Tying Feats to BAB

[AnimeTheCat]

Just gauging people's thoughts on a slight system tweak I've been thinking about. Instead of having static character level feats, why not tie them to BAB instead. Also, as opposed to making them at first, third, and every three levels after, why not progress them like fighter feats, on, two, and every even BAB after.

I'm a fan of limiting the nice things that spellcasters get, and this severely delays fear progression on 1/2 BAB spellcasters while simultaneously giving full BAB characters the support they need for the bloated feat chains.

On mobile right now, but I can better explain if people still find the concept confusing.

[DeTess]

The general idea sounds decent, but you'll likely have to make a lot of case-by-case adjustments to feats specifically meant for casters, as some of those might have a minimum level.

Also, note that at the higher end of the optimization spectrum, this won't matter too much for caster/martial balance. It's quite possible to build a caster that can get 9th level spells and 16 BaB, after all.

[AnimeTheCat]

Caster level minimums shouldn't have any effect honestly. There are plenty of feats that already have BAB requirements at +8 BAB that are available to non-Fighter characters, but there's no special exemption, a character just picks it up at level 9. Also, wizards get bonus feats every 5 levels that can be used for some of those, clerics get 3/4 BAB meaning they'll get their feats at 2, 3, 6, 8, 11, etc. Which hit those caster levels either on the money, or 1 level behind. Honestly, at level 9, a cleric has the exact same number of fears as a normal feat progression cleric, but a barbarian has an additional feat by comparison. It's just a concept to help with feat bloat on the mundane side of the house since spellcasters dont honestly need it. Anything a spellcaster gets with fears is just "nice" none of it is "necessary" for a spellcaster to function, which is not the case for a martial character.

Rant done? I dunno, I'm just not too keen on bending to the benefit of a spellcaster I guess.

[OgresAreCute]

You could just let all martials gestalt with fighter for bonus feats, or give every martial the fighter's bonus feat progression.

[zlefin]

doesn't seem like the ebst way to address the problems. full casters have far less need of their feats anyways. and not affectin clerics/druids, which are already top end classes, makes it seem kinda silly.
simpler to just hand out more bonus feats to martials, or use one of the various fixes that make the martial feats better.

[AnimeTheCat]

You could just let all martials gestalt with fighter for bonus feats, or give every martial the fighter's bonus feat progression.

That doesn't negatively impact 1/2 or 3/4 BAB spellcasters though. The point is to make non-spellcasters more resource free and spellcasters more resource limited. There is more non-spellcaster feat bloat and.

I really enjoy 3.5, but one of my least favorite things about it is that spellcasters kept getting overbloated with class features that could be swapped out based on convenience (sorry bards and sorcerers... life is bad-is for you too) but non-spellcasters got bloated with options that only served the purpose of being stepping stone requirements to get to somewhat ok options, that were requirements for generally usable options. Things only got better for spellcasters as time went on, thing got arguably worse for non-spellcasters because their available resources grew (feats and meh ACFs) but their opportunities to acquire them didn't change. You have to be level 12 to get DR from your heavy armor IF you didn't multiclass into something that wasn't full BAB. If you did, sorry, wait till level 15 when it still doesn't even matter and you're just waiting your time.

Overall, the non-spellcaster support just never came (and dont say "play a martial initiator" because for the most part their whole schtick is "I hit it with my sword, with a flourish" with a few exceptions that are overly touted). A non-spellcaster never got the chance to actually leap tall buildings in a single bound. A non-spellcaster never got the ability to change the face of the battlefield, even a feat to grant a ground pound ability that changes the terrain in an X ft radius to difficult terrain would have been nice. Alas, spellcasters got beat loads more spells, non-spellcasters got more prerequisites.

Second rant done? I think... the goal is to slow down spellcasters, even just a little.

[Nifft]

Second rant done? I think... the goal is to slow down spellcasters, even just a little.

Spellcasters don't need any feats to be overpowered.

Sure, their feats help them power up even more, but they aren't strictly necessary.

[AnimeTheCat]

Spellcasters don't need any feats to be overpowered.

Sure, their feats help them power up even more, but they aren't strictly necessary.

Right, again all the more reason to limit the excess in my opinion.

[Celestia]

You could just let all martials gestalt with fighter for bonus feats, or give every martial the fighter's bonus feat progression.

That seems like a much simpler solution. Sure, it won't fix the main problem, but it would help a bit.

[Nifft]

Right, again all the more reason to limit the excess in my opinion.

The thing is, it doesn't limit the caster. It just makes them less diverse.

A Wizard doesn't need craft wondrous item to have access to buffs or disguise illusions like disguise self, but she might take the feat in order to make those illusions available to her party mates through stuff like a Hat of Disguise.

Reducing the Wizard's feats such that she can't take item crafting screws the party more than it screws the Wizard -- and giving the Fighter 10 bonus feats doesn't allow the Fighter to craft a Hat of Disguise, so yeah. You're just screwing the whole party -- who then become primary casters to compensate for lacking custom magic items, like using a Beguiler (who can cast disguise self) instead of a Rogue with a hat.

[Celestia]

Right, again all the more reason to limit the excess in my opinion.

You're not doing much limiting, though. With this set up, half BAB gets 5 feats, 3/4ths BAB gets 7 feats, and full BAB gets 10 feats. The arcane casters only gets the smallest of debuffs while the martials only get the smallest of buffs, and the divine casters don't even notice the change. Also, you run into the major problem of there no longer being first level feats. This is, of course, easy to solve by adding a first level feat in addition to everything, but it makes your attempted fix even more pointless. That's why it is not only easier but better to just give full BAB classes the fighter bonus feat progression. They get an extra 11 feats, and everyone else gets nothing.

[AnimeTheCat]

You're not doing much limiting, though. With this set up, half BAB gets 5 feats, 3/4ths BAB gets 7 feats, and full BAB gets 10 feats. The arcane casters only gets the smallest of debuffs while the martials only get the smallest of buffs, and the divine casters don't even notice the change. Also, you run into the major problem of there no longer being first level feats. This is, of course, easy to solve by adding a first level feat in addition to everything, but it makes your attempted fix even more pointless. That's why it is not only easier but better to just give full BAB classes the fighter bonus feat progression. They get an extra 11 feats, and everyone else gets nothing.

Correction, full BAB characters get first level feats and feats that are cheese anyway (I'm looking at precocious apprentice) are no longer available OH NOOOOO...

I see what you mean and I guess that takes this concept back to the drawing board then.

Thanks for the input everyone.

[Cosi]

This is exactly the kind of thing I was thinking of when I said you should try buffs before nerfs. As Nifft points out, casters don't need feats to be effective. And if you do cut down on the number of feats they get, that will just cause them to focus more on the most powerful feats. The guy with Extend Spell, Persist Spell, DMM: Persist, and a fluff feat isn't going to drop DMM when you tell him he has one less feat. Feats generally provide minor bonuses that make characters more interesting, so this nerf is pretty directly making the experience of playing a caster less fun without meaningfully changing game balance.

Also, this only effects WIzards, because Clerics are secretly full BAB (go go gadget divine power) and Druids only want like one feat.

You could just let all martials gestalt with fighter for bonus feats, or give every martial the fighter's bonus feat progression.

Yes, this is a thing that should happen. Fighters are boring and don't do anything important. The class should be scrapped. Martials don't get enough feats. Giving all martials a free Fighter gestalt would solve both problems.

Overall, the non-spellcaster support just never came (and dont say "play a martial initiator" because for the most part their whole schtick is "I hit it with my sword, with a flourish" with a few exceptions that are overly touted). A non-spellcaster never got the chance to actually leap tall buildings in a single bound. A non-spellcaster never got the ability to change the face of the battlefield, even a feat to grant a ground pound ability that changes the terrain in an X ft radius to difficult terrain would have been nice. Alas, spellcasters got beat loads more spells, non-spellcasters got more prerequisites.

Second rant done? I think... the goal is to slow down spellcasters, even just a little.

You're upset martials didn't get the kinds of cool abilities you thought they should, so you respond by nerfing casters? That seems not only ineffective for achieving your stated goal, but kind of spiteful as well. Instead of just trying to make the characters you like better, you've decided that the only way to fix things is to make the characters you don't like worse. Why not combine martial feats, or give a bonus feat for each point of BAB, or write feats that let you add your BAB to stuff, or any number of other things that make martials better without making casters any worse?

For example, you could add a feat like this:

Earthshaker
Benefit: Terrain in a radius of 5ft per point of BAB around you is considered difficult terrain. You may make attacks of opportunity in this radius as if you were in any square in the radius. You may make an additional attack of opportunity each round for each point of BAB you possess.

That would make martial characters substantially better at influencing the battlefield, and wouldn't make casters any worse. Why not just write up a dozen or so feats like that for all the cool things you wish martials could do?

[AnimeTheCat]

Cosi, I get where you're coming from. You're coming from an equally sound point of "make everyone competitive at the highest level of play", I'm coming from a different viewpoint of "make the highest levels and the lowest levels of play competitive in a comfortable middle ground level of play". I understand that I could rewrite over half the game and reconstruct every full BAB, mundane player class, but at that point I would rather write my own game system entirely with completely different mechanics.

The reason that "just buff martials" does not work is because magic is multiverse altering and no matter how high you jump, how hard you punch, or how fast you walk, you're never going to alter the multiverse. That's how I see it. To balance things to an even playing field, you need to remove some of the universe shaking, eternity altering power that comes with a full spellcaster. I know you dont like hearing that, but that's my opinion.

I didn't state the specific goals i had in mind for this tweak because i was on mobile and formatting is a pain on mobile. Overall, my desire is to limit feats on spellcasters and grant more feats to non-spellcasters. The most organic way I could think of was to link fears to BAB so that more non-casters could take more feat chains and so that you might see more than barbarian 2 on a character sheet.

An additional adjustment could be to grant all classes without spellcasting progression full BAB, grant 3/4 BAB to 1-6 level spellcasters, and 1/2 BAB to all 1-9 level spellcasting classes. That really slows the roll of a DMM cleric, a summoner druid, and a lot of wizard builds to name a few.

My desired point of balance is a 5 on a scale of 1-10, yours is a 12. It's fine that you like playing up there, I dont. I'm not a fan of rocket tag, cat and mouse contingency games.

As I said, back to the drawing board.

[KillianHawkeye]

One of the games that I play in, we're doing a Feat for every point of BAB gained. It really opens up some options for more Feat-intensive fighting styles, and even allows us to try some things we wouldn't normally try. But we like Feats a lot. We think everyone should have more of them.

My character in that game is a Hexblade (a class I've never tried before that just happens to have full BAB), and I've been taking several of those Combat Form Feats from PHB2 (which would normally take up most or all of the feats a normal character would get, so isn't usually worth doing). Now, because of my personal choices, he isn't the strongest character on the team, but he is interesting and fun to play and that's mainly because the rule we're using lets me do something I've never done before.

Don't settle for half measures! Give Feats for every point of BAB!

[Cosi]

Cosi, I get where you're coming from. You're coming from an equally sound point of "make everyone competitive at the highest level of play", I'm coming from a different viewpoint of "make the highest levels and the lowest levels of play competitive in a comfortable middle ground level of play". I understand that I could rewrite over half the game and reconstruct every full BAB, mundane player class, but at that point I would rather write my own game system entirely with completely different mechanics.

That's orthogonal to the point I'm making. I'm not saying (in this specific context) that you shouldn't nerf Wizards. I'm saying that your logic doesn't follow. "I wish Fighters could ground-pound people" is not a reason for nerfing Wizards. Things like "it doesn't matter if the party has a Fighter when every fight ends with the enemies locked down" or "Clerics can perform better than Fighters as front-line combatants" or "blasters deal single target damage more effectively than Fighters do" are all reasons to nerf Wizards. But "I wish Fighters were better" is not. That's a reason to buff Fighters.

The reason that "just buff martials" does not work is because magic is multiverse altering and no matter how high you jump, how hard you punch, or how fast you walk, you're never going to alter the multiverse. That's how I see it. To balance things to an even playing field, you need to remove some of the universe shaking, eternity altering power that comes with a full spellcaster. I know you dont like hearing that, but that's my opinion.

Yes. That is why "does not do magic" is a low level concept. If you cannot see a way for the Fighter to replicate plane shift or teleport, then Fighter is a class that is 8 levels long. There's no actual reason you can't both use plane shift and an axe -- Thor does exactly that in Infinity War. You can't solve the problem with nerfs, because the problem is that you have defined certain characters as not having abilities that are established parts of the setting.

But even if we acknowledge that your goal is reasonable, it's obvious that this plan is not going to work. One feat per two points of BAB puts martials up one feat per six levels and casters down one feat per twelve levels. That's just totally irrelevant. It's not solving the problem you have, it's not a serious impact, and it makes characters less interesting. This is exactly how you don't solve a problem.

[Nifft]

One of the games that I play in, we're doing a Feat for every point of BAB gained. It really opens up some options for more Feat-intensive fighting styles, and even allows us to try some things we wouldn't normally try. But we like Feats a lot. We think everyone should have more of them.

My character in that game is a Hexblade (a class I've never tried before that just happens to have full BAB), and I've been taking several of those Combat Form Feats from PHB2 (which would normally take up most or all of the feats a normal character would get, so isn't usually worth doing). Now, because of my personal choices, he isn't the strongest character on the team, but he is interesting and fun to play and that's mainly because the rule we're using lets me do something I've never done before.

Don't settle for half measures! Give Feats for every point of BAB!

So half-BAB full-casters would get slightly accelerated feats (Pathfinder progression), and full-BAB mostly-not-casters would get double that?

Yeah that would be cool.

Not a nerf for anyone, but a nice thing that's somewhat nicer for non-casters.

[Crichton]

That's orthogonal to the point I'm making. I'm not saying (in this specific context) that you shouldn't nerf Wizards. I'm saying that your logic doesn't follow. "I wish Fighters could ground-pound people" is not a reason for nerfing Wizards. Things like "it doesn't matter if the party has a Fighter when every fight ends with the enemies locked down" or "Clerics can perform better than Fighters as front-line combatants" or "blasters deal single target damage more effectively than Fighters do" are all reasons to nerf Wizards. But "I wish Fighters were better" is not. That's a reason to buff Fighters.



Yes. That is why "does not do magic" is a low level concept. If you cannot see a way for the Fighter to replicate plane shift or teleport, then Fighter is a class that is 8 levels long. There's no actual reason you can't both use plane shift and an axe -- Thor does exactly that in Infinity War. You can't solve the problem with nerfs, because the problem is that you have defined certain characters as not having abilities that are established parts of the setting.

But even if we acknowledge that your goal is reasonable, it's obvious that this plan is not going to work. One feat per two points of BAB puts martials up one feat per six levels and casters down one feat per twelve levels. That's just totally irrelevant. It's not solving the problem you have, it's not a serious impact, and it makes characters less interesting. This is exactly how you don't solve a problem.

Cosi, thank you for putting far more eloquently than I could, exactly how I've been feeling this whole thread.

AnimeTheCat, you could give Fighters a feat at every level and their normal bonus feats to boot, and take away a wizards feats entirely, and you still wouldn't have solved the problem you claim to want to solve. You can buff a Fighter's mundane ability all day long, but until you give them magic or something that does some of what magic does, they're a low power class compared to casters. You can try to nerf casters, but by the time you've stripped away 3/4 of their spells and other abilities, no one is going to want to play them.

I'm not saying you haven't identified a problem, but you certainly haven't found a solution. Or even 12% of a solution.


(Truthfully, I don't think you have a problem here at all. I don't find the 'quadratic wizard, linear' fighter thing to be a problem. Rather, it's an intentional design decision, baked into the very core of 3.5. And as for my personal opinion, which doesn't invalidate yours, I think people are far too quick to swing the nerf-hammer at casters.)

[Zancloufer]

I honestly thought this idea was going in a different direction. More bad feats doesn't = good IMHO. Kind of takes away the impact of them and slows the game down as Mr Human fighter has 50 billion of them he has to assign now.

The real disparity between "Martial" and "Spell-Caster" feats IMHO isn't how many there are, it's that the "Martial" feats don't scale while most spell-casting/meta-magic ones do.

Instead of giving more feats to high BaB classes you could (do as I did) and make most "Mundane Warrior Feats" scale with BaB. IE:

No more Improved Two Weapon Fighting, Rapid Shot, Weapon Focus etc. Your feats that are mini-chains just get better with more BaB. Weapon focus grants an extra +1 every ~3-4 BaB, Precise Shot becomes Improved Precise shot at BaB +11, TWF grants you the extra off hand attacks at 6/11/16 BaB.

Also I really think 95% of the non-spell-caster/Meta-Magic feats that are "Epic" could probably have the requirements dropped to the point that level 6-14 characters could qualify for them.

[KillianHawkeye]

So half-BAB full-casters would get slightly accelerated feats (Pathfinder progression), and full-BAB mostly-not-casters would get double that?

Yeah that would be cool.

Not a nerf for anyone, but a nice thing that's somewhat nicer for non-casters.

For the sake of full disclosure, my group had already been doing Feats every odd level and Ability Score increases every even level for a while before we tried the Feats at every BAB increase game. So Wizards and other poor BAB classes were more or less unaffected while everyone else just got more Feats to play with.

[Nifft]

I honestly thought this idea was going in a different direction. More bad feats doesn't = good IMHO. Kind of takes away the impact of them and slows the game down as Mr Human fighter has 50 billion of them he has to assign now.

The real disparity between "Martial" and "Spell-Caster" feats IMHO isn't how many there are, it's that the "Martial" feats don't scale while most spell-casting/meta-magic ones do.

Instead of giving more feats to high BaB classes you could (do as I did) and make most "Mundane Warrior Feats" scale with BaB. IE:

No more Improved Two Weapon Fighting, Rapid Shot, Weapon Focus etc. Your feats that are mini-chains just get better with more BaB. Weapon focus grants an extra +1 every ~3-4 BaB, Precise Shot becomes Improved Precise shot at BaB +11, TWF grants you the extra off hand attacks at 6/11/16 BaB.

I recall seeing this idea before, and I like it.

Have there been any notably good full re-writes?

For the sake of full disclosure, my group had already been doing Feats every odd level and Ability Score increases every even level for a while before we tried the Feats at every BAB increase game. So Wizards and other poor BAB classes were more or less unaffected while everyone else just got more Feats to play with.

Sounds awesome.

In combo with the "feats get better with BAB" thinking, giving more feats with BAB seems like a reasonable way to get some mildly quadratic value for Fighter-types. Won't solve the issue of combat feats lacking utility, but it's a step in the right direction.

[Manyasone]

At the risk of threading on the toes of nay-sayers, this is the exact reason why my next campaign will be a Spherefinder campaign. I find that both systems make the caster/martial endless discussions nigh obsolete. I mean sure casters will be able to do things martials can't but here at least martials also get nice things

[Crichton]

... sure casters will be able to do things martials can't but here at least martials also get nice things

And that's how it should be. Balance is too much to ask for, but variety, well, if all classes could do the same things, they'd just be one class. As long as every class gets nice things, and all the players have fun, you all win!

[StreamOfTheSky]

I strongly dislike how PF added (or increased) BAB requirements for numerous martial feats, and how it hurt medium BAB martials like the rogue and monk.

Your basic premise of giving more feats for higher BAB would trouble me for the same reasons.
Would you nerf primary casters all down to 1/2 BAB, or would clerics, druids, etc... still have the same number of feats as the rogues and monks?

[Fizban]

Looks like I'm seeing two different arguments here. One is about the fix in the OP, and one is about something completely different. The OPost doesn't seem to suggest that this is supposed to be some massive fix, but the OPoster derailed themself and everyone jumped on that instead.

Trimming caster feats is good if you want to trim caster feats. Giving all full BAB classes faster feats is good if you want them to have faster feats, though this does make the Warblade problem even worse. Considering that even the more conservative caster feats tend to be ridiculous over time, trimming/delaying caster feats is a significant reduction in power, period. Getting 6 at 20th instead of 7 at 18th is pretty significant, and more so when you look at anything but 20th. At least for wizards, since the divine casters all get 3/8 instead of 1/3, which is actually an increase, and before you account for the extra 5 feats wizards get because reasons.

So the quick fix is a bit of a bust, simply because it's not big enough.

[liquidformat]

An additional adjustment could be to grant all classes without spellcasting progression full BAB, grant 3/4 BAB to 1-6 level spellcasters, and 1/2 BAB to all 1-9 level spellcasting classes. That really slows the roll of a DMM cleric, a summoner druid, and a lot of wizard builds to name a few.

My desired point of balance is a 5 on a scale of 1-10, yours is a 12. It's fine that you like playing up there, I dont. I'm not a fan of rocket tag, cat and mouse contingency games.

As I said, back to the drawing board.

Ya no reason to be mean to rogues, monks, and so forth because you have an issue magic...

I honestly thought this idea was going in a different direction. More bad feats doesn't = good IMHO. Kind of takes away the impact of them and slows the game down as Mr Human fighter has 50 billion of them he has to assign now.

The real disparity between "Martial" and "Spell-Caster" feats IMHO isn't how many there are, it's that the "Martial" feats don't scale while most spell-casting/meta-magic ones do.

Instead of giving more feats to high BaB classes you could (do as I did) and make most "Mundane Warrior Feats" scale with BaB. IE:

No more Improved Two Weapon Fighting, Rapid Shot, Weapon Focus etc. Your feats that are mini-chains just get better with more BaB. Weapon focus grants an extra +1 every ~3-4 BaB, Precise Shot becomes Improved Precise shot at BaB +11, TWF grants you the extra off hand attacks at 6/11/16 BaB.

Also I really think 95% of the non-spell-caster/Meta-Magic feats that are "Epic" could probably have the requirements dropped to the point that level 6-14 characters could qualify for them.

Ya I was about to suggest this, getting rid of feat tax and letting things like TWF and Spring Attack scale with BAB is a good start. Hell Throw Two-Weapon Defense into TWF and double the bonus you receive at each progression and it still isn't over powered.

A lot of the 'mundane' feats you get at epic level should have been given some where between level 5-15 or can be gotten through PRCs. Take Combat Archery for example, what not triggering AOOs with a bow in melee, gee that would have been great back at level 5 when I took that prc that gave me that oh wait I did do that...

Honestly I at level 10-20 you should be getting feats like a ground pound that knocks everyone around you prone if they fail their check and makes the area difficult terrain for everyone but you. Or firing a whole group of arrows to deal damage as an AOE attack. By the time they are in epic levels the melee guy should be splitting mountains with his every swing and the archer should be capable of firing his bow once and killing an entire army, or be able to accurately kill people from miles away with a single shot. Another major problem I see is damage scaling for mundanes, honestly you shouldn't have to be an uber charger to be dishing out high damage.

Also there are easier ways to nerf spell casters than to restrict their feats. Take wizard for example, if you take away their 'free' spells each level and instead enforce the 100gp/page for all spells then you dramatically reduced their versatility. For clerics you can directly tie their experience gain to acts that further the cause of the deity they supposedly represent and similar with druids. This way being a murder hobo only gains experience for clerics of very specific gods. Nerfing beguilers, sorceresses and other such classes is a bit harder since there isn't as obvious a mechanism but it is possible.

[Nifft]

Just give Rogues & Monks & etc. full BAB, and think about giving Clerics & Druids half BAB.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Just give Rogues & Monks & etc. full BAB, and think about giving Clerics & Druids half BAB.

So Medium BAB only continues to exist for like...Bards and other 6-level casters?

[Nifft]

So Medium BAB only continues to exist for like...Bards and other 6-level casters?

Sure, that sounds reasonable.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Sure, that sounds reasonable.

Plenty of those in PF. In 3E, there wouldn't be that many. Bard, Psychic Warrior, uh...Lurk i think?
Where would Warlocks, Binders and Incarnum classes factor in? Assuming Totemist and Incarnate get a bump in their BABs, and Soulborn....continues to be forgotten. Binder and Warlock probably stay medium...

Still, I try to resist to the temptation to just make all non-magic classes full BAB. Feels like admitting defeat. Should be able to have medium BAB martials with class features to make up for it and still be playable. Swordsage sort of is, but practically cheats (the "non-magic" qualifier) w/ all the Su maneuvers, and even then it's still bar none the weakest of the three ToB classes. Granted, part of that is because WR Tactics is worth more all on its own than half of the swordsage class