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Message: <blockquote data-quote="billd91" data-source="post: 9555776" data-attributes="member: 3400">And, on top of that, how do you analyze spells that don't do damage but cause loss of actions - the save or sit/die spells?Looking at 3e saves, goods saves were generally 1/2 level, bad saves 1/3 level. Good saves started with a bonus +2, bad saves +0. The thing you're supposed to compare them with is the level-based piece of the save DC, specifically, the highest level spell a same-level caster can hit you with. The good save is generally ahead of the level-factor, the bad save is behind, culminating in the good save at a base +12 being 3 points higher than the 9th level spell's +9 to the save DC, the bad save being 3 points lower than the 9th level spell. And with the DC starting at 10+spell level, the target had a 50% chance of saving, 50+15% for the maximum good save, 50-15% for the maximum bad save. From a design perspective, that's not a terrible place to start.Then, as far as enhancing magic and feats go, defense is always cheaper in general. Iron Will gives +2 to the will save vs Spell Focus's +1 to DCs. And resistance bonuses are cheaper than stat enhancement bonuses. Again, not bad principles to work with.The problems ended up being emergent in play and probably not anticipated. 3e's stat bonuses and ability to increase stats incentivized caster PCs dumping as much of their available point buy for their stats into their caster stat, then increasing it with stat boosters. The defense, however, had 3 stats to cover - some of which might not even match the PC's prime offensive stat and so got less love from the point buy. So there was a divide in incentivized behavior.As a result, the bad stats really became pronounced Achilles' heels.Then there was the issue of monster-based saves that were typically based on 1/2 hit dice and the fact that high CR creatures often had considerably more than 20 hit dice - which tended to blow the level-based increase to save DCs of +9 out of the water. 4e and 5e changed that behavior mainly by basing save DCs on CR rather than hit dice. And 5e's bounded accuracy tends to fix up the problem of casters dumping all of their enhancements on their caster stat - since now they have to stop at about +5 (or a little over with some rare magical help).I think something really needed to be done about saving throws compared to 1e/2e because the way those worked, high level save or sit/die spells became increasingly useless against level-appropriate opponents - they were simply more likely to save and waste the caster's time because higher powered targets had (mostly) better saves across the board (and don't get me started on how shafted thieves are with the AD&D saving throw table). But 3e may have taken things too far in allowing the save or sit/die spell become too good from min-maxed casters. 5e is somewhere in the middle because bad saves really do stay bad, but save DCs tend not to get so out of hand, and concentration rules/repeated saves each round significantly blunt the power of save or sit spells by making them easier to eventually end even if the initial save fails.</blockquote>

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