 AC per level, though it can come in clumps if there is a crafter in the group.*)
The proposed change:
Fighters, barbarians, etc. get 1/2 BAB
Bards, Magi, etc. get get 1/4 BAB
Wizards, witches, etc. get 0 BAB
Amulets of natural armor cease to be a thing, and rings of protection increase in cost by 50%.
Monsters lose Natural Armor equal to 1/2 their CR.
The result:
Against monsters of equal CR, combat doesn't change - Attack bonuses and AC changed by the same amount.
Monsters above CR are slightly easier to hit.
Monsters below CR are slightly harder to hit.
Fighter attack bonuses scale at the same rate as caster saves.
Well, it certainly makes Barkskin a more attractive spell to take as a Druid, instead of it being overridden by Amulets of Natural Armor most of the time.
Would PC natural armor (from racial bonuses, feats, etc.) still scale the same, or would those be taken out as well?
I don't think a Wizard's ability to attack gets better as they level; I find they lag behind significantly (as they should), even when it comes to Touch AC. The other problem is, outside of Dexterity and other miscellaneous bonii, there isn't much of a stable way to make Touch AC scale, whereas the more conventional ways to increase AC commonly apply to Flat-Footed AC.
A wizard's attack lags behind compared to the foes they are fightingCR-appropriate foes, but they get steadily better compared to the guys they fought last year.
Not liking the 0 BAB thing. I would favor something closer to 3/4, 1/2, 1/4.
At 1/4 BAB, casters would still be woefully behind, but even throwing touch attacks would get them slightly better at hitting a target.
That would certainly be possible. Not sure '+1 every 4th level' is actually something worth writing down for wizards, and the 3/4 progression rounds in awkward ways I'm not sure the 'martial' characters should be stuck with.
As for your attempt to mirror Fighter BAB and Caster Saves, the one flaw is that it is easier to boost AC than Saves. Fighter BAB should be a little bit ahead because of this.
It's also easier to boost attack than DC - magic weapons cancel out magic armor, and with my cost adjustment, a ring of protection actually costs more than a cloak of resistance. The reason I removed the amulet of natural armor is to keep AC from having a bunch of cheap, stackable items. (Heck, saves go up via level. AC doesn't.)
And I wasn't trying to make BAB progress the same as saves. I just realized that saves for a full caster increase by +1/2 level, which happens to be the same rate left when you assume wizards never learn to fight.
I don't quite understand how exactly you are proposing to do it here. Are you talking capping Natural Armor based on CR? Or are you suggesting as it seems to read to me an across the board subtraction of 1/2 CR from all monster's Natural Armor value?
The latter. Take a Dire Boar as an example. It is CR 4 and has a natural armor bonus of +6. I'd reduce that to +4 (which is still equal to a human being wearing a chain shirt).
If it was fighting a party of level 4 PCs, the combat math doesn't change: everyone in the party has a BAB 2 points lower.
It it was an above-CR encounter for, say, a group of level 2 PCs, it's easier to hit: they lost 1 BAB to its 2 AC.
If it was a below-CR encounter for a group of level 6 PCs (maybe it's a bigger monster's pet), its harder to hit because the PCs lost 3 BAB.
I see both of those as a feature. Making above CR monsters easier to fight reduces accidental TPKs from enemies like Xanesha. Making below-CR monsters harder to fight keeps minions and summons viable longer.
this has ac scaling rules that may help
Care to elaborate?
Wizards and other casters sometimes needs their bab when using spells that requires an attack roll so I see no reason why they shouldn't get some bab.
this has ac scaling rules that may helpCare to elaborate?
it introduces ac scaling for armorless settings like the princess of mars
In my hybrid 3.5e + Pathfinder rules, I already use a similar mechanic called BDB (Base Defense Bonus), which is 1/2 BAB for all classes and monsters.
To fix the entire system, I also rule that:
. Natural Armor Bonus do not overlap with Manufactured Armor Bonus;
. Review Magic Itens AC Bonus, making items that give Attack Bonus behave only 1 slot (Weapons) and Items that give AC bonus only have 1 slot (Armor).
Does this mean a fighter doesn't get their iterative until 12th level?
You will need to re-assign the iteratives for every +3 instead or else risk massively weighting combat towards the acquisition of natural attacks.
Does this mean a fighter doesn't get their iterative until 12th level?
You will need to re-assign the iteratives for every +3 instead or else risk massively weighting combat towards the acquisition of natural attacks.
I'd keep iteratives in the same place. At 6th level, a Fighter's BAB would be +3/-2.
That keeps backward compatibility. If I were rebuilding the whole system, I think iteratives need to be revisited as a mechanic, because martials get punished for moving.
Ok, that is a simple way to scale back Natural Armor without destroying backward compatibility.
Not exactly sure I like the BAB scaling back faster that Natural Armor, but it is definitely a good start.
Huh? I'm scaling them back at the same rate.
Does this mean a fighter doesn't get their iterative until 12th level?
You will need to re-assign the iteratives for every +3 instead or else risk massively weighting combat towards the acquisition of natural attacks.
I'd keep iteratives in the same place. At 6th level, a Fighter's BAB would be +3/-2.
That keeps backward compatibility. If I were rebuilding the whole system, I think iteratives need to be revisited as a mechanic, because martials get punished for moving.
Shouldn't that be +3/+0?
Otherwise the iteratives will start to trail and become even more useless as they are dropping by 1 a level but only rising by 1/2 a level, instead of being directly balanced.
Shouldn't that be +3/+0?Does this mean a fighter doesn't get their iterative until 12th level?
You will need to re-assign the iteratives for every +3 instead or else risk massively weighting combat towards the acquisition of natural attacks.
I'd keep iteratives in the same place. At 6th level, a Fighter's BAB would be +3/-2.
That keeps backward compatibility. If I were rebuilding the whole system, I think iteratives need to be revisited as a mechanic, because martials get punished for moving.
No. If it were +3/+0, iterative attacks become better than they are now: -3 is more likely to hit than -5. It isn't 'dropping' because ACs are also lower. +3/-2 has the same chance to hit as +6/+1 when your target's AC is down by 3.
If you think iterative attacks need a boost, then go for it. It is a houserule, after all.
But I'm trying to keep as much of the old math as possible to avoid unexpected ripple effects. As I said, if I wanted to completely overhaul the system, I'd want to come up with something different than the way iteratives work now.
I'm not sure how the proposed changes would interact with other sources of high AC like an armored and smiting Paladin (the smite AC bonus doesn't stack with a ring or protection anyhow). I also wonder if Druid PCs and their animal companions would lose natural armor and how much. Summoners might suddenly have a reason to choose an armor rather than natural armor bonus for their eidolons. Getting a defense bonus linked to your BAB and using armor as DR rules might solve some similar problems. There are a few sets of rules out there for this though I'm not overly familiar with any of them.
I'd be more likely to go with an option which leaves the "gamist" natural armor in place but only allows touch attacks to bypass a certain amount of combined armor and natural armor bonus, maybe 10. It doesn't address concerns about why high level Wizards become pretty good knife fighters, but those don't concern me much anyhow. It also seems like less work and adjustment to monster stats since you'd just have to adjust the touch AC by adding any excess armor and natural armor over the limit.
I would point out this would have a huge impact on several feats that would need to be reviewed. This might be best met by limiting the HP growth too. Interestingly enough this could breath new life into evocation magic since the HP scaling and damage scaling of the melee's without any adjustments to magic damage is what "killed the school" so to speak as a damage source.
Honestly I feel like there is room for more variety in scaling for the classes as a whole, but that even the arcane casters are going to need at least some level of scaling that improves at lower levels.
Shouldn't that be +3/+0?Does this mean a fighter doesn't get their iterative until 12th level?
You will need to re-assign the iteratives for every +3 instead or else risk massively weighting combat towards the acquisition of natural attacks.
I'd keep iteratives in the same place. At 6th level, a Fighter's BAB would be +3/-2.
That keeps backward compatibility. If I were rebuilding the whole system, I think iteratives need to be revisited as a mechanic, because martials get punished for moving.
No. If it were +3/+0, iterative attacks become better than they are now: -3 is more likely to hit than -5. It isn't 'dropping' because ACs are also lower. +3/-2 has the same chance to hit as +6/+1 when your target's AC is down by 3. ** spoiler omitted **
If you think iterative attacks need a boost, then go for it. It is a houserule, after all.
But I'm trying to keep as much of the old math as possible to avoid unexpected ripple effects. As I said, if I wanted to completely overhaul the system, I'd want to come up with something different than the way iteratives work now.
Abstraction of how it normally works:
For argument's sake, let's say Natural armour = 10 + CR. A CR 1 opponent has an AC of 11, a CR 6 opponent has an AC of 16, a CR 11 opponent has an AC of 21 and a CR 16 opponent has an AC of 26. The numbers aren't important and not meant to be realistic, they are only there so you can see the math.
A normal fighter has a 20/15/10/5 at level 20. If he targets foes of CR 26 to CR 1 in order, he hits on a 6+ on each enemy. The math is very clean - obviously in the ruleset this is complicated by weapon and stat enhancements etc. So AC has to scale more than this. It doesn't effect this basic math though.
Abstraction of how your new math works:
Opponents now have natural armour = 10 + 1/2 CR. Given the above values, you have a CR 1 opponent with an AC of 10, a CR6 opponent with an AC of 13, a CR11 opponent with an AC of 15, a CR 16 opponent with an AC of 18.
Your houseruled fighter has a 10/5/0/-5 at level 20. He hits the top iterative on an 8+, The next on a 10+, the next on a 13+ and the next on a 15+. Because the iteratives are interacting with the unscaled portion of the AC calculation,they become worse with each new iterative at a given CR.
Do you understand now?
Messing around with the base math of the game requires a lot of finesse. You can't just throw around houserules like this and expect everything to fit back together nicely.
*edit*
I should clarify. The math works out equally at a given CR like you state, but the moment you move away from that CR they become worse. So, my proposed solution of halving the BAB loss doesn't work either. The maths is even more complicated than that.
Do you understand now?
I note in my first post that I am aware this change makes 'tough' enemies less tough and 'weak' enemies less weak. I consider that a feature, not a bug - It makes encounter design more forgiving. It has nothing to do with iteratives.
The lowest iterative for a level 20 fighter is 20 points below his best attack. That's a relevant number regardless of the nominal scaling rate because it is also with width of a die. Against the same target, the lowest iterative will not hit unless the highest could not possibly miss.
Messing around with the base math of the game requires a lot of finesse. You can't just throw around houserules like this and expect everything to fit back together nicely.
I agree - which is why I'm trying to adjust only one thing at a time.
Iteratives have some wonky design elements to them - they could use some rejiggering. But I consider adjusting the width of iteratives to be a separate problem from the AC/BAB arms race. It's worth having a thread about them - though as I've already said I'd rather toss them out and do something different that try to massage the math.
A lot of the proposed changes itt are things implemented in fifth.
You may want to check that out.