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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ahnehnois" data-source="post: 6149840" data-attributes="member: 17106">I suppose your understanding of the "spine" math as it were, is correct. However, this does not account for the fact that it is much easier to get saving throw bonuses than DC bonuses. Cloaks of Resistance are perhaps the single most prevalent "Christmas Tree effect" item, and are very cheap. Ability boosters are also ubiquitous (which, to be fair, balances out). Feats taken to improve saves are also more common and more effective than DC-based feats.At 1st level, before the magic bonuses come into play, I'm inclined to agree that saves are hard. But they very quickly become easy, and casters at 1st level can't do that much. At higher levels, good saves tend to be made on base save + ability + resistance alone, while characters tend to spend a lot of resources boosting their weaker ones.In my current three-PC 10th level party, for example, the lowest save value is a monstrous character (who has lost several HD to level adjustment) rogue with a will save bonus of +10. A 10th level caster's best spell DC is 15 + ability modifier + feats. With some effort, he might be able to break through. However, the next lowest bonus is +12, and the highest is +20, not counting a few situational bonuses as well. IMC, there's also action points shifting math in the defender's direction, but even without those, a decent on-level caster trying to beat a saving throw is going to fail pretty often. And those failures tend to be pretty costly.If I left the default 10 + spell level + ability mod DC in place, a 1st level spell would almost never have any effect (if it required a save). I look at standardizing the DC's as serving a similar function to the TB iterative attack rules, which remove the lower iterative attacks that never hit competitive targets at high levels.</blockquote>

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