Enough with spell saving throws! Give em an AC (now wih new idea, see later post)

[Sravoff]

Any one done any done any tweaking to get rid of most saving throws for spells?

Instead of the fighter rolling a fortitude save, the wizard rolls spelll attack(<-Couldn't think of a better name at the moment) against the fighters fortitude AC.

I bring this up only because magic is supposed to be deadly, and most characters have lke a 75+% chance to take half damage or ignore the effect completely.

I was hoping to make magic more like actual combat...where your AC is much lower than the foes attack bonus.

-Sravoff

 

[Sravoff]

Ok, how does this sound?

Every one has a:
AC
FAC (Fortitude Armor Class)
RAC (Reflex Armor Class)
WAC (Will Armor Class)

Your save Ac's (FAC, RAC, WAC) are calculated as follows.
FAC=10+Fort Mod.+Con Mod.+Misc.
RAC=10+Ref Mod.+Dex Mod.+Misc.
WAC=10+Will Mod.+Wis Mod.+Misc.

Now, to affect a target, a spell user, cleric, sorcerer, wizard, rolls a spell roll.

Spell Roll=d20+Will Save+PSCA Mod.+Spell level
PSCA=Primary spell casting attribute, Sorcerer=Chr, cleric=wis ect.

So a sixth level sorcerer with a Charisma of 16 targets a eigth level fighter with a scorching ray. Fighter has a dexterity of 15

The fighters RAC is therefore 14.

The sorcerer,we'll call him Bob, rolls a d20, and get 5, he adds his will save of 5, and his charisma bonus of 3, then the spell level or 2. For a total of 15, beating the fighters FAC and hitting him with a a scorching ray.

I realize thismakes spell casters much more powerful.....so any oen got any ideas of how to even it back out?

 

[Blaque]

Actually, there's something like this in Unearthed Arcana called "Players Roll All the Dice". Since UA is OGL, its over at d20srd.org.

So here you go
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/playersRollAllTheDice.htm

Stuff.

 

[Infiniti2000]

Spell Roll=d20+Will Save+PSCA Mod.+Spell level

Why'd you add Will save to this? You've suddenly made all spells incredibly powerful, especially so for spellcasters with a good Wisdom. Get rid of this and you essentially have a variant of "player's make all rolls" from the Unearthed Arcana.

 

[Sravoff]

Why'd you add Will save to this? You've suddenly made all spells incredibly powerful, especially so for spellcasters with a good Wisdom. Get rid of this and you essentially have a variant of "player's make all rolls" from the Unearthed Arcana.

The will save is used to represent a base spell attack bonus.
What I did, was make spell casting much more like combat with weapons. When you youattack with a weapon, you get bonus's and you roll to bet your oponents AC.

A 20th level fighter attacking a Pitfend with a greatsword +5, and a strength of 22, (thanks to boosted magic Items, Gets a +31 to attack. 20 for the bab, 5 for the sword, 6 for the strength. So he has to roll a 9, the AC of the pitfiend is 40.

A 20th level sorcerer, with a Charisma of 22, attempts to cast Dominate monster on the same Pit fiend. He stacks up his Spell Roll. 12 for will save, 6 for Chr bonus, 9 for spell level. +27 to the roll. The pit fiends WAC is 31, so the sorcerer must roll a 4.........

Under the regular rules, the Pit fiend must roll a DC 25 will save, which he gets +21 to. So he must roll a 3.

I love proving myself wrong!

Ok, needs a slight bit of tweekage. But basically, I want spells to scale in their usefulness as a weapon is.


Ok...... I am going to drop this, use the "Players Roll All the Dice" method. Hitting with a sword is slightly different than casting dominate monster.

That was way out of wack on my part, perhaps later I shall come up with a good varient, but that is clearly not the way to go.

-Sravoff

 

[Sravoff]

Actually, there's something like this in Unearthed Arcana called "Players Roll All the Dice". Since UA is OGL, its over at d20srd.org.

So here you go
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/playersRollAllTheDice.htm

Stuff.

Thanks, that looks great!
-Sravoff

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Any one done any done any tweaking to get rid of most saving throws for spells?

I was hoping to make magic more like actual combat...where your AC is much lower than the foes attack bonus.

-Sravoff

...But the point of the BAB's scaling faster than AC is because the iterative attacks will still be likely to miss. The next spell isn't cast at a -5 "to hit". Taking half damage is still far from a mere scratch. A 10th level fighter (con 18, avg. hp ~90) saving against an empowered fireball (15d6) still just took about 22-23 points of damage, or 1/4 his health. And it could have originated from over 400 feet away AND hit multiple people. Also, any smart caster (ie, wizards) will target their spells based on presumed weaknesses. Why throw a fort save at the big guy in armor or a reflex save at the guy who *thinks* you don't notice him hiding around the corner?

One thing I would like to see is somehow basing the saving throws on caster level, because there are some spells w/o SR and little to no important CL dependent parameters. No idea how to balance it at all, though. Especially when it comes to low-->high level consistency.

 

[Sravoff]

...But the point of the BAB's scaling faster than AC is because the iterative attacks will still be likely to miss. The next spell isn't cast at a -5 "to hit". Taking half damage is still far from a mere scratch. A 10th level fighter (con 18, avg. hp ~90) saving against an empowered fireball (15d6) still just took about 22-23 points of damage, or 1/4 his health. And it could have originated from over 400 feet away AND hit multiple people. Also, any smart caster (ie, wizards) will target their spells based on presumed weaknesses. Why throw a fort save at the big guy in armor or a reflex save at the guy who *thinks* you don't notice him hiding around the corner?

One thing I would like to see is somehow basing the saving throws on caster level, because there are some spells w/o SR and little to no important CL dependent parameters. No idea how to balance it at all, though. Especially when it comes to low-->high level consistency.

Which, is by proving myself completely wrong in my earlier post I havew opted to use the supplied "Players roll all the dice method"

Yeah, saving throws based on CL would be very nice, but, as you said......

-Sravoff

 

[Sravoff]

Ok, how bout this?

Spell Save DC is equalk to the following equation
CL-Spell level+Ability Mod.

This gives A wizard, with a base int og 16, and at every four levels ncreases it by one the follwoing DC's/ (their normal DC's are in parenthases)

1st: Level one spells are DC 13(14) (10+1-1+3)
5th: Level one spells are DC 17(14) (10+5-1+3)
Level three spells are DC 15(16) (10+5-3+3)
17th Level one pells ae DC 31(16) (10+17-1+5)
Level Nine spells are DC 23(24) (10+17-9+5)

yes, a bit broken, because even really high level spells have really high DC's..... 1/2 CL? (rond up)

5th Level one spells DC 15(14) (10+3-1+3)
Level three spells DC 13(16) (10+3-3+3)
17th Level one spells DC 23(16) (10+9-1+5)
Level nine spells DC 15(24) (10+9-9+5)

20th Level one spells DC 24(16) (10+10-1+5)
Level nine spells DC 16(24) (10+10-9+5)

Ok, now high level spells are too easy to resist........I liek this idea though, the use of easy spells get harder to resist cause the wizard can use more energy "hardening" it, instead of actually shaping it.

-Sravoff

 

[Jack Simth]

One thing I would like to see is somehow basing the saving throws on caster level, because there are some spells w/o SR and little to no important CL dependent parameters. No idea how to balance it at all, though. Especially when it comes to low-->high level consistency.

A Sorceror with Heighten Spell can achieve that effect.... At 6th level, that 1st level Charm Person can become a 3rd level spell, with a DC 2 higher than it would be as a 1st level spell; a Wizard with Heighten Spell can do the same thing....