"Metadesign Principles of D&D"

[Joshua Randall]

It is a sufficiently different concept that they had to do something different. Many spells still have an effect if you make the save... they have no effect if they don't bypass SR

Why? There is no design principle that says spells need two different counter-measures.

SR only exists in 3.x because it previously existed in 1e.

And I suspect SR originally came into existence as a "neener-neener" ability (as it is now called), or a way to screw over the PCs back when D&D was a lot more adversarial.

 

[Joshua Randall]

"Game mechanics given as percentages are not meant to be adjustable by the characters the way a d20 mechanic is. "

Examples: Arcane Spell Failure, stability roll when dying. This is a "hidden rule" cited by Monte Cook.

Heh, except that PrCs and even some base classes routinely muck with ASF.

Actually, another design principle seems to be "It should be difficult (if not impossible) to cast arcane spells while wearing armor."

 

[Shade]

Here's another one:

"Anything which grants bonuses to speed or things requring agility should not be useable when wearing medium or heavy armor or when carrying greater than a light load."

Examples:

• Ranger's combat style
• Monk's fast movement
• Ninja's speed climb

 

[Nail]

SR only exists in 3.x because it previously existed in 1e.

I'm not sure I agree with the "only" in that sentence.

SR does several things that saves don't. An unmentioned one is: "Allow a low HD creature to be a higher CR." This means that a high CR creature need not have insane numbers of HD.

Another is "Allow a high HD brute monster to be a challenge to high level PCs." This means that your big Armagedon Creature doesn't have to have high saves in all areas.

Finally, SR allows "immune to magic" to be easily modeled, as in golems. (We'll ignore -- for a moment -- how the "Orb" spells totally screwed that up. Thanks for nothing, WotC! )

I think SR is just fine.

 

[Infiniti2000]

It's yet another complexity on spells, and its game effect could be duplicated by sufficiently large saving throw bonuses.

I agree with Nail and in addition, this point is not correct. Many spells have save for half damage (e.g. fireball) or save and still take damage (e.g slay living). SR provides a much different effect than a large saving throw bonus. Note that sufficiently large saving throw bonuses are in fact in the game in the form of racial bonuses.

Another example is (Su) vs (Sp) vs (Ex). One big reason for these distinctions is the existence of the anti-magic spell. Ditch that spell, and there is really no reason to make such fine Su/Sp/Ex distinctions.

I strongly disagree with this point. An AMF is definitely not the key reason. There are great differences between these special abilities and handling an AMF is probably the least of them because an AMF is a rare occurrence.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Yes, SR creates a somewhat different effect, and on the balance I find that is definitely not a good thing.

SR causes huge headaches when it comes to balance between multiclassed spellcasters and straight spellcasters. SR greatly exacerbates the non-linear value of caster level, and it is a contributing reason why we have so many strange multiclass PrCs as a desperate bandaid. That is a lot of mechanical overhead for something that should be workable using only base classes found in the PHB.

3e has partially inherited from 1e/2e what I called "When you met something weird, the only smart tactic is to play it stupid" syndrome. What that means is that a random unknown magical monster is likely to have both SR and energy resistance, on top of its saving throw. Throwing Fireballs or Lightning Bolts becomes a waste of time. Just hang back and keep your friend with the big +n sword alive, because discouraging magic-using PCs from using magic against magical creatures is what seems to pass for "clever" monster design in D&D far far too often for my taste.

 

[Votan]

Yes, SR creates a somewhat different effect, and on the balance I find that is definitely not a good thing.

SR causes huge headaches when it comes to balance between multiclassed spellcasters and straight spellcasters. SR greatly exacerbates the non-linear value of caster level, and it is a contributing reason why we have so many strange multiclass PrCs as a desperate bandaid. That is a lot of mechanical overhead for something that should be workable using only base classes found in the PHB.

3e has partially inherited from 1e/2e what I called "When you met something weird, the only smart tactic is to play it stupid" syndrome. What that means is that a random unknown magical monster is likely to have both SR and energy resistance, on top of its saving throw. Throwing Fireballs or Lightning Bolts becomes a waste of time. Just hang back and keep your friend with the big +n sword alive, because discouraging magic-using PCs from using magic against magical creatures is what seems to pass for "clever" monster design in D&D far far too often for my taste.

The problem here is actually the strength of save or disable spells in 3.X. In first and second edition, disabling spells often were worthelss to cast. Foes above a certain level just saved too often. That is because (with veyr rare exceptions) all spells were equally easy to save against. Sometimes this made me wanbt to translate "save neg." as "this spell does nothing". In 3.X these spells scale in power with the caster and so are always a threat.

I find save or disable spells less fun. Big encounters end with a sudden magical effect. The counter is to make spells less reliable which reverses tactics. On average, in 3.X the winning tactic seems to be either gambling or buffing. This is in opposition to one generation ago where the winning tactic was to do reliable damage round after round in support of the heavy hitters.

 

[wocky]

I have the idea that there were a lot of meta-rules or "metadesign principles" as called in this thread involved in the development of D&D. Recently I began searching for patterns and doing a deep analysis of the 3.0 iconics. My hunch is that there are some canonical progressions for attack bonus, AC, saves, damage, etc. and that the game was balanced around those.

What I'm trying to accomplish is to rebuild the tables for expected attack bonus at each level, expected primary attribute bonus at each level, expected AC bonus at each level, etc.

I already found some interesting patterns in my analysis, which is turning out to be harder than I first expected... mostly because of the gp progression given in the DMG, which gives access to some items sooner than I first expected.

Examples:

- There are only three armors you can choose to use in the game: Light, Medium and Heavy. Most "choices" given in the PHB (i.e. half plate instead of full plate) are sub-optimal after level 4 when you are able to afford any type of armor. From this you can extrapolate three different AC progressions.

- Each class was designed for three main abilities. The main ability should have a +2 bonus, will receive all +1 ability bonuses every four levels and will be buffed with the best ability boosting equipment possible. Two secondary abilities will receive +2 and +1 bonuses, will not receive class bonuses, and will be buffed with ability boosting equipment of a lower bonus. (Of course you can depart from this meta-rule, but your choices should be no less optimal than these). The three main abilities of each class are usually mentioned in the PHB, under the "abilities" heading.

- Strength is a special case in ability boosting equipment. A +2 bonus is given by the Gauntlets of Ogre Power, but +4 and +6 are given by the Belt of Giant Strength. I assume that this is a "patch" in the rules to prevent early stacking of a +2 bonus in Strength with a +2 bonus in Dexterity (with the Gauntlets of Dexterity).

- The amulet of health can't be combined with the periapt of wisdom. This seems to be a patch to keep mostly clerics in check, since it has WIS as a primary ability, and CON as a secondary/third ability (CHA is the other important ability for a cleric).

Does anybody know of any materials that would help me in this endeavour, or similar disections of the game? For instance, AtiI know Iron Heroes should be of help at some point, since it should have been desing with this meta-rules in mind. Any other? Articles? Web pages?

 

[MatthewJHanson]

- Strength is a special case in ability boosting equipment. A +2 bonus is given by the Gauntlets of Ogre Power, but +4 and +6 are given by the Belt of Giant Strength. I assume that this is a "patch" in the rules to prevent early stacking of a +2 bonus in Strength with a +2 bonus in Dexterity (with the Gauntlets of Dexterity).

I'm pretty sure this is just a hold over from previous editions.

 

[Nail]

Does anybody know of any materials that would help me in this endeavour, or similar disections of the game?

I did this.

Given an iconic set of PCs, I gave them optimal equipment each level, based on expected wealth per level. For example, by 5th level each PC had a Cloak of Protection +1 (Market Price = 1000gp, expected PC wealth (9000gp). At the appropriate time, the PCs upgraded their Cloaks, assuming they spend about 15% of their wealth on such a thing. So:
Resistance Bonus to save/Level
+1/5th
+2/9th
+3/12th
+4/14th
+5/16th

The same thing for other common equipment, like stat booster items, armor, and weapons. I also took into account stacking bonuses (for AC: Armor, Shield, Deflection, Natural, Luck, Insight, Sacred).

It's a very revealing exercise.