Different mental scores for will saves?

[Seharvepernfan]

In the DMG somewhere it mentions as an optional rule of using Int on will saves vs. illusion and Cha on will saves vs. ench.

What does that leave wisdom? I can think of scrying, but what else?

Also, how does this affect the games balance? I mean, is there anything that might not be obvious that I should consider before I houserule this?

[HalfDragonCube]

The only thing that springs to mind is that there are some feats and such that apply you Cha score to your will saves (or something along those lines) and then they would be fairly useless due to that.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I once came up with a variant casting system. Int was required for spell cap (int - 10), Wis determined DC's, and Cha determined bonus spells.

Made the casters a lot more MAD, which helped offset their relative power. Not by much, you understand, but some.

[ffone]

I once came up with a variant casting system. Int was required for spell cap (int - 10), Wis determined DC's, and Cha determined bonus spells.

Made the casters a lot more MAD, which helped offset their relative power. Not by much, you understand, but some.

Further pushes casters toward the 'choose spells with no DCs' thing that already seems to be recommended. =P

(And 'Use Rope Trick frequently to refresh slots')

[HalfDragonCube]

I once came up with a variant casting system. Int was required for spell cap (int - 10), Wis determined DC's, and Cha determined bonus spells.

Made the casters a lot more MAD, which helped offset their relative power. Not by much, you understand, but some.

Wouldn't this take all of the sting out of Wiz/Clr Mystic Theurge?

And Wiz/Drd Arcane Heirophant?

And Wiz/Sor Ultimate Magus?

And any other dual-casting class?

[Psyren]

In the DMG somewhere it mentions as an optional rule of using Int on will saves vs. illusion and Cha on will saves vs. ench.

What does that leave wisdom? I can think of scrying, but what else?

It sounds to me like Wis would get everything else. Enchantment and Illusion have most of the Will saves but they don't have exclusivity over them.


I once came up with a variant casting system. Int was required for spell cap (int - 10), Wis determined DC's, and Cha determined bonus spells.

Get to Int 19 by level 17 after items, choose spells with no saves and dump Wis. That was easy.

[Greenish]

Wouldn't this take all of the sting out of Wiz/Clr Mystic Theurge?

And Wiz/Drd Arcane Heirophant?

And Wiz/Sor Ultimate Magus?

And any other dual-casting class?The sting of those classes is the lost caster levels.

[Psyren]

Wouldn't this take all of the sting out of Wiz/Clr Mystic Theurge?

And Wiz/Drd Arcane Heirophant?

And Wiz/Sor Ultimate Magus?

And any other dual-casting class?

Why would you deliberately go for a MAD combination anyway? :smallconfused:

Take UM - there's no reason to take Sorc over Beguiler, unless you reeeaaallly want the handful of dragon spells in there.

[Gardener]

Wouldn't this take all of the sting out of Wiz/Clr Mystic Theurge?

And Wiz/Drd Arcane Heirophant?

And Wiz/Sor Ultimate Magus?

And any other dual-casting class?

Not really. You lose three caster levels, so you're significantly behind a pure caster in terms of your most powerful effects until level 20.

Still a bad idea, though. Int 19 is required for all casters, blasting becomes even worse since you have to choose between DCs and number of spells, and no-save debuffs and control spells (which are some of the best spells available to wizards) and self-buffs (the best spells for Clerics and Druids) become comparatively even better. In short, those changes have a minimal impact where they are most needed (the most powerful caster builds), but are often devastating to some more niche strategies (blasting, illusions/enchantments). Not a well-designed change, really.

[HalfDragonCube]

Why would you deliberately go for a MAD combination anyway? :smallconfused:

Take UM - there's no reason to take Sorc over Beguiler, unless you reeeaaallly want the handful of dragon spells in there.

I'm not really sure that you read the post. The 'all mental stats' based casting system would mean that MAD combinations of classes would suddenly be just as feasible as non-MAD combinations.



Not really. You lose three caster levels, so you're significantly behind a pure caster in terms of your most powerful effects until level 20.

Still a bad idea, though. Int 19 is required for all casters, blasting becomes even worse since you have to choose between DCs and number of spells, and no-save debuffs and control spells (which are some of the best spells available to wizards) and self-buffs (the best spells for Clerics and Druids) become comparatively even better. In short, those changes have a minimal impact where they are most needed (the most powerful caster builds), but are often devastating to some more niche strategies (blasting, illusions/enchantments). Not a well-designed change, really.

Three? Early entry shenanigans were made for that reason. And yeah, the fix is just a quick one that pushes down some aspects of the OPness of magic.

[FMArthur]

All it does is skew spellcasting towards a handful of particular styles that are already just better. The main limitation it imposes (lower save DCs) has greatest effect on Enchantment/Illusion and AoE blasting than anything else. So you knock down the more creativity-based problem solving tools, and the weakest kind of mage. Other kinds of mages just change a small handful of the spells they use to other similar spells that work around the nerf.

At best you wind up with casters who don't invest in defensive stats and die frequently. Does that sound good for gameplay? They may be overpowered in other respects, but this just adds disruption without actually doing anything about the real problems. And Druids still don't suffer any adverse effects because they never cared about physical stats.