I've done the 2nd Edition pen and paper for quite some time as well. It seemed downright unnatural to have any kind of DnD game without THAC0 and without confusing AC. As much as I'm a traditionalist and am stubborn about things like this, I must admit this method of AC is much easier. I just can't for the life of me figure out base attack bonuses with all the slashes. Ahhhh.... Feh.

The Base Attack Bonus is further down the character sheet, just scroll down and you'll see it.

But it doesn't make any sense to me. What the heck does +1/+4/+3/+2 mean? I keep referencing the PHB but still don't really get it. I haven't yet DM'd a 3.0 game involving extensive combat.

[ 01-14-2004, 05:30 PM: Message edited by: Illumina Drathiran'ar ]

If I understand the rules correctly...

+15/+10/+5 etc is your Attack Bonus. As you can see from my example you would do 3 attacks per round with these numbers, one at +15, one at +10 and one at +5. Now, I believe that the first number (15) is you Base Attack Bonus plus any modifiers such as from Strength, Dexterity with Weapon Finesse, weapons, spells etc. Your first attack always has the highest chance of hitting, while the following ones has lesser and lesser chance to hit. As you can see you get -5 to the following attack compared to the one before. IIRC this applies to all character classes except for the Monk who only has a -3 to the following hits.

To summarize, Base Attack Bonus (BAB) is your general ability to fight depending on your class(es) while Attack Bonus (AB) is your 'real' skill in fighting and can be modified with spells, weapons etc. The number of numbers in the AB shows how many attacks per round you currently have.

[ 01-14-2004, 05:51 PM: Message edited by: Stratos ]

Ohhhhhh, of course!!! I remember now.. Thank you very much.

Well I am a veteran P&P player from the old 1E days and I just played my first 3/3.5E P&P game over Christmas and I must admit I *REALLY* like the new rules. However, I can understand what Illumina said about extensive combat along with other mechanics as well. I am hoping NWN will teach me as I go along.

I suggest you enable everything you can when it comes to feedback, if you wish to learn from the game.

Good idea about enabling feedback in NWN - it also helps you to work out why you're not hitting/damaging a particularly tricky foe so you can rethink your combat - especially useful for people like me who don't know enough about it to look at a monster and think 'oh I need +3 weapons to hit that, it's more vulnerable to piercing damage, and its attacks are going to do fire damage so let's see what elemental protection I can rig up...'

Personally I think the 3rd edition rules are much more straightforward and it's easier to work out whether you're likely to get sliced down the middle by the first goblin you encounter!

but why did they change the weapon allowances from diffrent classes?

As much as i love a weapon toting wiz, using a crossbow , feels a little odd. dunno maybe its me...

They didn't. They took away the ridiculous "Clerics can't use bladed weapons" and arbitrary rules like that specific to the game. Some clerics' first instincts would be to pick up a bladed weapon. Corellon Larethian's favored weapon is the longsword, and his clerics would surely be trained in its use... not to mention any other elf raised by elves. And what about daggers? Evil clerics use daggers all the time. It was just a way to balance the classes. And there is a thread on one of the BG2 forums which states, "WHY can't wizards use clubs?" In NWN it makes more sense.

And a wizard is supposed to be smart. Don't you think they could figure out a crossbow?

[ 01-16-2004, 12:39 PM: Message edited by: Illumina Drathiran'ar ]