Saving throws are a coin toss?

[glass]

I would think that anyone that plays a pen and paper RPG, especially those that post on message boards about it, count as "nerds."

Er, that was the point. Hong was implying that gamers liked wizards to be uber because they were nerd characters and therefore easier for nerd players to identify with. I thought it was quite clever personally. YMMV.


glass.

 

[Khelzor]

One of the core conceits of D&D is: Level Matters. While playing D&D, players assume that Level plays a real, logical, and consistent part in determining the outcome of events. The higher your Level, the better you are at doing things. No player would expect a Level 1 Fighter to kill a Level 25 Fighter under normal circumstances, just as no player would expect that Level 1 Fighter to have the same ability to shake off a Sleep spell that the far more experienced and hardened Level 25 Fighter has. Instituting a flat 55% success rate on saving throws would undermine the difference between a Level 1 Fighter and a Level 25 Fighter when it comes to resisting Magic, thus violating the core principle that Level Matters.

A flat 55% success rate on saving throws completely ignores Level, thus violating the verisimilitude of the D&D game world. If a Level 1 Goblin peon with 6 Wisdom has the same chance to recover from a Sleep spell as Asmodeus, Lord of the Nine Hells, then the system you are using to adjudicate such a thing violates the spirit of D&D. In fact, I would go so far as to say that any system that yields such a result is not D&D, pure and simple. We can bicker about "Whatever Wizards Rubberstamps as D&D == D&D" all day long, but part of the core gameplay that makes D&D what it is does not allow for such a saving throw system.

Since when did how long an effect lasts have anything to do with the targets level? Other than a few spells that simply won't work on a target of X level, spell duration has absolutely nothing to do with level.

The only thing that ever took level into effect was whether or not the spell worked to begin with. If you got your spell past the targets save (or in 4E if you beat the appropriate defense) and potentially SR, then you applied the duration. If the duration was 2d4 rounds you rolled 2d4 and that is how long it lasted no matter if the target was 20th level or 1st.

The only difference I see is that they have made a simpler duration mechanic and have most likely adjusted the spells / powers effects to be balanced to work based off that mechanic.