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<blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 6154195" data-attributes="member: 1465"><p>A lich (or any other BBEG) is most typically a higher level caster than the PC, but is not a <em>much</em> higher level caster. In fact, with the current bounded accuracy keeping those spells DC bonus within +5, that lich won't have an enormous bonus compared to the PCs.</p><p></p><p>A <em>much</em> higher level caster is a rare foe, because it's just too hard to kill. You can have maybe a foe 4-5 levels higher than the party in 3e, it'll be a challenge but doable, but more than that and TPK becomes too probably. In 4e the level spread might need to be even smaller. 4 levels more is not yet what I call "much" higher. Higher than that, the DM is not going to play the foe fully, but most likely it's just going to shoot a top-powerful spell or two as a signal that the PCs should just run, so it doesn't matter much at that point what system is used to calculate the DC.</p><p></p><p>A much lower level caster is also rare, and probably even more so. A sidekick caster of 2 levels lower than the party is something I've seen, but less than that, and again there is little reason for the DM to play such NPC fully (ie with all the spells prepared and abilities defined), it's more convenient to use a simplified version like the dark adepts in 5e, ie a couple of spells defined and that's it. But indeed, with 5e directly offering these foes as an option, these will easily get used much more often than before, so this could be a good reason to think about DC carefully.</p><p></p><p>For these reasons IMO they are not very much a classic part of D&D, but however they might be more common in 5e, and I think it would be a good thing.</p><p></p><p>An interesting case to think about, is characters with only a few levels of a spellcaster class. Here we have a slight complication: you will want e.g. a Fighter 7/Wizard 3 to still get something useful out of those few spells he can cast. Thus, basing the DC only on Wizard levels might make it hard (if you want him to cast offensive spells). That also applies to the orc shaman foe with 2 spellcasting levels. If you don't scale DC with caster level at all, these multiclass casters' spells have the same % chance of success when casting the same 1st level spell already, but if you scale DC by level, then they have to think about an additional rule for multiclassed casters.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Li Shenron, post: 6154195, member: 1465"] A lich (or any other BBEG) is most typically a higher level caster than the PC, but is not a [I]much[/I] higher level caster. In fact, with the current bounded accuracy keeping those spells DC bonus within +5, that lich won't have an enormous bonus compared to the PCs. A [I]much[/I] higher level caster is a rare foe, because it's just too hard to kill. You can have maybe a foe 4-5 levels higher than the party in 3e, it'll be a challenge but doable, but more than that and TPK becomes too probably. In 4e the level spread might need to be even smaller. 4 levels more is not yet what I call "much" higher. Higher than that, the DM is not going to play the foe fully, but most likely it's just going to shoot a top-powerful spell or two as a signal that the PCs should just run, so it doesn't matter much at that point what system is used to calculate the DC. A much lower level caster is also rare, and probably even more so. A sidekick caster of 2 levels lower than the party is something I've seen, but less than that, and again there is little reason for the DM to play such NPC fully (ie with all the spells prepared and abilities defined), it's more convenient to use a simplified version like the dark adepts in 5e, ie a couple of spells defined and that's it. But indeed, with 5e directly offering these foes as an option, these will easily get used much more often than before, so this could be a good reason to think about DC carefully. For these reasons IMO they are not very much a classic part of D&D, but however they might be more common in 5e, and I think it would be a good thing. An interesting case to think about, is characters with only a few levels of a spellcaster class. Here we have a slight complication: you will want e.g. a Fighter 7/Wizard 3 to still get something useful out of those few spells he can cast. Thus, basing the DC only on Wizard levels might make it hard (if you want him to cast offensive spells). That also applies to the orc shaman foe with 2 spellcasting levels. If you don't scale DC with caster level at all, these multiclass casters' spells have the same % chance of success when casting the same 1st level spell already, but if you scale DC by level, then they have to think about an additional rule for multiclassed casters. [/QUOTE]
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