BAB & Skill based attack

[Gnusam Netor]

Originally posted by Turin2:
I'm working on a completely Skill-Based BAB System ... see below.
I base everything on 8 Weapon Proficiency Skills :
Unarmed, Melee, Pistol, Rifle, Heavy Weapon, Starship, Vehicle, Throwing

Any comments and/or ideas ?

Thanks
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- Attacks -
- Weapon Skills determine your Base Attack Bonus.
- You can't increase Weapon Skills with normal Skill-Points ! Instead they are developed with Weapon Skill Points (WSP), which are determined by the Class of the PC. Each Character Class has an Entry about how many WSPs you get when you reach a new level.
- Unused Weapon Skill Points are kept vor 1 Level and are forfeit after that.
- There is a Limit to the Development of all given Weapon Skills determined by the level of the Class in which you reach a new level
(see BAB-Max-PCs.xls).
- When your Weapon Skill-Bonus reaches +6 / +11 / +16, you gain the possibility for a second / third / fourth Attack. You have to
spend an additional Weapon Skill Point per Weapon Skill to activate this Second/Third/Fourth Attack. After spending this point, it
increases further with the Primary Weapon Skill at no additional Cost.
- Weapon Proficiency Feats determine in which Weapon Skills you may Spend your Weapon Skill Points when reaching a new Level.
- If you don't have a Weapon Proficiency Feat, you are at a basic -4 at using a Weapon of this Type and can's spend WSPs on that
particular Weapon Type.

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There may be exceptions to these rules via the following Feats:

Combat Training (Basic / Advanced / Professional)
- Gain 4 Weapon Skill Points (usable up to three times)

Smooth Fighter
- You may get an additional Attack in a Weapon Skill one point before the normal cyclus once !(usable more than once, not stackable)

Weapon Expert (Basic / Advanced / Professional)
(Prerequisites : BAB +0 / +5 / +10)
- Gain a Skill Maximum of +1 in any one Weapon Skill you are already proficient with (Maximum still is 20) (usable more than once, stackable max. 3 times)

Weapon Proficiency (specify)
- gain a Weapon Proficiency as Proficiency for the Class you just reached a new level in

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When Fighting with Two Hand Weapons/Pistols you gain exactly 1 additional Attack !

Multi-Classing :
You may advance only in Weapon Proficiencies of the Class you advanced in plus all Weapon Proficiencies, which were added by a feat.

Turin2, i have allways disliked the BAB concept myself and been in favor of a skill based attack system, like old CT or MT. But there is a problem with that too, that of the:

best sharp-shooter in the world with a laser rifle - dirt poor with a gauss rifle. Or to use your terminology, BAB with rifle 20 - BAB with pistol 1. That does not make sense either.

I propose a middle way of the two systems.

1.
BAB is divided into two, melee (str) and ranged (dex), just like in normal D20.

2.
BAB increases at most 0.5 per level

3.
You can buy skilllevels (or attack bonus) in any weaponclass feat you have up to your relevant BAB, melee or ranged. So if you max out for one weaponfeat you get "normal_D20_BAB" in that weaponclass.

4. Skilllevels for those classes that have higher than 0.5 BAB/lvl progression, get extra 2-4 weaponskills/lvl

or something like that... what do you think? Anyone?

ps. Martial training (T20) is a mmmonster, i think you should only get one extra BAB per feat taken, and you should only be allowed to take it two, three times (trice?).

 

[Pickles]

Another option is to allow a synergy bonus for similar weapons. For example, a character with 5 ranks in rifle gets +2 with a shotgun.

You might want to have relatively few weapon skills, applied to a number of weapons. Rifle skill could be used for rifles, carbies, auto rifles, ACRs, gauss rifles and assault rifles.

 

[archhealer]

I saw a skill based system once where BAB points cost three points... sort of a super-cross class. Specific groups of weapons (Rifles, shotguns, handguns, long blades, short blades, etc.) Cost two points for a bonus. Single weapons specializations cost one point. The idea was, it's actually easier to get REALLY good with just one weapon, rather than competent with all weaponso f that type, or fighting in general.

I liked it, but we never did get it to work just right; meshing it with the rest of the skill system was tough.

 

[tjoneslo]

I think Bromgrev has it correct. You want only a very few weapon skills to make this work. D&D has "Simple", "Martial" and "Exotic". D20 Modern adds "Personal Firearms", "Advanced Firearms", and "Exotic Firearms". T20 adds "Vehicle Gunnery" and "Starship Gunnery". A total of 8 skills. The Exotic weapon skill covers all the strange weapons and like Profession or Craft requires selecting a specific weapons as a sub-skill.

There are two downsides to simply making attack skills. Mr. Netor notes one: You need to balance the martial classes (which have only a few skill points) with the skill classes (which have an abundance). A simple fix is to give all classes 6 or 8 skill points per level. In reality, you would need to re-balance all of the classes.

The second is the D20 assumption about how BAB (or attack skill) advances. My preference would be to not require additional skill rules specifically for the combat skills. If you give some classes the combat skills as class skills and not others you end up with two "BAB" progressions: Level + 3 and (Level + 3)/2: A maximum of 23 or 11. This would be instead of the usual D20's three progressions or T20's four. If the fewer number of BAB progressions and some characters will be more skilled with weapons at low level than usual D20 characters does not bother you, this works great.

Final point: Cost for combat skills does not need to change. I've built a Class Construction Guide , which gives a point guide to class features (Like BAB or skills). A +1 BAB costs 3 points. A skill point costs 0.25 points. Dividing the BAB across 8 skills means each level of BAB (all possible skills) costs about the same as a normal BAB.

Edit: I realised using the above scale we can figure out the skill points required for the classes: A class with +20 BAB adds 12 skill points per level, A class with +15 BAB adds 9 skill points per level, a +10 BAB adds 6 skill points per level, and a +5 BAB adds 3 skill points per level. For example, Academics now have 11 skill points per level and Marines have 14 skill points per level . Which balances as Marines are supposed to be spending most of their skill points on weapons skills.

 

[stofsk]

Are we sure we're not making this skill based system too complex?

Why not simplify it somewhat: you have four 'attack' skills, Melee, Ranged, Initiative and Gunnery. They're cross-class skills unless you take the Hobby feat. But I have a house rule which says that all skill ranks cost a skill point, cross-class or otherwise (thus the limiting factor with cross-class skills is not the amount of points you spend to buy a rank as well as the level limit, only the level limit).

Ok so you have Melee skill. Does that mean you can use *all* melee weapons? Does that mean you can box like Bruce Lee? No. That's where the feats come into play. If you have a feat that says you're a fencer then you can pick up that foil and apply your Melee skill. Otherwise you get the same -4 penalty that would apply if we still had the BAB system. This might lead to an Academic having a high attack skill but no corresponding Weapon Proficiencies. Thus those skill points would be wasted unless he were to multiclass or take a WP Feat at level up.

Your Weapon Proficiencies will still play a major part. As for extra skill points: give the Merc, Marine and Barbarian 4 + Int mod skill points per level up rather than the 2 + Int mod. I would have changed this anyway because 2 is way too few in my opinion. Your attack skills will never be that high unless you spend feats as well as skill points (which takes away from other skills and feats too remember) to raise them. More important is to get a really GOOD weapon. Lasers with beam splitters, a highly modded ACR with HUD display, or a masterwork Hanzo Hattori sword (whatever, you get the idea) made from expensive materials rather than a cheap generic blade you get at a knife shop. I'd confer an 'equipment bonus' from such premier weapons that can keep you competitive in a fight.

Initiative I include as an attack skill because I see it being highly useful in a fight. He who hits first has an advantage in combat. It also forces you to prioritise where you place your skill points. Do you dump all your points into ranged because you have a ACR? Or do you spread some of them into Initiative because it matters who pulls the trigger first? Of course as the saying goes it doesn't matter who hits first, all that matters is who hits last.

Thoughts?

 

[loconius]

Several thoughts actually… I feel that traveler should have included a defense attribute, so you could add another skill called defense. But if you want to keep with as pure a T20 as possible, leave it out.

I don’t think you should have an initiative skill, mainly because there is no current mechanic to increase your initiative. I like your skills otherwise stofsk:

Close Quarters Combat [Melee Combat]
Ranged Combat
Vehicle Weaponry [this could include times where you want to use your vehicle’s tools as weapons, grapple arms, lifting cranes swung at air rafts ]

I personally enjoy removing vehicle gunnery and just govern their use between the two skills with proficiency being determined with feats. But again to keep it as “close to T20 as possible” you want to maintain the “Gunnery” skill.

Now for the best BAB progression [referred from here on out by their ratio BAB:Level or 1:1] the character could get two extra skill points per level, and 8 at first. For the 1:1.5 progressions, the character gets one extra skill point per level, and 4 extra at first. For the 1:2 and 1:4 progression, their skill points remain unchanged, but all combat skills count as cross class skills [except Gunnery which is already outlined as to who gets it as a class skill and who doesn’t]

This I feel is the easiest way to maintain the same ease of use that d20 affords most of its game lines [t20 included], first level characters will start off a little better at fighting [+4/+2 instead of +1/+0], but will be more specialized [melee only or ranged only usually]. This will not affect vehicle combat from the way it works now at all [since gunnery already was a skill].

If its just not enough combat skills, or if you want to more simulate a +1 progression like BAB does, I would suggest splitting the skills further: Unarmed Combat, Armed Combat, Powered Ranged Combat, and Muscle Ranged Combat. Keep the unarmed combat feats [keep all feats really], as a bar brawler still might not know how to effectively combat a swordsmen!

ON A SIDE NOTE
With all this work, it’s almost as if someone could just do away with classes all together

C Love