Level Dependent Scaling Values, Saves, BAB, AC, and other th

Strung Nether · Post by **Strung Nether** » Sat Apr 09, 2011 11:34 pm

I got a little bored and drunk, so I decided to do some math. I found that:

->"good" saving throws are basically equivalent to .5*(Character Level)+2, rounded down

->"bad" saving throws are basically equivalent to (1/3)*(Character Level), rounded down

->"save DC" for most spells is equivalent to .5*(character level), rounded up. It also stops scaling at level 17.

This means that if you ignore Attribute differences, a spell usually only has a 40% chance of working against a "good" save, while the chance for success against a bad save starts at around 55%, reach the peak of 70% at Level 17, and go down to 65% at level 18+. To me, this seems like a bit of a crapshoot. The numbers look nice, but the actual differences between the success rate for good and bad saves jumps all over. I had a different idea:

I got rid of the spell level modifier in the save DC so that the DC scaling stopped being retarded after level 17. Next I Defined the average of the "good" and "bad" save bonus to be equal to the average save DC for that level, meaning that all things averaged a spell would work 1/2 of the time. Next, I added a sub-calculation that slowly moved the "good" save higher and the "bad" save lower relative to the average DC. This means that as you level up, its more important that you use the right kind of spells on the right enemy.

The next problem comes when leveling up actually makes your save go down, or up twice. Even though the first graph is mathematically what I wanted, the numbers look bad and arbitrary...and no-one like leveling up to loose power. So then i made the base dc=10+caster level, and the math looks and works wonderfully. it even works great for multi-classing(just add the save bonuses from each class...and the math works).

Graphs Here

What do you think? Is this better than the PHB saves?

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Sun Apr 10, 2011 1:34 am

Personally, if I were to redo it, I'd get rid of all good and bad save progressions, and have all DCs and saves go up at a rate of one per two levels. Then, you'd pick up a "good" progression by either a class feature, feat, or something.

I don't like in 3.x that there are two separate progressions, and I don't like the sharp +2 bonus you get when multiclassing.

TOZ · Post by **TOZ** » Sun Apr 10, 2011 7:04 am

What should the "good" progression end up being at 20th, if the "poor" is 1/2? Equal to level? 3/4?

Antariuk · Post by **Antariuk** » Sun Apr 10, 2011 11:07 am

RobbyPants wrote:Personally, if I were to redo it, I'd get rid of all good and bad save progressions, and have all DCs and saves go up at a rate of one per two levels. Then, you'd pick up a "good" progression by either a class feature, feat, or something.

I don't like in 3.x that there are two separate progressions, and I don't like the sharp +2 bonus you get when multiclassing.

Totally agree on removing the enormous saving throw benefits of multiclassing, but why not having good and bad progressions? If all three saves (assuming you keep those) are the same and you need to invest feats to make them any better, wouldn't we have option paralysis again? If you want to go that way, I'd take Trailblazer's approach and say "Two good saving throws of your choice". And class feature... I'd say this is what we have right now, being good at will saves is a class feature of every full spellcaster, no?

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sun Apr 10, 2011 1:41 pm

The 'two good' saving throws things leads to situations where eventually someone will always fail a saving throw in their bad category.

This may or may not be desirable for your game (I say it isn't, since it frustrates players to have such a large weakness) but I can certainly see why someone would want to eliminate it.

Me, if I was setting up saving throws/defenses here's how I would do it. Only the following things affect these:

[*] The universal configuration of characters that mundanes can use, mostly for AC though I'm willing to allow armor-based bonus/penalties to other stats. Meaning that if your defenses suck because you forgot to put on your armor or didn't say your morning prayers, tough cookiepuss.

[*] Base Level Bonus. This causes everyone's defenses to go up uniformly, to preserve the privileges of high-level characters but without causing intra-level divergence. There's no such thing as a good save or a bad defense or whatever. The idea of a fighter failing a will save on a 13 or lower is fine, but the idea of a fighter eventually coming to fail a will save on a 19 or lower is retarded.

[*] Magical items. But there isn't such a thing as mandatory +4 cloaks of defense or that crap. If you get a magical item bonus to a defense or anything, it's supposed to be a character-defining benefit. Meaning that 20th level characters will do a backflip over getting one of the 100 +2 cloaks of defense in the world rather than feeling gypped or entitled.

[*] One-time 1st-level class-based stat drift. A wizard gets a one-time +4 bonus to will, a +2 bonus to reflex, and a -2 penalty to AC and fortitude. A rogue gets a +3 bonus to reflex, a -1 penalty to AC, a -1 penalty to will, and a +1 penalty to fortitude. A paladin gets a +2 bonus to all defense scores. Etc.. In combination with the above affects, this will cause players to remain the same distance in defense from each other their entire careers. It's okay for people to shift around defense points within their class such as a fighter deciding to go from einhander (+1 to reflex) to two-handed fighter (+1 to fortitude) but the shift should only be done by things that people could've changed as 1st-level characters.

[*] Temporary combat situational modifiers, like a rogue hitting someone with Crippling Strike or a paladin activating Sphere of Defense. Actually, this is kind of a lie. Only attack should be modified. Mostly because it's easier to keep track of one temporarily changing number than 3 or 4.

[*] Temporary DM-fiat situational bonuses/penalties, such as weather, getting a kiss on the cheek by a pretty princess, getting sick, etc.. Players do not control this nor should this last for more than a few scenes.

And that's seriously it. No feats, no magical item marts, no racial bonuses, no attributes, no class features, none of that shit.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Mon Apr 11, 2011 12:17 pm

Antariuk wrote:Totally agree on removing the enormous saving throw benefits of multiclassing, but why not having good and bad progressions? If all three saves (assuming you keep those) are the same and you need to invest feats to make them any better, wouldn't we have option paralysis again? If you want to go that way, I'd take Trailblazer's approach and say "Two good saving throws of your choice". And class feature... I'd say this is what we have right now, being good at will saves is a class feature of every full spellcaster, no?

Well, you'd still have good and bad saves, but not good and bad progressions. I'm proposing all saves have the same slope, but the good ones have a higher Y-intercept. In 3E, good saves get a better slope and Y-intercept.

As Lago said, you end up with people always failing their bad save at high levels because you just can't afford to keep it on the RNG.

Strung Nether · Post by **Strung Nether** » Mon Apr 11, 2011 3:43 pm

The idea was that for the "good" and "bad" save progression to get slightly "better" and "worse" as the levels got higher, so that people would be forced more to adapt to strengths and weaknesses. 1st level characters are often very similar, and I wanted to keep it that way.

Potential problem: due to the "bad" save getting progressively worse, If the caster is good at exploiting the bad saves anyways, the casters spells just get more effective as he levels, due to him never worrying about the bad saves. Is this a feature or a problem?

@LagioPAranoid:
Actually, At level 20, with my system, your "good" save is just a +6 over your "bad save". The spreadsheet I made to calculate this even has that as a variable modifier, so I can adjust how much the good and bad saves fly apart from each other as the levels get higher. If you assume stats and modifiers and accounted for, that means that a good save succeeds at a 8+ and a bad saves succeeds at a 14+. That's fairly good for keeping the RNG fuckery in check. The next thing you will have to do is make sure that +DC bonuses scale with the Save bonuses for items and feats and stuff. its not fair for one item to give a +4 DC, and one item to give +4 FORT. Maybe if the item gave a bonus to two saves... And why no feats or items or shit? If a player has only 8 Magic item slots, and only 1*feat/3*Levels, why cant they spend those on things like higher numbers instead of a new ability? As long as the monsters are not designed with these in mind, and the stacking is kept in check, they wont really be REQUIRED to have to beat the monsters. if someone's Stick is that they are a fighter who is best at killing arcane mages, why not let them turn bad saves into good ones with their feats?

Also: my system works perfectly with cross classing...just add the save bonuses. No special math involved. How would your "special class bonuses at level 1" work with cross classing? would the class that you took at first level matter? For the ease of math, I don't think that it should.

Also Also: Instead of the base spell DC being 10+CASTER LEVEL, and the save being SAVE BONUS+1D20, how about I make it so that the SAVE BONUS acts like ARMOR CLASS, and the caster rolls 1D20+Caster Level, and compares it to SAVE BONUS+10? So...CASTER LEVEL would be like BASE ATTACK BONUS, and SAVE BONUS would be like AC. Maybe then I could give the fighter types bad CASTER LEVEL progression and give them some magic abilities at higher levels...maybe.

Antariuk · Post by **Antariuk** » Tue Apr 12, 2011 10:25 am

RobbyPants wrote:
Antariuk wrote:Totally agree on removing the enormous saving throw benefits of multiclassing, but why not having good and bad progressions? If all three saves (assuming you keep those) are the same and you need to invest feats to make them any better, wouldn't we have option paralysis again? If you want to go that way, I'd take Trailblazer's approach and say "Two good saving throws of your choice". And class feature... I'd say this is what we have right now, being good at will saves is a class feature of every full spellcaster, no?
Well, you'd still have good and bad saves, but not good and bad progressions. I'm proposing all saves have the same slope, but the good ones have a higher Y-intercept. In 3E, good saves get a better slope and Y-intercept.

As Lago said, you end up with people always failing their bad save at high levels because you just can't afford to keep it on the RNG.

Ah ok, now I get you. Sounds reasonable. I am bad at math and never did the numbers, but wouldn't this be kinda unnecessary if you skip high-level D&D as we know it entirely?

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Tue Apr 12, 2011 1:18 pm

Antariuk wrote:Ah ok, now I get you. Sounds reasonable. I am bad at math and never did the numbers, but wouldn't this be kinda unnecessary if you skip high-level D&D as we know it entirely?

I guess. It's just, as it stands in 3E, as you gain levels, the disparity between your good and bad save gets worse and worse. If you don't multiclass, the difference never gets worse than 6 (not counting ability mods), which isn't too bad. It's when you start multiclassing that crap can get crazy. The worst case scenario is that you take a bunch of classes all or most with the same good save(s). Each time you do this, you add +2 to the good save, and if you don't take at least three levels, you don't boost your bad save. So, yes, low level D&D by definition prevents too much of this abuse.

I guess personally, I'd like to see them advance at a rate of 1/2 per level, and to have the base difference from good and bad be roughly four or five points. "Hybrid" classes might have a slightly smaller gap with a higher bad save and a lower good save.

Strung Nether · Post by **Strung Nether** » Tue Apr 12, 2011 6:33 pm

What do people think of my solution?

3.5 Problem: The SAVE BONUS vs. SPELL DC has some really weird behavior. The difference between the good save, bad save, and average spell dc changes almost randomly as you level, and cross classing just screws it up even more.

3.5 Save Defense Design Goals: Have a system with an average save dc, a good save, and a bad save that involves simple math, works with cross classing with no added special math, and allows good saves to get better while bad saves get worse as you level. Thus I have created three different graphs.

Solution:

The default 3.5 save progression.

Note that the difference between average DC vs. good save cycles between 1 and 2, the average dc vs. Bad save cycles between follows a pattern like 1-1-1-1-2-1-2-2-2-2-3-2...etc, and multi-classing simply doesn't work well because the Y-axis intercept for the good and bad save don't meet up.

My original custom progression.

The differences of Good vs. DC and Bad vs. DC are extremely uniform, and to cross class you simply add the saves together (10 levels of a good save and 10 levels of a bad save leave you with an "average save" equal to the spell DC.

My slightly modified custom progression.

This is the same as the original custom progression, except that bad saves don't get weaker over time. The end result of this is that instead of an actual "weakness" against some spells, monsters/characters simply get more resistant against certain spells while being equally affected by the others.

Other Solution:

There is only one save progression, and it scales linearly with the Spell DC. Level 1 of certain classes give things like "-2 fort, +2 will". I’m not sure how this will work with multiclassing, and you don’t get "better" or "worse" the levels go up, but it is much simpler.

Criticism please?

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Tue Apr 12, 2011 7:29 pm

SN wrote: The idea was that for the "good" and "bad" save progression to get slightly "better" and "worse" as the levels got higher, so that people would be forced more to adapt to strengths and weaknesses.

It's a stupid idea because people ALREADY do that. It's unnecessary to have an additional filter for powers because Permanent Image vs. Plane Shift already has a large enough difference in game effect that you can value these powers for tactical consideration as opposed to straight up math-hammering. There's not a lot of difference between Color Spray and Sleep at the low levels.

All it's doing is mathhammering certain powers out of consideration at the point in the game when they should be having the widest variety of effect. Causing save digressions to diverge does the exact opposite of that, by picking out player's powers for them before they even consider the additional tactical effect. If you really want to add tactical depth to the powers over time, you actually want saving throw differences to converge. 'Look at the lowest saving throw and mathhammer it' is boring as fuck if it's the overriding concern.

Strung Nether · Post by **Strung Nether** » Tue Apr 12, 2011 8:04 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:
SN wrote: The idea was that for the "good" and "bad" save progression to get slightly "better" and "worse" as the levels got higher, so that people would be forced more to adapt to strengths and weaknesses.
It's a stupid idea because people ALREADY do that. It's unnecessary to have an additional filter for powers because Permanent Image vs. Plane Shift already has a large enough difference in game effect that you can value these powers for tactical consideration as opposed to straight up math-hammering. There's not a lot of difference between Color Spray and Sleep at the low levels.

All it's doing is mathhammering certain powers out of consideration at the point in the game when they should be having the widest variety of effect. Causing save digressions to diverge does the exact opposite of that, by picking out player's powers for them before they even consider the additional tactical effect. If you really want to add tactical depth to the powers over time, you actually want saving throw differences to converge. 'Look at the lowest saving throw and mathhammer it' is boring as fuck if it's the overriding concern.

I would counter that if all monsters were equally resistant to every attempt to kill/negate them, the game would be even more boring than trying to find out which save is lower. Diverging, to me, seems like a good idea because it changes the way you choose your spells at different levels of the game. My favorite sacred cow for 3.x is that L1 and L20 are completely different games. At level 1, almost anything works. Wizard+crossbow has an almost equally good chance of killing an orc as a fighter+greatsword. Higher levels force you to use different tactics for different enemies by making some tactics completely useless and stupid. Good luck trying to grapple that huge monstrous centipede or trying to full attack that harpy.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Tue Apr 12, 2011 9:14 pm

Strung Nether wrote:Higher levels force you to use different tactics for different enemies by making some tactics completely useless and stupid.

Forcing people to use different tactics with a mathhammer is boring and amateurish; anyone can do that shit. My two-year old cousin can figure out that 8 is lower than 14. It takes more thought and is thus more interesting to figure out whether Wall of Stone or Permanent Image is better at holding off foes in this particular instance. With diverging saving throws, the answer is always Permanent Image vs. low-will monsters, even before you have a decent grasp on the tactical situation.

Strung Nether · Post by **Strung Nether** » Tue Apr 12, 2011 9:52 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:
Strung Nether wrote:Higher levels force you to use different tactics for different enemies by making some tactics completely useless and stupid.
Forcing people to use different tactics with a mathhammer is boring and amateurish; anyone can do that shit. My two-year old cousin can figure out that 8 is lower than 14. It takes more thought and is thus more interesting to figure out whether Wall of Stone or Permanent Image is better at holding off foes in this particular instance. With diverging saving throws, the answer is always Permanent Image vs. low-will monsters, even before you have a decent grasp on the tactical situation.

Does Dominate not working on undead foes make it boring and amateurish?
Does making grapple checks against colossal dragons almost impossible make it boring and amateurish?
Why or why not?

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Wed Apr 13, 2011 1:33 am

That's not the right way to look at it. We're not talking about one power being situationally useless/underpowered, we're talking about 2/3rds of the powers being made useless/underpowered due to saving throw divergence. It's fine for Dominate Person to not work now and then, it's not fine for Dominate Person (or Plane Shift, or Slay Living, or Wall of Stone) to automatically shoot to the top of the list because of a mathhammer.

Strung Nether · Post by **Strung Nether** » Wed Apr 13, 2011 1:45 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote:That's not the right way to look at it. We're not talking about one power being situationally useless/underpowered, we're talking about 2/3rds of the powers being made useless/underpowered due to saving throw divergence. It's fine for Dominate Person to not work now and then, it's not fine for Dominate Person (or Plane Shift, or Slay Living, or Wall of Stone) to automatically shoot to the top of the list because of a mathhammer.

Now we have a problem, because the difference between dominate not working, grapple not being very smart, and fireball targeting REF which is high for this monster is...well...what? Your position is that it is ok for some creatures to have a high AC(making melee hard), but it is not ok for some monsters to have a high will(making dominate hard).

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Wed Apr 13, 2011 2:38 am

Strung Nether wrote: Now we have a problem, because the difference between dominate not working, grapple not being very smart, and fireball targeting REF which is high for this monster is...well...what?

Depends on how you set the game, but in 3E D&D generally 3 points of divergence in save is enough to make the 'weaker' save-targeter a non-factor. If the difference between will and fortitude saves is only 1 or 2 in favor of will, it doesn't automatically count out Plane as a way of SoDing the baddie when you have Slay Living in your corner pocket. When the difference is 4 or 5, you'd have to be a moron to use anything else.

Having save divergence to that extent makes only a small subset of spells or powers viable a priori before you actually consider the tactical effect. Who really gives a shit whether Charm Person, Wall of Stone, or Plane Shift would be the best pick--Slay Living's save advantage makes it an auto-pick. If the target's saves were all the same then you'd have determine which was the best power by some other criteria.

And because mathhammers are nowhere near as difficult or interesting as tactical manipulation, save divergence makes combat more boring.

Strung Nether · Post by **Strung Nether** » Wed Apr 13, 2011 8:20 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote: Stuff

I think I get what you are saying. I think a problem is that there are many spells with very similar effects that target different saves. Because of that, having a good FORT save doesn't mean that you are more effective against spells that physically try to destroy or hinder you, it just means that the enemy better use spells that target REF if they want to destroy or hinder you. Could you give me an example of a spell progression that still has "good" and "bad" saves that you like? I don't want my house rules to end up requiring a book rewrite.

Another scaling problem I noticed:
Attack roll=1d20+BAB+STR+Weapon Enchant
AC=10+Armor+shield+dex
That means that a Level scaling bonus(BAB) is up against two non-scaling bonus(Armor + Shield), and one extra enchantment bonus. I cant figure out why that is.

(other people's opinions are welcome too...I don't want a echo chamber with me and LP)

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 12:54 am

Strung Nether wrote: Another scaling problem I noticed:
Attack roll=1d20+BAB+STR+Weapon Enchant
AC=10+Armor+shield+dex
That means that a Level scaling bonus(BAB) is up against two non-scaling bonus(Armor + Shield), and one extra enchantment bonus. I cant figure out why that is.

(other people's opinions are welcome too...I don't want a echo chamber with me and LP)

Honestly, I think it was more of a sacred cow than a well thought out system. There were a lot of AD&D hold-overs in 3E.

That's my guess, at least.

Edit:
Also, note how armor enchantments are even twice as cheap!

Double Edit:
I'm being dumb. The asymmetry here is that you add BAB on attacks. you have automatic level-based scaling with attacks, but not armor. So, they figured WBL would help "balance" that. So you'd stack Armor + enhancement + shield + enhancement + natural + deflection to help keep up. Of course, the costs are all over the place (1,500 for +8 full plate, or 2,000 for +1 deflection).

Sashi · Post by **Sashi** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 1:15 am

Yeah, attack bonus scaled with level and defense does not because that's how it was in previous games. They do expect you to pile up tiny bonuses for an AC improvement, but they also expect you to pile up tiny bonuses for an attack improvement (+1 weapon and strength gloves vs. +1 armor and +1 shield, etc) so people do just literally have an easier and easier time hitting each other as time goes on.

I can never find it anymore. But there's a blog post by Monte Cook where he acknowledges that high level characters have basically no chance of missing with their full BAB attack, and this is why full attacks use an iterative BAB system: you get a guaranteed hit followed by increasingly less likely hits. The goal being The idea being that a full attack routine will hit on a 2,7,12,18.