Our Rules Rule!

[Superglucose]

Right, so, how many of you DMs out there gave your NPC spellcasters some great spells, only to remember that they required reflex saves... and all your PCs have rings of Evasion! Evasion (and Improved Evasion) has potentially game breaking ability, making the classes that recieve them (Rogue, Barbarian, Monk if memory serves) exceptionally useful. Indeed, I used a paladin/monk combo to make a character almost entirely invinsible against magic. Well, I have the solution right here! (Or, at least, what I believe to be the solution).

First off, fixing Evasion and Improved Evasion:

Evasion is in itself a rediculous ability under some circumstances. What if a fireball is centered on a rogue? The rogue makes his save... and takes no damage? Where did he go? The fireball had a twenty foot sphere, which means that when it WASNT his turn, taking NO actions, a rogue managed to move at least forty feet in a direction. How is this not completley broken open? Improved Evasion holds similar problems, but not unfixable problems.

Rule one: if you can't get out of the way of a spell/effect by taking a five foot step, you can't use evasion to take 0 damage from a spell/effect on a successfull reflex save.

Seriously. A reflex save is supposed to be 'whew... that was close' and barely moving out of the way. 5 feet is pretty much the smallest movement allowed in D20, making 5 feet the equivalent of 'barely moving.' Now evasion doesn't make you invincible to reflex-save requiring effects/spells, but makes you pretty good against some of them. For instance, if the Kobold sorceror decides you'd be pretty tasty with a lightning bolt run through your body, you can use evasion to move out of the way, as long as there's a place for you to go of course. But if that kobold centers a fireball on your face, then there's really nothing you can do but duck and cover; which is still fairly effective against the fireball, but your back is still getting scorched.

Rule two: If you succeed a reflex save, and you can use Evasion, you end up in the square you dodged to. You may select the square you enter.

I apologise I can't visualise this for you, because I'm terminally incompotent with anything dealing with images (drawing, reproducing, posting, downloading, uploading, enjoying... etc) so I hope this is clear. Say that kobold casts lightning bolt, and you can take a five foot step to the left and take no damage, and you're a rogue with evasion... etc. What happens: you succeed your reflex save, and you are now in that square directly to your left. Or you fail your reflex save, stay in the same square, and take the lightning bolt.

Rule Three: As long as you fail your reflex save by no more than 5 with improved evasion, you may take only half damage on a failed reflex save.

Basically, it gives you a conditional +5 to your reflex save. Not overpowerd at all, and certainly not broken.

Well, those are the evasion/improved evasion fixes. Now on to spells.

As yall know, a spells DC is 10+Spell level + Linked ability.

I contend this is far too low at higher levels. At first level, for instance, the DC for burning hands is 15 for a wizard with int 18. Lets say that a first level rogue decides to put a 16 into dex. The rogue has a 50% chance of making the save, right? Fine and good, after all, reflex is a 'good' save for a rogue, so...

Well at level 2 for the wizard, his DC is still 15. The rogue's reflex mod becomes +6. Now advance this to twentieth level, where I usually get ability scores around 32. The DC for the wizard has advanced all the way (for burning hands) to... 22. So a rogue would need a reflex mod of 11 to make that save, right? Okay... with a dex of 16, that requires the rogue to be level... 12. Alright, well, we're high level wizards here, let's use Delayed Blast Fireball. DC 28. Now a rogue would need a +14 bonus to dodge all that fireball and take no damage half the time. 18th level, no magical modifiers. Include the Cloak of Resistance +5 every adventurer seems to recieve, a +6 dex item that I really do expect an 18th level rogue to procure, and we're looking at a reflex bonus of 22. Er... almost all of the time a rogue is going to take NO DAMAGE from an almost epic wizard's fireball!

Okay, I'm done with all the boring explenation. Here is my proposed (and my friend's for that matter) change to all of this:

The DC for spells is now 10+Linked Ability+Caster Level+Spell Level. Granted, that last one is a little much, but we prefer very high powered campaigns with a good chance of PKing on the side, whether its a TK or not. So if you prefer to have not rediculously low DCs for saves (we had a campaign where the DM couldn't use any spell with a reflex save because no one would take damge, which is why we changed the evasion rule), I would suggest the DC be 10+Caster Leve+Linked Ability.

Besides, as a wizard or whatever practices his older spells, I'm sure it would make sense fAor the spellcaster to learn how to aim his spells a little bit better every level. And this way, a wizard has more to look forward to every level, because her spells get a little bit harder.

Finally, and this is only for you DMs with powergamers out there, I suggest taking all CLs and dividing them by two. Some of the higher (starting around CL 10) level CLs won't make sense, so you should bump them up a bit, but the Tarrasque wasn't a problem at all (despite being BUFFED by our DM) for a group of level 20 members.

And besides, how exactly is a level 4 human fighter a good challenge for a level 4 human fighter, a level 4 human rogue, a level 4 elf wizard, and a level 4 dwarf cleric? The fighter along is probably better than the NPC fighter.

[Zeta Kai]

What if a fireball is centered on a rogue? The rogue makes his save... and takes no damage? Where did he go? The fireball had a twenty foot sphere, which means that when it WASNT his turn, taking NO actions, a rogue managed to move at least forty feet in a direction.

This may be a nitpick, but if a Fireball is centered on a rogue, then s/he has to move 20', not 40'.

[Umarth]

It's also a rather big assumption that the fireball equally covers all the space in that 40' sphere.

[Pronounceable]

Within my own ruleset (too brewed to be considered DnD, although it was at first) I use squares for grid sometimes. I ruled that since area effects like a fireball is almost always spherical, it doesn't cover all squares completely. So:

When something is in a square not completely covered by the effect, it gets a save. If it's in a square entirely covered by the effect, but there's an adjacent square not completely covered it gets a save with a penalty. If it's in the middle of the area of effect, it doesn't get a save.


I think it can be implemented into DnD. I leave the details up to you though.

[Joltz]

It bugs me when a lot of people say you have to be outside an effects area to be unaffected by it. I don't picture a fireball as a perfectly even and uniform blast of fire. I picture it as being roiling and flaming like well... a big fire in the shape of a ball. Everyone knows that if you move quickly through flames you don't get burnt. I picture people with evasion as being especially good at finding the spots in a fireball that the flame barely touches.

The spell save DCs look ridiculous though. A level 5 spell cast by a minimum level caster with a decent ability score is DC 10+5(spell)+9(caster)+5(ability) is DC 29! You have to have a +19 save modifier to save against it half of the time. And that's just a level 5 spell from a minimum level caster! What happens when the casters get save or die spells? :smalleek:

Besides, level 1 attack spells are supposed to become nearly useless after a while. That's why you get higher level spells slots with better spells.

Finally, your last little blurb about a single NPC having a CR equal to their level being ridiculous. I agree with you there. I count NPCs as having a CR of about 2/3 their level. Not perfect, but better.

[Arbitrarity]

Joltz... that's not how it works at all. It's 10+ability mod+spell level.

A 20 int wizard casting a 5'th level spell is DC 10 + 5(int modifier)+5(spell level) = 20.

Now, the way to "evade" a ball of flame is to minimise surface area, for example, ducking down, and to get into a "less hot" area, thereby negating the damage. For example, dropping to the ground, covering your head, etc. Anyway, few spell effects with reflex saves function like fireball. Evasion is just the training to know how to cover yourself properly. Improved evasion is a subconsciou "danger sense" making you naturally always cover properly.

EDIT: Meteor swarm, if you suceed on the touch attack, allows no save. You could apply this to fireball, as it makes a bead.

[Joltz]

*snip*
Er... almost all of the time a rogue is going to take NO DAMAGE from an almost epic wizard's fireball!

Okay, I'm done with all the boring explenation. Here is my proposed (and my friend's for that matter) change to all of this:

The DC for spells is now 10+Linked Ability+Caster Level+Spell Level. Granted, that last one is a little much, but we prefer very high powered campaigns with a good chance of PKing on the side, whether its a TK or not. So if you prefer to have not rediculously low DCs for saves (we had a campaign where the DM couldn't use any spell with a reflex save because no one would take damge, which is why we changed the evasion rule), I would suggest the DC be 10+Caster Leve+Linked Ability.
*snip*

emphasis added

Discussing the OP's save formula

Some notes on the "rogue takes no damage from equal level wizard's fireball" thing.
A) Rogues are supposed to be highly fireball resistant
B) If a wizard is throwing fireballs at a rogue, something is horribly wrong with his combat strategy.

[Triaxx]

Unless he's blasting at an invisible, non-detection equipped rogue. Then he's really luck if he targets a spell directly on him.

I've had chance to run with a DC=10+ability (not just the mod)+caster level-spell level.

It worked fairly well, though with the enhancements that pop up, the spells were still dodgeable.

[Zaeron]

As yall know, a spells DC is 10+Spell level + Linked ability.

I contend this is far too low at higher levels. At first level, for instance, the DC for burning hands is 15 for a wizard with int 18. Lets say that a first level rogue decides to put a 16 into dex. The rogue has a 50% chance of making the save, right? Fine and good, after all, reflex is a 'good' save for a rogue, so...

Well at level 2 for the wizard, his DC is still 15. The rogue's reflex mod becomes +6. Now advance this to twentieth level, where I usually get ability scores around 32. The DC for the wizard has advanced all the way (for burning hands) to... 22. So a rogue would need a reflex mod of 11 to make that save, right? Okay... with a dex of 16, that requires the rogue to be level... 12. Alright, well, we're high level wizards here, let's use Delayed Blast Fireball. DC 28. Now a rogue would need a +14 bonus to dodge all that
fireball and take no damage half the time. 18th level, no magical modifiers. Include the Cloak of Resistance +5 every adventurer seems to recieve, a +6 dex item that I really do expect an 18th level rogue to procure, and we're looking at a reflex bonus of 22. Er... almost all of the time a rogue is going to take NO DAMAGE from an almost epic wizard's fireball!

Okay, I'm done with all the boring explenation. Here is my proposed (and my friend's for that matter) change to all of this:

The DC for spells is now 10+Linked Ability+Caster Level+Spell Level. Granted, that last one is a little much, but we prefer very high powered campaigns with a good chance of PKing on the side, whether its a TK or not. So if you prefer to have not rediculously low DCs for saves (we had a campaign where the DM couldn't use any spell with a reflex save because no one would take damge, which is why we changed the evasion rule), I would suggest the DC be 10+Caster Leve+Linked Ability.

Besides, as a wizard or whatever practices his older spells, I'm sure it would make sense fAor the spellcaster to learn how to aim his spells a little bit better every level. And this way, a wizard has more to look forward to every level, because her spells get a little bit harder.

Finally, and this is only for you DMs with powergamers out there, I suggest taking all CLs and dividing them by two. Some of the higher (starting around CL 10) level CLs won't make sense, so you should bump them up a bit, but the Tarrasque wasn't a problem at all (despite being BUFFED by our DM) for a group of level 20 members.

And besides, how exactly is a level 4 human fighter a good challenge for a level 4 human fighter, a level 4 human rogue, a level 4 elf wizard, and a level 4 dwarf cleric? The fighter along is probably better than the NPC fighter.

Lets use Fort saves. Fort saves are easier, because they're often more fatal. So are will saves for that matter. You make a simple mistake with this - Fireballs are worthless. 5d6 damage - 10d6 damage - who cares? 20d6 damage? Who cares. Your level 20 rogue would shrug off 20d6 damage without even blinking. Nobody cares if they fail a reflex save. Reflex is almost certainly the most useless save. Evasion is a perk, yes, but most of the abilities that Evasion gives benefits against simply aren't dangerous.

As a counter suggestion - level 20 fighter vs. level 20 wizard.

Base Fort Save: 12 + CON of 28 (base score 18, +6 amulet, +4 from 4x wishes) (+9) = 21 + Cloak of Resistance +5 = 26.

Wizard: Caster Level 20 + INT 34 (18 base, 5 stat increases, +6 headband, +5 from 5x wishes) (+12) = 32. And that assumes you don't start it at the 10 base, which makes the low level game broken. So this wizard has a base DC for ALL his spells of 32+10 - 42! If we include spell level in the modifier, as your 'player killing' game does, we get a DC of 51 for level 9 spells. 43 for level 1 spells.

Our hardened, 20th level fighter, needs to roll a 16 or better on a fortitude save to beat a 42 DC. By the time you reach DC 46 (4th level spells!) he saves only on a natural twenty. And fortitude is his best save. A rogue probably never breaks +20 on his fort saves.

What does this mean?

It means that if Fort AND Will are not good saves for your class, you will die nearly instantly when facing an arcane caster. Dominate Person, Cloudkill, Phantasmal Killer, Charm Person, Flesh to Stone, the list goes on and on. And those are only low level spells. This ignores things like Wail of the Banshee (instant total party kill even into epic levels!), Imprisonment (DC 51! Oh, and you get a -4 on the save!), etc.

Even with your 'less powerful' variant, those DCs remain in the low 40s by 20th, easily. At 10th, they are no less broken:

Level 10 Fighter: +7 (Base Fort) + 6 (CON, base 18 + 4 from amulet) + Cloak of Resistance +5 (I'll allow that even though I doubt he'd have it by 10th) = +18 Fort. A very decent save.

Level 10 Wizard under the old system, casting a 5th level spell, his highest:
10 (base) + 5 (spell level) + 7 (INT 24, base 18, +4 from headband, +2 from levels) = 22 DC. The fighter would easily make a Fort save, but have a very hard time with a Ref or Will save. Most other classes would be in the same boat - the rogue would make any reflex save except on a poor roll, the cleric would probably make any will save unless rolling very badly, etc. Not so bad. You just target the weak saves - ref or will for a fighter, will or fort for a rogue, ref for clerics, etc.

Level 10 wizard under the new system, casting any spell:
10 (base) + 10 (caster level) + 7 (INT 24) = DC 27. Our fighter needs to roll a nine to make a fortitude save. That's barely a 50% chance to save. And our fighter had an 18 in CON at the start, has put an item on to increase CON and a cloak of resistance +5. The odds of that fighter being able to make a Will or Ref save against this wizard's spells are nearly nonexistant. A rogue would never make a will or fort save, and our cleric could hardly ever make a ref save, and barely make fort saves probably. If you include the extra +5 from this wizard's 5th level spell, the figher can only save on a fourteen or higher. Which means a spell like Phantasmal Killer has a 65 or 70% chance of instantly killing our fighter, and a 95% chance of instantly killing any other member of the party except maybe a cleric. Raging barbarians might survive, but a simple Hold Person spell (DC either 27 or 29 or 30) locks that level 10 barbarian down pretty fast.

The only thing your new spell DC system does is make a Cloak of Resistance +5 an absolutely vital necessity to even save against the spells your class should be able to usually save against. And even then you'd have to be lucky.

Nearly the only way to protect yourself would be Spell Resistance, and tons of it. And even then, it's not hard for a caster with access to the Spell Compendium to break someone with spell resistance.

It seems kind of stupid to me to completely wreck the saving throw system because you don't like that rogues and monks sometimes supernaturally dodge fireballs.

And for the record, Barbarians get Uncanny Dodge, not Evasion. (I'm fairly sure. I might be wrong. I never play barbarians. But a friend plays a lot and he never had evasion in any of our games.)

[earlblue]

I seems to remember that evasion is a "dexterity" based feat. This means that is if you can't dodge the spell, you can't evade it. Simply put, you can't evade a fireball if you are in a 10x10x10 feet box.

More over, there is no 'targeting' system for most area effect spell. Sure, you can point a spell in one direction, or get it detonate at a specific space, but nothing says that the nimble thief that you are pointing stays at where s/he is when your fireball goes off (hence the possibility of evading). IF s/he is surprise, got flat footed and is denied dexterity bonus... then evasion doesn't work, since it is dexterity based.

The better position to take, is to look at the spells existing, and try and come up with better ways to fight. Given the hundreds of spells that exist, and the uncountable number of spells created by DMs and Players, it is kinda sad that the most common spell cited is still "fireball".

If you really want to kill the thief. Magic Missile him/her to death. Given their 'second' lowest (average) hit points, it is entirely possible to do just that. No evasion (improved or otherwise) about it.

The rest... is just crunching numbers. No matter how you add or stack them, there is no real logic behind them. You can add or stack them anyway you like it, as long as you are running the game, but don't expect everyone to agree with you.

There is no true way to 'balance' that game. AND a higher level character is suppose to be more powerful. Whether a character CR must equate their levels... really depends on WHO is using what.

By stacking numbers, (in my current game) I have a fighter that does more damage then the sorcerer of same level, average or otherwise. While my fighter does not have the ability to kill a massive number of creatures at a shot, he does finish off the lone, more powerful monster(s) faster. My sorcererous companion (whose player is less experience then me) is starting to catch up to this. He is looking into spells that restrict and/or kill off the crowds while I can attack the powerful ones. If I were to rate CR of our characters... then yes, I would rate him lower then 10 (we are both 10th level), and me higher... but if we work together... we definitely score higher then 20... probably in the 40's...

BTW. I don't normally play fighters. My speciality, as always, is magic of all sorts.

Heh, I am sure not everyone agrees with the original creators of the game. If you do (agree, that is), then you would not be proposing any new rules.

So!

K.

[Mr. Moogle]

Joltz... that's not how it works at all. It's 10+ability mod+spell level.

A 20 int wizard casting a 5'th level spell is DC 10 + 5(int modifier)+5(spell level) = 20.

Now, the way to "evade" a ball of flame is to minimise surface area, for example, ducking down, and to get into a "less hot" area, thereby negating the damage. For example, dropping to the ground, covering your head, etc. Anyway, few spell effects with reflex saves function like fireball. Evasion is just the training to know how to cover yourself properly. Improved evasion is a subconsciou "danger sense" making you naturally always cover properly.

EDIT: Meteor swarm, if you suceed on the touch attack, allows no save. You could apply this to fireball, as it makes a bead.


/Nitpick-You forgot to add acster level

[Kurald Galain]

Oh yeah, never mind.

It's a bad idea, it makes save DCs way too high at upper levels.

[JackMage666]

I've always kinda thought Evasion was nice, but not all that great. Yeah, you take no damage from the Fireball. Yeah, the Lightning Bolt misses you entirely. But you're still easily dominated/killed by death effects.

You seem to play with blaster casters, no? It's not a problem of the Rogue or Monk having a too powerful ability, it's a problem with your casters choosing the wrong spells. If they really want to do energy damage, take the X Orb of X spells, which require a touch attack instead of an area effect. Evasion does nothing anymore. Their is no save. One of the main advantages of Fireball is that it hits alot of people, and some of the people can dodge it better than others. It would be broken if it did the same damage to all creatures in the area.

For example, the Orb spells. 1d8 damage/level (I think), hits one target. 4th level spell (for generic, not lesser). A 10th level Wizard casts it against anyone. Does 45 damage on average.
The same wizard casts fireball at the same target (who's surrounded by lets say 4 friends). Does 35 (average) damage this time. Hits all 5 people.
Orb Spell - 45 damage total.
Fireball - 35*5 = 175 damage total.
Everyone saves on Fireball - 17.5*5 - 87.5 damage total.
Everyone saves, 2 have evasion - 17.5*3 - 52.5 damage total.

See, the saves are still good where they are. Area effects are not supposed to work perfectly, they're supposed to hit alot of people for a moderate amount of damage. The total damage output will still be high, even if most people save.

[Superglucose]

Really? That seems odd... I wonder if my DM was the problem then.

I had a twentieth level fighter facing off against pretty much everything, Balors, Pit Fiends, epic Wizards, making saves left and right like it was no one's buisness. I don't remember the specifics (because we tend to put unused character sheets etc. in the recycling bin) but after that adventure, we changed the rules (as I indicated here) and the problem cleared up.

Anyways, another difference we made is we got rid of True Ressurection, used the 3.0 chart for reincarnation, and made Ressurection require 500,000 gp instead of 5,000 gp, because we all hated the idea of "whoops my character died... oh now he's back!" Plus going on a quest for every single priest in the area... that seemed kind of dumb then.

But it really doesn't matter anymore, I found a great homebrew called Universal Decay: Deadstars and its Fantasy setting.

Sorry to waste yalls time... move along... :smallredface:

[JackMage666]

and made Ressurection require 500,000 gp instead of 5,000 gp
What? That's ALOT. No single player would be able to afford this until 19th level, and then give up 86% of his treasure to do so! You'd almost be better, under any circumstances, to make a new character.
Alternative, a group of 4 15th level characts can go in to Ressurect one, for a total of About 84% of the party wealth...
I dunno, 500K seems alot high. 50K would hurt the pocket, but not make you so horribly underpowered compared to other PCs.
Remember, CR is based on Average Character Wealth per Level, too.

This is, unless, yo're DM loves to give out treasure. If that's the case, and you're getting double+ the average treasure, the 500K might be fair.

[Superglucose]

Well, the first time we changed the price somehow we earned 5 million at level 15. The DM let us keep it on the condition that we bought a huge friggen fortress and armed a fleet of ships, etc. etc.

But really our group prefers to make new characters. there's something about dying that should be... dying. Like I think I said though, we play a new version now where the only ressurection is the equivalent of a Miracle or Wish spell. Very lethal, and we really like it.