D&D 5E Saving Throws and non-proficiency

FrogReaver said:

Of course, which is why the proposal is to increase everyone's saves not just the fighters. Saves in high level games are too low compared to the normal DC.

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Good point.

I hate to sound like one of those old guys who bases how everything should be on how it was "back in my day" but, in the definitive (to me) version of the game, 1e AD&D, there were 5 saves, but everyone's saves got better in all categories as they leveled. Each save was a little better or worse for each class from the beginning, and they advanced at different rates - the fighter's started off worst, but progressed the fastest - but they all improved.

And save bonus items weren't all that rare.

...Which you are right is still too high if anything can then stack on top of that.
On the bright side - we have learned something important about 5e. the real issue with saves and why they couldn't be placed where they should have been is due to bounded accuracy and having the total bonus range cover nearly the whole d20. They had to start you off abysmal to keep you out of auto save range.

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...BA was a pretty constraining design paradigm. It also hurts the zero to hero, aesthetic, a bit...

...but I'm not sure. It seems like proficiency /scaling/ to all saves wouldn't've in any way risked auto-saving becoming common, or even a thing.

(Expertise in saves would be a different matter, but saves are kept distinct from other checks, for the most part.)

FYI, there were only five saves in 1e AD&D, not six. And while everyones' saves improved in that edition, the Fighter class improved insanely by far compared to the others, having the best overall saves in the end.



We don't see this at all in 5E. And every version of D&D has always been a team-oriented game, so I see that as being immaterial to any argument about saves, etc.