Pathfinder: Full BAB = Tier 4?

[Person_Man]

So within 3.5, there are four full BAB Tier 3 classes; Warblade, Crusader, Wildshape Ranger, and Duskblade. Also, anyone with access to Divine Power (Cleric, Favored Soul, Archivist, Artificer, etc) can also get full BAB when they need it, or all/most of the time via metamagic shenanigans.

Within Pathfinder, all of the full BAB classes are usually described as Tier 4. This includes all the currently published 3rd party Pathfinder full BAB classes that I've read. (Though I'm greatly anticipating some upcoming work from Dreamscarred Press).

A high level Pathfinder Paladin with a Special Mount arguably comes the closest to Tier 3, in that you do one thing well (Meat Shield: You have two creatures to control, are immune/resistant to a lot of stuff, can deal decent damage against some enemies), plus you remove status conditions efficiently and play the party face.

But no full BAB Pathfinder class really feels like a Tier 3 or higher class. The Talents/Powers/Deeds/Bonus Feats/etc provided by full BAB are extremely granular (provide small bonuses/abilities). You can't change them out from day to day. And none of them are open ended or flexible like Summons or Wildshape.

Are there any Tier 1-3 full BAB Pathfinder classes I'm not aware of? Or was this a purposeful design decision? And if so, can someone point me to a forum post where a designer specifically says so.


I've also created a survey in order to gauge people's opinions on this matter:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/2Y2QTGG

Thanks in advance.

[chaos_redefined]

I suspect it isn't so much a deliberate design decision as much as paizo overestimating the value of full BAB. Same thing happened with 3.5 core, and I haven't seen any indication of Paizo actually looking at what happens when the casters do things other than blast.

[Spore]

Fighter and Cavalier would have a word with you.

[Meth In a Mine]

So within 3.5, there are four full BAB Tier 3 classes; Warblade, Crusader, Wildshape Ranger, and Duskblade. Also, anyone with access to Divine Power (Cleric, Favored Soul, Archivist, Artificer, etc) can also get full BAB when they need it, or all/most of the time via metamagic shenanigans.

I agree with the Warblade, Crusader, WS Ranger and duskblade, but Favored Soul and Artificer? How did they get Full BAB? I thought they had 3/4 BAB.

[stack]

I agree with the Warblade, Crusader, WS Ranger and duskblade, but Favored Soul and Artificer? How did they get Full BAB? I thought they had 3/4 BAB.

Retread what you quoted, he references the spell divine power.

[Psyren]

Pathfinder Divine Power does not give you full BAB so it's not relevant here.

Sacred Servant Paladin is T3 with full BAB.

[Meth In a Mine]

Retread what you quoted, he references the spell divine power.

I will note that Divine Power is 1 round/level. It doesn't last very long.

[Hand_of_Vecna]

Fighter and Cavalier would have a word with you.

I'm not an expert in Cavalier or Pathfinder Fighter, but I'm very curious what puts them in a higher tier than Zhentarum Dungeoncrashers.

[Psyren]

I'm not an expert in Cavalier or Pathfinder Fighter, but I'm very curious what puts them in a higher tier than Zhentarum Dungeoncrashers.

I think he's saying they're T5 actually (which they are without certain archetypes.)

Well, Cavalier can be T4 with the right mount optimization, though typically you'll have to be Small so you can bring your wolf mount into the dungeon/tower with you.

[Krazzman]

Pathfinder Divine Power does not give you full BAB so it's not relevant here.

Irrelevant as 3.5 Divine Power was referenced.

The trend seems to be like this but even 3/4 bab classes are shafted if they don't have "real" spellcasting (like Magus/Summoner) although in DnD are a few no spell 3/4 bab classes on Tier 3 (Swordsage/Totemist etc)

[grarrrg]

I will note that Divine Power is 1 round/level. It doesn't last very long.

You will note that he noted it first.
Emphasis added:

So within 3.5, there are four full BAB Tier 3 classes; Warblade, Crusader, Wildshape Ranger, and Duskblade. Also, anyone with access to Divine Power (Cleric, Favored Soul, Archivist, Artificer, etc) can also get full BAB when they need it, or all/most of the time via metamagic shenanigans.

I think he's saying they're T5 actually (which they are without certain archetypes.)

Well, Cavalier can be T4 with the right mount optimization, though typically you'll have to be Small so you can bring your wolf mount into the dungeon/tower with you.

Don't forget Gunslingers. They are virtually the same as Fighters.

[Seerow]

To be fair Warblade and Duskblade are both sore points that have been the focus of argument as to whether they qualify for tier 3. (Personally I still refuse to believe Duskblade qualifies. The level of utility it has compared to say a Bard is just abysmal, and its combat prowess isn't amazing enough to make up the difference), and Wildshape Ranger was a half-baked variant of an existing relatively weak class. (That said if we are counting variants Mystic SotAO Ranger probably is a solid tier 3 as well). So 3.5 isn't particularly good in this respect either.

Also, I'd peg the Aegis out of Pathfinder as a Full BAB Tier 3, if a low one. But then again it's also not directly from Paizo, which may be why it was ignored. Either way, it gets a fair chunk of PP (less than Psiwar, but he also gets his armor which gives lots of convenient buffs the Psiwar would be spending power points on) which it can spend on either bonus armor customizations or a Super-UMD (see the armor customization that lets you store power stones and shards in your armor and spend your PP to use them without consuming it), and he can swap out his power stones effectively at will, and his armor customizations several times a day.



Generally designers of both systems overvalue BAB dramatically. Where it should be a relatively low impact thing to go from medium BAB to full, instead we are trapped in design hell, with almost anybody going up to full BAB losing more than half of what they'd have otherwise. Seriously go check out the DSP Incarna playtest thread where you have someone honestly arguing that they feel the Daevic needs to be nerfed because its full BAB losing only 30% of the effectiveness of a medium BAB class isn't enough.

[Psyren]

Aegis is T4; they are good at combat but little else, much like Barbarians and (most) Soulknives.

They are capable of some WBL-mancy by implanting stones but that is about the extent of their versatility.

Irrelevant as 3.5 Divine Power was referenced.

It's still not relevant to the topic at hand. He brought it up as a comparison point with 3.5 (saying that a wide variety of tiers can get full BAB) but regardless, that's still not the case in PF.

The trend seems to be like this but even 3/4 bab classes are shafted if they don't have "real" spellcasting (like Magus/Summoner) although in DnD are a few no spell 3/4 bab classes on Tier 3 (Swordsage/Totemist etc)

Ninja is 3/4, and it's still T3 despite not having "real spellcasting." Ditto various Qinggong monk combinations.

Don't forget Gunslingers. They are virtually the same as Fighters.

Yarr.

[Seerow]

They are capable of some WBL-mancy by implanting stones but that is about the extent of their versatility.

Turning consumable stones (read: Extremely cheap) into powers known is a pretty huge deal. It gives them far more variety in what they are capable of than a Duskblade or Warblade, with a small enough investment of wealth that it's negligible.

[Psyren]

It certainly helps but I don't think it's enough to put them at T3. By 18th level you can have a maximum of two 1st-level, two 2nd-level, two 3rd-level and two 4th-level powers harnessed; storing even this small amount costs 20 21 of your 23 available CP at that level, leaving your suit able to do very little else. Compare to the Gifted Blade, who is also capped at 4th-level powers but gives up none of the features of his blade to do so, and doesn't have to spend WBL every time he changes his powerset. And every time you reconfigure them away, the attached stones are flushed whether you used them or not.

You also don't have much control over the powers you gain. You have to rely on found stones - even if you can craft them, you're limited to powers you've already found, or powers that the rest of the party can donate to you. Even a Warlock doesn't need Magic Mart's address.

[Person_Man]

Fighter and Cavalier would have a word with you.

I'm not sure what you're saying here. But it's my opinion that the Fighter, Cavalier, Ranger, Barbarian, Samurai, and Gunslinger are all Tier 4 or Tier 5, depending on the level of optimization and Archetypes.

Low-mid level PF Fighter in particular is arguably weaker then a low-mid level 3.5 Fighter, in that Pathfinder Feats (the Fighter's main class ability) provide much smaller bonuses and abilities compared to 3.5 Feats, and the PF Fighter lacks access to Dungeoncrasher and Zhentarum ACF's. (Though at high levels, the bonuses and abilities from the additional PF crunch and access to higher level PF Feats start to be more meaningful).

I've read Aegis once and it felt Tier 4ish to me. But I'm open to the idea that with the right exploit it could be Tier 3. Though it is worth noting that it's DSP and not Paizo.

Generally designers of both systems overvalue BAB dramatically. Where it should be a relatively low impact thing to go from medium BAB to full, instead we are trapped in design hell, with almost anybody going up to full BAB losing more than half of what they'd have otherwise. Seriously go check out the DSP Incarna playtest thread where you have someone honestly arguing that they feel the Daevic needs to be nerfed because its full BAB losing only 30% of the effectiveness of a medium BAB class isn't enough.

That's exactly what prompted this thread. I just didn't want to derail it.

Also, I'm a huge fan of DSP products in general. I'm just wondering how they and other future Full BAB classes are going to fit into the larger Pathfinder system of classes in terms of balance. I want to try and get a measure of how valuable full BAB should really be.

[Seerow]

It certainly helps but I don't think it's enough to put them at T3. By 18th level you can have a maximum of two 1st-level, two 2nd-level, two 3rd-level and two 4th-level powers harnessed; storing even this small amount costs 20 of your 23 available CP at that level, leaving your suit able to do very little else. Compare to the Gifted Blade, who is also capped at 4th-level powers but gives up none of the features of his blade to do so, and doesn't have to spend WBL every time he changes his powerset. And every time you reconfigure them away, the attached stones are flushed whether you used them or not.

The attached stones being flushed when you change things is the bit I forgot. That does significantly weaken it. I was figuring you could get away with just 1 stone of each level (for 10 of your CPs) and swap out your stones as needed.

Losing the stone every time you swap is a major restriction I'd either not noticed or completely forgotten about, and does drop its value significantly.

[NightbringerGGZ]

I think he's saying they're T5 actually (which they are without certain archetypes.)

Well, Cavalier can be T4 with the right mount optimization, though typically you'll have to be Small so you can bring your wolf mount into the dungeon/tower with you.

Velociraptor Mount with the right archetype

[subject42]

Generally designers of both systems overvalue BAB dramatically. Where it should be a relatively low impact thing to go from medium BAB to full, instead we are trapped in design hell, with almost anybody going up to full BAB losing more than half of what they'd have otherwise.

From what I've seen in the past, the "value" of full BAB has almost nothing to do with the bonus to hit or extra iterative attacks. Instead, full BAB classes generally only cause problems because they can pile up a lot of the better, BAB-locked combat feats into one character. An example of this in 3.5 was the ubercharger.

It seems like using BAB as a feat prerequisite is more of a problem than BAB itself.

[Psyren]

I think "full BAB T3+" should primarily be in the realm of archetypes, which are more easily regulated at the table. It's much less stressful for a DM to say "I don't like Sacred Servant" or "I don't like Ectopic Artisan" than "I'm banning Paladin/Aegis." And a skittish DM can also say "I'll let you try this archetype for awhile, but if you overshadow the group please switch to a different one" without necessarily mandating an entirely new character for that player.

T3+FB isn't overpowered in a macro sense, i.e. compared to much more powerful full-casters, as we all know. But for lower-Op groups it can feel that way because those tables inevitably/unconsciously compare them to Fighter/Ranger, or more saliently, to the 3/4 BAB T3s like Bard and Magus.

IIRC the Bloodrager ran into thorns during the playtest too as people complained about why anyone would play a Barbarian or Fighter anymore.

The attached stones being flushed when you change things is the bit I forgot. That does significantly weaken it. I was figuring you could get away with just 1 stone of each level (for 10 of your CPs) and swap out your stones as needed.

Losing the stone every time you swap is a major restriction I'd either not noticed or completely forgotten about, and does drop its value significantly.

No worries. It's definitely high T4, don't get me wrong - certainly stronger than Barbarian, and most Paladins - and they do have an advantage in the WBL-mancy department of not needing to spend as much on armor, which frees up some dough for stones. It's just the reliance on magic-mart/DM providence to unlock its potential that I don't like.

One cool thing you can do is cram a buttload of stones into your suit and rely on UMD, since Aegi get a lot of bonuses. Of course, that flushes them even faster, but at least you can throw in utility ones like Psychoport for emergencies.

[Seerow]

From what I've seen in the past, the "value" of full BAB has almost nothing to do with the bonus to hit or extra iterative attacks. Instead, full BAB classes generally only cause problems because they can pile up a lot of the better, BAB-locked combat feats into one character. An example of this in 3.5 was the ubercharger.

It seems like using BAB as a feat prerequisite is more of a problem than BAB itself.

The real issue is that BAB doesn't provide that big of a boost, even accounting for the feats you mention. Seriously, I doubt that even factors into Paizo developers' minds when balancing a new class. They see full BAB and decide it has to be around the same power level as a Fighter, and the class suffers for that.

[subject42]

They see full BAB and decide it has to be around the same power level as a Fighter, and the class suffers for that.

I've seen that exact quote, earnestly delivered, on the DSP playtest boards a few times. It blew my mind. Paizo doesn't really make their discussions as public, but you're right, it probably shows up there, too.

[Der_DWSage]

I think there's a sub-issue to deal with here, too.

Full BAB = This Class is designed to handle melee combat.
This Class is designed to handle melee combat = They don't need any other real routes to victory. They can hit things hard. What more do they want?

As someone mentioned earlier, Paladin is probably the closest to T3. I'd say they scrape at it earnestly, and succeed at getting there with the smallest bit of optimization. Barbarian Rages...the right ones can make them T3.5, I suppose. But the others...well, they have mildly varying ways in how they hit things. Fighters get all the feats, and slightly bigger numbers. Rangers get to track things, and then kill them, if they get lucky. Barbarians without really good Rage Powah get to froth at the mouth, and then hit them with a stick.

So it's a combined issue of 'overvaluing full BAB' and 'Full BAB design philosophy.'

[Person_Man]

So the main lessons I've learned from this thread are:

If you want to write a Pathfinder class with it's own meaningful subsystem, make it 3/4 BAB or 1/2 BAB. Even if it makes sense from a balance and fluff perspective to have full BAB, people will cut you a lot more slack if you leave it at 3/4 BAB, so you don't have to nerf your subsystem or add annoying requirements to it (MAD, very limited uses, odd restrictions, etc).

If it's really that important to you to have a full BAB Pathfinder class, avoid writing any ability that is directly comparable to any ability from an existing full BAB Pathfinder class. This includes any kind of to-hit or damage bonus and any Bonus Feats, because gods forbid that you give your class a Bonus Feat and progression in your new subsystem, when all the Fighter gets is a Bonus Feat and +1 to resist Fear.

If it's really that important to you to have a full BAB Pathfinder class, try and make your most powerful and interesting abilities appear to be as simple as possible, and require a high level of rules mastery in order to be truly useful (Archetypes, selecting the right Feat for synergy, exploited the open ended nature and some supplementary material from a splat book, etc). So if you have a low optimization group with a Fighter, Ranger, Rogue, and Your New Class, the guy playing Your New Class won't overshadow the rest of the group unless he really knows what he's doing and the DM is cool with it.

[Fax Celestis]

Gifted Soulknife might qualify as t3, especially if you invest in liberal applications of Expanded Knowledge.

The Aegis also is full BAB and is sort of Incarnum-esque in its flexibility, so it might also qualify as T3.

[Kudaku]

I believe the upcoming Warpriest partially breaks this assumption if it stays true to its revised playtest version. It's a 6th level spellcasting progression divine class that gains a class ability called Sacred Weapon. Sacred Weapon allows the character to treat his warpriest level as his base attack bonus when making attacks with any weapon he has weapon focus with.

He still counts as 3/4th BAB when qualifying for feats, though.

[subject42]

If it's really that important to you to have a full BAB Pathfinder class, avoid writing any ability that is directly comparable to any ability from an existing full BAB Pathfinder class. This includes any kind of to-hit or damage bonus and any Bonus Feats, because gods forbid that you give your class a Bonus Feat and progression in your new subsystem, when all the Fighter gets is a Bonus Feat and +1 to resist Fear.

Come on now. Don't use hyperbole. The PF fighter totally gets a bonus to hit and damage in up to FIVE whole weapon groups.

[Eldaran]

I do feel Aegis is T3. Especially once you count Ultimate Psionics. They can get augment as a swift action with a feat, meaning they can easily grab any customization on the fly. Need energy resist, swift action. Need flight, swift action. Need burrow, swift action.

Moreover, thanks to Harness Shard they can get +10 to any skill basically at will, and they can switch them around with ease. Normally you're paying 1k each use, but it costs an Aegis only a power point.

They're also incredibly effective at being durable. They're the only class I can think of that gets improved evasion and improved stalwart (mettle), which makes you highly resistant to spells. Add that to really high AC, DR, and Fortification for mundane attacks.

[Bigbeefie]

You basically need to get over the Tier Rating.

Play a class because it does what you want to do...not because its Ranked as tier 1 or 5.

Reason is because the entire campaign needs to be played.

At level 1 those lower tier classes seem to be stronger and it is them who gets the T1 wizard to the height of his power. Without the other classes he might not have survived to reach his T1 power level.

[Seerow]

You basically need to get over the Tier Rating.

Play a class because it does what you want to do...not because its Ranked as tier 1 or 5.

Reason is because the entire campaign needs to be played.

At level 1 those lower tier classes seem to be stronger and it is them who gets the T1 wizard to the height of his power. Without the other classes he might not have survived to reach his T1 power level.

You're funny.