Fanaelialae
Legend
IMO, old school saves and spell resistance weren't great. They made sense in their context, particularly the way AD&D saves scaled. There were a lot of save or die effects, so having a high chance for successfully saving with a heavily invested character made sense.
That said, heavy blanket defenses like old school saves, spell resistance, and +x weapon immunity just make the game drag unless you have tools to ignore them. It's like two turtles whacking away at each other until one of them gets a lucky shot in and ends the other. IOW, the least exciting game of rocket tag one could likely imagine.
Admittedly, that's not the whole story. Mages were weak against things like Mind Flayers, but Fighters could (potentially) pick up the slack. Fighters were useless against a creature with +x immunity if their weapon was < x, but the Mages could potentially pick up the slack.
The issue there is that (IMO) sidelining characters is a terrible way to design monsters. Especially for an adventure that features particular creatures heavily, certain characters could end up feeling like the appendix of the party. I'll grant, you COULD design an encounter where some elements were intended for certain characters, while others were intended for others, and the key was figuring that out. However, that's by no means a given.
I think 5e's approach of dialing down severity (very little SoD) while also reducing the ability to turtle is very good design.
That said, heavy blanket defenses like old school saves, spell resistance, and +x weapon immunity just make the game drag unless you have tools to ignore them. It's like two turtles whacking away at each other until one of them gets a lucky shot in and ends the other. IOW, the least exciting game of rocket tag one could likely imagine.
Admittedly, that's not the whole story. Mages were weak against things like Mind Flayers, but Fighters could (potentially) pick up the slack. Fighters were useless against a creature with +x immunity if their weapon was < x, but the Mages could potentially pick up the slack.
The issue there is that (IMO) sidelining characters is a terrible way to design monsters. Especially for an adventure that features particular creatures heavily, certain characters could end up feeling like the appendix of the party. I'll grant, you COULD design an encounter where some elements were intended for certain characters, while others were intended for others, and the key was figuring that out. However, that's by no means a given.
I think 5e's approach of dialing down severity (very little SoD) while also reducing the ability to turtle is very good design.