Mixing old saves in the new game.

[QuaziquestGM]

Let's phrase that a different way: Why should being an egg protect you in anyway from being magically transformed into an omlet?

 

[billd91]

What if it's a really tough mother of an egg?

Now for the turnabout.
Why should being a thief make you crappy at saving against breath weapon attacks when the fighter and cleric can't do as good a job of getting out of the way?

 

[glass]

Bad for the PC, Nice for the GM and for common sense

It's nice for the DM to make creating balanced encouters more difficult?

There is no logical reason why training as a fighter would increase your resistance to magic.....Of for that matter, why training in two different arcane classes that use the same spells would nessicarly make you any better at resisting magic in general.

...unless he was a fighter in a magical world, where avoiding or resisting magical effect was a matter of life and death (and a very real part of his experience). Which is exactly what he is.

Part of the goal is to return the old modules to some sembelence of their original difficulty. They were designed for multiclass characters whose class saves didn't stack.

IIRC (in 2e at least), multiclass characters were 1 or two levels behing their single classed brethren, and the save chart progreesed in bands of 5 or 6 levels. Multiclass character generally had better saves than single classers, because they weren't far enough behind in levels for that to make any difference and they used the best save in each category.

A 3.5 equivalent of a previous edition multiclasser is already so weak that they had to introduce special feats and PrC to make them even half-way viable, and you actually want to make them weaker. Less even progressions (which are more likely) suffer less, but they still suffer. If you want the danger of the old modules, presumably you want it for everyone to experience that danger equally.

Personally, I'd say using the old effects of saves (instant death poisons, anyone?) with the new save mechanics will feel plenty old-school, without having the rogue alternately the worst or the best at avoiding dragonfire, depending on which book a particular dragon is in.

YMM and obviously does V.


glass.

 

[Infiniti2000]

I'm not posting this to the conversion forum as I am wondering about rules interactions.

I'm mostly concered with playablity.

You are probably the only person I have seen who actually likes the old school saving throw mechanism. Of all the things 3.x introduced that is the one thing I thought was universally accepted as an great design change. This is not to degrade your opinion on it, but just to let you know that I think you are in the huge minority. This just means you should think twice about it and making sure the payoff is worth it for your group.

That said, you will have problems with feat like Lightning Reflexes, etc. Abilities like evasion, once useful, will be completely meaningless. Cloaks of resistance, et al, will have a different effect (I think more powerful). Everyone should start investing in those cloaks, probably trading in their now useless ring of evasion. You'll also need to decide how to handle undead and constructs, who are immune to effects requiring Fort saves (unless they affect objects). How will that work without Fort saves?

One nice wrinkle is that saves don't stack for multiclass characters. You get only the lowersave (lower = better) on each category that you qualify for.

But keep in mind that multiclass characters in 3.x are vastly different than in 1e or 2e. They are not even the same concept IMO, so you'll end up screwing the character hard, and not in a good way. In 3.x, a character pays through the nose to multiclass. In 1e or 2e it was almost a freebie in most cases.

PS Don't forget the item saving throw charts.

 

[glass]

You are probably the only person I have seen who actually likes the old school saving throw mechanism.

'No, there is another'.

That said, you will have problems with feat like Lightning Reflexes, etc. Abilities like evasion, once useful, will be completely meaningless. Cloaks of resistance, et al, will have a different effect (I think more powerful). Everyone should start investing in those cloaks, probably trading in their now useless ring of evasion. You'll also need to decide how to handle undead and constructs, who are immune to effects requiring Fort saves (unless they affect objects). How will that work without Fort saves?

If I understand the OP correctly, undead will still be affected (or not) normally by the PC's abilities, because the PCs are more or less 3.5 characters and therefore their abilities will still cause fort saves. However, how the PCs are affected by the enemies will depend on whether the enemies are 'new' or 'old'. Hence my comment above about rogues avoiding dragonfire.


glass.

 

[Infiniti2000]

'No, there is another'.

Egad!

If I understand the OP correctly, undead will still be affected (or not) normally by the PC's abilities, because the PCs are more or less 3.5 characters and therefore their abilities will still cause fort saves. However, how the PCs are affected by the enemies will depend on whether the enemies are 'new' or 'old'. Hence my comment above about rogues avoiding dragonfire.

Wow, that's even worse. The same spells and abilities function differently depending on the opponent? That would make for an incredibly inconsistent (and therefore IMO annoying) game.