Epic Save and Attack Bonuses...keep it or lose it?

[under_score]

I'm currently running my first dnd 3.5 game, and we are rapidly approaching the epic levels. Some of the baddies are already at this point (since this party of casters keeps chewing through everything with little to no difficulty). One of my players does away with the epic save and attack bonuses in the games he runs (one of which I was in recently) and just keeps the save and bab from class levels.

Since maintaining game balance within the confines of the rules is not my strong suit -- English major here, not a Math major -- I was hoping for some advice from those who have dealt with this before. Your thoughts are much appreciated.

[sonofzeal]

I'm currently running my first dnd 3.5 game, and we are rapidly approaching the epic levels. Some of the baddies are already at this point (since this party of casters keeps chewing through everything with little to no difficulty). One of my players does away with the epic save and attack bonuses in the games he runs (one of which I was in recently) and just keeps the save and bab from class levels.

Since maintaining game balance within the confines of the rules is not my strong suit -- English major here, not a Math major -- I was hoping for some advice from those who have dealt with this before. Your thoughts are much appreciated.
Three options...

1) Continue saves/BAB as normal. Good in theory, but promotes imbalances; the gap in saves between (say) a Fighter and a Bard will mean that Fighters are incapable of passing any reasonable Will saves and Bards are incapable of passing any reasonable Fort saves. It'll make balance harder and harder, and lord knows Epic is unbalanced enough anyway.

2) Not progress saves/BAB at all. Pretty anticlimactic, takes some of the joy out of seeing your character level up further.

3) Do it as listed. Inelegant, but functional. I have no real problem with it. By lvl 20, you should already have high BAB if you're the type who needs that, and high saves in the areas you're supposed to.

[Firechanter]

I'd also stick to the listed Epic progression, i.e. flat 1/2 level for attacks and saves. I'd say the real point about Epic levels are the Epic feats and spells, though you may be better off not using Epic spells after all... regular 9th level is bad enough.

[Curmudgeon]

The Epic save and attack progressions are designed to preserve, but not worsen, any imbalances that have set in by level 20. So things don't get either better or worse.

As for the saves, whether they matter at all is largely going to be an issue of if you use the Epic spell seed stuff ─ and I recommend strongly against that, unless you want the first spellcaster to pull off some Epic spell to just lay waste to the environs. :smallyuk:

[under_score]

Epic spells are almost certainly going to be a no for two reasons. One, I don't want the headache. Two, Eberron.

Yeah, I know, they're coming up on epic levels in Eberron. It is what it is.

[LOTRfan]

Epic spells are almost certainly going to be a no for two reasons. One, I don't want the headache. Two, Eberron.

Yeah, I know, they're coming up on epic levels in Eberron. It is what it is.

I'm... confused. What's wrong with that?

[under_score]

Eh...just because Eberron typically involves low to mid level stuff. Nothing actually wrong with them being high level. Just atypical.

[Runestar]

Based on my experiences with the NWN2 PC game, unchanged bab progression can still be sustained until lv30. Beyond that, the disparity between a full bab and 3/4 bab class will be too great to make AC meaningful.

I don't think it is much of a problem though. Casters don't care about bab anyways, and monsters with racial HD aren't subjected to this rule anyways. If an elder titan with 70 HD can enjoy +70bab, why not a fighter70? :smallconfused:

Note: I am talking from the POV of classed npcs, not fighters as PCs. So I would insist that a lv30 fighter PC continue to use epic rules, but a lv30 fighter npc can probably get full bab without any balance issues.

[ffone]

Agreed with those above: keep the RAW progressions.

It may seem silly that which order you take the 20 levels of, say, Swashbuckler and Rogue affect your final BAB and saves, but you should just assume people will build their characters in the favorable order. If they end up backwards, just let 'em retcon.

The main reason for the epic progressions is:

As levels go up, modifiers get really high, and some get higher a lot faster than others (due to actual base BAB/saves, ability scores, magic bonuses, etc.) ACs and DCs also get high. But the d20 stays just a d20. So you get more 5%/95% situations b/c the AC vs Attack or DC vs save difference can easily exceed 19 in either direction.

The epic progressions are meant to cap the BAB difference at 10, and the save difference at 6 (obviously it can be more if you multiclass) so that you have fewer situations where one guy can always (95%) do something another guy can't (5%). Of course, it still happens b/c of the other bonuses, but this mollifies it.

Unfortunately monsters get big piles of >20 HD that don't follow these rules (and even the first 20 class levels on top of a big pile of HD don't) so their base attack bonuses can be ridiculous. This is why you see people saying AC falls behind, and miss chances (or just being invisible/aerial/etc.) is where it's at.

A secondary reason is that the epic class progressions are already balanced around having these same fixed progressions. Having to make up / continue the progressions for each would unbalance them relative to each other. And if you kept the 1 attack per 2 levels for epic classes, but let multiclass characters continue the regular progression for the first 20 levels of each base class (or 10 of each prestige), then anyone who uses their attack mod a lot will want to multiclass just for that, which is silly.

If someone really wants their attack bonus to (in effect) keep progressing fast, they can take Epic Prowess, Great Strength/Dex, or whatever to increase their attack bonus. In my limited experience, though, hitting becomes "too easy" at high levels as it is and is actually not an important investment at the expense of, say, a feat which gives you more attacks or unique abilities.

[under_score]

Well, seems to be a pretty unanimous response that the epic progressions are indeed the way to go, that otherwise would lead to everyone failing their fort saves and such and such.

Thanks for the advice.

[GoatBoy]

Perhaps have a look at Pathfinder's (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/character-advancement) rules for epic characters, as they are slightly less derp than 3.5's, although they still stress that it's hard to apply the same rules >20 than the rest of the game.