Alternate mechanic for Saving Throws

[Hawken]

This idea was rumbling around my head and I wanted to see what you guys think.

Saving throws are still a d20 + modifier roll. However, they no longer scale with level but are fixed.

Good Saves provide a +2 bonus, Poor saves a +0 bonus. Multiclassing into new classes or prestige classes do not increase this bonus, but could allow a Poor save to become a Good one. Classes that provide 2 Good saves (Ranger, Cleric, etc), now provide Average saves, a +1 bonus to both formerly Good saves. Monks can choose between a +2 bonus to any one save or take a +1 bonus to any 2 saves.

Example 1: A Wizard (Good Will/Poor Fort-Ref) takes a level of Fighter (Good Fort/Poor Ref-Will). The Wizard now has the option of claiming as his Good save either Fort or Will (but not both).

Example 2: A Fighter takes a level of Blackguard. Because both have Fort as the Good save, there is no change in saves.

Example 3: An elf Fighter/Wizard takes on a level of Arcane Archer. The character can now choose to have as his Good save either Will, Fort, or take a +1 bonus to Fort and Ref.

The point is that classes now provide no more than a +2 bonus to saves.

Save DCs are fixed and set based on the difficulty of the event triggering the save.

Easy difficulty = DC 7.
Average difficulty = DC 12.
Hard difficulty = DC 17.
Severe difficulty = DC 22.
Epic difficulty = DC 27.

How do you determine the difficulty? Based roughly on character level, but also taking other factors into consideration, such as the monster and the potentcy of their attack, DM fiat, circumstance bonuses or penalties, etc.

Roughly something of equal level to the player (give or take 2 levels) operates at an Average difficulty. This gives roughly a 50% chance of success after factoring in the save modifier (Good/Avg/Poor), ability mods and any other bonuses that may or may not be present.

Something 3 levels or more lower than the PC is Easy, while something 3-5 levels above would be Hard. Severe would be something 6 levels or more above the PCs level, or something extraordinarily dangerous such as an Adult Dragon's breath weapon. Epic would be something that the average person would have no chance against (a Lich casting Wail of the Banshee, etc.).

The saving throw feats (Iron Will, Luck of Heroes, etc.) still apply, as do spells and magic items that increase saving throws.

Characters are able to make a Great Escape on any save with an Easy difficulty. Escape meaning they completely avoid the effects on a successful save (any save, Will, Fort or Ref), and if they fail, they suffer only the most minimal effects (1 point of ability score damage, 1hp damage per die, duration of ongoing effects for 1 round only, etc.. So, a Ray of Enfeeblement that's an Easy save would only drain 1 point of Strength instead of 4, while a Charm that would last for 10 rounds would only work for 1 now and a fireball would only do 1 point per die of damage.

If the saving throw beats the DC of a Difficulty two steps higher than the listed Difficulty, the character gets an Escape on that save. An Escape means no damage/effect on a successful save, and on a failed save, half damage/effect.

Spell Resistance could also be incorporated into this. Any creature with Spell Resistance would treat the spell or effect as if it were 1 step lower in Difficulty (Severe would be Hard, Average would be Easy) and the character gets an Escape on that save, or a Great Escape if Difficulty is reduced to Easy.

 

[Hawken]

No replies? Really? At least 40 people have viewed this by now and no comments.

Hmmm...did I do something wrong? Or is my idea so good that everyone that sees it is stunned with awe and cannot type until they leave the page?

 

[Herzog]

Ok, I'll bite.

1. Why? Usually, when someone throws out the standard rules and replaces them with their own they have a reason. Without the underlying reason, we can't determine whether this will 'work'. My first reaction therefore was: How is this better than the RAW?
2. Since the save bonusses no longer rise, why increase the difficulty based on level? Because of magic or feat improvements to saving throws? If you're removing progression by level, why not throw that out as well?
3. And then, when throwing out those, why stop? Drop BAB progression as well, spellcasting, etc.

Now, I realise that may come off as snarky. Let me try to explain my reaction:

The true base of D&D is progression. D&D is a level-based system, where with each gained level your abilities improve. Removing any of those improvements is interfering with the basic structure. If you DO want to implement this, go back to my three points. I'll write them down a bit different this time:
1. What are you trying to accomplish.
2. Why are you changing part of the dynamic, but not the complete dynamic?
3. Why are you changing this dynamic and not the other dynamics.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Yeah, what Herzog said. Also, I might have missed it, but your system doesn't seem to deal with rising spell DCs. If spell DCs rise but saves remain static, high level spells become even more awesome.

 

[Noumenon]

I think his idea is to replace all DCs with his five categories: easy, average, epic. That's a lot of find-and-replacing. From setting difficulties for skill challenges I know that having the DM assign just Easy, Medium, or Hard to a roll can be tough. You end up with everything being Medium and Easy sometimes unless it's impossible.

 

[Hawken]

Sorry for not responding til now. I didn't see any responses after I made my reply so I kind of stopped checking for a while.

Herzog, I've been on this board for a while and I've posted different things here and there, but I've never had to include a dissertation explaining the why of a proposed alternate/house rule. Why? Because it was in my head, I wanted to write it out and get some opinions on whether it would work, whether people would be interested. It doesn't have to necessarily be better--this thread isn't so much for better things as it is for different things.

As for why not BAB or other stuff? That should be obvious. With the lack of responses on just one issue, I doubt I would have gotten even this many responses if I just wrote a book of Hawken's House Rules detailing every possible change to every rule.

If you don't want to comment on whether the rule even interests you or not, fine. But I shouldn't have to write a paper explaining anything more than "this idea came to me, what do you guys think?"

Actually, DCs would be determined by the challenge of the source of the DC. If you're facing a wizard of equal level, your save DCs against his spells is basically a 12. Let's say you're a fighter with a 14 Con, 12 Dex, 12 Wis and no magic items or spells in effect. Your Fort save would be +4 (2 for fighter, 2 for Con), +1 for Reflex and +1 for Will. Which means if the wizard casts a spell, a Fort save would require a roll of 8 or better, or 11 or better for Reflex or Will.

If that same wizard had a bonus of +3 to his caster level for some spells, then the challenge would go from Average to Hard (DC 17). Or if he had feats or other effects that increased the DCs of his spells by +2, then the save DCs would increase to 14 from 12.

Maybe you're fighting the BBEG and its a Hard encounter, so save DCs are 17. Now, your Protection from Evil spell and your Cloak of Resistance +3 boost your saves by +5, making what would have been a difficult encounter more manageable--at least where saves are concerned.

The idea isn't to nerf saves or DCs, but simplify the process, eliminate a lot of unnecessary math and record keeping, while also making feats or items that increase saves more valuable, or maybe as valuable as they should be. A 14 Wis is actually a big deal, while an 18 or 20 is really impressive and the saving throw feats (Lightning Reflexes, etc.) are actually cool and useful instead of being taken to shore up weaknesses or as a requirement for a feat or PrC.

Plus it also helps the DM make even "mundane" monsters more dangerous. A Viper more of an annoyance than a threat to even 1st level characters, but they are damn deadly snakes. They may have only 4hp, but if their poisonous bite is now considered a Hard difficulty (save DC 17), then even an experienced fighter is going to be cautious around them. Animal poisons are weak sauce in D&D and this save system is an easy and plausible way to put some bite back into it.

Traps, while providence of rogues, would no longer be an annoyance if they are triggered, but could still pose a danger.

This idea in no way hinders the "progression" of the character. There are plenty of other things that go up with level; skill points, feats, hit points, new class abilities and spells, etc. It wasn't until 3rd edition that saves increased every two/three levels. In previous editions, sometimes saves took 5 levels to increase. But with 3rd edition, saves increase far faster than the DCs are allowed to increase, so they quickly become either ridiculously easy or impossibly difficult. My method gives the character roughly a 50/50 chance.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Ah I see. I personally wouldn't like static saves and DCs. There is a reason that saves go up faster than DCs: there are more Save-or-Suck effects at high levels, so PCs need better odds against them in order to avoid dying/sitting out of half of each encounter. (That is arguably bad game design, but whatever.)

If you want certain spell and poison DCs to be higher, make them so. You can give snakes a racial bonus to their poison DCs and you can give direct damage spells a DC boost. I'd prefer that to static numbers, just because D&D is about progression.

 

[Noumenon]

Why? Because it was in my head, I wanted to write it out and get some opinions on whether it would work, whether people would be interested. It doesn't have to necessarily be better--this thread isn't so much for better things as it is for different things.

Just phrase it as more of a "what if" next time. If you go on a chess board and say "I have a new rule -- knights can jump three rows," people are going to say "Why, how does that improve the game, why are you changing things?" just like they did here. If you come on and ask, "What if knights could jump three rows?" you'll probably get an interesting hypothetical discussion of the kind you're looking for.

Motivation does matter, too -- for all we know, you want saves to go up slow because you're a killer DM and you're mad that your players are making all their death saves. Any house rule you made pursuant to that wouldn't be of any use to us softies.

 

[Alex319]

Also, one more comment.

You state that you don't have save bonuses and DCs go up by level. Instead, as I understand it, DCs are based on the caster's level in relation to the target's level. It seems like you have about one difficulty level (equal to 5 DC points) about for every 3 levels of difference.

Except for the discontinuous scaling, this is mathematically equivalent to having scaling saves and DCs where everyone gets +5 to all saves, and +5 to all save DCs against their attacks, every 3 levels. For example suppose that an attacker is level 9 and the defender is level 6. According to your system the attacker would gain an effective +5 boost to the DC. If you used the scaling DCs mentioned above, then the attacker would gain +15 to DC and the defender +10 to their save, for the same effective +5 boost. This method is also simpler in that you only need to do one comparison - under your system, you have to compare levels in order to compute the DC, then compare the DC with the save modifier in order to compute the number the player needs to roll to make the save.

Of course the system's effective scaling actually ends up being much faster than the RAW. My point is that your system doesn't actually eliminate the scaling, it just hides it - and the scaling is actually much faster than under the RAW (+5/3 per level instead of +1/2 to +1/level)