Calculating BAB for multiclassed characters?

Midknight · Post by **Midknight** » Thu May 20, 2004 5:40 am

See title. I've always been curious as to how the BAB and # of attacks were calculated for a multiclassed character.

Post by **tindertwiggy** » Thu May 20, 2004 5:44 am

let's say you have Fighter 7, Rogue 3.

Your BAB would be the base attack bonus for a 7th level fighter (7), plus the base attack bonus for a 3rd level rogue (2).

7+2=9. The BAB would be 9/4.

Malathyre · Post by **Malathyre** » Thu May 20, 2004 5:47 am

Ok, no problem. Pull out your handy dandy (almost useful, but not quite) HotU manual. Flip to page 90. Find your character's first class on the chart, and match it up with his level. Find your character's second class on the chart, and match that up to his level. Add the two highest numbers in the attack bonus, and there you go.

Example 1: Fighter 7/Cleric 7

Fighter at level 7: +7/+2
Cleric at level 7: +5

Total BAB: 12, with extra attacks at +7 and +2.

Example 2: Ranger 6/Wizard 5/Rogue5

Ranger at 6: +6/+1
Wizard at 5: +2
Rogue at 5: +3

Total BAB: 11, with extra attacks at +6 and +1.

Capisce?

Edit: Twiggy beats me to the punch. Oh well.

Midknight · Post by **Midknight** » Thu May 20, 2004 5:51 am

Hmm... does that apply to # of attacks too?

So say a Wizard/Fighter has (making this up for convenience) +2 BAB for the Wizard levels, and +6/+1 for the fighter levels. Is his BAB now +8/+1? Or does he lose the second attack?

I'm asking this because I remember reading a post about how Wizard 20/Fighter 20 get only 2 attacks but Fighter 20/Wizard 20 gets 4 attacks per round...

Cazaton · Post by **Cazaton** » Thu May 20, 2004 6:06 am

It becomes +8/+3, it adds to all of them

Albion · Post by **Albion** » Thu May 20, 2004 6:09 am

The reason is that you only gain extra attacks up to level 20.

So the level 20 fighter would have the four attacks per round if that was the first class then you added the wizard levels.

But if you had 20 levels of wizard first then added 20 fighter levels. You would not get you any more than the 2 attacks per round you got from the wizard levels.

KinX · Post by **KinX** » Thu May 20, 2004 11:36 am

The way gaining an extra attack works is you get your first extra attack at 6 BAB and a new attack every 5 after that. So you get new attacks at BAB's 6, 11 and 16.

Going by that, you should get a new attack at BAB 21 right? theoretically, you would. However, once you hit a total character level of 20, you can no longer get BAB increases. You can only get AB increases.

That's why a 20/20 wizard/fighter who gets 20 wiz levs first can only ever have two attacks.

Make sense?

sarek88 · Post by **sarek88** » Thu May 20, 2004 10:07 pm

basically if you are either a rogue, bard, cleric, or druid, you have to take 4 levels of a melee class (paladin, barbarian, fighter, etc.) before level 20 in order to get 4 attacks per round.

Beary666 · Post by **Beary666** » Fri May 21, 2004 2:09 am

but if you really wanted to you could get six attacks per round with a 16monk/4 fighter i think. Add dual kamas (improved 2 weapon fighting), fury of blows and haste, and you can get 10 attacks per round

Post by **tindertwiggy** » Fri May 21, 2004 2:26 am

Uh you sure about that? 5 for the monks levels, 2 from improved two weapon fighting, 1 from flurry, 1 from haste.... That makes for 9 a round or am I missing something? This may be moot though, As I always understood it, the NWN engine tops out at 7 attacks a round. This was research done several patches ago, so it may be different now.

Beary666 · Post by **Beary666** » Fri May 21, 2004 2:32 am

The fighter levels will get you a sixth attack

Post by **tindertwiggy** » Fri May 21, 2004 2:43 am

Beary666 · Post by **Beary666** » Fri May 21, 2004 2:44 am

but really, it is pointless to do that with Kamas because your fists will be a lot nastier and you don't want to waste the feats for imp 2 weapon fighting

Titanium Dragon · Post by **Titanium Dragon** » Fri May 21, 2004 3:42 am

Yeah, its a biobug that it works that way. And ten is a LOT of attacks.

KinX · Post by **KinX** » Fri May 21, 2004 4:34 am

Titanium Dragon wrote:Yeah, its a biobug that it works that way. And ten is a LOT of attacks.

i can't remember where i saw it, but i saw a post a while ago where someone actually calculated the attacks of this particular monk build with the dual wielding kama's. I can't remember most of it, because it was a very long time ago, but basically, the last 4-5 attacks were virtually useless because of the low BAB he'd be striking with, he'd only hit on a natural 20, plus even with +5 Kama's, the amount of damage this build would be doing per attack would be miniscule. That's if i recall correctly.

I'm sure someone here has the time to actually prove this...but i don't

Aerill · Post by **Aerill** » Fri May 21, 2004 8:07 am

Beary666 wrote:but if you really wanted to you could get six attacks per round with a 16monk/4 fighter i think. Add dual kamas (improved 2 weapon fighting), fury of blows and haste, and you can get 10 attacks per round

And if you would want 12 attacks, add cleric and use Divine Power a lot..

mortzestus · Post by **mortzestus** » Fri May 21, 2004 1:03 pm

A monk dualwielding kamas is the cheesiest piece of crap ever. The monk special number of attacks already takes into account that he is fighting with his whole body. So dualwielding kamas is an exploit, as bad as when monks could fight with a shield without losing their special abilities.

A monk using a kama as his offhand weapon should never get extra offhand attacks, simple as that.

WrathOG777 · Post by **WrathOG777** » Fri May 21, 2004 9:56 pm

Just theorizing now, will verify what happens in game with my test mod later.

16 fighter / 4 monk
16 bab + 3 bab = 19 bab
19/16/13/10/7/4/1 (unarmed or kama)
17/17/14/11/8/5/2/-1 (+flurry)
15/15/15/12/9/6/4/0/-3 (+dual wield kama)
15/15/15/12/12/9/6/4/0/-3 (+imp dual wield kama)
15/15/15/15/12/12/9/6/4/0/-3 (+haste)

to get realistic, adding bonuses for a halfling (one of the better races for the dual kama monk) 20dex start +5adv +3 bracers -> 28 (+9)
+1 focus +1 small +8 dex +1 burning kamas = +11

Leaving haste out of it, because the build itself does not have access...

26/26/26/23/23/20/17/15/11/8

That is six-seven attacks that don't suck for to-hit. But they will probably be doing...

1d6 +2 str +2 fire +2 spec on-hand
1d6 +1 str +2 fire +2 spec off-hand

so that is...

26/26/23/20/17/15/11/8 at 7-12 (19-20x2)
26/23 at 6-11 (19-20x2)

Now... buffed by tiras, this guy would kick some major ass!!!
He would have haste,
26/26/26/26/23/23/20/17/15/11/8
would have +5 firery keen Kamas and be bulls and cats (assuming +4 or 5)
32/32/32/32/29/29/26/23/22/17/14

1d6 +4 str +2 fire +2 spec +10 fire +1d4 fire on-hand
1d6 +2 str +2 fire +2 spec +10 fire +1d4 fire off-hand

32/32/32//29/26/23/22/17/14 at 20-28 (18-20x2)
32/29 at 18-26 (18-20x2)

Post by **tindertwiggy** » Fri May 21, 2004 10:38 pm

dunno if halflings can finess kamas.

elf might work better.

Fuzz · Post by **Fuzz** » Fri May 21, 2004 10:42 pm

tindertwiggy wrote:dunno if halflings can finess kamas.

elf might work better.

Kamas are tiny, so they can.

Titanium Dragon · Post by **Titanium Dragon** » Fri May 21, 2004 10:43 pm

By the way, there's an easy way of calculating BaB:

There are three types of BaB:

Fighter type: +1 BaB/level
Cleric/Rogue/Monk type: +3/4ths BaB/level
Wizard type: +1/2 BaB/level

Round to the nearest whole number for each class.

Thus, a cleric 10/wizard 5:

10 x 3/4 = 30/4 = 7.5 = 7
5 x 1/2 = 5/2 = 2.5 = 2

7+2 = 9

Thus, the character would have a BaB of 9/4.

WrathOG777 · Post by **WrathOG777** » Sat May 22, 2004 6:54 pm

tried it out and elf did look better. halflings can use the kamas, but get the -4 instead of -2. HP were pretty low, since it was an elf with 8 con, forgot to note them though.

These are the numbers of the character sheet (no flurry or haste)
4f 1m AC 23
10/7 1d6+7 (20x2)
10 1d6+5

8f 2m AC 26
16/13/10 1d6+7 (19-20x2)
16 1d6+5

12f 3m AC 27
21/18/15/12/9 1d6+7 (19-20x2)
21/18 1d6+5

16f 4m AC 29
27/24/21/18/15/12 1d6+7 (19-20x2)
27/24 1d6+5

I imagine if you had a complete disregaurd for defence a str base half-orc fighter/monk would be the biggest damage dealer ever, think I am gona try that...

WrathOG777 · Post by **WrathOG777** » Sat May 22, 2004 11:25 pm

This got me thinking. Sure this is a nifty powergaming combo, but what would be an interesting IC concept that would come out roughly similar?

Well, there is at least one gorethar monk I know, and dwarves favor fighters. So a dwarven fighter/monk of gorethar makes sence, but then I thought why not take it one step further... A paladin monk. A real dwarf of the cloth that shuns flashy armor instead relying on wisdom for above to aid him/her in their quest to smite undead!

You would be making your kama undead bane by 5th lvl.
by 13th lvl you would be significantly enchanting your kama with greater magic weapon too.

10str 16dex/con/wis 10int 6cha(the hammer's best bud hehe)
16paladin 4monk AC 22 naked (same as non-enchanted plate witha towershield) and 226 hp when I did it, results may vary.
30/27/24/21/18/15 with +5 undead bane(2d6) kamas
30/27 off hand

Titanium Dragon · Post by **Titanium Dragon** » Sat May 22, 2004 11:32 pm

Yeah, but in PnP that's an impossible combination, given that you have to start out as a paladin or monk, and cannot take levels in them after you've multiclassed out of them. Yeah, I know it doesn't work that way in NWN, nor do pally abilities go away as they should when you change alignment, yadda yadda yadda. *grumbles about bioware and decides he's grumpy today and goes and eats sugar*

WrathOG777 · Post by **WrathOG777** » Sat May 22, 2004 11:40 pm

but on avlis that would be a kick as idea!