Spellcasters and Saving Throws

[PallidPatience]

How big of an impact would basing saving throws for spells off of caster level and applicable modifier have? Specifically, I would want the formula for spellcasting saves to be the same as that of special abilities: 10 + 1/2 caster level + relevant modifier.

Would that break anything? Are many of the lower-level spells balanced by their having lower saves?

 

[CleverNickName]

The biggest thing I can see is, it makes all spells have the same save DC, regardless of spell level...which may or may not be a problem, depending on how dangerous you want magic to be in your game. Personally, I've always been annoyed with how low-level spells become useless as you grow in power; logic dictates that the opposite should happen.

At lower levels, the spell power remains relatively in line with the SRD. But the higher up you go in level, the more broken it becomes. And the formula completely falls apart once your characters get past 18th level. For example...

A sleep spell cast by the average noob wizard (Lv 1, Int 15) has a save DC of 13 under this new rule, which is the same as the SRD. No problem

A sleep spell cast by the average 133t wizard (Lv 20, Int 20) has a save DC of 25 under this new rule, which is 12 points higher than the SRD rules intended, and 4 points higher than possible even with the Heighten Spell metamagic feat.

A sleep spell cast by the average Epic wizard (Lv 30, Int 25) has a save DC of 32 under this new rule, which is enough to chloroform Tiamat. Far more powerful than the game designers intended.

 

[milo]

I don't see it being a huge problem. Most of the lower level spells have a level cap or somethng along those lines that would help deal with that. It would also make a sleep spell cast by a 20th lvl wiz harder for a low level creature to resist. Sleep has a HD limit if I remember correctly. It would make the low level spells that are useless at higher levels due to a save that is so low it is not a problem. The only real issue is that spells along the lines of hold person that have higher level remakes such as hold monster would be more commonly used in place of the higher level counterpart if at all possible. To me this is not a huge problem, because the low level versions still have the limitations based on creature type.