D&D (2024) Return to the 3 saves for 1D&D?

[Composer99]

I'm not sure I'm up for reverting to a mechanical instantiation of 3.X/4e version of saves (whether as saves or as static defences), much less the TSR-era saves.

However, I do have to say that the fact that your saves only scale with level if you are proficient with them has just about never sat well with me. To my mind, what TSR-era saves have going for them that 5e saves ought to emulate is that they actually get better as you gain levels.

While 3.X/4e saves/defences increase steadily as you gain levels, that is offset by the fact that monster save DCs or attack rolls, depending on edition, also increased steadily, leading to the treadmill that 5e tries to get away from. In fact without magic items, as far as I'm aware 3.X/4e saves/defences end up falling behind on the treadmill as monster save DCs/attack rolls increase faster than the saves/defences increase innately.

5e saves you're not proficient with have more in common with 3.X/4e than TSR-era saves - not only don't they stay on par with monster save DCs as you gain levels, but because save DCs escalate as the average CR of enemies you face increases, they get worse over time. I see this as basically re-creating the worst aspects of the 3.X/4e treadmill.

This doesn't happen with weapon attacks (since basically no one is going to make a habit of making attacks without proficiency), and while it also happens with ability checks, I expect it happens to a lesser extent (because check DCs scaling isn't baked into the system the way save DC scaling is), and in any case it just doesn't rub me the wrong way quite as much.

Suffice to say while I am sure 1D&D won't make any changes to way PC saving throws work, I would much rather that it did approach them with the spirit of TSR-era saves in mind.

(Here I should point out that, to my mind, there is nothing about bounded accuracy qua bounded accuracy that prohibits instantiating saving throws such that player characters just get better at them across the board as they gain levels; the principle of the thing is that the d20 should still be the primary determinant of success.)

 

[leozg]

I think this is a bad idea. That is a lot of your cantrips you are investing in and save cantrips do not land as well as attack cantrips generally. Add to that the intelligence-based cantrips are pretty weak overall in terms of damage.

If you do this you need to "fish" for the low save and that is not easy when you take the dice into play. You throw down Toll the Dead and he rolls a 3 .... well does he have a bad wisdom or was that just a really low roll?

I also don't think all classes even have cantrips with 3 different saves. Druids for example only have constitution and dexterity options I think.

This is before you consider uses. Clerics for example can get Wisdom, Constitution and Dex saves but the con save cantrip (word of radience) requires you to get within 5 feet of the enemy.



No because the target number for a hit is usually lower than the target for a cantrip. For example at 1st level average AC for foes you are facing should be 13, which means you need an 8 to hit (assuming 16 in prome stat) which means you hit 65% of the time. Your spell DC is 13 whick means your save cantrips only hit 60% if your enemy has a 0 on the save and chances are good they have higher than 0.

So, worst case scenario spellcasters have the same chance martials trying to hit AC, but spellcasters can change the save they'll aim next round.

 

[ART!]

I don't want to see that, no. I like the design space created by six saving throws, and without having to add anything to the game - the six Abilities are already there, and not going anywhere. It's seems to good to mess with.

 

[Olrox17]

But at higher levels PCs are going to have spells, abilities and immunities that either make them immune to many of the things you would need to save against or get advantage on those saves.

Take a Ranger for example - Nature's veil means he can make him immune to any effect the enemy needs to "see" you with for a lot of enemies. 1st level spells like fog cloud can do the same.

To a degree, yes. But, at higher levels, you could also have NPCs enemies and spellcasting monsters dropping really dangerous AoE stuff on the party, so it's a wash.
Low level characters may have to deal with an Hold Person targeting a couple party members.
High level parties may have to deal with an enemy using Psychic Scream on the whole party, or a multitude of lower level enemies using Hold Person, Phantasmal Force, Hypnotic Pattern etc at the same time.

I don't think this is true either. Aside from LR many legendary monsters have good/great saves.

A CR17 adult Red Dragon for example is +8S, +6D, +13C, +7Wis, +3Int, +11CH

That means against a level 15 PC with a 20 ability (DC18) he needs a 12 or less for every save except intelligence (where he needs a 15).

A CR 13 Beholder has S0, D2, C4, I8, W7, CH8. So he makes all the mind saves on a 10 or 11 against that 15th level PC, and while his physical saves are not good he also is only a CR13 monster you are putting up agaist a 15th-level character with a max ability score.

Add in magic resistance, fey immunity/advantage, poison immunity and the abnormally high wisdom scores for many monsters and you have monsters making saves quite often.

You don't even mention non-legendary monsters (that is, 95% of monsters), so I assume you're conceding the point that the vast majority of monsters are complete trash at saves.

I stand by my point on Legendaries, too. The examples of legendary monsters you provided say it all: a mighty Red dragon is extremely easily affected by an Int save, and you have a fair shot of nailing its Wisdom, too. Without the blunt and inelegant (but again, absolutely necessary) Legendary Resistance feature to patch things up, the red dragon would be screwed.
As for the beholder? Putting aside how exceedingly easy it would be to target its Str save, having a 50/50 shot at mental saves isn't good when you're very likely to be outnumbered, as legendary monsters usually will be (because they're supposedly designed to be "bosses" of sort).
Nevermind how easy it is to shut down a beholder with a single darkness spell casted over the party...that's just an embarrassing design oversight that has nothing to do with saves.

 

[Blue]

I have to disagree.

Fair enough.

1. The 5e balance only holds true at low levels. Saving throw scaling is very bad, so saves cannot keep up with DCs.
At first level a typical PC will have 2 good saves it can pass with an 8 or so, another couple of decent saves where it gets a 50/50 shot, and one or two bad saves where a 13 or 14 is needed.
At level 20, the PC will usually still have two good saves (if they invested a lot in straight +2 ASIs, that is), and maybe another decent 50/50 save if they also took the Resilient Focus feat, but all other saves will be terrible, needing a roll of 18, 19 or 20 to succeed.

This supports my point which was that PCs only have 2 good saves.

2. 5e monsters are usually written to be complete trash at saves. Even most (supposedly) legendary monsters would be easily bypassed, if it weren't for their (IMO) inelegant but absolutely necessary Legendary Resistance feature. So, I disagree that 5e handles monster saves well: in fact, I believe it does very poorly.

Let's take a look. A 17th character will likely have a DC of 8+6(prof)+5(ability) = 19. So a +9 is 50%. Let me take a look at some higher CR creatures in the MM to compare.

Storm Giant has four good saves vs. 17th-20th level characters at CR 13.
Balor (CR 19) has four good saves.
Empyrean has fourFIVE good saves. It has four listed as enhanced: Str +17, Int +12, Wis +13, Chr +15. But the default so Con is +10 so it also qualifies.
Kraken (CR24) has four good saves.
Ancient Red Dragon has 3 good saves (50% or better), and one almost there. Heck, an adult red almost has the same. I'm not going to go through all the dragons, but assume there are more.
Solar (CR21) has three amazing saves.
Planetar (CR 16) has 3 good saves.
Marilith (CR 16) has three good save, and WIS only misses by 1 at +8.
Androsphinx (CR 17) has three good saves.
Demilich (CR18) has three good saves.
Lich (CR21) has three good saves.

I think the facts speak for themselves, that creatures have up to 4 good saves sort of depending on their Epicness.

3. Are you aware that the 4e save system allows for other scores beside Dex, Con and Wis to contribute to Reflex, Fort and Will? A 10 Dex, 20 Int character would sport a +5 to Reflex. If anything, this is exactly what's needed to move away from the sheer power of Dex, Con and Wis.

Thank you for reminding me of that, that's a good point. Though Con and Wis aren't "sheer power". I've got people in this same thread putting down both of them as not a big deal.

 

[ECMO3]

My experience is that players don't operate like this and cantrips feel very lacklustre compared to weapon effects, except for Eldritch Blast, which is a bit overpowered.

EB is not nearly as good as a weapon attack unless you get the agonizing blast evocation through a feat or Warlock class and that is a high price to pay to boost it.

Without that EB does the same average damage as a dagger with a 16 in your attack ability. At no point do I think it is straight overpowered compared to weapons (compared to other cantrips yes).

 

[ECMO3]

So, worst case scenario spellcasters have the same chance martials trying to hit AC, but spellcasters can change the save they'll aim next round.

No not worst case. The example I gave you attacks were better, more like best case, on top of this attacks also crit where saves don't and they generally do more base damage than save cantrips.

Spell casters can change out to try to figure this out, but unless they have metagame knowledge of the monster it will not be very efficient. Assuming the DM lets you see the roll, you have about a 25% chance of gaining some insight based on his roll on a save. With a 13 DC, if he rolls between a 10 and 14 it is useful but still not very telling on a single roll alone. Any other number lower than 10 or higher than 14 is almost useless by itself unless he has extremely good or bad saves, and that is assuming the DM does public rolls

So statistically it is normally going to take 2-3 rounds (sometimes more) to get any useful information at all and even then your info is limited.

Example: your DC 13 Wizard tolls the dead on the bad guy and he rolls a 9 and fails. You don't know much from that, so you toll the dead again and he rolls a 15 and saves. You still don't know much. Then you toll the dead a 3rd time and he rolls a 14 and saves. Ok you have spent 3 turns doing this and you know his save is better than -2 and less than +4. This example is BETTER than it will usually be as all 3 of these rolls fall in the middle 50% of the distribution. Distribute it more widely where one of these is a 3 and the other an 18 and you still know basically nothing after 3 attempts.

If the DM does not do public rolls it is going to take dozens of rolls to get this right with any sort of reliability.

Add into this the difference in damage and you have something you can't typically figure out without observing many rolls. Say I am considering targeting intelligence with mind sliver and 1d4 damage vs wisdom with toll the dead with 1d12 damage. Now you need to consider not only the save but the damage since TTD does well over twice as much damage on average. So casting TTD against someone with a +2 is going to do more damage on average than casting a mind sliver against someone with an automatic fail.

Give me an example with real numbers and real hypothetical rolls to show me how you would actually use this to determine which of these is the best choice. Or better yet roll it out on your kitchen table 3 times and let me know what you find out.

 

[leozg]

So statistically it is normally going to take 2-3 rounds (sometimes more) to get any useful information at all and even then your info is limited.

How many rounds it will take for a martial to figure out that the target has a good AC and then what he'll do with this information? He can only target AC, that's my point: lack of choice.
You have to take in consideration that saves scale very badly, it's not hard to have a +11 Dex save in level 20 and -1 in Int save. A level 20 spellcaster can easily have spell DC 19 and in no more than 6 round he'll find out the save that the target needs a 20 (95% success). He'll not be sure, ok, but when he targets Dex save, he has the same chance to hit then a fighter with +11 to hit against a 19 AC, easy values for level 20.
The opposite case where a fighter needs 2 or more to hit (95%) is really challenging to find. And against a target with good AC he has no option other than keep aiming AC.

 

[tetrasodium]

How many rounds it will take for a martial to figure out that the target has a good AC and then what he'll do with this information? He can only target AC, that's my point: lack of choice.
You have to take in consideration that saves scale very badly, it's not hard to have a +11 Dex save in level 20 and -1 in Int save. A level 20 spellcaster can easily have spell DC 19 and in no more than 6 round he'll find out the save that the target needs a 20 (95% success). He'll not be sure, ok, but when he targets Dex save, he has the same chance to hit then a fighter with +11 to hit against a 19 AC, easy values for level 20.
The opposite case where a fighter needs 2 or more to hit (95%) is really challenging to find. And against a target with good AC he has no option other than keep aiming AC.

Can you name some monsters with what you consider "good ac"? A fighter at that same level 20 you note is going to have +11 to hit and pointing at isolated lehsndary boss monster types ignores the reprehensible design of 5e where the gm is expected to fit six to eight medium to hard encounters in every adventuring day.... It would be quite an unusual world with support for multiple ancient dragons & tsrrasque being slaughtered by an adventuring party every day.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Fair enough.


This supports my point which was that PCs only have 2 good saves.


Let's take a look. A 17th character will likely have a DC of 8+6(prof)+5(ability) = 19. So a +9 is 50%. Let me take a look at some higher CR creatures in the MM to compare.

Storm Giant has four good saves vs. 17th-20th level characters at CR 13.
Balor (CR 19) has four good saves.
Empyrean has fourFIVE good saves. It has four listed as enhanced: Str +17, Int +12, Wis +13, Chr +15. But the default so Con is +10 so it also qualifies.
Kraken (CR24) has four good saves.
Ancient Red Dragon has 3 good saves (50% or better), and one almost there. Heck, an adult red almost has the same. I'm not going to go through all the dragons, but assume there are more.
Solar (CR21) has three amazing saves.
Planetar (CR 16) has 3 good saves.
Marilith (CR 16) has three good save, and WIS only misses by 1 at +8.
Androsphinx (CR 17) has three good saves.
Demilich (CR18) has three good saves.
Lich (CR21) has three good saves.

I think the facts speak for themselves, that creatures have up to 4 good saves sort of depending on their Epicness.


Thank you for reminding me of that, that's a good point. Though Con and Wis aren't "sheer power". I've got people in this same thread putting down both of them as not a big deal.

At that level, it doesn't matter how many good saves they have because a lot of those guys have 'Autocheat Three Times' as an ability.