Divine power at epic lvs...

[Runestar]

I am forking a new thread because the discussion at the "Ask a simple question" thread was becoming too convoluted to be readily resolved.

Basically, the question is how divine power interacts with epic characters and epic bab. If a lv40 cleric (with bab+25) were to cast divine power, would his bab be:

a) +40 (as a lv40 character)
b) +30 (+20bab from 1st 20 class lvs, +10 ebab)
c) +50 (+40bab from 40 class lvs, +10 ebab)

Personally, I feel the answer from a RAW perspective should be C, but if matters were as simple, we wouldn't need this thread. What do you all folks think? Divine power states it simply changes your bab to your character lv (which by definition, is racial HD + class lvs).

Also, there is the issue of how divine power would work on monsters. If a 32-HD undead (normally +16bab) were to somehow access divine power, would his bab become +32? What about monsters with class lvs? What would the bab of a hill giant cleric13 be after divine power?

[Kumori]

I was the one who originally posed the question, and I agree with you. RAW, the Base Attack should be 40 and 10 epic should be added on top. I also think RAI would have the total attack bonus be that of a lv 40 fighter (20 BAB and 10 epic).
I think that best case scenario: a DM might say total attack bonus = 40 (epic bonus being overlapped by the spell.

[absolmorph]

Option C.
The cleric would have a BAB of +40.
Every 2 levels past 20 give a +1 bonus to attacks; by my reading, this isn't, technically, part of the character's BAB.
Divine Power says it makes the cleric's BAB "equal to [their] character level"; at level 40, that places it at 40, and they have a +(20/2) bonus to attacks, separate from BAB.
So, a level 40 cleric with Divine Power would have a starting attack bonus of +50.

[Cog]

It's not even "epic base attack bonus"; it's "epic attack bonus". That's clearly a separate thing added atop BAB, so we can rule out A).

Let's look at the definition of BAB:
A base attack bonus is an attack roll bonus derived from character class and level or creature type and Hit Dice (or combinations thereof). Base attack bonuses increase at different rates for different character classes and creature types. A second attack is gained when a base attack bonus reaches +6, a third with a base attack bonus of +11 or higher, and a fourth with a base attack bonus of +16 or higher. Base attack bonuses gained from different sources, such as when a character is a multiclass character, stack.
The question is, is the bolded statement limiting? If BAB must come from one of those sources, Divine Power should almost certainly be the former, and thus be limited to 20 as per the Epic rules, giving us answer B). It seems to me that it adds a new source of BAB, though: magic/spell effect/supernatural effects (there's a Binder vestige that gives Tenser's Transformation); this could come from a wand or scroll as well, making it even harder to call it class-derived. There are many cases of BAB higher than 20 among the epic monsters, so that doesn't seem to be a built-in limit.

Perhaps the key matter is that BAB doesn't "increase" after 20th? After all, monsters have a set number of HD and a BAB derived from that - a lizardfolk doesn't have to fight monsters to earn his second HD, it's part of what he is, and that's no less true for an atropal. On the other hand, we've got one exception here: true dragons. They begin as wyrmlings, often with character levels and ECLs lower than twenty, and both those numbers can increase well over 20, with their BAB increasing likewise.

The limit of BAB at 20 is for BAB derived from class levels. Divine Power, Tenser's Transformation, Frenzied Hunt, and they like are often accessed through class abilities, but they need not be. That leaves us with C).