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Keith Symcox wrote:

I propose that this new edition make a blanket statement that all spells that are detrimental to the opponent must have SR. Too many 3.5 combats are nerfed by glitterdust and the whole array of no SR conjuration spells from CA that mimic the evocation school.

Monster CRs are usually calcuated factoring in SR. If spells with no SR are allowed to defeat them, the effective CR is much lower than the putative SR. e.g. a golem is supposed to be almost immune to magic, but their will save is poor. Seldom does one ever fight a golem that isn't blind (from glitterdust) and these days the wizards simply ray of xxxx them to death.

Howdy, Keith. Long time no see. I agree with you completely. I never liked the idea of conjuration spells automatically bypassing SR. In addition to the problems you note, it paved the way for a bunch of spells becoming conjuration spells that never should have been conjurations in the first place.

problem is this: if you're conjuring something real, then it should act like the real substance, not like an "orb that you can throw." for example, if i summon a handful of fire from another plane, it should burn me. if i summon a bunch of acid, it should fall to the ground and spill all over my hands, i shouldn't be allowed to manipulate it. these spells couldn't be in the shape of "orbs" that can be thrown.

my next problem is how much damage they do, that's stupid, you call that a trade off? every table i sit at i see wizards throwing 70pts of damage orbs and killing high level constructs that should be way harder to fight. but no, wizard just has to hit ac 8, i, the fighter, have to hit ac 38. i like the good ol' days of "a golem, time to buff the fighter"

since we're trying to make a better system here, i have some suggestions that will keep wizard's power in check:

watching 3.5 progress, i've noticed splat book makers getting lazier and lazier and making more and more and more spells with every book. now they have no sr spells and all other sorts of garbage which undermine a high level fighter's usefulness.

The idea that a spell is a touch spell is not enough of an excuse to make it a no-save spell. E.g. i am a moderately high level fighter, all a wizard has to do is hit my touch ac (which if i'm a good fighter is probably 1/3 or 1/2 of my normal ac) with a ray of enfeeblement and i am mostly incapacitated for the combat. Even worse, maximize it and empower it (easy if you have the appropriate cheesy rods) and you instantly can do 16 points of strength and i, the fighter, don't even get a say in it.

my point is: no save touch spells are stupid, they're pretty much an auto success and the other gets no say. I propose that if you deem it a no-sr spell, you have to hit my full AC, be it ray of enfeeblement or orb of acid, if you just want to hit my touch ac, give me a save of some sort, but bypassing saves and only having to hit a touch AC disadvantages high level fighters whose touch ac rarely changes as their saves and full ac goes up.

I think there has to be a discrepancy between the two VERY different functions of spellcraft. It's one thing to identify a spell from hearing or seeing it, or even knowing about spells, but that should be int based. on the other hand, we have casting defensively, arguably con or dex based. there almost has to be two different skills to accommodate for these two very very different purposes of spellcraft

i agree, evocation all has sr, but conjuration generally does not. Sadly, though, the line between evocation (which is generally defined as creating something out of nothing) is ridiculously similar to conjuration (creating something out of nothing). i think the spirit of the rules imply that evocation hurts others while conjuration does not. there really isn't a difference anymore between the evocation scorching ray and the conjuration orb of fire. just one gets to avoid spell resistance and one does not.

it makes sense to me that they should combine skills into groups so that you don't have to spread your skills out to so many similar things. but if we're going to do this, we need to do it right:

jump just isn't an acrobatic check, it's definitely an athletic one. jump should not be a dex based check like tumble and balance. Furthermore, there no longer is the bonus and minus for having movement faster or slower than the standard 30 ft. if jump is a dex based check that isn't based on the movement of the creature, then monks no longer get the advantage of jumping huge distances (aside from the normal high jump special ability) and halflings (because they get a natural dex bonus) should naturally be better jumpers than half-orcs and humans. this doesn't make any sense to me.

My solution: make balance and tumble all into acrobatics but then group swim, climb, and jump all into one skill called athletics. make the dc's apart of their own chart so that the swim checks are just harder for those who wear a heavier suit of armor still. it just doesn't seem fair that you'd combine the dex checks into acrobatics but then not do the same for the strength based ones.

looking through the alpha version and playing some Red Hand of Doom, we noticed that you can use spellcraft if you're hit to keep the spell, but can we still just cast defensively. i'm not entirely certain that a casting defensively check should be an intelligence.

someone also might want to look at the fact that many of the skills on the printable character sheet say they use a skill that they don't (e.g. spellcraft uses dex)