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I'm working on a project based on BFRPG and "old school" dnd editions in general, but trying to keep to the 3e+ mechanic of 1d20+Mods vs DC. THAC0 to BAB is obviously easy to convert. Converting saves isn't so much.

First of all, the charts seem pretty arbitrary, but mostly (in BFRPG at least) characters gain about 6 to 8 points towards each save category as they go from level 1 to level 20. The starting values seem as arbitrary as anything else in older DnD. There also isn't really any consistency that would allow for easily just collapsing two save categories together, or dropping "spell" and mixing the other 4 into Fort/Ref/Will.

Any particular thought on the subject? I'll post what I have so far in the IMOI section once I have more to show, but things like this I'd like to have a little more ironed out if possible before sharing.

You're right in that the charts are fairly arbitrary, and that different classes don't progress at the same rate. You have two basic options:

1) Use the existing 2E charts to set up your base save value, or

2) Flat out convert to a 3E progression.

Of course, this has two other major problems with it:

1) 3E allows you to add ability modifiers to saves, which inflate how powerful they are in 2E terms, and

2) In 2E, you didn't have a save DC. It was always determined solely by your level. So you have a lot of work adding in save DCs for every monster, poison, and other effects. Plus, the only listed stat for monsters was Int, and sometimes Str, so you can't know what their Con is for affecting poison, or their Cha for SLAs.

Basically, you either have to accept quite a few limitations of this conversion or sit down and do a lot of paperwork.

I was working on something similar a while back, and here's how I handled saves:

1) Pick a standard DC that you'll use for the monsters'/items'/etc. abilities. I arbitrarily chose 10 + 1/2 level to keep with 3e's standard, but you can really pick whatever.

2) Figure out what the modifiers would be in a 3e system given the 2e numbers to ensure you need the same number on a d20 to succeed, e.g the priest's save vs. death at level 1 is 10 and you need to hit DC 10, giving the same target number, so it has a modifier of +0, whereas the fighter's save vs. spell at level 20 is 6 and you need to hit DC 20, so it has a modifier of +14.

3) Convert the 5 saves to 3 saves by taking the best of whatever saves are closest in each system--Fort is best of Death and Petrification at each level, Ref is best of Breath Weapon and Spell, Will is best of Item, Petrification, and Spell. This is partly based on which saves thematically go together and partly on which classes are good at which saves; you can change around the associations as you want.

4) Come up with save progressions that normalize the progressions while hitting the same ending values, then match them to the closest class progressions; I made poor, fair, good, and amazing progressions which IIRC go from +0 - +8, +0 - +10, +2 - +12, and +4 - +14.

If you do this all in Excel it's really easy to calculate it all out, and by fiddling with the base DC, the progressions, and the save associations, you can get a progression that's surprisingly close to the 2e saves.

Even if all saving throws had a DC of, say, 20 all the time, I'd consider that to be a mild improvement simply because then it'd be consistent. I'm not even entirely sure that the DC should scale up with level, because then the scaling DC and the scaling bonus cancel and you don't get a truly lower target number as you go.

Then again, I'm not trying to be particularly faithful to any edition or anything. Most of what I have so far is I guess based primarily on BFRPG which is primarily based on B/X DnD. The things I want the most are that it's extremely simple to introduce to new players (2e is fun, but really complex to teach), and having a game that's easy and fast to play but not quite as harsh to low level characters. I ran a BFRPG goblin lair thing on Saturday and among my 3 players there were 4 deaths. One of the players had particularly bad luck with d20s and managed a long streak of <10 rolls. It was a little demoralizing to them, even if they kept coming back for more.

Some of the old school oddities I'd be probably keeping in is that the game would only go to 14 or 15 in terms of level, and exceeding that would give a "At 20th level the Soulborn wins DnD" kind of sentence and your character becomes an ageless demi-god or something cool like that. And I was also going to stop giving out hitdice past the 10th hitdie ("Noble" level), so maybe I could also fiddle with saves a bit and have them also stop shifting about past 10th level.

You can keep a static DC to mirror 2E. Although, you have to think about whether or not you want abilities modifying saving throw modifiers. +4 is a pretty big swing on a d20, especially if the DC is always static.

Lokathor wrote:Even if all saving throws had a DC of, say, 20 all the time, I'd consider that to be a mild improvement simply because then it'd be consistent. I'm not even entirely sure that the DC should scale up with level, because then the scaling DC and the scaling bonus cancel and you don't get a truly lower target number as you go.

I initially picked DC 10 + 1/2 level because 3e monster abilities are all DC 10 + 1/2 level + Cha, and flat save vs. 10 + 1/2 level works out to close to flat save + Dex/Con/Wis vs. 10 + 1/2 level + Cha. Like I said, the DC is really arbitrary as long as you stick with it. Keep in mind also that the save doesn't necessarily scale at 1/2 level; if the save is X + 1/3 level, then it doesn't cancel out with the DC.

I was actually examining the same issue recently...I ended up going the opposite direction (from a 5 save to an 8 save system), in order to more clearly differentiate the classes. But moving to a 3 save system is fairly straightforward.

I based all my calculations off the saving throw tables in the 1E DMG.

Clerics gain 8 pts in 20 lvls, on all saves. Give them a simple 1/2 progression in all saves, and you're good to go. To model the fact that their Poison/Paralyze/DR saves start about 4 points ahead of everyone else, give them a bonus (I'd make it to saves vs. any necromantic, death effect, or undead special ability). It can be either a flat bonus, a scaling bonus, or an ability-based bonus, but keep in mind a flat bonus will make cleric dips awesome if you allow free multiclassing.

Fighters gain 11 pts in 17 lvls on most saves (13 pts for BW, 9 pts for spells). That works out to about a 2/3 Fort progression, 3/4 Ref, and 1/2 Will. I can't think of a good way to model the fact that they start sucky and grow to eclipse everyone else, so I won't bother.

Mages gain (in 20 lvls) 6 pts Poison/Paralyze/DR, 8 pts everything else. Give them a 1/3 Fort progression, 1/2 everything else. To model the fact that their Rod/Staff/Wand/Spell saves start about 3 points ahead of everyone else, give them a bonus like the Clerics, but in this case make it work vs. any spell or spell-like ability.

Thieves gain (in 20 lvls) 5 pts Po/Pa/DR/Pe/Poly/BW, 10 pts RSW/spells. Frankly...this sucks. There is no reason to give Rogues essentially "suckier" saves than everybody else, so I'd ignore this and give them 3/4 Ref (thieves should be as quick as fighters, IMO), 1/3 Fort, and 1/2 Will.

PrCs (if you keep up a free multiclassing system) could give individual save bonuses.

This is roughly balanced against base save DCs of 14-16. If you use a 10 + 1/2 level/HD for save DCs, lower-level saves are going to be easier. You will need to increase the base DCs even further if you intend to allow ability score bonuses on saves.

Or, you could just use fixed DCs for everything, like 1E. Whatever.