D&D 3E/3.5 What was the original intended function of the 3rd edition phb classes?

[NotAYakk]

To be fair, high spell counts for high level spellcasters was nothing new. 1e/2e had it as well.

The issue of spell save DCs was an interesting one. While it's true that the chances of a similar (or higher) level foe failing the save went down in 1e/2e, there were elements set up in the 3e system that were set up to do something similar for strong saves and common bonuses you could get to your saves were cheaper than most bonuses the caster could get to boost your save DCs. What that ran into was optimization-mania. Most likely targets weren't going to focus on just boosting their saves while spellcasters had all sorts of incentive to invest in their spellcasting stat. I figure this sort of issue is one of the reasons 5e caps the stats. It no longer can skew way out of proportion.

Casters had 3 targets for saves; the cost to defend against a spell was 3x larger.

And the "natural scaling" of both was about the same. Ie, the number of ways to add +X was about the same, and the superlinear cost increases where on the same scale.

Getting +4 to your constitution was roughly as hard as getting +4 to your casting stat. Getting a +4 fortitude save bonus was similar in price to getting a +4 to your save DCs.

Your "strong" saves went up at level/2; spell slot levels went up at about level/2.

Your "weak" saves went up level/3; this gives casters a level/6 advantage if they target a weak save.

So you have to invest roughly as much keeping your strong save to match spell save DCs, and more to get your weak saves matching spell save DCs. And then more again because you have 2 weak saves.

And if you do all of this? You are no more effective at doing stuff. You just managed to tread water at blocking some subset of what spellcasters can do to you.

Meanwhile, "no save" spells continue to grow in number, decrease in cost. So even if you do invest enough to tread water against spell saves DCs? You still get to "no save" and suck.

Meanwhile, in AD&D and earlier, each spell cast by a spellcaster had reduced chances of landing against tougher foes.

A level 21+ warrior has a 75%-90% save chance against various effects, with the more severe a better save chance. A level 1 warrior has a 5%-25% save chance.

It requires 1.05 to 1.3 attempts to land a spell on an even level foe at level 1 in AD&D2e, and 4 to 10 attempts to land a spell at level 21+. Even if we take the easiest save at level 1 and hardest at level 21+, this is a 3 fold reduction in spells landing.

To reduce offensive magic by this amount, even if the defender is "treading water" on saving throws, you'd have to:

1. Your number of spell slots at level 20 is 1/3 as many. Just strip piles of slots out. Reduce bonus spell slots. Etc.
2. Good saves progress at +5/4 (so +27 at level 20). Bad saves progress at +1 (so +20 at level 20). At level 6 and 11 and 16, a spellcaster can spend 1/2/3 extra rounds to increase spell save DCs by 5/10/15 points.

A spellcaster spending 4 rounds on a spell has +15 save DC; the target has +14 to +15 bonus over the previous saving throw tables. This acts like a "1/4 as many spells you cast actually land on target as they did at level 1" factor.

And then do a pass to weaken a pile of "no save and suck" spells, and probably boost spell blaster damage without crazy charop (3e high-HP made blasting ineffective).

 

[HammerMan]

Meanwhile, in AD&D and earlier, each spell cast by a spellcaster had reduced chances of landing against tougher foes.

A level 21+ warrior has a 75%-90% save chance against various effects, with the more severe a better save chance. A level 1 warrior has a 5%-25% save chance.

One of the first arguments I remember having with 3.0, was my buddy who always played fighter/thief in 2e complaining about saves... even if you went 5/5 at 10th level you really only had good Fort and Ref saves.... she argued that fighter at least should have all 3 good saves.

I also remember mid to late 3.5 when a player who was a monk took a dip in paladin to add cha to saves... the entire reason for the dip was because they could not keep up with all 3 save stats, so adding cha to them made it easier.

 

[payn]

Im super curious to the intent as well. There seems to be this assumption that every character will be decked out in gear. Not only will they be decked out, but the system math doesn't work without it. This was a big departure and to this day, many GM do not understand its necessity. I believe characters were intended to be balanced around an adventuring day. Though, spells in a can totally borked that expectation and was just one of several caster supremacy issues. Was this planned?

 

[Voadam]

I think it was to allow people to play any class or race combo, and have it be roughly balanced for combat at every level/xp amount. So no weak low level wizards, no prerequisites for paladin or ranger, no paladins and rangers are just better fighters with more powers and a higher xp cost.

I believe they had four core archetypes (Fighter, Rogue, Cleric, Wizard) and worked variations off of those.

So warrior types were based on the fighter who were at base tough, had good BAB, and good AC with the new thing of bonus feats for martial expertise. Paladins got powers and spells but gave up fighter feats so they were less good at weapon maneuvers. Rangers gave up some AC and a bunch of feat options for spells and skills. Barbarians gave up heavy armor and feats for rage, d12s, and extra skills.

Rogues got sneak attack and skills at the cost of lower toughness, BAB, and AC. The variants were bards who gave up sneak attack for spells, and monks who got monk fighting powers. Sneak attack and skills were overvalued so the rogue roles were all generally not up to everybody else in combat. Much better at combat than thieves in AD&D, but not the equal of others.

Clerics were full casters unlike in B/X or the limited top level spells of AD&D but with a strong emphasis on easy healing and buffing with a secondary of decently tough in direct melee. Druids were a variation to be less armor, but have more nature spells, skills, and their wildshape and other minor druid powers.

Wizards were vulnerable, they had strong attack and utility spells but weak on all other fronts. Sorcerers were a slight variation throwing more spells of less varieties..

 

[Li Shenron]

The main purpose was to provide narrative and tactical archetypes, as in every edition. While doing so they wanted to keep available most of previous editions classes.

In addition, 3.0 classes also wanted to open up more or less every combination with a playable race, although they also wanted to keep the iconic combos slightly advantageous.

And also, they wanted to make multiclassing work a lot more flexibility, though not necessarily to make every single multiclass be equally effective.

The only new class i.e. Sorcerer had a special purpose: to provide a non-vancian spellcaster option to those who hated the default.

 

[Weiley31]

In the end, post 6th level if you didn't have spellcasting available to you, running martials was a fool's errand. And looking back, the designers meant it to be that way. I think that's why there was a large population that adopted the idea of the E6 variant; your character capped out at 6th level ability, mainly to reign in spellcasters and not leave the martials too far behind that they could no longer contribute.

And by the time they actually figured out a good patch/solution with Martials, which was The Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords, the edition was pretty much over at that point outside of Pathfinder.

 

[soviet]

I remember the 3e designers talking about how no-one had wanted to play clerics in 2e because healing or buffing others was considered a waste of an action. So, they made clerics able to buff and heal more easily while also contributing to the fight more directly; in effect giving them extra stuff on the basis that it would be shared out. Of course, what they hadn't anticipated was how strong clerics would be when they didn't share it out and instead devoted all that buffing only to themselves.

 

[Willie the Duck]

I remember the 3e designers talking about how no-one had wanted to play clerics in 2e because healing or buffing others was considered a waste of an action. So, they made clerics able to buff and heal more easily while also contributing to the fight more directly; in effect giving them extra stuff on the basis that it would be shared out. Of course, what they hadn't anticipated was how strong clerics would be when they didn't share it out and instead devoted all that buffing only to themselves.

That would be Jonathan Tweet and his series on how 3E came to be.

 

[HammerMan]

what they hadn't anticipated was how strong clerics would be when they didn't share it out and instead devoted all that buffing only to themselves.

the funny part is that this too was an internet issue.

in 1987, even 1996 if someone tried to self buff and found "Hey I can be a better fighter then the fighter" that was the end of it... one group, maybe some heresay stories at cons... once 2003 internet shared everything 1 or 2 isolated stories of it blew up to being the power play...

I remember in 2e someone figured out at gen con that a wizard throwing darts did more damage then most low level spells... then someone said that throwing knives (2e combat and tactics did 2d4) were even better. It was a great power play for low level... but really it wasn't like every fighter you saw in every store would know "Weapon specialization for extra attacks and 2d4 throwing knives" so it wasn't as big an issue as 10 years later (let alone not 25 years later) when here we are all talking D&D...

 

[Willie the Duck]

That would be Jonathan Tweet and his series on how 3E came to be.

Have read through all of these and they didn't include the passage I thought they did about 3e being kind of a compromise the designers arrived at after going at it hammer and tongs. Hope I can find it eventually.

All in all, I'm not sure that there was much in the way of intent or general theory behind much of any of it. Excepting of course that they wanted to make a new edition, wanted to streamline a bunch of the accreted dross that never got cleaned up with 2e, and were willing to kill some sacred cows like racial level limits, class restrictions, lower AC better than higher, and so forth.

Interestingly, upon reflection, most of the different components for the most part make sense in isolation. Giving up attacks of opportunity when drawing weapons, getting back up, running away, trying to attack someone with a longer-reached weapon, and so forth makes plenty of sense, and even seems to be part of the late 2e stuff that people really liked. Getting rid of automatic spell loss if you got hit, complex initiative models, spells which never land at high levels, and few if any ways to cast in armor* also made all sorts of sense, since many of those were the most-often house-ruled-out parts of AD&D. It's just when you combine the two together (and don't make any adjustments based on the results) that you run into trouble. Same with WBL/magic item allotment -- rules for balanced starting above L1 or introducing new characters into an existing game make all the sense in the world, and people had been clamoring for consistent magic item cost and crafting rules for a long time.
*barring elven chain --supposedly rarest of the rare, and maybe drawing a target on your chest if you're known to have it.

yeah, I think the "extraordinary' subtype of abelites was a great idea, but a joke because like you said... if I look up the worlds strong man and the last 5-8 people to break records would need 30str, or the long jump record that 2 record breaks ago a fighter below 18th level can't match and it breaks....

This I think speaks to a question more fundamental even than a specific edition. D&D on a whole seems really reticent to answer basic questions about whether a non-magical-enhanced fighter is supposed to be mostly historical knight (a competent one, but not the best that has ever been), the best that's ever been, a action movie star who does nothing specifically supernatural but violates the laws of probability twelve times before breakfast, or mythic figures like Achilles or Ajax or Arthur who still don't cast spells, but clearly do more than a real mortal human ever could. Obviously there are specifics in jump distances and lifting limits, but that's where most of the dissonance shows up, since otherwise it tries not to solidly answer. I think this is part and parcel of D&D not wanting to answer it it is a general pre-modern fantasy system or a specific implied setting.