A Flaw with saving throws or is there

[Anditch]

I am playing Ad+d 3.5e. I am a 16th level character. My natural saving throws are as follows Fort 15 Ref 15 Will 13.

A situation arose the other night in which I was attacked and I needed DC 14 fort save Vs poison. Now my arguement was why would I need to save when my body is naturally resistant to this poison as my natural save is 15 and all you need is a 14. So if I roll a D20 this enables me to have a small chance of failing (1 on do 20) even though naturally I am more resistant than the poison in the first place, Now to me this does not make any sence. Can anyone give me an answer that makes any sence of this. I know people will say well there always has to be a chance of failing but if your natural body ie Fort save 15 is higher than the save needed then really a save is not really required because by rolling the dice you are weakening your resistence Vs something. As you gain levels you gain points in your resistance this is to tell you that you are getting better at over coming the hazards of life. Then the game mechanics steps and could kill your character when really you are naturally harder than the poison or whatever has been thrown at you. This is because you have in the past already over come this maybe. So can anyone tell me pls if I am missing the point or something or is there a small flaw in the saving throw rules

 

[andargor]

I suggest you re-read p. 136 of your Player's Handbook. There is no such thing as a "Natural Saving Throw". Those are saving throw bonuses, which are applied to your roll. They are based on your ability scores, classes and other factors like feats.

Saving Throws are die rolls, that's how they work. Or are you questioning the rule itself?

Andargor

 

[Ottergame]

Uh, the sense of it is that there needs to be a mechanic that prevents encounters and effects from either being totally impossible or unable of failing. Thus, saves and attacks always have a 5% chance of always failing, and 5% chance of always succeeding. Its a game mechanic.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

What you are describing is a purposeful decision by the game designers.

It is fundamentally no different than a vanilla kobold hitting your AC 42 heavily armored knight on a Natural 20, or a wizard casting True Strike then missing with the Disintegrate (ray) by rolling a Natural 1.

IMHO, your Fort save is really not oh-so-high that I find a problem with your character being only 95% immune to middling to weak poisons. If someone were gaming the system and subjecting you to a deluge of weak (DC 11 or DC 12) poisons on the hope that you roll a 1, you would get some sympathy. I do not see a problem as is.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Threads merged.

-Hyp.
(Moderator)

 

[Ottergame]

Hey Hyp? Is there any way you could change Anditch's sig? It's a link to that damn outwar site. It tries to automatically download and install a program when you click the link.

 

[The Souljourner]

I second that. Looking at the HTML, I can't tell right off what exactly it's doing, but the fact that going to the page prompts you to download a file (an executable, no less) just makes it reek of a trojan. Not to mention there's an entire line of script written in escaped characters.... that sure instills confidence.

-The Souljourner

 

[AuraSeer]

FTR it doesn't appear to be a known trojan-- that is, it isn't an installer for SubSeven or anything. But that doesn't mean it won't drop a keycap daemon or wipe your hard drive or something like that, and I'm damn sure not going to execute it to find out.

 

[Bauglir]

Chicken! *clicks*

See, nothing happ

 

[Anditch]

I know that there is a 5 % chance of failure but why not just scrub it off. If u wanna poison someone then make the poison stronger or whatever and give it a higher DC. This then says that the poison or whatever is stronger. How can an extremely weak poison be as potent as an extremely potent one. Also on the being able to hit an AC of 55 with a natural 20. How many DMs do you know that would give you a creature that makes you have to roll a 20 to hit. If there is one out there remind me never to be a player in there campaign. If the mob has an AC that high then give it a weakness somewhere else and try and get the players to find its weakness by casting different spells at it or whatever. Its pointless if a save is too easy as its pointless if its too hard.