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Community
General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions
There were 10 saving throws
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<blockquote data-quote="billd91" data-source="post: 8381910" data-attributes="member: 3400"><p>I'm not sure I'd necessarily call it dropping the ball. There are factors in place that argue for the design.</p><p>1) The system was designed with a certain degree of symmetry in the end result. Strong saves ended up 3 points higher, weak saves 3 points lower than the highest contributing factor in a Save's base DC for a high level character. +12 or +6 vs the +9 to the DC for a 9th level spell. </p><p>2) Resistance bonuses were far cheaper than any enhancement bonus to a stat, so magic item pricing and design favored defense.</p><p>3) Each of the saves had a feat to boost its save that was a higher bonus than any corresponding feat to boost a spellcasting DC.</p><p></p><p>But that's all on paper. And with pre-gens that weren't pushing optimization, it might have worked OK.</p><p></p><p>Where I think this broke down is in integrating with the rest of 3e and player behavior in the wild where players are free to rev a game over it's red line.</p><p>Uncapped stat increase meant that stats people would focus on for increase, like a spellcaster's prime casting stat, could grow obnoxiously large compared to defensive bonuses - and it would always pay something as a side benefit so it was virtually always worth boosting it. And with the effect of an easy and player controlled magic item economy, people really went for it to the benefit of caster power/detriment of saving throw power.</p><p>This is also seen a bit with the save DCs of big monsters too, particularly any based on Constitution which jumped up with a monster's size due to monster design guidelines and the way HD usually needed to stack up to keep pace with PC power.</p><p></p><p>In a system where stats were capped, like in 5e, I think the 3e saving throws would work MUCH better than they did in 3e.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="billd91, post: 8381910, member: 3400"] I'm not sure I'd necessarily call it dropping the ball. There are factors in place that argue for the design. 1) The system was designed with a certain degree of symmetry in the end result. Strong saves ended up 3 points higher, weak saves 3 points lower than the highest contributing factor in a Save's base DC for a high level character. +12 or +6 vs the +9 to the DC for a 9th level spell. 2) Resistance bonuses were far cheaper than any enhancement bonus to a stat, so magic item pricing and design favored defense. 3) Each of the saves had a feat to boost its save that was a higher bonus than any corresponding feat to boost a spellcasting DC. But that's all on paper. And with pre-gens that weren't pushing optimization, it might have worked OK. Where I think this broke down is in integrating with the rest of 3e and player behavior in the wild where players are free to rev a game over it's red line. Uncapped stat increase meant that stats people would focus on for increase, like a spellcaster's prime casting stat, could grow obnoxiously large compared to defensive bonuses - and it would always pay something as a side benefit so it was virtually always worth boosting it. And with the effect of an easy and player controlled magic item economy, people really went for it to the benefit of caster power/detriment of saving throw power. This is also seen a bit with the save DCs of big monsters too, particularly any based on Constitution which jumped up with a monster's size due to monster design guidelines and the way HD usually needed to stack up to keep pace with PC power. In a system where stats were capped, like in 5e, I think the 3e saving throws would work MUCH better than they did in 3e. [/QUOTE]
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There were 10 saving throws
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