Multiclass Saves Fix!

[Sylrae]

You ever notice people can get goofy bumps in their saves via multiclassing?

That's because D&D 3.5 Calculates saves as (1/3)*level = bad save, (2+1/2)*level = good save. This gives a total of 6 at level 20 for bad, and 12 at level 20 for good. Of course, they ditch the fractions.

I have 2 fixes, one is based on the fraction they use for bad saves, and the other based on the unfractioned totals.

Original:
1/3 for Bad saves: 6.67 at level 20
5/12 for medium saves: 8.33 (plus 1 to make it the mid point) = 9.33 at level 20
1/2 for Good Saves: 10.00 (plus 2 to make it look like double the bad saves) = 12.00 at level 20

Fractions:
1/3 for Bad saves: 6.67 at level 20 (no change)
1/2 for Medium saves: 10.00 at level 20 (new save type, halfway between good and bad)
2/3 for Good saves: 13.33 (1.33 better than before)

If you want the totals to be the same as before (ignoring the fraction left over in the bad saves)
3/10 for Bad: 6.00 at 20 (.66 less)
9/20 for Medium: (halfway point)
6/10 for Good: 12.00 at 20 (No Change)

As you can see, both of the new systems give a similar spread/totals, but allow multiclassing with no flat bonus awarded just for taking a new class.

I personally prefer the one that lets you keep your fractions (1/3, 1/2, 2/3).

Comments?

[Merlin's Shadow]

Have you looked at the fractional save option in Unearthed Arcana? It essentially does the same thing.

[Ashtagon]

I thought most people just houseruled that the initial +2 for a good save can only be applied one time for each save.

[Sylrae]

I didnt realize fractional saves were in UA, just fractional BAB. but I just checked.

In UA all it does is show where the numbers come from in the regular system, including fractions.

It doesn't remove the +2 jumps you can get by continually multiclassing - which is the purpose of my fractions that remove flat bonuses at level 1.

Think of a level 20 fighter. He has a fort of +12.
now a fighter/barbarian: fort + 14
now a fighter/barbarian/monk:fort+16
fighter/barbarian/monk/paladin:fort+18

Yes, I know some of those classes contradict eachother in terms of alignment requirement. but they all have good fort saves. There are all sorts of PrCs people could take, plus non-core classes. if they get a +2 bump to saves every time they do it it makes multiclass characters be better than single-class characters. (I'm not talking about the issues involving spellcasters and multiclassing at the moment.)

This alt. system takes all the goofy +2 bonuses away, but gives comparable results for the single character as he progresses.
The Barbarian/Fighter now has the same Fortitude as the Fighter. or the Barbarian.

Originally Posted by Ashtagon

I thought most people just houseruled that the initial +2 for a good save can only be applied one time for each save.

Hmm, you could do that, but then you'd have strong motivation to make sure you get the +2 for each save.
I've never seen anyone other than myself houserule that, but I found it wasnt satisfactory, cause then players kept trying to find excuses to take a level in monk, or what have you, to get it for each save. It was getting irritating having to hear about the attempts to get all 3 and I had to keep shutting them down.
I've also tried "you only get it at first level, for your first class", but that wasnt a perfect fix either.
This fraction reworking variant means its not just a restriction, and it doesn't matter what order they take their classes in. (we also use an alt. rule for skills where the x4 at level 1 is unnecessary and removed. "all skill costs are 1-1, max ranks = ecl, class skills give +3 competence bonus.")

[Nonlethal Force]

This is borderline off-topic, but have you ever considered a point-buy system? If you go completely class-less, you not only don't have to worry about what to do with the saves (strong or weak from multi-classing) - but you can actually let players strive for the actual save score they want. Rather than let the classes dictate what save score you want, why not let the players actually get the saves their ability scores dictate that they need?

Like I said, I'm sorry if this is borderline off-topic. But my personal opinion is that the best way to fix the multi-classing save issue is to eliminate the need to multiclass by eliminating the need to have classes at all. See my sig for more info if you are interested.

[Ashtagon]

Originally Posted by Sylrae

Hmm, you could do that, but then you'd have strong motivation to make sure you get the +2 for each save.

Well, yes, there is strong motivation to collect that +2 on each save. But you can only do that one time for each save. That is still miles better than RAW, which allows you to collect that +2 each and every time you take a first level in a class that has a good save.

It's just reducing the amount of front-loading in the classes, really.

[Kerrick]

That's what I use for Project Phoenix - fractional BAB/saves, and the +2 applies only once per save. Haven't tried it in play, but it works great on paper.

[Sylrae]

Oh I agree, it's much better than RAW. I think taking away the frontloading entirely by just using a larger fraction to reach similar totals takes away the motivation to get all the +2s, as well as the broken frontloading that comes with RAW.

You get the same total over 20 levels, or slightly higher if you use the fractions I'm using.

As for the no classes thing, I like classless, but I haven't seen it done in d20 to my satisfaction, Instead I've been working on my own system for classless Fantasy Tabletop Roleplay. I'll check out yours though. Generally if I want classless then I also want to ditch levels altogether.

Edit: Hey Kerrick.
Yeah, I'm dropping the +2 entirely, and just using larger fractions. I think it cleans up multiclassing a bit. You get a similar spread of points too. A bit lower at level 1 though. Such is the price of making all the levels give the same benefit for purposes of multiclassing.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Just use the UA fractional tables, and you're done. Even if it was just "showing how the save progressions work," it's right there to implement if you want. And if they were just showing how it worked, they could have just said "2+ 1/2 level" and "1/3 level" and be done. The fact they showed a whole table of fractions means to me that they intended it to be a houserule to use those fractions.

Anyway, I would never allow fractional saves without fractional BAB, or vice-versa. Medium BAB multiclassing really gets screwed over with the normal rules. In general, fractional saves is a nerf and fractional BAB a boost, so they balance each other's inclusion. Of course, everyone's talking about the obscene good save stacking from the RAW. No one's mentioning that bad saves get even worse...

A lot of times, you don't even really need special rules. If it's a rogue going into a "rogue prestige class" that's also medium BAB / good reflex saves, for example, you can just keep using the BAB and save progressions of straight Rogue 20. No need to even waste a second thinking.

[Sylrae]

Originally Posted by StreamOfTheSky

Just use the UA fractional tables, and you're done. Even if it was just "showing how the save progressions work," it's right there to implement if you want. And if they were just showing how it worked, they could have just said "2+ 1/2 level" and "1/3 level" and be done. The fact they showed a whole table of fractions means to me that they intended it to be a houserule to use those fractions.

The UA tables still include the +2 boost at the first level of a class, and that is what I was referring to as a problem.

Originally Posted by StreamOfTheSky

Anyway, I would never allow fractional saves without fractional BAB, or vice-versa. Medium BAB multiclassing really gets screwed over with the normal rules. In general, fractional saves is a nerf and fractional BAB a boost, so they balance each other's inclusion.

Fractional BAB is a bit of a boost, but the UA fractional saves are also a boost. You always have at least what is listed in the rounded phb tables, plus a fraction. Now, my system of dropping the +2 at level 1 and using larger fractions is a nerf at low levels. As you go up though, especially if you go epic, you're gaining at a faster rate than 1/2 for good saves, and the same rate for medium saves. I also use Fractional BAB, but I was satisfied with the UA Fractional BAB rules, it was the fractional saves I had issues with.

Originally Posted by StreamOfTheSky

Of course, everyone's talking about the obscene good save stacking from the RAW. No one's mentioning that bad saves get even worse...

Bad saves get even worse? They're identical... you end up with an extra 2/3 at level 20 which the RAW just discards. I'm not sure how that could be considered worse. If you mean that stacking bad saves makes them worse, unless you're doing it all in incremental levels of 3, youre right. a Fractional save value corrects that as well.

Originally Posted by StreamOfTheSky

A lot of times, you don't even really need special rules. If it's a rogue going into a "rogue prestige class" that's also medium BAB / good reflex saves, for example, you can just keep using the BAB and save progressions of straight Rogue 20. No need to even waste a second thinking.

That only works if the PRC they're taking has the same saves and bab. Say the rogue goes into a melee-esque prc, or take some levels in ranger, or monk, the saves arent al lthe same, and you would get to either:
A) stack the saves +2 bonuses
B) at least get the +2 for each save.

this way the class order doesnt matter, and you cant stack level 1 bonuses. UA keeps the +2, so for good saves, their fractional system doesn't address the problem I'm referring to. Just dropping the +2 makes good saves only go up to 10, and that IMO isnt a good solution either.

My fractions I came up with will give a comparable spread of numbers and comparable results, though slightly better good saves unless you use the third one I listed with the 1/3, 7/15, and 6/10.

I'm inclined to make good saves be double bad saves though, hence using 2/3 instead of 6/10.

[Arkhandus]

I don't see any reason to change the save bonuses from multiclassing.

For one example, look at the difference between dipping into Fighter for 1 or 2 levels, as opposed to dipping into Monk for 1 or 2 levels.

1 level of Fighter gives you proficiency in everything except exotic weapons, plus a bonus feat, a few skill points, a d10 hit die, +1 Base Attack Bonus, and +2 base Fortitude. A second level gives you all of that again except 1 less Fortitude and no extra proficiencies.

1 level of Monk gives you jack for proficiencies (you'll have better regardless of your earlier class, unless you were a Commoner or Wizard, and even then the Monk's proficiencies hardly amount to squat), gives you NO attack bonus, gives you a d8 hit die and slightly more skill points than the Fighter, a +2 to all saving throws, a binary choice of bonus feat that will only help you in unarmed combat, a minor unarmed combat benefit that amounts to being about as effective unarmed as you would be with a club anyway, a minor advantage with the quarterstaff that will rarely matter since it incurs a to-hit penalty and requires use of a poor weapon, and a minor AC bonus if you happened to invest in a good Wisdom score and generally go unarmored (which would mean you're likely a wizard or sorcerer, who would do better to just invest in good Dexterity and Constitution scores and not give up a level of spellcasting just for this).

A 2nd level of Monk would give +1 BAB and another +1 on saving throws, plus Evasion and another binary choice of bonus feat (though at least it might be of some use); better than the first level, but not enough to make it any better than a 2-level Fighter dip, just possibly more advantageous to particular builds, whereas the Fighter dip would still be better for other builds.

Unless you're not just dipping into Monk, those few unarmed/unarmored/flurry benefits will amount to squat 95% of the time for you. And if you're not just dipping, but rather intending to be a Monk primarily, then there's no cheese involved. A wizard or sorcerer would do better to invest in other ability scores besides Wisdom, since Will is already their highest save and they get little use out of Wisdom. So there's not much cheese in a Monk-level dip at the cost of spellcasting just for a piddly AC bonus you could get otherwise at a lower opportunity cost.

A 2nd-level Monk/Sorcerer or Wizard X would have such a poor or mediocre Reflex save that Evasion wouldn't even do them much good (unless they really jacked up their Dexterity at the expense of other abilities, but so what? Their HP are still likely to be crap after that).

Meaning that the only real benefits of a Monk level dip are basically the +2 on all saving throws and the chance to invest in Hide, Move Silently, Listen, or whatever as a class skill for one level. The fighter's proficiencies and bonus feat are worth more than that.

I've played multiclassed Monks before. It's nothing to write home about. In fact, they fairly well suck because of their loss of pure-Monk or pure-other-thing focus, giving them poor or mediocre offense and defense in both fields. One kind of mediocrity + another kind of mediocrity does not = awesome. The ONLY thing my high-level multiclassed Monk (he only has 3 levels of Monk, and a mix of levels in other classes) has going for him is high saving throws, because I emphasized Wisdom and Dexterity for him, and all of his classes give him high Fortitude while most of them give one other high save, plus the 3-level Monk base. The only thing my multiclassed Monk is good for is passing saving throws, and even in that department he isn't perfect. Everyone else outdamages and outlasts him; he just avoids most saving-throw-dependant effects, so he remains in the fight long enough to get beaten down proper-like for his mediocrity, rather than auto-stopped by a single spell early on.

And if he were a pure Monk instead, he'd have Spell Resistance by now and be even more spell-immune, yet he'd also have better combat ability in melee (granted, he'd be slightly worse in ranged combat than he is now, but that's all; he'd be tougher, faster, and a better tank-ish warrior if he had only stayed in Monk; but I develop my characters organically through play, not forcing them along a preplanned path, even though I often do have an initial plan that gets discarded if it doesn't mesh with how things have gone in-play).

[Sylrae]

A Few points Arkhandus.

1: being how the numbers are generated to begin with, not using my variant rule we's still at least be using the rule from UA for the fractional bonuses. The BAB falling from reasonable multiclassing is a good enough reason for me, and I've I'm doing it for BAB I may as well for saves too.

So the fighter is giving 2.5 to Fortitude, and the Monk is giving 2.5 to all saves, and the Monk is giving a fraction of 3/4 to BAB instead of a whole 1. That's not going to get you to BAB 2, but it gets you alot closer.

As for the multiclass monk, theyre not so great if you multiclass against type. But if you multiclass woth things that are monkish its totally different. IE Monk Ninja. Then if you're willing to blow a feat, your ninja levels count as monnk levels for the monk abilities and vice versa.

And that still doesnt solve the +2 stacking I was referring to.

Not ANY combination to get the +2 bonuses is a great idea, but with a little forethought, you can make yourself be as good as a single class character, but with significantly better saves.

[Kerrick]

Originally Posted by Sylrae

Yeah, I'm dropping the +2 entirely, and just using larger fractions. I think it cleans up multiclassing a bit. You get a similar spread of points too. A bit lower at level 1 though. Such is the price of making all the levels give the same benefit for purposes of multiclassing.

You don't need to drop the +2. In fact, I think it'd be more useful to keep it - otherwise everyone starts out with all crap saves, instead of at least one good one.

Originally Posted by StreamOfTheSky

In general, fractional saves is a nerf and fractional BAB a boost, so they balance each other's inclusion. Of course, everyone's talking about the obscene good save stacking from the RAW. No one's mentioning that bad saves get even worse...

Um... BOTH are a boost. Read this; it's an analysis I made of the fractional BAB/save system. I also boosted the low save slightly (from 3/10 to 4/10, because 3/10 was too low).

Originally Posted by Sylrae

As you go up though, especially if you go epic, you're gaining at a faster rate than 1/2 for good saves, and the same rate for medium saves.

There are no medium saves, unless you create them. I tried it myself, and I couldn't get anything I was satisfied with, so I ended up dropping it and boosting the low save instead. It works a lot better, IMO.

As for epic, it's assumed that BAB/saves automatically flip over to the "epic progression" the minute you hit L20. Personally, I think that's stupid, and I came up with a way around it - BAB doesn't flip over until you hit +20 (no matter what level you are) and saves don't flip until you hit +12. This works great with the fractional system, as it lets players build the PC they want without being penalized overly much for it (and since the +2s don't stack, they still can't get some uberbuild).

I'm inclined to make good saves be double bad saves though, hence using 2/3 instead of 6/10.

2/3 would be too much. 6/10 is already high - at high/epic levels, you can pretty well auto-save if the effect is against your high save, unless it's some ridiculously high number (some of the epic monsters have DCs in the 40s and 50s).

[Sylrae]

Well, as for medium saves, it's pretty easy to peg the numbers that are directly between the hi and low. if you keep the +2, use a +1, add both fractions together ignoring that +1 and divide by 2.

True everyone starts with crappy saves. But the first couple levels go by fairly quickly (at least in my games), and they'll be level 4 or 5 pretty fast.

[concerro]

Originally Posted by Sylrae

I didnt realize fractional saves were in UA, just fractional BAB. but I just checked.

In UA all it does is show where the numbers come from in the regular system, including fractions.

It doesn't remove the +2 jumps you can get by continually multiclassing - which is the purpose of my fractions that remove flat bonuses at level 1.

Think of a level 20 fighter. He has a fort of +12.
now a fighter/barbarian: fort + 14
now a fighter/barbarian/monk:fort+16
fighter/barbarian/monk/paladin:fort+18

Yes, I know some of those classes contradict eachother in terms of alignment requirement. but they all have good fort saves. There are all sorts of PrCs people could take, plus non-core classes. if they get a +2 bump to saves every time they do it it makes multiclass characters be better than single-class characters. (I'm not talking about the issues involving spellcasters and multiclassing at the moment.)

This alt. system takes all the goofy +2 bonuses away, but gives comparable results for the single character as he progresses.
The Barbarian/Fighter now has the same Fortitude as the Fighter. or the Barbarian.


Hmm, you could do that, but then you'd have strong motivation to make sure you get the +2 for each save.
I've never seen anyone other than myself houserule that, but I found it wasnt satisfactory, cause then players kept trying to find excuses to take a level in monk, or what have you, to get it for each save. It was getting irritating having to hear about the attempts to get all 3 and I had to keep shutting them down.
I've also tried "you only get it at first level, for your first class", but that wasnt a perfect fix either.
This fraction reworking variant means its not just a restriction, and it doesn't matter what order they take their classes in. (we also use an alt. rule for skills where the x4 at level 1 is unnecessary and removed. "all skill costs are 1-1, max ranks = ecl, class skills give +3 competence bonus.")

Assuming you are playing by RAW all that multiclassing starts to take a 20% toll on XP, so most players wont be willing to take the hit.

[Sylrae]

if that rule is used, people either never multiclass, or they keep their classes within 1 level of eachother.

I've tried that. It's kindof annoying, and only penalizes the melee multiclass characters a little, while the casters would now have to be totally retarded to multiclass.

And then you get players who want to start using these ridiculously overpowered classes they found online and you have to rework them, because they cant make the character they want with any of the classes available and can't multiclass.

then I end up having to balance 3 or 4 new classes each campaign (usually 6-7 players). lol

[concerro]

Originally Posted by Sylrae

if that rule is used, people either never multiclass, or they keep their classes within 1 level of eachother.

I've tried that. It's kindof annoying, and only penalizes the melee multiclass characters a little, while the casters would now have to be totally retarded to multiclass.

And then you get players who want to start using these ridiculously overpowered classes they found online and you have to rework them, because they cant make the character they want with any of the classes available and can't multiclass.

then I end up having to balance 3 or 4 new classes each campaign (usually 6-7 players). lol

My group does not use the favored class rule, and I have never had to deal with 3 or more Base Classes for one character, but if I did I would enforce the 20% rule for more than two base classes.

[Sylrae]

I've had lots of players want to make things that can't be easily done with the classes available, so they multiclass the crap out of their characters or they design new classes.

[Kerrick]

Originally Posted by Sylrae

I've had lots of players want to make things that can't be easily done with the classes available, so they multiclass the crap out of their characters or they design new classes.

That's what PrCs are for.

[Hawken]

About the saves, what about eliminating the +2 bonus for good saves altogether?

Instead, give the player a one-time +2 bonus that he can assign to a single save and a second bonus of either +2 to another save or +1 to his two other saves. No saving throw bonuses are gained for multi-classing or going into a prestige class; a new class just starts at the normal good/poor progression.

This puts the bonus in the hands of the player and eliminates the need to dip into other classes for a bump to their saves. Five of the eleven core classes give a +2 bonus to 2 or 3 saves instead of just one, so this idea of a second +2 bonus or a +1/+1 bonus isn't doing any class an injustice and lets the player think more about their character than worrying about deficient saves.

And just to keep things simple for the DMs, I'd do this only for PCs, not NPCs or monsters.