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I've seen lots of discussion on the problems inherent to many classes, spells, and other many other things that rely upon saving throws. Many of the problems stem from the fact that people seem to see a problem with how saves are applied and when they're applied.
My question is: do you think that current saving throw system is balanced or does it need to be reworked in some fashion? Or do you think that something else is the source? Is anything wrong with them at all?
So far I've seen several options from various sources that attempt to rectify the problem.
1. Apply secondary saving throws in subsequent rounds for some spells.
2. Add in medium tier saving throws to compensate for some class problems.
3. Switch to the defenses system from 4e with your level as the base save plus any modifiers added to 10.
4. A class base save added to half your level plus any modifiers added to a d20 roll.
Edit:
5. Action points, I guess this could be one too.
These are what I've seen so far, and I'm just wondering what you think or if you guys have any other ideas.
Thanks,
Studpuffin
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My question is: do you think that current saving throw system is balanced or does it need to be reworked in some fashion? Or do you think that something else is the source? Is anything wrong with them at all?
Good idea to drag this out into a specific thread Studpuffin.
We have to try and keep backwards compatability, so I think that makes 2,3,4 difficult.
Option 6: State in the book that leaving your weak save deliberately unprotected will make your character fragile at higher levels.
My preferences are for 5 and 6.
I like action dice a lot. They have enhanced every system that I have played that has them. Spending on to reroll / add to / auto-make a saving throw is a good option.
I wonder, how much of the problem can we level at DM's deliberately targeting characters lowest saves? You can make the argument that Mr High-Level Mage knows from experience that Imprisonment tends to be more reliable against Fighters (low Will). But is that meta-gaming on the DMs part?
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I cannot tell if you really think this is a good idea or if its sarcasm.
I think this is happening a lot in these forums. :)
I know I am having trouble with this as well. Both determining and apparently offending.
Off-topic in my own thread... Dang...
It would really help if these forums utilized emoticons more efficiently.
Still, do you think there is a problem with saving throws as are?
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Good idea to drag this out into a specific thread Studpuffin.
Alright, I gotta admit something.
I cannot tell if you really think this is a good idea or if its sarcasm.
:shrug:
Please keep discussing though.
Sorry, and thanks for querying - it's intended straight as written.
You and I may have differing opinions, but I think the topic is important to discuss and you distilled the issue nicely by concentrating on saving throws.
Forums on the internet are no place for personal attacks - it's futile. I save that for dark alleyways on moon-less nights :)
I think there's less of a problem with saves than a lot of people think. Let's take a look at them, where the numbers come from, and how they work. I'll focus mostly on spellcasting:
Save DC starts with 10, saving throws start with d20 - advantage defender because 55% of saves will succeed
Save DC adds level of spell, saving throws add class bonus based on level - best saves end up +3 over highest level spells, worst saves end up -3 under highest level spells. Overall, doesn't look too bad.
Save DC adds stat bonus for single offensive stat, saving throws each add stat bonus for a defensive stat
Save DC may add a feat or class feature, rarely higher than +1 or +2 (for spending 2 feats), saving throws add +2 per feat spent
Monster power saves get a little weirder and may be a bit too open ended if able to add half their hit dice when they may have many hit dice and unbounded stats and stat modifiers. These may need to be reeled in a bit.
But looking at PC vs spell-using NPC, things aren't looking too bad. Until we really delve into the stats.
If the stats were rolled 3d6 and keep them in order, the offensive and defensive stats would line up with no real expectation of any character being better than the other or dominating. But we don't do stats that way. With rolling stats on 4d6, drop lowest, arrange as desired, you'd be able to expect the offensive stats to be higher than any particular defensive stat by +1 or +2 (12-14 being reasonably common, anything over 16 being fairly rare). But when doing point buy, you tend to see more 18s cropping up and other stats being deliberate dumped. I'd expect a lot more differences of +2 to+4 of offensive stat over defensive. And so we start to see spreading. But not too badly. The save improving feats come in handy, here, in keeping up.
Add in the level-up bonuses. Over the course of 20 levels, the caster probably adds +3 to +5 to his casting stat for +2 or +3 to his save DCs. But the defender adds maybe +1 or +2 to defending stats and starts to fall behind for a net +1 or +2 to 2 saves. Again, the feats help here a bit, but we may be starting to stretch out depending on stats. Again, rolled, there will probably be more spreading of stat bumps and more concentrated in point buy.
Now add magic items.
If the characters aren't crafting their own but have to buy them, the defender can keep up with the caster because resistance bonuses are so cheap. They can get +5 to all three saves for 25,000 while the offensive stat mod can be bumped only +3 for 36,000. Gaining inherent bonuses can stretching things out in the casters favor, but tend to be cost prohibitive for most purposes and only come into play late. So, again, things aren't looking too bad. For 25,000 compared to 36,000, the defender stays ahead and has 11,000 to invest in other things - like a sword and armor.
Unfortunately, crafting magic items throws things out of whack. Now the caster (since non-casters don't even have this option) can suddenly get the bonus for half price. 18,000 nets +3 compared to the 25,000. The defender can step back to +4 for 16,000. But now isn't making up for quite as much as he was before. He may be having a little more trouble keeping abreast of the caster's stat buff item and level-based stat increase together. Assuming there's an arms race...
I'm not going to declare that an arms race is necessary. I don't think it is unless the group has a conflict-ridden dynamic (which it might, I've played in games like that), either between players or between players vs DM. But when it does appear, magic is problematic despite designer efforts to balance things out. I think, in general, they did a bang-up job. The defender's cheaper options are generally a good counter, in the arms race, to the caster's buffs. But I think they mispredicted magic item creation's effect on the game.
Looking at this, the real fly in the ointment is the presence of magic items and how easy they are to obtain, and how cheap they are for the character who creates them. In 1e/2e, people still wanted magic items, but because they were hard to impossible to make reliably without a very friendly DM to the process, pursuing a strategy of min-maxing with them was a lot harder. You got what the DM said was for sale and what you could get in adventures. The shift to more control not only leads to players picking the Big 6 (because of their high utility/cost ratio) but also leads to casters starting to dominate the arms race by setting the pace and encouraging the other PCs/DM to catch up in order to balance the challenges.
My solutions:
Get rid of or reduce PC magic item creation and ability to buy - particularly of the permanent kind. I know this won't be fun for a lot people. We all like magic stuff and we like having control over what magic is available or picked up by us so it fits in with our strategy of play.
Keep magic item creation but cap the bonuses lower than they are. The arms race dynamic will still exist, but maybe it won't skew so much higher than the strategy of not buffing stats at all.
Cut the cost of defensive items even more compared to offense. At least it will make it easier for the defender to catch up. But it may serve to push the caster-types to be even more devious in their methods to bump up their offensive stats just to keep up. The arms race would continue, but now be driven by the other side.
It's a tricky situation. Having though out the system, I have more respect for the designers and what they were trying to accomplish. But I think 2 subsystems in the game - saves and magic item creation - just don't work together as well as they had hoped. But it's less a problem with the rules than in how player strategies exploit the rules. You could blame the rules, I suppose, for not heading that behavior off enough. But at some point, any attempts to really do so would have the potential to be a thorn in the sides of games that don't have aggressive min-maxing players.
Anyway, this has been a fun thought exercise and I think it has helped me to understand what's going on with the system and rules. Maybe others will find it helpful too...
I wonder, how much of the problem can we level at DM's deliberately targeting characters lowest saves? You can make the argument that Mr High-Level Mage knows from experience that Imprisonment tends to be more reliable against Fighters (low Will). But is that meta-gaming on the DMs part?
Absolutely not.
I like to think of my game world as being inhabited by real living people and monsters.
Because they live in this world, they know how things work. No, I don't mean they know the math, or that they have ever heard of DCs or Saves. But they do know what tools they have and how those tools work, and who they are most likely to affect.
And they want to stay alive, so they always choose, within their specific areas of knowledge, to do the things that increase their chances of survival. And they always avoid those things that decrease their chances of survival.
A wizard knows exactly how his magic works. Look at his INT for pete's sake - he's a genius. Does Stephen Hawking know astrophysics?
Because he knows how his magic works, that it affects the minds of the targets, and that strong minds are more resistant, he knows he is better off targetting the weak minds. Just like he knows he is better off catching clunky fighters and stumbling mages in spells that allow reflexive reactions to avoid (REF saves) than using those spells against lightly armored mobile opponents who likely have the reflexes to avoid them.
Now, the PCs can dupe him. Dress up a cleric like a fighter, hide his holy symbol, and there should be no way for the enemy wizard to realize he needs to attack that cleric's FORT save instead of his WILL save. If the NPC wizard mysteriously knew this, I would question the metagamey nature of the DM.
My personal thoughts on save throws is that the PC save throws work ok, it's the monster save throws of +22 or better that throws the save throw system out of whack.
Wizard players look at the monsters they face at higher levels and think that they have to boost the save DC's on their spells to obscene levels in order to have a chance of the spell actually landing on the target. After all they don't have enough spells to waste trying to get the same opponent that keeps making its save time after time. So the player ends up doing all (s)he can to boost the DC (A maximum of 34 in pathfinder core right now) in order to keep up with monster save throws.
Now the fighter sees and listens to the DC's the wizard is throwing out and thinks "There is no way I can make that save, if the wizard was to turn on me I would lose." Becuase he doesn't quiet realise the amount of DC nessecary to give the wizard a barely even chance to affect one of the higher end monsters. He was alright with the save throws when he felt he had a decent (if not great) chance of making them, but when he hears "Will Save DC 34" and knows he only has a maximum total of +18 to his Will Save he worries about it, thinking those DC's are the norm.
However the DC of monster abilities bares out that this isn't supposed to be the norm, most monster DC (even the high level ones) come out to around 24~30 max. Much more possible for the fighter and not nearly as scary.
Part of the reason the monster Save throws are so high is 3.x has the mistaken idea that more HD = better challenge, or that you need one massive monster to be a "boss". In reality we already know that one monster or person is not going to be a match for 4~6 people unless that one person is well above and beyond all the 4~6 people. However for some reason this doesn't carry over to D&D or in the few cases it does, the Monster in question keeps tons of extra HD becuase it's supposed to be "that bad@!!". Which isn't the case. The monster is supposed to (with the current challenge system) only eat up 1/5 of an equal level parties resources.
Ok I got to admit something here. The one thing I like about 4th ed. is how they admit some monsters of a certian challenge rating are supposed to be better than others (with the solo, elite, and mook seperations for monsters).
Sorry for the long post, but that's my complete opinion on the subject.
However the DC of monster abilities bares out that this isn't supposed to be the norm, most monster DC (even the high level ones) come out to around 24~30 max. Much more possible for the fighter and not nearly as scary.
While this is true for run-of-the-mill monsters, most Paizo AP BBEGs are spellcasters: exactly the guys with the insanely high save DCs you allude to.
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Now, the PCs can dupe him. Dress up a cleric like a fighter, hide his holy symbol, and there should be no way for the enemy wizard to realize he needs to attack that cleric's FORT save instead of his WILL save. If the NPC wizard mysteriously knew this, I would question the metagamey nature of the DM.
I've relied upon this kind of thing in some games as well. I've played clerics of heironeous that played up their "paladininess" to throw off some opponents. It worked too well sometimes and I even found other people at the table calling me a paladin, who'd be corrected pretty quickly but still...
Funny story. Our barb was dominated around level 4 or so by some vamp-thing. It told him to kill the paladin, but he knew I was a cleric and he played his character as incredibly confused. It was pretty funny actually.
Vice versa, if a fighter was to wear a holy symbol and weild a simple weapon who wouldn't think he was a cleric? Interesting points DM_B.
Ahh, the old "SOD spells kill us too easily" argument.
So what is the answer?
Consider the other side of the coin.
Imagine for a moment, since we're already doing thought exercises, that we give the best save progression to all three saves for every class - we just do away with the low progression entirely.
Imagine if when a mage throws a SOD spell, he assumes his target will make his save. He expects it.
Then there is no reason to prepare them.
My mages (players and NPCs) don't even tough Phantasmal Killer. Ever.
Let's face it. That big guy with the axe over there wants to take your head off. And he can do it too, very easily, if he can reach you.
You can do nothing, but 6 seconds from now, your head will be lying in the dirt.
You can run away, or teleport away, or gate to another plane, which is all fine, but really, that guy is in your home. He's going to rob you blind. You can't allow that!
You can nuke him, but he is big and tough and the nuke will probably hurt him but certainly not kill him - and then 6 seconds later it's head-in-the-dirt time.
So, you decide to blind him, hold him, stun him, slay him, slow him, sleep him, or use some other SOD spells (or SOS spells).
As it is currently, there is a good chance you can stop him. There is also a chance he may resist your spell and you know what will happen in 6 seconds if he does.
So you risk it. The alternatives suck.
But change the system so that the big guy with the axe will certainly save, and you would never try to SOD him. Why bother if he will automatically resist?
Even if you change it so that the big guy will (only) probably save, you still won't risk it. No wizard would. Life hanging on a spell that will probably fail? No way, cast something else, anything else.
No, in order for these spells to be worth preparing, to even be worth the page in the spellbook, they need to be reliable enough that the guys who prepare them won't just prefer something else that works.
The downside is, that now they are to gallburned effective when the bad guys cast them on the PCs.
What is the answer?
Well, truly, we either ruin the spells (read above) to the point that nobody casts them, or we accept that our PCs are fragile and easily wiped out with a SOD or SOS spell.
Then, because we chose the latter, our PCs do everything in their power to improve their odds.
Let's face it (thought esperiment number two): If YOU are the big guy with the axe, breaking into the wizard's home, you know he's going to hit you with some SOD spell. Wouldn't you prepare in advance? Wouldn't you have magic items, potions, friends with buffs, hired NPCs to cast buffs, all so you can shrug off that save or die and make sure you can plant that wizard's head firmly in the dirt?
Of course you would.
So that is how the game needs to run.
We can't break these spells. We can't make them worthless. If we do, we just might as well remove them from the book. Isn't that pretty much what 4e did?
If we don't break them, then we have to learn how to survive them.
Players must prepare to face them.
DMs must help their players face them.
And Paizo must offer info in the core rulebook that clarifies this for the players, that lays it out for the, and suggests things they can do to survive magical enemies.
Imagine if when a mage throws a SOD spell, he assumes his target will make his save. He expects it. Then there is no reason to prepare them.
I'd hope there is a way to introduce a middle area, something between the "always save" situation you allude to and the current "save only on a 20." That way, the wizard homeowner you mention can cast a SoD and figure there's a 50/50 shot of taking the intruder out. Or, use a save each round mechanic: the homeowner KOs the intruder and performs a coup de grace or calls the cops, whereas the PCs in their dungeon are out of action until they save again (or until the rest of the party gets wiped out).
Unfortunately, the way saves are currently structured, things are as you describe: at high levels the people with good saves almost always save, and the people with bad saves almost never do, because at high levels the magnitude of the bonuses swamp the d20 (as Mattastrophic tirelessly points out). That's a fundamentally lousy setup. Because of it, there's no element of chance except for half the people maybe rolling a 1, and the other half maybe rolling a 20. The feeling of risk is what makes the game fun, but the rules mechanics actively marginalize that element at higher levels by providing easy access to huge bonuses, in the form of resistance items, stat-boost items, etc., and by proceeding to a 6-point gap in base saves alone.
However the DC of monster abilities bares out that this isn't supposed to be the norm, most monster DC (even the high level ones) come out to around 24~30 max. Much more possible for the fighter and not nearly as scary.While this is true for run-of-the-mill monsters, most Paizo AP BBEGs are spellcasters: exactly the guys with the insanely high save DCs you allude to.
That's an adventure development problem, and a lack of resources problem on the end of the players (again usually do to adventure design and campaign pacing).
What happens is the same thing the wizard player does, done by a designer. The developer feels that the players will have too many resources devoted to overcoming save throws that his "Big bad villian" will look weak becuase none of his spells are sticking, so he arbitrarily buffs his BBEG to make him more "BBEG" and in effect makes him a monster since he couldn't be built as a regular PC. If the character has stats that are beyond what a PC could have then he is arbitrarily buffed out. They also feel like the BBEG will be too easy to defeat becuase he only has one action a round instead of the Party's 4~6. So instead of giving him some decent minions they buff the baddie to an over the top level.
Edit: One thing I'm kind of glad they did was making Raising the Dead a bit easier on the people being raised. Yes it still eats resources, but becuase they don't end up "behind" everyone else, it doesn't hurt as much when you die (I understand this can break vesimilitude for some games however having to get another character in the middle of a sequence where it is non-logical is the other side of the coin).
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Edit/Tangent:
You know, a player primer would be great. I know that there is a "D&D for Dummies" book out, but something that goes into depth about some of the design issues at hand for the players, and what might or might not be good choices could be very useful.
Alot of what went into dungeonscape, complete mage, and the PHB 2 were player help texts. Stuff that while it doesn't give your character more direct power, will make the player better able to appreciate the game. I find the more I read the stuff beyond the feats, classes, and stat blocks, and apply it into the game, the better things tend to work and the smoother everything goes.
Save throws and the effects that happen when they are made or not are incredibly important to the game and really need some discussion for the player and DM both beyond simple mechanics.
I'd hope there is a way to introduce a middle area, something between the "always save" situation you allude to and the current "save only on a 20."
Middle ground would be "save on a 10"... but then if you could save all spells on a 10, spellcasters would all want a considerably greater allotment of spells per day, as a class whose main feature is being able to do two combat effects a day that only hit 50% of cases sounds rather like an NPC class to me.
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I would like to see a bit of primary save shuffle (primarily removing the Bard Will save primary and giving it to the totally magically inept Fighter, hes the guy who doesnt need spells to get the job done, so give him nonmagical means to fill said paradigm)
a middle ground for save or die would also be nice ( just like how there is middle ground with sunder, you have broken as a middle ground to a item being destroyed) one casting of the spell softens them up, and the next casting drives it home (also gives the allied spellcasters time to avert an ally from being totally hosed)
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The rule of natural 13 introduced in previous post could be amended to the following:
- natural 9 - upon failing a save with a roll of a 9 and less than 13 on d20, instead of dying your hitpoints are set to -1 (for death effects or effects inflicting damage) and you begin dying.
Other effects which would eliminate you from encounter, immobilize you for one round, and one round later you must save again.
- natural 13 - upon failing a save with a roll of 13 or more on d20 against death effect or effect dealing damage or an effect which would eliminate your from encounter, you lose 1/4 of your maximum hitpoints.
Additionally, you are limited to taking one Standard action per round, and one round later you must save again.
I think I could get behind a variant of this, where a SoD still killed outright on a really bad save (say missed by 10), and reduced to -1 HP otherwise on a failed save.
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I think I could get behind a variant of this, where a SoD still killed outright on a really bad save (say missed by 10), and reduced to -1 HP otherwise on a failed save.The rule of natural 13 introduced in previous post could be amended to the following:
- natural 9 - upon failing a save with a roll of a 9 and less than 13 on d20, instead of dying your hitpoints are set to -1 (for death effects or effects inflicting damage) and you begin dying.
Other effects which would eliminate you from encounter, immobilize you for one round, and one round later you must save again.
- natural 13 - upon failing a save with a roll of 13 or more on d20 against death effect or effect dealing damage or an effect which would eliminate your from encounter, you lose 1/4 of your maximum hitpoints.
Additionally, you are limited to taking one Standard action per round, and one round later you must save again.
I could get behind this as well, but I could also get behind 2ndary saves as well.
Please continue discussing. :)
So the player ends up doing all (s)he can to boost the DC (A maximum of 34 in pathfinder core right now) in order to keep up with monster save throws.
Just to keep perspective going, a poor save is maximized (for a character) at +26, and a good save at +32 in Pathfinder core.
So that would make a save at 2+ on a D20 roll for a good save, or 8+ for a poor save, against a 9th level spell.
While that is a fair result to a fair comparison (maxed DC vs. maxed saves), the reality is that characters can't be expected to max out all three saves. They don't have the resources to.
A more realistic "max" for the poor saves is +18 to +20. Meaning a 14-16+ saves against a 9th level spell.
Why is it important that it is against a 9th level spell? Because that is world ending magic. If anything beyond that even exists in a game, it is so powerful that Gods start to worry.
The only real problem I see is that some players intentionally leave their characters vulnerable, and the one time they "lose" the game they get sore about it. But I'm cynical and jaded. So what do I know.
What if each class got 2 good saves and one poor save and it was player's choice which ones were good and which one was bad?
Or maybe, eahc class had one designated good save such a fort for the Fighter, Will for the Wizard, Ref for the Rogue and then a choice for which other save was good and which was bad?
I don't know if that would break the system or what kind of effect that would have. But each character would be on equal footing as far as saves went. They'd at least have one weakness as far as saves go but they wouldn't be hurting two-thrids of the time.
How does that sound?
Studpuffin, regarding the original post, I recommend forgetting anything related to option 3. The 4th edition d&d concept of Save Defenses robs the defender (player or GM) of any recourse from an enemy spell, except to get hosed.
Saving throws to avoid unpleasant or downright lethal effects have worked just fine for 30+ years in D&D. Why the folks at WoTC have decided that that is too much for our inept brains is beyond me. Let's not follow in their footsteps...
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It would require a great deal of reworking, but what I would really like to see is spells have specific effects, regardless of saves, but have a bonus, lesser effects if the save is failed.
Right now, a fireball deals 1d6/lvl fire damage, Refl 1/2.
What if insted it deals d4/Lvl, no save to lessen this part. On a Failed save, you also catch fire and take an addition 4d6 damage, for one round.
In this version, there is no such thing as Evasion or Mettle.
A sleeps spell will casue a target to sleep for d4 rounds. Anytime they are somehow affected in a way that would wake a noral sleeping person, they get a save, at -4. When the duration is up, they get saves 1/round at no penulty till they wake up.
A SoD spell, deals 1/4 targets current HP. If they fail save, they drop to -1, not stable, and Die Hard does not apply.
I would like to see something like this, becasue I hate when spells do nothing, or something incredibly weak if the target makes the save.
Another option I might like is to make Saves more a 50/50 thing. Not really like 4th ed saves, but similar.
Actually there are no longer "saves" per se in 4E, everything uses attack rolls instead. Still, it's kinda sad that 4E has more potent, dignified, and overly "magical" magic.
It would require a great deal of reworking, but what I would really like to see is spells have specific effects, regardless of saves, but have a bonus, lesser effects if the save is failed.
Right now, a fireball deals 1d6/lvl fire damage, Refl 1/2.
What if insted it deals d4/Lvl, no save to lessen this part. On a Failed save, you also catch fire and take an addition 4d6 damage, for one round.
In this version, there is no such thing as Evasion or Mettle.
A sleeps spell will casue a target to sleep for d4 rounds. Anytime they are somehow affected in a way that would wake a noral sleeping person, they get a save, at -4. When the duration is up, they get saves 1/round at no penulty till they wake up.
A SoD spell, deals 1/4 targets current HP. If they fail save, they drop to -1, not stable, and Die Hard does not apply.
I would like to see something like this, becasue I hate when spells do nothing, or something incredibly weak if the target makes the save.
I'm with you!!
Really intersting.
Most of the flavor of playing a spellcaster are the efects of spells.
If saves are no longer a all-or-nothing stuff it would means more fun for both sides.
I'd hope there is a way to introduce a middle area, something between the "always save" situation you allude to and the current "save only on a 20."Middle ground would be "save on a 10"... but then if you could save all spells on a 10, spellcasters would all want a considerably greater allotment of spells per day, as a class whose main feature is being able to do two combat effects a day that only hit 50% of cases sounds rather like an NPC class to me.
Hmmmm, where have I heard of such a game...
The only real problem I see is that some players intentionally leave their characters vulnerable, and the one time they "lose" the game they get sore about it. But I'm cynical and jaded. So what do I know.
That is actually a valid tactic used by min/max metagamers.
They reason:
1. He knows I'm a fighter with crappy will saves.
2. Because of point 1, he knows that if he throws SOD spells at me that require a Will save, I will die.
3. The DM won't deliberately kill me.
4. Because of points 2 & 3, the DM won't use Will save SoD spells on me because I will die and he doesn't want me to die.
5. Conclusion: There is no reason to boost my crappy Will save since I won't need to roll it against anything that can really kill me.
Now, if you are this kind of DM, and have that kind of metagamer in your group, you will be taken advantage of.
I've seen it first hand.
And woah, was that metagamer very surprised on the first session after I had a little one-on-one chat with our DM about how the DM was being taken advantage of. It cost us the price of a diamond, and a couple weeks later another diamond, but our metagamer finally figured out he needed to consider his Will save as a requirement rather than a dump stat.
I want to throw some Agreement DM_Blake's way, as I've seen it too.
However I would point out that again I don't think people with "poor" will saves shouldn't be saving more than 50% of the time. These are poor saves after all, not "great" or even "average" great would be saving 75% of the time, average 50% of the time and poor should be around 30% of the time.
I think the unfortunate thing is the disporitionate way this breaks down in magical effects:
A cleric doesn't mind not making a reflex save... it's going to hurt some, but it is survivable, after all "it's just damage".
But...
A fighter hates not making a will save because it usually isn't something that "just deals some damage" it usually involves debuffing of some sort... and everyone hates to be debuffed.
Same with a wizard and fortitude saves... the main difference for the wizard is he can usually find some way to render the effect of the failed save moot.
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I want to throw some Agreement DM_Blake's way, as I've seen it too.
However I would point out that again I don't think people with "poor" will saves shouldn't be saving more than 50% of the time. These are poor saves after all, not "great" or even "average" great would be saving 75% of the time, average 50% of the time and poor should be around 30% of the time.
I think the unfortunate thing is the disporitionate way this breaks down in magical effects:
A cleric doesn't mind not making a reflex save... it's going to hurt some, but it is survivable, after all "it's just damage".
But...
A fighter hates not making a will save because it usually isn't something that "just deals some damage" it usually involves debuffing of some sort... and everyone hates to be debuffed.
Same with a wizard and fortitude saves... the main difference for the wizard is he can usually find some way to render the effect of the failed save moot.
Good points.
With a well prepared party with a Cleric and a Wizard, most of the Will based effects aimed at the Fighter can be countered quite quickly too, I would have thought.
I think 3e has the best saving throw system out of all game that are, or call themselves, D&D.
I'm not saying that it cannot be improved, but the general principle should stay.
1. Apply secondary saving throws in subsequent rounds for some spells.
That's one of those improvements that have my full support. It's actually in the rules already - just not applied consistently. Especially lower-level spells that can take you out of commision for long times (i.e. most of a fight) should have recovery saves on subsequent rounds (always as a full-round action). The higher you go with spell levels, the more lethal you can go with spells.
I't say something like this: at the first couple of levels (around 1-3, depending on classes and their focus), complete disablers should grant saves every round, something like 3-5 should allow a second chance (i.e. either two saves before the full effect kicks in, or a single extra save a round later), but after that, killer effects are okay - after all, stuff like slay living starts there.
2. Add in medium tier saving throws to compensate for some class problems.
I'm in two minds about this one. It could allow us to better fine tune classes, but on the other hand, it probably cannot be derived from a simple formula, like the other ones. Still, it might be worthwhile.
3. Switch to the defenses system from 4e with your level as the base save plus any modifiers added to 10.
No. Keep that 4eism in 4e and let D&D be D&D.
I'm flat out against using raw level, independant of your class, for anything.
I think 3e has the best saving throw system out of all game that are, or call themselves, D&D.
I'm not saying that it cannot be improved, but the general principle should stay.
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No. Keep that 4eism in 4e and let D&D be D&D.I'm flat out against using raw level, independant of your class, for anything.
I agree with most of your points, KaeYoss. I agree that 3e does have the best save system, as far as its concept goes. But 1e/2e at least had a very predictable boundary and structure (as weird as it was), which made it easier to predict how difficult a save would be. It would be nice to inject some of that into 3e's system. I wouldn't want to go back to beating a value based on the defending character's level rather than the power of the attack, but perhaps some kind of capping or limiting of bonuses would be useful. The open endedness of the 3e system leads, I think, to the potential for some game-damaging disparities.
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Studpuffin, regarding the original post, I recommend forgetting anything related to option 3. The 4th edition d&d concept of Save Defenses robs the defender (player or GM) of any recourse from an enemy spell, except to get hosed.
Saving throws to avoid unpleasant or downright lethal effects have worked just fine for 30+ years in D&D. Why the folks at WoTC have decided that that is too much for our inept brains is beyond me. Let's not follow in their footsteps...
The defense system just replaces who gets to make the roll. Instead of rolling a saving throw against a set DC the attacker makes a roll against a set DC. Its not too unbalanced, but the reason I wouldn't recommend it is because it robs the players of things to do during the enemy's turn. There's nothing more hair raising than waiting to see if your roll saves your life, and the cheer that goes up when you do. Its doesn't translate as well when a GM/DM is rolling it behind a screen.
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1. Apply secondary saving throws in subsequent rounds for some spells.
That's one of those improvements that have my full support. It's actually in the rules already - just not applied consistently. Especially lower-level spells that can take you out of commision for long times (i.e. most of a fight) should have recovery saves on subsequent rounds (always as a full-round action). The higher you go with spell levels, the more lethal you can go with spells.
I't say something like this: at the first couple of levels (around 1-3, depending on classes and their focus), complete disablers should grant saves every round, something like 3-5 should allow a second chance (i.e. either two saves before the full effect kicks in, or a single extra save a round later), but after that, killer effects are okay - after all, stuff like slay living starts there.
this progression would be fine except the fact that at the first levels wiz and clerigs have a so small repertore of spells that each of them should be able to at least disebla a oponent.
Ex.: Fighting two Orcs:
a - A figther needs 3-4 attacks to beats them
b - A barbarian needs 2-3 attacks
c - A mage needs 1-2 spells
however a fisrt level mage has only 3 or 4 1st level spells...
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this progression would be fine except the fact that at the first levels wiz and clerigs have a so small repertore of spells that each of them should be able to at least disebla a oponent.
Ex.: Fighting two Orcs:
a - A figther needs 3-4 attacks to beats them
b - A barbarian needs 2-3 attacks
c - A mage needs 1-2 spellshowever a fisrt level mage has only 3 or 4 1st level spells...
Which is why they also have weapon proficiencies...
Right,
and @1st level, Wizards/Clerics are the LEAST statistically different melee-wise,
compared to say, Rangers or Paladins. (& Wizards' new d6 hit die narrowed that gap)
For any Caster who CARES about "Combat Effectiveness", there's the at-will School/Domain Powers, which are generally about equal to a 1st level spell, except infinitely usable.
Seriously. In 3.5, I could see your argument, Silver Eye. Not in Pathfinder.
At lower level the argument is solved but not at the higher levels. The most 9th level spells a character can have is 6 a day (scrolls can extend this but their DC is automatically the minimum for such an item... DC 23, and with monster saves as they are that's a joke). After that he's down to lesser spells...
If we go to an "average" save system, what happens to the lower level spells? Do all the spells use the same 50/50 split? If so then we need to do something about spell levels, after all why should spells that are just about the exact same thing different levels?
Also if we go to the 50/50 split, why can the fighter improve his chances to be effective with weapons but the wizard can't do the same with his spells? Suddenly it doesn't matter what type of spell chucker you are or what you do everyone has the exact same chance against your spells. Fine for a wild mage or chaos driven type of caster, but for anyone else it's just silly.
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The defense system just replaces who gets to make the roll. Instead of rolling a saving throw against a set DC the attacker makes a roll against a set DC. Its not too unbalanced, but the reason I wouldn't recommend it is because it robs the players of things to do during the enemy's turn. There's nothing more hair raising than waiting to see if your roll saves your life, and the cheer that goes up when you do. Its doesn't translate as well when a GM/DM is rolling it behind a screen.
Very, very true!
this progression would be fine except the fact that at the first levels wiz and clerigs have a so small repertore of spells that each of them should be able to at least disebla a oponent.
Nah. Just because they don't get everything at will (they do have some at will powers) doesn't mean that what they have should be doomsday devices.
I'm not against spells that disable you for a short time, but sooner or later, those spells will take you out of the fight for good. Low-level resources shouldn't be that effective at higher levels.
At the lowest levels, those extra saves will not change that much, since the spells will expire quickly, anyway, but later it means that a fighter isn't just one hideous laughter away from being the designated pizza fetcher.
The defense system just replaces who gets to make the roll.
Not quite. It also involves flat level bonuses if I recall correctly.
Switching who gets to roll stuff isn't hard. It's usually d20 + bonuses against 10 + bonuses, so just switch those around. You can houserule that the actor always gets to roll (you cast fireball, you make a spellstrike roll against their reflex defense class), or that players get to roll everything (if they're attacked, they roll defense against an attack score, if they're cast at, they roll a save, if they attack, they make an attack roll, if they cast, they roll a spellstrike).
But that should remain a house rule, no matter what way you do it.
But 1e/2e at least had a very predictable boundary and structure (as weird as it was), which made it easier to predict how difficult a save would be. It would be nice to inject some of that into 3e's system.
Nah. The only constant is change, the only certainty is Death (and not even that in D&D).
You can always guess at it: The guy's pretty smart, and it's a powerful spell? You can look forward to a hard save. It's an idiot with a charm person? Piece of cake.
I wouldn't want to go back to beating a value based on the defending character's level rather than the power of the attack, but perhaps some kind of capping or limiting of bonuses would be useful. The open endedness of the 3e system leads, I think, to the potential for some game-damaging disparities.
I'm flat out against caps. If the guy's twice as smart as you are, his spells are twice as hard to resist. If he's ten times as smart, it's ten times as hard (well, more or less, there's formulae involved, but you get the general meaning). It should be no other way.
I feel that spells need to be re-worked a bit so that the SoDs allow 2 or 3 saves, sorta like phantasmal killer but with some penalties.
I might go with 2, but that's pushing it, especially for high-level stuff.
I agree that D&D shouldn't be like an insta-gib death match, but it should not be My Little Pony RPG (that's 4e's job)
Unfortunately, the way saves are currently structured, things are as you describe: at high levels the people with good saves almost always save, and the people with bad saves almost never do, because at high levels the magnitude of the bonuses swamp the d20 (as Mattastrophic tirelessly points out). That's a fundamentally lousy setup. Because of it, there's no element of chance except for half the people maybe rolling a 1, and the other half maybe rolling a 20. The feeling of risk is what makes the game fun, but the rules mechanics actively marginalize that element at higher levels by providing easy access to huge bonuses, in the form of resistance items, stat-boost items, etc., and by proceeding to a 6-point gap in base saves alone.
What's so wrong with a 6 point gap at level 20? That's a far cry from "A only fails on a 1, B only passes on a 20"; on the contrary, it means "A only fails on a 1, B passes on a 7-20".
The place where I see a real gap between PCs (in my experience) is with high Wis clerics/druids and high Ref rogues (and maybe high Wis/Ref monks); those classes have a "prime requisite" that helps saves, so they tend to have one really good save.
What's so wrong with a 6 point gap at level 20? That's a far cry from "A only fails on a 1, B only passes on a 20"; on the contrary, it means "A only fails on a 1, B passes on a 7-20".
a 6-point gap in base saves alone.
Because that's only looking at base saves. Add in the wizard's likely headband of mental awesomeness +4 and superior resistance spell, give the fighter a +5 cloak (his personal max.; he spends his headband gold on the belt instead, if he wants to fight) and the gap is at least 13 points, maybe more.
The problem with a d20 system is when the spread in bonuses approaches 20. The gap is less important for Ref saves (usually more damage on a failed save; most classes with poor Ref saves all got hp boosts in Pathfinder) and Fort saves (in Pathfinder, save or take lots of damage; same deal). Will saves are the specific remaining problem (still save or lose instantly). Of the classes with poor Will saves, two have built-in class features as fixes (scaling +2 to +6 for barbarians, slippery mind for rogues). Propose assisting the last class affected (fighters), though, and there are three arguments preventing it:
1. "Fighters have weak Will saves for a reason. They're SUPPOSED to fail them all!"
2. "Players who aren't dumb will allocate their best stat as Wisdom, spend all their gold on +5 cloaks and +6 periapts, and spend a feat on Iron Will at the very least. Never mind if that means they have a much lower Str, and not enough gold for things like armor and weapons!"
3. "Fighters' teammates aren't supposed to fight monsters. They're supposed to buff the fighter, make free items for him, and dispel mind-affecting spells for him. Otherwise they're selfish and bad."
And those three arguments have clearly won the day here.
What's so wrong with a 6 point gap at level 20? That's a far cry from "A only fails on a 1, B only passes on a 20"; on the contrary, it means "A only fails on a 1, B passes on a 7-20".
a 6-point gap in base saves alone.Because that's only looking at base saves. Add in the wizard's likely headband of mental awesomeness +4 and superior resistance spell, give the fighter a +5 cloak (his personal max.; he spends his headband gold on the belt instead, if he wants to fight) and the gap is at least 13 points, maybe more.
The problem with a d20 system is when the spread in bonuses approaches 20.
Sure, but that's not generally the case for saving throws in my experience, except maybe for rogue Ref saves and cleric/druid Will saves.
Note on your particular example: I highly doubt that a Pathfinder wizard is going to spend 40,000 gp on a Headband of Wis/Int +4 instead of a Headband of Int +6 for 36,000 gp, if that's what your suggesting; I'm not sure the 90,000 gp Headband of Wis/Int +6 is worth the extra 54,000 gp, but YMMV. You may have a point with Superior Resistance (I don't know what it does, but I presume it's something like Protection from Spells), but that would be a larger issue of spellcasters not sharing their buffs with non-spellcasters (not just saving throw buffs, specifically).
Propose narrowing that gap, though, and there are three arguments preventing it:
1. "Fighters have weak Will saves for a reason. They're SUPPOSED to fail them all!"
2. "Players who aren't dumb will allocate their best stat as Wisdom, spend all their gold on +5 cloaks and +6 periapts, and spend a feat on Iron Will at the very least. Never mind if that means they have a much lower Str, and not enough gold for things like armor and weapons!"
3. "Fighters' teammates aren't supposed to fight monsters. They're supposed to buff the fighter, make free items for him, and dispel mind-affecting spells for him. Otherwise they're selfish and bad."And those three arguments have clearly won the day here.
Leaving aside those three points, I still don't see that a +6 difference in base saves means that one person is auto-succeeding and one is autofailing.
Just to make sure my bias is clear here: I have no problem with allowing a PC -- even a high level PC -- to suck at something (or even suck at many things, if that's what the player wants out of his character). That's why I don't really care for the 4E rules where your level matters far more than your class does in terms of attack bonus, saves, etc.
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The problem with a d20 system is when the spread in bonuses approaches 20.
The problem is with PCs that are decked out like Christmas trees with magical items, due to their increased availability in 3ed and the 'magic-mart' style of play that gp values for everything in the DMG encourages. Hopefully this is already fixed by Jason's comment that Pathfinder will be more mid-level magic availability than 3ed's high-level availability.
I don't think it fair to the system, which as Hogarth says has a delta of about 6 in saving throws at high level, to criticise it for being susceptible to problems that are caused solely by the choices that the DM and players make.
I don't think I'd say those problems were solely the responsibility of player and DM choice. They're choices that the system makes good strategies. As long as that's the case, people will make those choices because it helps define the difference between one choice and a mechanically more advantageous choice.
I don't think it fair to the system, which as Hogarth says has a delta of about 6 in saving throws at high level, to criticise it for being susceptible to problems that are caused solely by the choices that the DM and players make...
... and that the designers have aleady made. Play any published AP, or cobble together a bunch of single-shot adventures, and characters will be decked out like trees. Vast magic item accessability is a built-in assumption for 3.0, 3.5, and Pathfinder (especially so for Pathfinder, given that crafting costs no XP). So, yes, it's entirely fair to criticize the system, because that's exactly the way it was designed.
The better "choices DM and players make" would be to:
1. Write all your own adventures, or else strip down all the ones written (assumes infinite prep time which may not be the case for people with jobs, families, etc.); or
2. Play some other d20 variant like Iron Heroes, which has little prewritten adventure support and thus the same problems as with Choice #1.
Because that's only looking at base saves. Add in the wizard's likely headband of mental awesomeness +4 and superior resistance spell, give the fighter a +5 cloak (his personal max.; he spends his headband gold on the belt instead, if he wants to fight) and the gap is at least 13 points, maybe more.
If the expected psychology of the fighter is just to spend his money on the physical bonuses rather than mental defenses, I'm not really seeing the psychology in favor of the wizard dropping more cash on expanding his headband beyond intelligence. He's going to be picking up other things to increase his arcane spellcasting.
I think you'd have a better point in just sticking with the cleric or druid whose primary offensive stat is also a defensive stat adding to a strong save. But even so, the base save bonuses are less of a problem than the open-endedness of the bonuses that add on to them and how they synergize within the character classes.
And as far as superior resistance spells go, caveat emptor with any spell from the Spell Compendium.