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Don't Lose The Forest For The Trees
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<blockquote data-quote="Jay Verkuilen" data-source="post: 7732523" data-attributes="member: 6873517"><p>Even old games can have unintended features due to unfortunate mathematical choices. </p><p></p><p>In 3.X the way saves worked for multiclass characters who had multi-ed in classes with two good saves that were the same (e.g., Barbarian and Fighter), it was not difficult to end up totally rocking one of the save types while being slightly poorer in the other two. This happened because WotC rounded in the middle of the calculations. As anyone who's taken high school chemistry knows, this is a major no-no. They eventually published a correction in <em>Unearthed Arcana</em> but for most of 3.X's life cycle, saves were "wrong." Well they were wrong in the sense that they were based on poor arithmetical practice but may well have created an exploit if there were feats that substituted one save for another. I fixed it in my campaign because things like this bug me a lot, but I'm sure most people didn't. In 5E they have some similar issues, again with saves, whereby high level characters develop a "glass jaw" in non-proficient saves. They don't advance in a non-proficient save but all other things being equal, save DCs go up as CR goes up, and sometimes end up extraordinarily high in an attempt to challenge people with proficient saves that align with their key stats. The effect can be quite marked. The save system is rather complicated due to the fact that there are six of them, compared to previous editions' fewer, leaving more room for "whoops". </p><p></p><p>A lot of this happens because I suspect the math gets checked only at lower levels---to the extent it is at all, I'm not too sure that the WotC group actually has anyone good at even fairly basic math on it. Lots of problems take a while to emerge due to compounding of errors, such as the effect of rounding during a calculation.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Jay Verkuilen, post: 7732523, member: 6873517"] Even old games can have unintended features due to unfortunate mathematical choices. In 3.X the way saves worked for multiclass characters who had multi-ed in classes with two good saves that were the same (e.g., Barbarian and Fighter), it was not difficult to end up totally rocking one of the save types while being slightly poorer in the other two. This happened because WotC rounded in the middle of the calculations. As anyone who's taken high school chemistry knows, this is a major no-no. They eventually published a correction in [I]Unearthed Arcana[/I] but for most of 3.X's life cycle, saves were "wrong." Well they were wrong in the sense that they were based on poor arithmetical practice but may well have created an exploit if there were feats that substituted one save for another. I fixed it in my campaign because things like this bug me a lot, but I'm sure most people didn't. In 5E they have some similar issues, again with saves, whereby high level characters develop a "glass jaw" in non-proficient saves. They don't advance in a non-proficient save but all other things being equal, save DCs go up as CR goes up, and sometimes end up extraordinarily high in an attempt to challenge people with proficient saves that align with their key stats. The effect can be quite marked. The save system is rather complicated due to the fact that there are six of them, compared to previous editions' fewer, leaving more room for "whoops". A lot of this happens because I suspect the math gets checked only at lower levels---to the extent it is at all, I'm not too sure that the WotC group actually has anyone good at even fairly basic math on it. Lots of problems take a while to emerge due to compounding of errors, such as the effect of rounding during a calculation. [/QUOTE]
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