Tony Vargas
Legend
The former issue is a minor one. BA should generally avoid the extreme cases of failure on a 20 or success on a 1, and the DM should usually avoid them, as well, by simply not calling for a roll.Well, I think there are two separate issues, as I outlined above. One is the "impossible save" vs. the "auto-succeed on a 20 (and auto-fail on a 1)". The other is the whole scheme, wherein some saves will just never be as good as others despite leveling up.
The latter is misstated, IMHO. It's not that some saves will never be as good as others, in spite of leveling. That's inevitable with stats adding to saves and straight-20s on all six stats being un-achievable. Rather, it's that some saves will stay exactly the same, for a given character, in spite of leveling from 1-20, since most saves for most classes get no proficiency bonus, and you can't boost /all/ 6 stats with only 4 ASIs, while save-forcing mechanics, over the same level, will scale dramatically, because they do use both typically-bast-stat for the class /and/ proficiency (or the equivalent for monsters).
That's not just be better at some saves than others, that's not just being bad at some saves, that's getting steadily worse at standing up to the challenges you face as you level.
That's in stark contrast to classic game. And, it doesn't have to be, because 5e /has/ found ways of handling scaling with some mechanics. Take Sleep, for instance. In the classic game, Sleep affected a random number of targets based on their HD/level, over 4, you were unaffected, otherwise, no save. In 5e, Sleep compares a hp roll to remaining hps and affects targets it reduces to 0. Because hps baloon with level, you rapidly become very resistant to Sleep. It's not as absolute in either case as it was back in the day, but it's still following the same basic dynamic. Very effective vs low-level targets, far less so (though not completely useless as it was back then) as targets get higher level.
It's a more nuanced statement, and there's clearly some resistance to it, but I don't think it's that important compared to the fact of failing saves more often.All right. It's uncontroversial (AFAIK) to say that high-level 5E PCs will fail saves more often than high-level AD&D PCs.
It would be controversial to say that high-level 5E PCs suffer more from failed saves than high-level AD&D PCs.
Still, OT1H, 5e PCs will suffer more from failed saves, because 5e calls for at least as many saves as prior editions ever did, and they will fail more of them, but, OTOH...
5e PCs probably suffer less as a consequence of failing a given individual save against the same thing.. The consequences to failed saves in 5E are pretty mild.
Take Hold Person. Being Held is about as bad in 5e as in most other editions, but in the classic game, you got only the one save, while starting in 3.5, you got repeated saves to reduce the duration. When 3.5 introduced that, there was some controversy, because, the theory went, the repeated saves made you a target for Coup de Grace, while the one-and-done failed save made you a non-factor in the balance of the combat, who would probably be left alone, therefor being able to repeat the save was 'worse.' Whether that logic makes sense to you, it's how the spell has worked ever sense (more or less, 'save ends' duration was different in 4e, not being directly based on the power of either the attacker nor defender, just a random duration that was 55% likely to end each round). If you're not instantly-prioritized for being able to make the save again (or if you are prioritized even though no further saves are likely forthcoming), though, then being able to save again is strictly better than no. Even if you need a natural 20. However, being able to save on 6 (or more likely, since the classic game assumed magic items & 5e does not, less, even a 2), is probably better than getting a chance to save each round, but only making it on a 20. Well, there'd be an inflection point after some number of rounds, anyway...
So, the consequences are arguably marginally less severe in that case, in 5e. In plenty of other cases - save or suffer the poisoned condition vs save or die, OTOH, saves in 5e have much less severe consequences.
However, I think the line where the two considerations - chance of failing vs consequences of failing - would 'balance' and failing saves more often as you leveled instead of less often would be acceptable, would be when all consequences are hp-denominated, and the scaling of such 'damage' was slower than the scaling of maximum hps. In other words, if everything calling for a save worked like Disintegrate or even Sleep.
That's not how saves work in 5e:
So, if those few monsters (and their F-Z comrades), and spells in general, were re-written to have save effects also gated by comparison to current hps, then saves being as likely to fail as attacks are to hit would start to be reasonable.So after the umpteenth iteration of "5e effects are mild" and "failing saves is interesting and fun", I decided to take a closer look at what monsters actually do to you.
Aboleth, Banshee, Cambion, Carrion Crawler, Chuul, Cockatrice, Dryad, Spellcasting Enemies, ...
... I only got as far as "E" in the Monster Manual before I stopped caring.
Of course, because there are 6 saves and only 1 AC, it's a lot harder to get saves and attacks vs AC on about the same footing.