A Flaw with saving throws or is there

[Herpes Cineplex]

If you're scratching around looking for some kind of plausible-sounding rationale for this, try this one on for size:

First off, as andargor points out, that +15 is a saving throw bonus; the roll is still required. Ah, but why roll it at all? Why a natural failure on a 1 and a natural success on a 20?

And the answer to that is because it keeps things simple.

So, your character gets attacked with poison. Well, how much poison did he get into his system? Did he have some kind of condition or had he ingested anything that would enhance or impair the poison's effects? Where did the poison go in? These are all significant questions, because all you've got is a high saving throw bonus; you don't have "Immunity to poisons" (unless, of course, your class grants that to you at some point). Any poison, no matter how weak, can hurt you. That's why they call it poison, right?

So the mandatory roll is the rulebook's way of saying "Hey, make up your own description for all of this; I'm not going to make you calculate all that stuff out. Roll the save, see if you live or die, and get back to your game, already." Maybe the sturdiest dude in the world (with his Fort +15 bonus) just got nailed with half a liter of DC14 poison in all of his major organs, and that's why he died. Maybe that frail little bookworm who succeeded at the DC50 Fortitude check against Mega-Concentrated Death Juice only got a tiny little scratch on his pinky finger. Who can say? Who cares enough to work out all the details?

No one cares enough to do that, that's who. At least, so goes the rulebook's philosophy.


...and incidentally, if you're that upset about having had to make that roll, the correct people to whine at are the people you're actually playing with. Telling me how unfair you think it is and stamping your little virtual foot ain't gonna solve your problem.

--
though honestly, i can't think of much that would
ryan

 

[Li Shenron]

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.

I understand your points. Frankly, I can see no reason to prefer one way or the other, playing with automatic success/failure or without. In fact, only combat and saving throws use this rule, but not anything else. Why? No reason really, except probably being attached to how it has always worked in previous editions.
For example, if you think about skills, you could easily imagine that natural 1s may be treated as automatic failure, like there is always a chance to fail disabling even the simplest trap. It would be harder to pass the opposite case instead, 5% to beat the most impossible trap with a natural 20 is kind of high.

If you don't like it because you think that 5% is still quite large, you can consider the open-ended-rolls variant rule (or whatever ) in the DMG, which works something like: if you roll a natural 1, you have to reroll with a -20 penalty; if you roll a natural 20, you have to reroll with a +20 bonus. If you roll several naturals one after each other, you keep rolling while stacking the bonuses. The PHB rule is normally preferred because it requires only 1 roll always.

 

[Uller]

With the auto-failure/success for attack rolls...it is there to keep things interesting. There is ALWAYS a chance that when one character attacks another he will hit (or miss). This means that even a character with a 21+ AC is attacked by a horde of mooks with a +0 Attack Bonus, there is still a chance for them to do damage (and if you have enough of them, they will do significant damage). For instance...a dragon passing over a company of War1 archers...if there are 100 of them, ~5 will hit and do a little damage (unless the dragon had damage reduction).

There is also a chance when that monster with the +50 attack bonus attacks you there is a chance you'll survive (just a chance). I've seen these rolls come up...Back in 2e I had a party that was fighting for its life. The BBEG was about to finish off the party's wizard and the rogue had snuck around behind him. Only a 20 would hit. He rolled it. The BBEG died (only had a few hitpoints left). The players literally cheered. The rogue player said (and this is a direct quote) "That was so cool I'm shaking!"

So...IMO this rule adds to the game. Especially as you get to higher levels there is enough variation in Save bonuses and Save DCs and Attack Bonuses and ACs that you will often end up with impossible to save/hit or impossible to fail/miss situations cropping up all the time and that would be no fun.

If you don't like the 5% chance to fail...what about the opposite? What if the DM put a monster in with a poison with a 36 DC poison. You'd be begging for a nat 20 to succeed. It would be bad to have no chance of success or no chance of failure in these situations. That just wouldn't be any fun. YMMV.

 

[Shallown]

I prefer not to use the auto success/fail but instead use the 1=-10 and 20 =30 method. It works well for me. Only at the levels I now run at (14-15) do I get to the point where even a 1 will succeed. Before it was a given a 1 failed and a 30 succeeded. Now the range of DC's is more broad. I wantthe players (and Npcs) to get to a point where the little stuff isn't a threat anymore regardless of the little details.

That's just me

later

 

[Piratecat]

Rolled a "1", huh?

 

[Silveras]

The key is to remember the dice are used to determine the outcome of probabilities, not certainties.

The roll is a check to see whether the unlikely-but-possible event of failure occurs, or whether the likely-but-not-certain event of success does. Or vise-versa.

Probabilities are not certainties, and the D&D game uses the auto-success and auto-fail mechanisms to reinforce that.

 

[UltimaGabe]

by rolling the dice you are weakening your resistence Vs something.

That has got to be the dumbest thing I've ever heard. That's like saying, "By rolling the dice to attack that kobold, I'm lowering my chances of hitting him". You're not weakening anything- considering if you don't roll, you don't make the save. You could take an automatic failure anytime you want and just not roll- but considering you HAVE to roll to do ANYTHING, it doesn't make any sense for rolling to lower your chances of anything at all.

I notice that you're not using this example for Reflex saves. Using your logic, once you've got a Reflex save of +15, there's no possible way that you would fail a save against a DC 14 Fireball. No matter what, you're gonna get out of the way. You could be asleep and you'd still get out of the way. You could jump INTO it and get out of the way. That is, unless you wanted to "weaken your resistance by rolling" or some garbage like that.

 

[iwatt]

I prefer not to use the auto success/fail but instead use the 1=-10 and 20 =30 method. It works well for me. Only at the levels I now run at (14-15) do I get to the point where even a 1 will succeed. Before it was a given a 1 failed and a 30 succeeded. Now the range of DC's is more broad. I wantthe players (and Npcs) to get to a point where the little stuff isn't a threat anymore regardless of the little details.

That's just me

later

And me. It's like your Barbarian 20 trying to charge into a held creature and missing

The 20=30 and 1 = -10 works great, ise easy and allows for plausible results. The dwarven defender with an AC in the low fifties should not be hit by kobold mooks. Even if the DM keeps rolling 20s.

 

[Grazzt]

Rolled a "1", huh?

That's what I was thinking too when I read the post.

 

[Ottergame]

That's what I was thinking too when I read the post.

I failed my Comprehend Gibberish check twice.