Core D&D as I see it.

[David Johansen]

My point is that many of the "war game like" features of D&D are actually very functional for narrative roleplaying.

In particular, the broad archetypes differentiated by stats and
the very fast abstract combat.

[arminius]

Okay, I think that turns on one's notions of what is or isn't quintessentially "wargame like"...but it's not really important for the main point of this thread. I agree that the archetypal approach works (until it doesn't*), and that fundamentally simple procedures (and I'd add, atomic procedures that can be applied ad-hoc, instead of a highly integrated top-down sequence of play) are very good for just jumping in and playing pretend with dice.

*The D&D classes can start to feel restrictive, but the concept of advancement-by-class works well. For example, in the games I played back in the 80's, it was fundamentally D&D, but the DM either made up a menu of entirely new classes, or at the extreme, each character was a class unto himself/herself.

I think that Talislanta is at most a hop, skip, and jump away from this, particularly if you look at Tal 3e and earlier. See http://talislanta.com/?page_id=5 and pick the 1e or 2e Handbook, or the 3e Guide. Basically, everybody gains HP when they go up a level. Everything else, including attack bonus, is a skill that only increases if you have it. But characters are still based on archetypes that give them a bundle of skills (with a few options), and all your skills go up when you gain levels. You can choose to advance a skill separately from gaining levels, but over the long run, it's not cost-effective. In short, each character is a bit like a roll-your-own class, but without the time-sink of full-blown skill-based point-buy systems.

[Bloody Stupid Johnson]

Saving Throws will follow the modern stat vs target model and will generally be half effect / damage rather than negation.  Fire and forget spells really shouldn't require attack rolls or be easy to negate entirely unless they would be ridiculously powerful otherwise.

What's the rationale here with the "Jesus saves...and takes half damage!" approach?
Personally (in 3e play at higher levels) I in general dislike being spammed to death by "half damage even if you make your save" spells that I can save against on a 2+ (like repeated cloudkills to suck your dwarf fighter's Con). Hard to articulate why, but it certainly feels like a game bug. (And 4e's similar "thank you for playing, have some damage on your miss anyway" approach grinds my gears, too).

I lot of the stuff you're mentioning never existed in D&D until 3ed and are hardly "core." I really don't like how scaling works in 3ed, so that (for example) unless you min-max your saves it'll get harder and harder to make your saving throw against a wizard of your level as you level up.

There was a Dragon article around the time of the 2nd/3rd transition that explained the rationale behind saves; spell level for highest level spells increases at +1/ 2 levels, same as the Good save for a character. There could be stat discrepancies, but there's also bumps from multiclassing or cloaks of resistance and other items that favour the defender.

I think what you're talking about really only happens in a worst-case situation...high-level fighter with 8 Wis making a Will save against nicely-built sorceress. Generally, its alot easier to boost saves than DCs, particularly in 3.5.

[Daztur]

There was a Dragon article around the time of the 2nd/3rd transition that explained the rationale behind saves; spell level for highest level spells increases at +1/ 2 levels, same as the Good save for a character. There could be stat discrepancies, but there's also bumps from multiclassing or cloaks of resistance and other items that favour the defender.

I think what you're talking about really only happens in a worst-case situation...high-level fighter with 8 Wis making a Will save against nicely-built sorceress. Generally, its alot easier to boost saves than DCs, particularly in 3.5.

In that case that Dragon article was pretty bloody stupid. Because:
-Any caster worth his salt will try to target your weak save and you weak save lags farther and farther behind as you level up.
-The caster is going to be doing a LOT more to raise his casting stat than you can to raise all three of your stats that tie into you saves. This means that the gap between the bonus that the caster is getting from his casting stat is going to get steadily bigger than the bonus that you're getting from your stats that give you a bonus on saves.
-The caster can afford a lot more feat/magic item/etc. slots to boost his save DC (since having a high save DC is fundamental to his character) than you can for you save slots since they're not as fundamental to your character as the caster's ability to cast spells.
-As the levels go up the bad stuff that happens to you if you fail your save get worse and worse. In the old editions this was nicely balanced since the consequences of failing a save for worse but so did your chance of failing the save. In 3.*ed this balance got borked.
-Basically trying to raise one number (the DC) is just easier than trying to raise three numbers (the saves).

One of the big problems with 3ed is that its full of interlocking parts made by people who didn't really have a good grasp of how they interlock. In the older edition this wasn't as much of a problem since the various parts of the game were much more segregated.

One of the fundamental flaws of 3.*ed is that the game only really works if all of the bonuses to d20 rolls are in spitting distance of each other and as the levels go up this becomes less and less the case until the game starts to fall apart.

[David Johansen]

The thing about half damage save is that spells are an expendable resource.  A fighter doesn't run out of his sword.  So I generally feel that spells need to actually do something.  Nothing says WHIFF FACTOR like casting your only third level spell and having it negated entirely by a die roll.

[Bloody Stupid Johnson]

In that case that Dragon article was pretty bloody stupid. Because:
-Any caster worth his salt will try to target your weak save and you weak save lags farther and farther behind as you level up.
-The caster is going to be doing a LOT more to raise his casting stat than you can to raise all three of your stats that tie into you saves. This means that the gap between the bonus that the caster is getting from his casting stat is going to get steadily bigger than the bonus that you're getting from your stats that give you a bonus on saves.
-The caster can afford a lot more feat/magic item/etc. slots to boost his save DC (since having a high save DC is fundamental to his character) than you can for you save slots since they're not as fundamental to your character as the caster's ability to cast spells.
-As the levels go up the bad stuff that happens to you if you fail your save get worse and worse. In the old editions this was nicely balanced since the consequences of failing a save for worse but so did your chance of failing the save. In 3.*ed this balance got borked.
-Basically trying to raise one number (the DC) is just easier than trying to raise three numbers (the saves).

One of the big problems with 3ed is that its full of interlocking parts made by people who didn't really have a good grasp of how they interlock. In the older edition this wasn't as much of a problem since the various parts of the game were much more segregated.

One of the fundamental flaws of 3.*ed is that the game only really works if all of the bonuses to d20 rolls are in spitting distance of each other and as the levels go up this becomes less and less the case until the game starts to fall apart.

Reading Dragon magazines from around the changeover period usually is fairly hilarious, if only for the min/maxing advice. Yes, they actually thought that Iron Will was something every fighter should be taking. Few good feats available at that stage, however.
Remembering, they did overlook the effects of stat-boosting items. Raising casting stat (at +1 per 4 levels) is only a 3-point difference by 20th, before those are considered.
While I'll concede the range is broken, I think its reasonable to say its actually broken in both directions in 3e.  Multiclassing in particularly can raise saves obscenely, even before stacking in class features like Divine Grace or Arcane Resistance or weirder magical items and effects (the Headband of Conscious Effort, say). I think its much easier to create a character whose saves never fail than it is to make one whose save DCs are irresistible.

The thing about half damage save is that spells are an expendable resource.  A fighter doesn't run out of his sword.  So I generally feel that spells need to actually do something.  Nothing says WHIFF FACTOR like casting your only third level spell and having it negated entirely by a die roll.

OK, that actually seems reasonable. Though, yeah, at some point having enough miss damage makes the die roll irrelevant.