Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Esker" data-source="post: 7900633" data-attributes="member: 6966824">I like the goal, but I think this approach has some (perhaps) unintended consequences.I take it by DC you mean spell save DC? And I take it you leave proficiency alone? This makes ability scores and AC upgrades matter disproportionately more than they did before. Not sure if that was part of your goal or not.Let's look at some examples.First, take a level 1 character with STR 16 vs an enemy with plate.RAW the attack bonus is +5, so they need to roll a 13, or 15 if the target has a shield. With your variant, the bonus is +8, so they need a 15, or a 17 vs a shield. So they are hitting 1/4 to 1/3 as often.Now this evens out as you go up in level, with parity at level 9 if you raise STR to 20. But what about vs lower AC enemies?I'm not sure what your proposed translation is for types of armor other than plate, but I suppose you would take unarmored AC to just be the DEX score? So suppose the target has 16 DEX and no armor. RAW that's an AC of 13; now it's 16 (I guess). At level 1, our hypothetical character needs an 8 to hit under both RAW and your variant. Your variant pulls ahead though: at level 9 they always hit outside a natural 1, whereas the RAW character needs at least a 4.So you've accentuated the difference between the two ends of the AC spectrum. Maybe that's ok, but it certainly alters balance.How about save effects?A level 1 caster with 16 in their casting stat would normally have a DC of 13; now they have a DC of 18. However the target presumably gets (ability - 10 + proficiency) added to their save. A target with a 12 in their stat and no proficiency now has a +2, whereas they had a +1 before. Before they needed a natural 12 to save; now they need a natural 16. A target with a 14 needed an 11, now they need a 14. A target with a 20 needed an 8; now they need an 8. So you've equalized save effects at the high end -- not sure that's the best balance point, since overall it makes casters much stronger if they are able to identify a weak save (and makes spells that target commonly good saves relatively much worse). But even if you modified the DC formula to achieve parity at moderate scores instead of high ones, you'd still be tilting the balance away from proficiency and toward ability scores.</blockquote>

Verification