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General Tabletop Discussion
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Why the HP Threshold on Spells is a Bad Idea
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<blockquote data-quote="Ridley's Cohort" data-source="post: 6026583" data-attributes="member: 545"><p>It is primarily a question of pacing.</p><p></p><p>3e made a conscious choice to make each "action" (round) more significant by means of cranking up the offensive potential of all classes.</p><p></p><p>For Fighters, that meant criticals, "double-specialization", power attack, Animal buffs, useful weapon options, etc. baked into Core -- it takes only a little optimization and above average luck to kill a significant foe in 1-1/2 rounds. For Wizards, that meant most spells, if applied astutely (i.e. I attack the weak save), should be fairly reliable. In the splat books, we also saw more and more useful swift effects.</p><p></p><p>In 1e/2e, a lot of interesting spells like Suggestion and Polymorph were 80+% likely to fail against every non-mook, before even considering possible SR. That is not right or wrong, but it could be an obstacle to fun IMO. Regardless, it does imply an upper limit on the offensive potential of the tanks. If the Wizard needs 4 or 5 tries to turn someone into a frog (expending a precious high level slot with each attempt), then it should take 5 or 6 rounds for a tank to beat someone to death.</p><p></p><p>Neither route is right or wrong, but unless we could formulate an entirely novel way of thinking about saves, we are more or less stuck with those paths. (4e played around with different mechanics, but ultimately it seemed more "just different" than notably better.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ridley's Cohort, post: 6026583, member: 545"] It is primarily a question of pacing. 3e made a conscious choice to make each "action" (round) more significant by means of cranking up the offensive potential of all classes. For Fighters, that meant criticals, "double-specialization", power attack, Animal buffs, useful weapon options, etc. baked into Core -- it takes only a little optimization and above average luck to kill a significant foe in 1-1/2 rounds. For Wizards, that meant most spells, if applied astutely (i.e. I attack the weak save), should be fairly reliable. In the splat books, we also saw more and more useful swift effects. In 1e/2e, a lot of interesting spells like Suggestion and Polymorph were 80+% likely to fail against every non-mook, before even considering possible SR. That is not right or wrong, but it could be an obstacle to fun IMO. Regardless, it does imply an upper limit on the offensive potential of the tanks. If the Wizard needs 4 or 5 tries to turn someone into a frog (expending a precious high level slot with each attempt), then it should take 5 or 6 rounds for a tank to beat someone to death. Neither route is right or wrong, but unless we could formulate an entirely novel way of thinking about saves, we are more or less stuck with those paths. (4e played around with different mechanics, but ultimately it seemed more "just different" than notably better.) [/QUOTE]
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Why the HP Threshold on Spells is a Bad Idea
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