A Flaw with saving throws or is there

[Faerl'Elghinn]

By the core rules, rolling a natural 1 is auto-fail, a 20 is auto-hit, for all attack rolls and saving throws. Period. Those are the rules. If you don't like it, suggest to your DM that you'd like to use "Variant: Automatic Hits and Misses" (ch. 3) in which a natural 1 counts as -10 and a natural 20 counts as 30. Of course, you would still have a chance to fail your poison save until your Fortitude bonus was +24.

The fact that a rule exists does not make it any less ludicrous or incongruous with the rest of the system. I believe the intent of this thread is merely to point out the illogical nature of the rule, in which case it is in the correct forum, as this forum is for the discussion of rules. In my opinion, the complaint is entirely valid, although I differ somewhat from the original poster in my ideas as far as a reasonable solution to the problem.

 

[dcollins]

I believe the intent of this thread is merely to point out the illogical nature of the rule...

Yes, and my point is that this such an old topic of debate among D&D players that there was already a variant provided on exactly this point in the 3.0 DMG back in 2000. Most like the core rule, some prefer the variant, it's an old and very well known issue.

 

[UltimaGabe]

Once again, you all are missing the point. A Save Bonus is just that- a Bonus. Not a flat number, or a flat result, or anything- it's added to a die roll. There's no such thing as "making the check without rolling"- because until you roll, you CANNOT MAKE THE CHECK. Just because you have a +15 doesn't mean you always get a result of 15 on any check- it means that you add 15 to WHATEVER YOU ROLL. If you roll a 1, it doesn't matter- you fail. That's it. You're not "lessening the chances by rolling" because without rolling, there IS no chance. I said it before, and I'll say it again- NO ROLL MEANS NO SUCCESS.

 

[Anditch]

Yes, and my point is that this such an old topic of debate among D&D players that there was already a variant provided on exactly this point in the 3.0 DMG back in 2000. Most like the core rule, some prefer the variant, it's an old and very well known issue.

Oh i am sorry Mr DC collins that I brought up an old topic and I never went trawling through En World pages to try and find if there was a similar topic. I am sorry that I never looked through the DMG to see if I was allowed to have a say on a rule. The whole idea of enworld is to get opinions and ideas out of real players and have a debate. I hold my hands up and say yes I did not know about the alternative rule but even if I did I would still of posted this as I wanted to see what others thought of it. How many people have posted a point on En World and have been told there are rules printed somewhere in one of the books. I reckon unless you are a complete STATTO and sit and wade through all of the DnD rule books then you are not going to know. I love DnD but I would not Johnny 5 (Short circuit) the rules and go through every rule needing MORE INPUT MORE INPUT. There is far more to life than reading rules. Rule reading is the down side of DnD. The grit and intence battles great roleplaying were you come out of a battle by the skin of your teeth is the best. If anyone who reads this likes DnD rule reading then I feel sorry for you all. Next you will be reading the latest edition of a dictionary and enjoying it. DnD is about be thrilled not being bored to tears. Period.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Calm down, please.

-Hyp.
(Moderator)

 

[Silveras]

Well actually no i never rolled a 1 it was a 15 which meant that I had a save of 30 for a DC 14 poison. The thing because I have to roll a dice then I am automatically allowing my character a small chance of being poisoned. Even though the natural poison save is lower than my modified save. It was not the 5% I was thinking of it was that when you look at a DC 14 and you have a higher DC then to me that tells me that I am naturally better than that poison as its not strong enough to penetrate my defences and then you add the dice which then gives you a chance of failure. To me that seems a bit silly. You can see why they give you an alternative rule because oviviously this has been thought of in the past.

The problem is, you are looking at it incorrectly. You are saying, if I read your post correctly, that because you are rolling you are allowing the DM to have a chance to affect your character.

Wrong. The chance exists because D&D is a game of probabilities. Very little is certain, most things are based on "chances are". PCs have a base 50/50 chance to hit an unarmored, average person at 1st level, modified by their skill/luck/divine favor (BAB), Ability scores, the quality of the weapon used, and so on. Likewise, PCs have a 40/60 succeed/fail chance to resist poisons, diseases, etc. (assuming DC 13), modified by their ability scores and increasing skill/luck/divine favor (Base Save Bonus).

In the end, though, these are probabilities. The numbers may become quite high (you have 54 chances in 65, or you have 112 chances in 118), but they remain chances, not certainties. The die roll is used to check whether the extremely-rare-but-possible event has happened, or whether the very-likely-but-not-quite-certain result actually did happen.

 

[Darth K'Trava]

I'm afraid you are wrong. The player cannot make a save without rolling. A player doesn't make a save until he picks up the die and rolls it. If he doesn't roll, it doesn't matter what his bonus is- he simply doesn't make the save. If he rolls and makes it, good for him. If he rolls and fails, sucks to be him. If he doesn't roll, he fails. He simply doesn't get out of the way of the Fireball. He puts up no resistance to the Mind Rape spell, and his immune system doesn't stop the poison from affecting him. After all, Saves Bonuses are just that- bonuses. They are added to a die roll. If no die roll is made, the Save bonuses don't get added. Plain and simple.

Ok. So we use our "version" as a house rule then......

 

[Endur]

Under 3.5 core rules, 1 for a saving throw is a failure. Its been this way since the 3.0 Deities and Demigods book came out (and Gods do not auto-fail on a 1 and Mortals do auto-fail).

If you don't like this, you can just go back to the D&D 3.0 core rule that 1 was not an automatic failure for saving throws.

Personally, I think the graduated roll is the best -- if you roll a 1 or a 20, you get another roll to determine what the actual result is (essentially extending the critical hit confirmation rules another step).

This is actually the second time the auto-failure rules have been revisited. In AD&D, 1 was not originally a failure for a saving throw. Then the AD&D Deities and Demigods book came out, and they had the auto-fail for mortals and no auto-failure for the Divine.

 

[dcollins]

This is actually the second time the auto-failure rules have been revisited. In AD&D, 1 was not originally a failure for a saving throw. Then the AD&D Deities and Demigods book came out, and they had the auto-fail for mortals and no auto-failure for the Divine.

Wha? From AD&D 1st Ed. DMG, p. 81:

Certain Failure: As shown on the table, a 1 is ALWAYS a failure, regardless of magical modifiers to the contrary...

And from AD&D 1st Ed. Deities & Demigods, p. 8:

Saving Throws: All gods and demigods have a saving throw in all categories of 2 (i.e., only on a 1 on a d20 will they miss their save)...