Spells vs 4th Attack on a Gish

[ZamielVanWeber]

I am playing an enlightened fist and am a situation where I need to either take 3 levels of stalwart sorcerer or 3 levels of battle sorcerer. Battle sorcerer would give me BAB 16 and thus a 4th attack, while stalwart sorcerer would grand me markedly more spells. I know I will be one of the front liners in the party. That is my essential question: my 4th attack vs my spells. Any insight on which I should value more highly would be great.

[ATHATH]

Will you actually reach the level where you'd get 16 BAB? When does your build currently meet the other BAB thresholds? What level range are you playing at? What's your planned ordering for taking your classes?

[Kelb_Panthera]

Don't know how this is even a question.

The attack at -15 will almost never have odds as good as even, much less better. You take battle sorcerer for its BAB to get into a prestige class earlier than you otherwise might. That might be worth it.

The -15 iterative isn't something worthy of consideration as a tradeoff for virtually any options.

[ATHATH]

Also, both Battle Sorcerer and Stalwart Sorcerer are really bad if you're planning to prestige class out of Sorcerer, which it looks like you are.

If you're going for an unarmored build, then Battle Sorcerer is even worse than it normally is, as you can't even take advantage of being able to cast while wearing light armor. A single point of BAB (and, like, 6 HP) is not worth losing a spell known AND a spell per day for EACH/every spell level.

As for Stalwart Sorcerer, trading your highest level spell known for a glorified Toughness feat (well, it's technically Toughness x1.5, but still) is an awful, awful deal.

[Kurald Galain]

Getting 16 BAB is pure theory op, because your character will be playing little or no time at all at level 20. So you can safely ignore that part.

[Darg]

Spells for sure. If you were planning on going epic you might have a choice considering the low touch AC of the massive creatures, but that is niche and really mundane for epic levels.

[Quertus]

Getting 16 BAB is pure theory op, because your character will be playing little or no time at all at level 20. So you can safely ignore that part.

I mean, of if they go high epic, the character may spend more than half of their career with 16 BAB.

Still, I think that the trap main benefit is in increased chance to hit. If you hit half the time, +1 BAB represents a 10% increased in your expected DPS.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I mean, of they go high epic, the character may spend more than half of their career with 16 BAB.

Still, I think that the trap benefit is in increased chance to hit. If you hit half the time, +1 BAB represents a 10% increased in your expected DPS.

That's true but it you're only hitting half the time as a high level warrior, nevermind an epic one, you've got a lot bigger problem than not getting that last iterative and need way more than 1 more point to your attack bonus.

[Kurald Galain]

I mean, of they go high epic,

Please check the top post in this thread for the words "high" or "epic", then consider how likely this actually is. Come on, we'll wait. :smallamused:

[ZamielVanWeber]

We are running Shackled City, but unlike AoW we will have 4 people so 20: yes; epic: no. I am generally of the opinion that the 4th attack is not worth it, but I wanted to be sure since I will have little time to change my mind by the time I pick up sorc levels.

Since someone asked: I need the martial weapon proficieny that those two provide to get into abjurant champion.

[Endarire]

@OP: You could take a race that gives you martial weapon proficiency, like Savage Aasimar (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20040213a). This way, you can be a standard Sor and get darkvision, the Outsider type, and +2 CHA for 0 level adjustment. (Because this is a web article Savage Progression, you don't need to take all levels of it.)

When playing Shackled City, I played a gestalt Savage Aasimar Sor || CHA-Based Cleric because we played gestalt, and I still died. (The module is intentionally difficult, but doable, like Dark Souls.)

[Ramza00]

I am playing an enlightened fist and am a situation where I need to either take 3 levels of stalwart sorcerer or 3 levels of battle sorcerer. Battle sorcerer would give me BAB 16 and thus a 4th attack, while stalwart sorcerer would grand me markedly more spells. I know I will be one of the front liners in the party. That is my essential question: my 4th attack vs my spells. Any insight on which I should value more highly would be great.

The whole point of 16 BAB at LVL 20 is you do not play LVL 20 in most games, and if you really care about the 4th attack at 20 you are not caring about 20 but instead playing 3.5 epic rules and your DM will not allow you to get 16 BAB via level 21 on.

It is about the elegance of the idea on a piece of paper instead of the lived actual play of a character where you are playing that character and 1 higher BAB is 5% higher success rate on attack rolls and at specific levels you get a 2nd or 3rd attack sooner than a gish build that does not prioritize BAB.

[Quertus]

That's true but it you're only hitting half the time as a high level warrior, nevermind an epic one, you've got a lot bigger problem than not getting that last iterative and need way more than 1 more point to your attack bonus.

I think you can get off… 8 attacks with 15 BAB. If 4 of those hit, that's a 50% hit rate.

… yeah, I think I'd be trying to find ways to increase those numbers. Even moreso if it's a (non-pounce) charge build that misses the charge / their single attack roughly 50% of the time


Please check the top post in this thread for the words "high" or "epic", then consider how likely this actually is. Come on, we'll wait. :smallamused:

Likely? Not very, even before the OP came back and said "no".

But since they didn't exclude the possibility at that point, and since there's folks at home reading this thread who *may* go epic, I thought it was worth mentioning.

Also, that was supposed to be "if" :smallredface:

[Kelb_Panthera]

I think you can get off… 8 attacks with 15 BAB. If 4 of those hit, that's a 50% hit rate.

… yeah, I think I'd be trying to find ways to increase those numbers. Even moreso if it's a (non-pounce) charge build that misses the charge / their single attack roughly 50% of the time

I thought you meant 50% on the primary attack. If you're getting 50% overall that +1 is worth even less and the extra attack in a set of 7+ is outright worthless.

If you have a level appropriate bonus between levels 17 and 20 then that last attack at -15 might just be at around 50% if you're a punches-in-bunches, two-weapon fighting type but your first 5 attacks out of that 8 hit routine are only missing with nat 1s in that case. That to-hit is unusually high as well, to be quite frank, even if you have the full "your ECL and BAB are the same" base attack. That or you have a consistent way to target flat-foot or touch AC.

More likely, your primary and haste attack are only missing on nat 1 and that sad little final iterative is only landing about one time in 4 as long as you're not taking a to-hit penalty for some option or other like twf or power attack.

If your primary is at 50%, I have to assume you're focused on making just that one attack count since the attack(s) at -10 and beyond are only hitting on nat 20 and even the -5 is only hitting one time out of four. At level 6, those odds are tolerable, barely. At 16+, absolutely not.

Of course, OP could just wyrm wizard divine power into himself and moot the whole point.

[Endarire]

Wraithstrike (Sor/Wiz2) from Spell Compendium helps your attacks, and by level 20 you should also have shapechange anyway, meaning your fourth attack in normal form probably won't matter.

[ZamielVanWeber]

After reading the feedback, especially Ramsay's excellent answer, I realized I was being too rigid about this. That being said I am now investigating a tashlatora/ardent option as well. Thank you all!

[Maat Mons]

If you aren't set on 16 BAB, maybe try a Skillful weapon? It a +2 property that sets your BAB to 3/4 your level for purposes of attacks with that weapon. Slap it on a a Necklace of Natural Attacks for all your punching needs.

The downside to relying ona Skillful weapon is, you don't actually get good a fighting until mid levels, when you can buy the item. But then again, most gishes aren't actually very gishy until mid levels anyway.

Another downside is you're reliant on magic items. But so are a lot of characters, so maybe not that big a deal?



If you're interested in a Tashalatora build, consider basing it on Psion instead of Ardent. It does give you a couple of extra hoops to jump through, but you'll have a much better selection of powers (unless you were planning on abusing Psychic Cheurgery).

You can do Monk 1 / Psion 19, and use the Skillful property on a Necklace of Natural Attacks to make up for the poor base attack bonus. Or you could do something involving Slayer, and key your Tashalatora feat to that, adding your Monk and Slayer levels together for assorted benefits. Once you hit Monk 1 / Psion 6 / Slayer 10, you'll have your Flurry of Blows maxed out, and you'll have enough Unarmed Strike progression to push it up to max with a Monk's Belt and a Monk's Tattoo.

In either case you can take one of three feats to switch your Monk AC bonus to key off of Int.

[ZamielVanWeber]

I have the rebuild mantles ACF on ardent so I ended up raiding the psychic warrior list for a few juicy things, plus I intend to DCFS away my armor proficiencies as soon as I can afford to. I have fractional BAB so I won't lose any BAB to monk/ardent and not needing skillful leaves options open, such as Wrathful Healing for extra bulkiness or graceful strikes to remove Str from the equation.

[Cerefel]

A lot of people say that a +1BAB attack isn't going to hit much at high levels, which is true by default but once you add in things like true strike, arcane strike, and/or wraithstrike that becomes much less realistic

[Venger]

We are running Shackled City, but unlike AoW we will have 4 people so 20: yes; epic: no. I am generally of the opinion that the 4th attack is not worth it, but I wanted to be sure since I will have little time to change my mind by the time I pick up sorc levels.

Since someone asked: I need the martial weapon proficieny that those two provide to get into abjurant champion.

If you can't get it through race as mentioned, you're better off taking 1 or more levels of ruathar which will grant it, in addition to improving your ba.

[Psyren]

It's not as simple as saying "if your highest iteratives have {less than 90%} chance to hit, the lowest iteratives are worthless." Remember that lower iteratives don't have to be aimed at the same target - and in fact, they frequently won't be if your first few iteratives succeed at dropping that first target. Another complicating factor is attacks that can debuff the target in some way, such as your top attacks sundering their armor or applying poison etc which increase the odds of the lower iteratives hitting.