So, you roll a 20 on your Fireball. The party's out of luck. You roll a 1, they're fine. You roll a 14, you probably get most of them.
Individual rolls make things more interesting for the group. Sometimes the cleric will survive and the rogue will mess up, sometimes the whole party makes it except one person or vice versa.
Good point.
One thing about "save defences" (i.e. a mechanic where magic requires a sort of attack roll against a static defence score, like weapon attacks against AC) Is that it gets weird when effects allow a save for partial effect.
A fireball, for example. The way it is, the caster casts it, it does xd6 points of fire damage, but you can make a save to only get half (let's ignore evasion for now). That's okay. If you fail, you fail (and get hit), but if you succeed, you get something out of it.
But if you flip it, you can make an attack roll, fail at it, and still get a partial effect.
It's a small thing, and probably mostly due to habit and feelings, but it's something that appeared on the con side whenever I thought about flipping saves in my games, and usually that one led to me dismissing the idea again right away.
What actions do people think *ought* to be rolled by the players, and what doesn't matter who rolls?
Note that saying "what do *players* need to roll?" is a bit misleading. It's better to say "what should be rolled by the attacker?", because the attacker can be a critter/NPC controlled by the GM, and then the GM would get to roll the "spell attack".
There's also a different alternate rule: "Players get to roll everything". In that case, things are always flipped so that the players get to roll: Player character hitting enemy with sword? Attack roll against AC. Enemy hitting PC with sword? Defence roll against defence DC. PC casting spell at enemy? Spellcasting roll against fort/ref/will defence. Enemy casting at PC? Saving throw against save DC.
That way, the players are always "in charge of fate". Isn't for everyone, since GMs won't be able to fudge rolls any more (at least not nearly as much as they could before), and that's not something many GMs will willingly give up.
I much prefer the saving throw system as it is. It isnt the most convenient way to do things but it is a better representation of what is happening in the game world (in my opinion ofcourse) then if saves were another kind of defense. The idea of resisting magic with the targets will, toughness or speed apeals to me as I imagine it did for those who designed the system in the first place.
I also like that it isnt the same as attacking with a weapon. I like variety in the physical mechanics of the game, it keeps things interesting. But then again I like variety for the sake of variety, so I imagine my opinion on the matter would differ from some others.
4th edition and the Star Wars RPG (saga edition) flipped things in a manner similar to what you seem to be asking about. There are no saving throws, but rather fortitude/reflex/will defenses that work similarly to AC. In Star Wars, if you wanted to use a force power on someone, you make a Use the Force check vs the relevant defense. It's an interesting variant that puts more power in the hands of the attacker (usually, but not always, the PCs).
Which is precisely why, as a DM, I prefer the saving throw mechanic.
When the PCs are on the offensive, being able to roll the villain's saving throw is helpful. Not because they always need to succeed, but because a climactic battle with the final villain is very disappointing if he's taken out with a Hold Monster spell in the first round. The Star Wars defense system led to this happening quite often. The evil Sith Lord makes his dramatic entrance... and is immediately paralyzed by the forcepower-heavy jedi. With a saving throw system, that Sith Lord might have made his save and the fight would have been much more exciting. With Pathfinder's heavier focus on equipment and feats, I'd expect it to be an even larger problem because it's easier to boost your attacks in Pathfinder than it was in Star Wars.
The same holds true in reverse. When the PCs are on the defensive, it feels good for them to be in charge of their own fate. Knowing that you can save yourself from the vampire's mind control with a good roll feels better than being at the mercy of the DM's behind-the-screen dice.
Each of these two systems puts the rolls in the hands of either the attacker or defender. As a DM, I'd rather roll the enemies' defense so that they can more easily survive when it counts.
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Forgive me if this sentiment has already been expressed; I didn't want to read through 50+ moderate-to-long posts to see if I was being redundant.
Anyway, the only saving throw I really have a problem with is Reflex, and that's because of its relationship (or more accurately, the lack thereof) with Touch AC.
Touch and Reflex are both supposed to represent your ability to get out of the way. Yet they're entirely unrelated mechanically (except for the use of your DEXmod).
Reflex scales with level, touch does not.
Touch is limited by heavier armor, reflex is not.
Touch benefits from dodge bonuses and such, reflex does not.
Touch is affected by getting caught unaware (losing your DEX), but reflex is not.
For a pair of mechanics that represent exactly the same thing, they sure function differently.
But if you flip it, you can make an attack roll, fail at it, and still get a partial effect.
It's suddenly clicked. I need to give non-casters something like this. Failure still yields results.
I think it only works because it's using a limited (daily) resource, though. So I don't think it'd necessarily be appropriate for regular attacks.
I wonder how bad it would be to have your base Reflex save add to your Touch AC, to a maxium of your normal AC.
Reflex scales with level, touch does not.
Wouldn't that just make it that much harder for low-BAB casters to ever hit with their spells?
Changing to acrobatics would be a net boost for reflex saves since it is easier to get better acrobatics bonuses than save throw bonuses.
Does reflex save do anything that isn't mostly damage? What about just ditching that one, making evasion let you use an acrobatics check, and letting blasters be a little less lame?
I'm pretty sure it applies to things like tanglefoot bags and black tentacles?
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Reflex scales with level, touch does not.
I wonder how bad it would be to have your base Reflex save add to your Touch AC, to a maximum of your normal AC.
Some games, that use a class-based Defense Modifier, effectively do that.
An example would be the Judge Dredd d20 game, from Mongoose.Classes/HD that grant Good Reflex, also give Good Defense Mod, and likewise, Poor Reflex matches Poor Defense mod.
Given the lack of the usual D&D mods (like deflection/sacred/profane bonuses), that means your Touch AC is usually equal to your Reflex+10, and your AC is usually equal to Touch AC, given that the game treats armor as Damage Reduction.
I wonder how bad it would be to have your base Reflex save add to your Touch AC, to a maxium of your normal AC.
I wonder if touch AC would even be a necessary distinction if the defenses were static and spell hit were implemented. Reflex could just get rolled into AC as one of its properties. Then you could potentially use your armor or shield to do intuitive things like block falling rocks or dragon fire in addition to dodging. Spell hit could then be defended by willpower rather than touch AC.
I have also been wondering if fortitude could be rolled into willpower. Not that I don't see the sense in it, but more for the sake of simplicity and its narrow usefulness.
This would leave 2 defenses: AC and Willpower.
Failure still yields results.
The way I see it is casters auto-crit unless you save, negating the crit. So the "failure" is really just a failure to crit.
(On the other hand, implementing spell hit strongly implies that spells should sometimes miss. To do that properly, you would basically have to rework the entire spell system to allow for lower damage, higher resource, misses and crits. Personally I think this would empower casters, but I can see others might feel differently.)
Changing to acrobatics would be a net boost for reflex saves since it is easier to get better acrobatics bonuses than save throw bonuses.
It would be a better bonus, but it would create a "gotcha" mechanic. (Oh, you didn't train Acrobatics? Gotcha.)
...Skills are heavily front-loaded in Star Wars, which is cool as long as you compare them to skill DCs instead of defense scores.
Which was exactly that game's problem. Most, if not all, of the force powers relied on skill checks vs. enemy defense scores, which made force-heavy characters very overpowered at low and mid levels.
Pathfinder doesn't suffer from that mismatch, thankfully, but there are lots of ways to raise your attack bonuses and spell save DCs. This might be a problem if you switch everything to an"attacker rolls the dice" mindset. If that's your preference, then by all means go for it, but be prepared for more vulnerable monsters and villains.
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RE Original Question: Me, I love saving throws.
All of them. Evasion too, oh yeah, and Mettle (Will version of Evasion).
Comparing saves to attack rolls is silly. You want a spell that uses an attack roll? Pick one, there are lots; usually against touch AC too, so you don't even have to be all that good at hitting most things.
Snark:
"Oh, but I want to be able to render an opponent useless with one spell, and be the one rolling."
"Great, make up/find the spell and expect to face lots of enemies using that same spell."
Super snark:
Honestly, if this player is so bad at playing casters that saving throws bother him, he needs to stick with melee guys.