Something I'm not quite understanding about the will save...

[Xarlen]

That's a very interesting house rule. I like that.

 

[Tsyr]

................

YOINK!

That is SO my house rule now...

 

[Joker]

Once you realize D&D's a game designed to be playable and not an accurate model of life, things make a lot more sense.

Finally, someone who doesn't try to figure out their real selves' stats.

 

[Thanee]

Nice house rule, spatzi!

Also, I don't think, that rogues lose much there, as they tend to have a decent intelligence score (well, at least my rogues do).

Bye
Thanee

 

[hong]

The consensus by the end was that saves overall were fine, except where someone was of a class that could easily max out one save (Rogues for Reflex, Clerics or Druids for Will) by pumping up one stat. With those classes it was too easy to become effectively immune to one entire type of save.

I don't see why this is a problem, though. So you have a rogue who's immune to fireballs, with his Ref save of +20. With Fort and Will saves of +5, he's still going to be meat against hold person and disintegrate. Similarly, a fighter/barb with a Fort save of +20 will be copping much pain and suffering from chain lightning, fireball, etc.

There's not much point being immune to attack form A if your blind spot is attack forms B and C. What's important is how easy it is to max out _all_ your saves (and AC), since then you have no blind spots.

 

[mmu1]

I don't know if I like that house rule...

If you think it's logical to average stats like that, you shouldn't just apply that to saves, but to all modifiers. Initiative should be based on Dex + Int, bonus hit points on Str+Con, bonus skill points on Int+Wis (what good is intelligence if you don't have the force of will to hit the books), and so on and so forth.

Some skills would get interesting... Climb: Str for a powerful grip, Dex for being nimble and balanced, Con for making sure you could go the distance, Int for choosing the best path, Wis for pushing yourself that extra inch when exhausted, and Cha for making sure you look good while doing all that

 

[Tsyr]

Gonna steal that first part of your idea too...

 

[Magius del Cotto]

To the original poster: Force of will and force of personality are two entirely different things. Personality won't help much when you're being torture, while will may spell the difference between spilling the beans and sealing your lips. Let me put it this way: when's the last time your popularity (a measure of your Charisma) help you study for a big test (a measure of willpower)?
As to the double-statted saves, I might give it a try, but I don't think it'll stay in play for that long.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Hong: It's not necessarily a bad thing, but under the existing system, it becomes really easy to beat certain class' saves and nearly impossible to beat others. Spells effectively become a rock-paper-scissors thing; if you pick the right save, you win, if not you lose. Too absolute for my tastes.
For most casters this might not be so bad, but one of the important parts of 3E is the increase in casters with limited spell knowledge (Sorcerer, Bard, Psion, Psychic Warrior, lots of prestige classes). A Sorcerer doesn't always have a choice, he might HAVE to use the Fireball against you. With 3 save types and 5 elements, there are too many times when he doesn't have a spell that can hurt you. It doesn't really get better as time goes on, since he'll still need to be attacking with high-level spells for the save DC (or Heighten everything, which makes you run out of high-level slots really fast).

Personally I like a system where the near-immune people are less immune and those people with lousy saves are a bit better. Leveling the playing field a bit, so to speak. The 2-stat save system lets me do that without a huge amount of bookkeeping. It's not a HUGE effect, it's not going to radically change the classes, but it helps. Sorcerers and Wizards improve slightly, Rogues/Clerics/Druids decrease slightly, and most of the tank-types are basically unaffected.

Just take your characters and see what their saves would be under this system. Ask your players if they would have done their stats differently if this had been the rule at the start. Frankly, I'd be surprised if anything changed by enough to really skew your game balance.

(I also just hate how CHA always ends up as a dump stat.)

MMU1: Sure, you could do that, although I think you have to draw the line somewhere for the sake of simplicity. If you can think of good explanations to use both DEX and INT for Initiative, feel free, but I just wanted to change the save system.

 

[hong]

Hong: It's not necessarily a bad thing, but under the existing system, it becomes really easy to beat certain class' saves and nearly impossible to beat others. Spells effectively become a rock-paper-scissors thing; if you pick the right save, you win, if not you lose. Too absolute for my tastes.
For most casters this might not be so bad, but one of the important parts of 3E is the increase in casters with limited spell knowledge (Sorcerer, Bard, Psion, Psychic Warrior, lots of prestige classes). A Sorcerer doesn't always have a choice, he might HAVE to use the Fireball against you.

That's the sorcerer's problem, though. D&D isn't a game meant to be "won" by individuals on their own; it's a group pursuit, so not everybody is going to be good at everything. You need a mix of different character classes and skills to get things done. A sorc by himself should _expect_ to run into problems.

Besides which, for every sorc with fireball and lightning bolt, there might be another one with vampiric touch and hold person.

(I also just hate how CHA always ends up as a dump stat.)

In that case, I would think the solution most in keeping with the spirit of the game is to make a few feats that require good Cha. The problem isn't that Cha has no uses (it does), but those uses often aren't relevant to D&D's core ethos of killing monsters and taking their treasure. I have a few such feats on my D&D page (http://www.zipworld.com.au/~hong/dnd/cha_feats.htm).