Salvaging 3.x saves

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TarkisFlux
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Salvaging 3.x saves

Post by TarkisFlux »

Ok, since search is only so/so, I have no idea if this has been broached before. If it has, I'm sorry, and someone please point me at the relevant threads.

If it hasn't, people here seem quite willing to rub my face in whatever is wrong with it. And that sounds like something helpful for my future homebrews.

So anyway, I know the focus here lately is largely on TNE or 4.0 hate, but since I have no desire to play 4.0 and TNE isn't in playable form, I'm gonna spend my time dealing with 3.x crap and trying to fix some of the bigger holes in the system. Like saves. They be broke. They lead to rocket launcher tag. So what can be done about them?

I'm sure someone has spent more time explaining why they're broke, but in case no one has, here's the short short explanation of what I think is broke with them: you need a cloak of resistence to even sorta keep up, and that's crap cause that's an item that you have to buy that doesn't add anything to your personality or flavor. Casters need to do everything they can to boost their save DCs to deal with monster save bloat, and that just makes things worse for the rest of us. Situation is shit.

Here's the longer explanation, spoilered so people who don't care or already know better don't have to look at it:
Full casters and monsters get a boost to their DCs every two HD or so. They also get stat boosts from levels, or level appropriate items, and these wind up giving them a +2 to the relevant stat every 4 levels or so. Net result, their save DCs go up by 3 every 4 levels, excluding crazy shit like wishes or DC boosting feats, which aren't really crazy but just make things worse for everyone else.

Good saves go up 1 every 2 levels. With a few exceptions (rogues and dex, cler/dru and wis, etc.), most characters don't focus exclusively on the stat that boosts their good saves, so 1 every 2 levels is about as good as most characters get. The +2 bonus you get will probably cover the stat difference that the caster/monster has on you, so that's worthless. If you add a level appropriate cloak of resist, you get boosted to 3 points every 4 levels. Yay, you need an item to keep up with the caster DCs. Sucks to be you.

Poor saves go 1 every 3 levels, and might get boosted by stats, but even if they did they don't keep up with the caster and monster DCs. Even with the cloak of resist, they don't keep up.

Yes, you can dumpster dive for feats to try to shore up your saves, but you still never get ahead on your poor saves. And caster's don't get to dive as much to boost their DCs, but they still wind up ahead anyway. Sure, they don't get a whole ton of their high DC stuff, but they don't need much of it to murder anyone else they run across.

Advantage, caster and monsters. And because the gap grows, things get worse as you grow in level. When the big SoD/SoS start showing, is when your save gap starts being more than an annoyance. And thus begins the save based rocket tag.
So, saves are broke, like so many other thigns in 3.x. Here's what I'm thinking about doing:

Good saves: 3 every 4 progression. No save bonus at level 1.
Poor saves: 1 every 2 progression. No save bonus at level 1.

This would shrink the gap between good and poor to 5 instead of 6 at top levels, and boost the poor saves by a couple of points. Good saves keep up with ability DCs, and poor save trail but not by as much. You could actually patch poor saves with an item, but it's already such that the crappy save feats actually bring the saves closeish to the DCs, especially if it's a scaling feat (not necessary, but nice).

More people making more saves nerfs casters, and that isn't an objective here at all. Giving casters the ability to further boost spells sorta fixes this (a la 3.0 focus feats), but could just as easily result in a zero sum numbers game. Or maybe you could add to Heighten Spell so that for every 2 levels it's heightened, you add an extra 1 to the DC (Heighten level + bonus Dc <= max spell level you can cast) and an extra 5 to the die cap (cause it is a spell of that higher level). It makes lower level spells more useful, since you can bring their effect and DC up more easily, and that makes heighten not useless, but I'm not sure it's a good idea. Spell effects are a harder target to hit, but I think they do more of what I'm trying to achieve.

What I'm getting at is casters, like every other character in the game, should not waste an action ever, and if more people are going to make saves this is exactly what will happen more often. Save negates spells needs to mostly go byebye as a result, easily done by adding some effect to successful saves for most of the spells out there. That's a crap load of work, but I can cheat and just append a generic effect based on school or subtype, adjusting for the special cases out there (but I'd rather avoid it). SoDs might remain the sole save negates out there; spells where if they fail you win might be worth the potential of losing an action to use. No save spells might need a bit of tweaking to be brought into line, but that's a different issue entirely.

And since evasion and mettle are basically save negates abilities, it means that those need to be nerfed as well. Bringing them down to 1/4 on successes, instead of 0, would probably work. That sorta blows for those characters, but they'll be making more of their other saves so hopefully that evens out.

So, here's what I think I've got:
  • Good saves that actually keep pace with caster DCs.
    Poor saves that keep up better, are still actually worse than caster DCs.
    A setup that gives mid/high level characters the ability to ignore a cloak of resist and get something interesting.
    Spells that do stuff more often, even if that stuff isn't always Save or Lose. Even against characters who used to be basically immune to them.
    The murder of multiclassing for level 1 save bonuses boosts.
So, if this is in fact a terrible horrible idea, someone please tell me how and why it is so misguided.
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angelfromanotherpin
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Post by angelfromanotherpin »

I know that in Iron Heroes, all characters had all their saves go up by +1/level, with no variation except for ability modifiers (or feats). Now, that was in a no-spellcaster PCs/no-magic items setup, so it was designed to cover for cloaks of resistance by itself and not care about balancing with anything but monster abilities. And it was designed by Mearls, so it may not have been 'designed' so much as 'written.' Nevertheless, I think it's a model worth looking at just for simplicity's sake.
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Post by CatharzGodfoot »

Sounds like a lot of work. Replacing all the 'save negates' spells with 'save partial' spells is pretty much like writing a new edition. Are you planning to get rid of save-boosting items as well?

Using the Tome series, for the most part saves go up at a steady 1/2 or 1/3, with the starting bonus gained only once. If you factor in a cloak of resistance, saves increase at 3/4 or 2/3, which is pretty close to what you seem to be going for. If you don't want bonus items, just give everyone the resistance bonus automagically and reduce their item maxes to 7.

AFOP really has the most elegant solution: saves are based off attributes, so there's no real reason to have divergent progressions of 'good' and 'bad' on top of that. All it accomplishes is a crazy range and RC's favorite word, "rocket launcher tag". Even with your system, a 10th level character is going to have a worst save of 4 and a best save of around three times that.
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Post by SphereOfFeetMan »

Here is what I am thinking of implementing in my next game:

Your base saves are 2/3 your level, +0/+2/+4, rounded down. So for example, at level 1 your base saves are +0/+2/+4, at level 10 they are +6/+8/+10, and at level 20 they are +13/+15/+17. I'll just let players assign which saves to F/R/W as they wish, as they view appropriate to their characters. Multiclassing doesn't affect saves.

Compared to a single classed character, this change effectively gives your best save at first level a +2 feat bonus, and at level 20 gives your worst save a +2 bonus. Level 10 is the same.

I did this for the following reasons:
-There is a base 4 difference across saves at all 20 levels. This makes the RNG game tighter and easier for the Dm to run. This is opposed to the default, which is a base 2 difference at level 1, and 6 at level 20.
--Also, what really happens is martial characters multiclass like fiends, and the differences surpass 6. Hell, the last lvl 20 Pc I played had a difference in base saves of 11 from worst to best.

-Having good saves is not a class ability. The Monk proves this. So I judge classes by what they can do. For example, I would use the Tome Monk instead of the default.

-This change effectively absorbs the +# Resistance bonus. So I remove the Cloaks of Resistance from the game (along with other bullshit bonus items), and the math keeps up.

-It is less bookkeeping for everyone involved. Less treasure allocation/distribution/buying time, less levelup bookkeeping, etc.

-Regardless of what players assign their +0/+2/+4 to, archetypes will mostly remain because of ability scores. Rogues will have the best Ref save, martial (melee) characters will have the best fort saves, Cleric/Druids will have the best Will saves, etc.
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Post by JonSetanta »

I like 4e/SAGA saves. It's simple and independent of multiclass glitches.
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Post by RiotGearEpsilon »

Seconding that. Linear scaling by level plus flat bonuses by class type is a good d20 paradigm.
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Post by the_taken »

RiotGearEpsilon wrote:Seconding that. Linear scaling by level plus flat bonuses by class type is a good d20 paradigm.
How would saves work with multi-classing? Bonus/classA level + Bonus/classB level?
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Post by TarkisFlux »

angelfromanotherpin wrote:I know that in Iron Heroes, all characters had all their saves go up by +1/level, with no variation except for ability modifiers (or feats). . . . Nevertheless, I think it's a model worth looking at just for simplicity's sake.
+1 per level for all saves is a bit much, since it exceeds both the caster DC progression and the average DC of monster abilities in the characters range. 3.0 saves work okayish until 8 or 10 so, and this would approximately double those saves. It would probably be fine if you wanted to reduce the game to damage swings and no-saves around that level, and increase survivability lots before that.
CatharzGodfoot wrote:Sounds like a lot of work. Replacing all the 'save negates' spells with 'save partial' spells is pretty much like writing a new edition. Are you planning to get rid of save-boosting items as well?

Using the Tome series, for the most part saves go up at a steady 1/2 or 1/3, with the starting bonus gained only once. If you factor in a cloak of resistance, saves increase at 3/4 or 2/3, which is pretty close to what you seem to be going for. If you don't want bonus items, just give everyone the resistance bonus automagically and reduce their item maxes to 7.

[...] Even with your system, a 10th level character is going to have a worst save of 4 and a best save of around three times that.
It's probably less work than it sounds, especially if you add generic school/type based effects on successful saves. For instance, a successful save on a Necromancy spell that was previously save-negates might leave you sickened/nauseated for 1 round per spell level. I haven't thrown together a good list of save-negates spells yet though, so I could be way off.

As for the items, I don't know that I want to toss them, but I do want them to mean something beyond "helping a character keep up". I don't want them to be necessary in the same way that magic armor and weapons and shit are, because resistance items don't add any flavor or "shininess" to a character. Which probably means I'll keep them, but alter their function in some way. It's irrelevant if this 'boost saves and adjust affected actions' doesn't work though, so I'll deal with them later. Since your suggestion to just toss them and give the bonuses automatically doesn't address any of the other issues that boosting saves gives, I'm not particularly interested.

And your math is a bit off. At 10th level, poor saves would be 5+stats/mods; good would be 7+stats/mods. Good is right where it would be in a regular game, and poor is a couple better. And you couldn't get better than 7+ or worse than 5+ at level 10 no matter how you multiclassed.
SphereOfFeetMan wrote:Your base saves are 2/3 your level, +0/+2/+4, rounded down. So for example, at level 1 your base saves are +0/+2/+4, at level 10 they are +6/+8/+10, and at level 20 they are +13/+15/+17. I'll just let players assign which saves to F/R/W as they wish, as they view appropriate to their characters. Multiclassing doesn't affect saves.
sigma999 wrote:I like 4e/SAGA saves. It's simple and independent of multiclass glitches.
RiotGeatEpsilon wrote: [Ditto]
That could certainly work, but I don't know that I want a progression based on flat level, with static bonuses based on class or choice. I don't particularly like it, because I don't like flat bonuses in the early game. It's too big a pain in the ass to pick a number that matters at both high and low ends of the scale, unless the save and attack scales at the same rate, and yours don't.

I'll reformat my previous save suggestion into your format, so it looks more similar: Base save = 1/2*(character level) + 1/4*(class levels with relevant save bonus).

Yes, you can do this with 3.x RAW saves, or other systems, but they're uglier because of the wacky static mods. You chose to dump the level based part of it, I chose to dump the static.

My point is, I am suggesting a more simple linear save mechanic, but with level dependent bonuses based on class instead of an up-front-one-time bonus based on class or personal preference. I think that's a better way to go, but I also want slightly divergent growth and the options that opens up. I don't even want saves and DCs to scale at the same rate.
SphereOfFeetMan wrote:-Having good saves is not a class ability. The Monk proves this.
Sure, monks suck, but how does that imply that good saves aren't class abilities? I'm not seeing the logic in this assertion.

------

So, suggestions on how to do it different or 'better', but nothing glaringly awful with the idea of changing progression to begin with. Yay for that. I'm kinda surprised that the save-negates adjustments haven't received as much attention, despite the fact that you'll negate so many more effects with boosted saves.
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Post by SphereOfFeetMan »

TarkisFlux wrote:Sure, monks suck, but how does that imply that good saves aren't class abilities? I'm not seeing the logic in this assertion.
The largest difference between saves is 1 good or 3 good. In other words 2. At 20th level that is a +6 to two saves. Compared to everything a level appropriate lvl 20 character can do, and all the passive defenses a lvl 20 character has, those two +6's are next to meaningless.

This ignores the fact that most classes are a choice between 1 or 2 good saves, and that multiclassing makes the entire system a joke.

The point is that good/bad saves aren't worth consideration as real class abilities, as they have little impact.
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Post by CatharzGodfoot »

TarkisFlux wrote:+1 per level for all saves is a bit much, since it exceeds both the caster DC progression and the average DC of monster abilities in the characters range.
Base save = level + C1 --> base DC = level + C2.
TarkisFlux wrote:
CatharzGodfoot wrote:[...] Even with your system, a 10th level character is going to have a worst save of 4 and a best save of around three times that.
And your math is a bit off. At 10th level, poor saves would be 5+stats/mods; good would be 7+stats/mods. Good is right where it would be in a regular game, and poor is a couple better. And you couldn't get better than 7+ or worse than 5+ at level 10 no matter how you multiclassed.
I was referring to save totals: 5 (base ) + -1 (attribute) = 4; 7 (base) + 6 (attribute) = 13.



The effect-on-save thing could work, but your example has any failed necromancy spell as a denied action, which is pretty powerful.
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Post by ubernoob »

Honestly, giving everyone base saves of 1+HD/2 regardless of what the HD is seems best. Ability scores provide enough variation and multiclass stacking fucks saves in both directions. I'd also make all DC effects have a base DC of 11+1/2 creature's HD+ ability score regardless of spell level or whatnot.
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Post by TarkisFlux »

CatharzGodfoot wrote:
TarkisFlux wrote:
CatharzGodfoot wrote:[...] Even with your system, a 10th level character is going to have a worst save of 4 and a best save of around three times that.
And your math is a bit off. At 10th level, poor saves would be 5+stats/mods; good would be 7+stats/mods. Good is right where it would be in a regular game, and poor is a couple better. And you couldn't get better than 7+ or worse than 5+ at level 10 no matter how you multiclassed.
I was referring to save totals: 5 (base ) + -1 (attribute) = 4; 7 (base) + 6 (attribute) = 13.
Fair enough. Given the variance in stat mods I tend to ignore them when doing mechanics math (looking at high and low cases afterwards), or I pick middle of the road stats to accomodate annoying DM behavior, but I see where you were coming from.

A -1 stat mod won't push anyone off RNG (in the bad way) even at high levels, and with better advancement can actually be shored up into decentness with a scaling save feat or a level appropriate single-save resist item. A -3 stat mod (hopefully worst case) doesn't push anyone off the RNG until level 15, unless they're facing a particularly min/maxed effect generator. As opposed to current, where a -3 in the poor save is off RNG by level 11 against the same opponent.

For good saves, I'm sure you can go off RNG eventually, but your +6 stat mod won't do it at level 10. Ideally, I'd let it happen up in crazytown due to item/feat choices, and effect-on-save things will sorta mitigate that.
CatharzGodfoot wrote:The effect-on-save thing could work, but your example has any failed necromancy spell as a denied action, which is pretty powerful.
Point noted. I was pulling from my ass and picked a bad one. I honestly haven't put much thought into the next step; sorta figuring the viability of each step as I go so I don't waste too much of my time.

---Edit, typos and number errors.
Last edited by TarkisFlux on Mon Jul 28, 2008 12:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Draco_Argentum »

I think removing save negates is a good plan. Its just a lot of work compared to giving people the ability to ignore x failed saves per fight. The second would reduce rocket launcher tag the most.

Sphere's idea seems to be the best for normalising the actual save bonuses.
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