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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kerrick" data-source="post: 4233954" data-attributes="member: 4722">I sat down today to figure out saves, in part because I wanted to test out a modification to spell saves - DC = 10 + 1/2 CL + mod (more on this later). First, I used a set of formulae that someone had given me for the BAB calculations:Item Stat Boost: +1/5 levels (or really 1/6 for non-epic or non focused)Stat boost (from level progression): +1/8 levelsNote these are modifiers, not the actual stats - at 15th level, frex, the stat bonus you get from items like bracers of Dex is +3.Now, with those in mind, I devised a series of formulae to account for different saves, classes, and stats - clerics might have a high Fort save, but they're not going to dump a lot of points into Con, most times. Here's what I came up with:High save, optimized - Clr/Drd (Will), Mnk (Ref/Will), Rog (Ref) = 2 + (level/2 + 2) + (level/5) + (level/8)High save, mid-range - Bbn/Ftr (Fort), Brd (Ref), Rgr (Fort/Ref) = 2 + (level/2 + 2) + (level/6) + (level/12)High save, low end - Brd (Will), Clr/Drd/Mnk/Pal (Fort), Sor/Wiz (Will) = 1 + (level/2 + 2)Low save, optimized - Pal/Rgr (Will) = 2 + (level/3) + (level/8)Low save, mid range - Bbn/Ftr (Ref) = 2 + (level/3) + (level/9)Low save, low end - Bbn/Ftr/Rog (Will), Brd/Rog (Fort), Clr/Drd/Pal (Ref), Sor/Wiz (Fort/Ref) = (level/3)"optimized" means the class' save is modified by a stat that starts high (usually the highest) and is always boosted - Reflex for rogues, for instance."Mid-range" is a save that is modified by a stat that is secondary and will probably be boosted (Con for fighters), but not as much as a primary stat."Low end" is saves modified by stats that are relatively unimportant to the character - Wisdom for bards, frex. Fort saves for clerics and druids might be mid-range, but paladins suffer from MAD - they'll dump points into Cha, Wis, and Str (in that order) before Con, IMO.This doesn't take into account save bonus items (rings and cloaks of resistance) or the +2 save bonus feats, because those appear maybe 50% of the time. I assumed the stat bonuses started at +2 (could be +3 for optimized high save). I tested this against the half-dozen or so characters I had, and the results were very close, when I accounted for anomalies like the rogue with boots of Reflex +2 and the cleric with higher Dex than normal.Oddly, though, the low-end high save is pretty close to the low saves - at 20th level, the high saves range from +20 to +13, while the low saves range from +11 to +7. The obvious problem here, of course, is that boosting the low save will result in them being higher than the low-end high save. This isn't really as much of a problem as it looks, though; paladins are an anomaly anyway, since they get Cha bonus to all saves, and they and rangers are half-casters, so their Wis bonus isn't going to be very high to start with (see below). Only Dex-based fighters will have a decent Reflex save (and they'll likely multiclass with rogue), so we can toss them out as well. That leaves only one class - the barbarian, and guess what - he'll have a high Con score (for his rage), which means his high save (Fort) will be well out of reach of his low saves.Now, as far as spell DCs are concerned, I used pretty much the same system: DC 10 + 2 (starting stat mod) + 1/2 CL + item stat boost + level stat boost. Since the CL for half-casters (ranger/paladin) is already half level, they use 10 + 1/4 CL instead of 10 + 1/2 CL. I also assumed that since they didn't need as high a Wis score, it would start lower and be boosted less (probably around 2-3 points total, so level/7).Optimized - Brd, Clr, Drd, Sor/Wiz: DC = 10 + 2 + (CL/2) + (level/6) + (level/8)Lesser - Pal/Rgr: DC = 10 + 1 + (CL/4) + (level/7)So, overall, save DCs ended up increasing by about 1.5 every 2 levels for optimized casters, or ~2 points/3 levels for half-casters. High saves keep up with this trend - they increase by about 1 point/level - but low saves increase by 1 point about every 2.5 levels. So, effectively, the high save has about a 60% of success at any given level from 1-20, but a low save starts at 50% and decreases over time to 35% at L10 and 15% at L20.By L40, a high save against a L9 spell with CL 40 is almost a guaranteed success (DC 43 vs. +37 on an optimized save), but the low save will always fail - the optimized low save is only +20. You can probably safely assume that the PC will have at least 1 booster feat, and maybe two (the epic version grants +4), so that's +26 total - a slim chance, but a chance nontheless. The problem remains, however - the low-end low save is only +14, so adding another +6 still won't give it a chance of success, no matter how small.Conclusion: High saves maybe need to be reduced a bit - maybe to half character level + 1 - and low saves definitely need to be boosted, possibly to 1/3 level + 1 or 2. This means that the 1st (and possibly 2nd) level save bonuses will be the same for high and low, but PCs are so fragile at those levels that they could use the boost. As far as multiclassing, it helps PCs that keep taking levels in classes with similar saves (base classes and PrCs, frex) - instead of getting a save that's 2-3 points (or more) lower than it should be, their low save would be closer to normal. The fractional save system would help for multiclass PCs, but since low saves are too low overall, it wouldn't solve the problem.</blockquote>

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