I would say "yes," and "no." Or more rather, it should be part of the design on a class by class basis. it's one of the few things right now that makes Rogues and Rangers special -- having good Reflex saves in Core.
Personally, I think that too many characters have good Will saves; everyone has good Will saves, it feels more like another penalty to being a fighter than a benefit to being a bard.
Pathfinder has a serious inflated numbers problem.
Fighters get an additional +4 to hit
Paladins smite is now an I-WIN button and Ranger favored enemy now adds to to-hit
Paladins effectively use cha for health, allowing them to boost it higher for saves, and they no longer have any need for wisdom.
Barbars get a stupid bonus on practically all saving throws.
It's gotten to the point that you need full BAB + change to be effective.
Poor saves basically mean auto-fail with all the crazy bonuses running around.
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Back in Star Wars D20, they had an 'average' save, that scaled from +1 to +9. I'd rather see most classes get a good, average, and poor save.
Obviously, it's not going to happen, but it would be an easy house rule.
Yet you didn't talk about the Numbers inflation with Spell DCs. I feel like such a mook when I run characters with poor saves. Somebody can get you with spells EASILY pushing DC 30 by like level 10. Easily.
Starting with 18 when that was a 70 to 1 on a character sheet in a rolling system. Getting a racial bonus to a casting stat was rare as HELL in 3.5. Now every single race in the core rulebook can provide a casting stat bonus. Traits jacking DCs, alternative class features and archetypes jacking DC, everything is jacked to the effing roof DC wise on spells. Fighter and Rogue need a floating Good Save soooo badly.
If your GM is statting your normal NPC casters like that, you shouldn't play any martial (maybe a Superstitious Barbarian or a Paladin could get by, but it'd be less painful to just play a full caster and try to kill them before they get an action off). Seriously, those are like CR 20-21 saves (Balor, Ancient Gold Dragon, end boss of RotRL). Doesn't mean you can't run a campaign where every level 10 caster is tossing Persistent DC30 Will saves around, but it's ... a little high powered.
I always thought that the less spells you had the more your mundane resources should go up. (HD, Saves, Skills, BAB)
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Only full arcane casters. No other classes should have two poor saves.
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Only full arcane casters. No other classes should have two poor saves.
Agreed, though I think this is a place that could have benefited from adding an "average" save column, as some other d20 games have done. That way you could get by with a class only having one good save, if the other two were average.
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I would rather all saves be average, but each class gets a bonus to however many saves. The gap between good save and bad save should not be as wide as it is.
There are plenty of classes that should either have 2 bad saves OR those that currently 2 bad saves should be elevated a bit. Look at paladin for example... The saves granted by divine grace, hope I got that right, blows away most classes saves in just two levels. With a little bit of gear an unoptimized paladin can have save bonuses to all three that is the rough equivilant that a fighter would have to wait for 20 levels to get. Yes I know there are differences but I don't care, that gap is too BIG.
Paladins also have 2 good saves.
I've thinking of abilities that can make the fighter better against saving throws without giving them a plus 6 bonus like the barbarian, among other things.
Fighters really need 4sp/level, bravery being beefed up, combat expertise as a freebie, and armor training to be a little bit better (not just adding a higher dex cap). A fighter with step up and strike, spellbreaker, missle/ray shield, spell reflect enchant and the new +2 will save enchant from magical market places is brutal.
I think weak saving throws should follow the theoretical "medium progression". that is, from +1 to +9. Weak saves are too much of a vulnerability at mid/high levels.
Or should they be allowed to choose which save they want to be Good in?
That seems to be a fairly common thing suggested for Fighters and Rogues and others and I like to give another Good save if I take a class from 3.5 Dungeons and Dragons and bring it up to Pathfinder snuff.
Does anybody else feel this way?
I honestly don't know if it matters all that much either way. It would certainly be nice, but it's only a little water in the bucket.