D&D 4E Changing the 4e save mechanism.

[MrMyth]

I think this is a bad rule; firstly because it is easily established that the 'saving throw' is now, in most instances, just a duration determinant. Secondly, because it is something that really should scale with level. Your thunderwave hits a peasant and an epic fighter, doing 2 points damage to each and knocking them off the cliff. Both have the same 55% chance of saving themselves from going over. Why? Doesn't make sense.

To be fair, they don't have the same chance of falling off the cliff - since the peasant is just about guaranteed to be hit by the Wizard, while the Fighter is likely to shrug off the Thunderwave. Even if they do get hit, the Fighter may well have a variety of magic items to help them if they do get knocked off the cliff, while the peasant will simply die.

But there is some rational behind making the roll to avoid falling identical all around - it isn't based on your spell, but on the ability of either fellow to grab ahold of the edge of the cliff. (Though this also seems like the epic level fighter should be better at.)

In the end, the save mechanic is a somewhat odd fit here - it seems like they simply grabbed a useful mechanic to fit this one specific circumstance. They wanted some way to prevent push effects from being instant-kills, without having to work out a complicated sub-system involving athletics and acrobatics (which would inevitably result in some characters always going over the edge, and others never doing so.)

I think, as far as game mechanics go, the system they have in place (for avoiding being pushed off ledges) works - but conceptually, it is a little weird. I think making small modifiers to it - bonuses for Athletics or Acrobatics, for example - is both reasonable and balanced. I think fully overhauling it with a different system would probably be a lot of work for very little gain, but I don't think it would unbalance 4E all that significantly.

 

[amysrevenge]

Your thunderwave hits a peasant and an epic fighter

This is the same argument as the one about how minions are a bad mechanic because "a level 1 PC can roll a 20 and kill a level 21 Legion Devil Legionnaire minion in one hit". Any encounter where both high and low level entities are present is not supported properly by the 4E ruleset, and shouldn't be held up as an example of something 'they' tried to do but failed to pull off - they never tried to do it.

Verisimilitude is not in the 4E lexicon. Consistency, simplicity, and abstraction are.

 

[Plane Sailing]

This is the same argument as the one about how minions are a bad mechanic because "a level 1 PC can roll a 20 and kill a level 21 Legion Devil Legionnaire minion in one hit". Any encounter where both high and low level entities are present is not supported properly by the 4E ruleset, and shouldn't be held up as an example of something 'they' tried to do but failed to pull off - they never tried to do it.

Verisimilitude is not in the 4E lexicon. Consistency, simplicity, and abstraction are.

No it isn't, and I'll rephrase it to make it clear.

Joe Clumsy (Str 5, Dex 5) and Sneaky McRogue (Str 18, Dex 18, Trained in acrobatics, and athletics, skill focus in acrobatics and athletics) are of equal level. If someone pushes them both towards the cliff edge, Sneaky McRogue has no better chance of saving himself from falling over the edge than Joe Clumsy.

This picture seems really wrong to me. Not just because they are using the "is a duration up yet" roll as an (old style) saving roll (a "do I avoid this nasty effect" roll), making a fairly effective mechanic do double duty; it also just seems wrong that in a fairly basic situation the highly trained and focussed athlete is no better at saving himself from a fall than Joe Slow.

It is all the more strange when the Athletics skill has the following information about Catching Hold when climbing:

Catch Hold: If you fall when climbing, you can make an Athletics check as a free action to catch hold of something to stop your fall. The base DC to catch hold of something is the DC of the surface you were climbing plus 5, modified by circumstances. You can make one check to catch hold. If you fail you can't try again unless the DM rules otherwise

It seems to me that this rule would work very well for any situation where someone is forced over a precipice or into a hazard - make an assessment about the condition of the surface/availability of handholds and call for an Athletics (Climb) check.

Cheers

 

[Saeviomagy]

Joe Clumsy (Str 5, Dex 5) and Sneaky McRogue (Str 18, Dex 18, Trained in acrobatics, and athletics, skill focus in acrobatics and athletics) are of equal level. If someone pushes them both towards the cliff edge, Sneaky McRogue has no better chance of saving himself from falling over the edge than Joe Clumsy.

Joe clumsy has presumably got great scores in the other half of his stats, scores which will be boosting his fortitude and reflex defenses.

Why should he get screwed because he chose the wrong half of his stats to pump?

What if they're pushed towards the edge by a mind-altering spell or fear effect? Should sneaky mcrogue's acrobatics and athletics save him while the high will defense of his buddy does nothing?

And so on and so forth.

I think the "don't get pushed into stuff" rule is a half-decent approximation for what might otherwise be a really, really complex rule set.

 

[Tuft]

What if they're pushed towards the edge by a mind-altering spell or fear effect? Should sneaky mcrogue's acrobatics and athletics save him while the high will defense of his buddy does nothing?

In fact, since the players can choose to change the italics fluff of their powers as they like, the very same power could be a physical push at one time, and a mental trick at at another time.

The push is a game-ist effect. You cannot describe the counter in simulationist terms.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Then why do they even bother with a rule for catching oneself when one falls during climbing?

Why not just roll a saving throw (10+ to make it)?

I don't follow the logic that says "ah, just throw away any pretence of simulationism, it's a new way of doing the game". 4e is full of simulationism, which just happens to have been randomly thrown away in some circumstances.

I think the 'saving throw to avoid being pushed over the edge' is silly, lazy design, taking one subsystem and shoehorning another different situation onto it regardless of the way the similar situation is handled in other respects, and the potential capabilities of the PCs.

 

[DrSpunj]

Maybe I'm missing your point, PS, and if so I apologize but:

It seems to me the Athletics bit about Catch Hold would be very relevant to all characters after they fail their save. Sneaky McRogue is going to have a much easier time after he's knocked over the cliff to catch hold of something and save himself from a messy landing. Joe Slow isn't; get a mop.

Since the power/effect used to cause the push and whichever defense is targeted accounts for one's ability to avoid getting hit by the effect in the first place, and afterwards the Catch Hold rules can be used to help adjudicate the outcome, I guess I'm okay with a near 50/50 chance of actually getting knocked over the cliff.

I'm imagining the carnival games where you shoot baseballs or something out of the air bazooka at bottles and whatnot trying to knock all of them over. You can usually hit them easily enough, usually even in a way that increases your odds quite a bit, but hitting them in just the right way to fall as you desire is largely left up to chance. That's what I see the save representing. <shrug>

 

[Jondor_Battlehammer]

How about giving each race, class, and tier a bonus to saves.

Dwarves +1 vs Fort based saves
Elves +1 vs Ref based saves
Humans +1 to one save of choice

Fighters +1 vs Fort Based saves
Warlords +1 vs Will based saves

+1 to your race or class save Paragon, and again at Epic

(by based saves, I mean the defense used vs the attack roll)

The most anyone could get would be a +4 to one save, or a more round +2 to two saves. While you might have a Dwarven Fighter saving vs Fort based attacks on a 6+, he would be just as vulnerable to Will and Ref attacks as he had always been. This would allow you to use saving throws as an abstract for durations, and still allow someone to "power through" an effect that they might be used to. A wizard would stand a better chance to see through an illusion, a Fighter would have a better chance to shrug off fatigue, a Rouge would regain their footing faster, etc.


Pre-post edit. I had originally thought about upping all saves at each tier, then I realized that would defeat the purpose of saves AND powers altogether.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Then why do they even bother with a rule for catching oneself when one falls during climbing?

Why not just roll a saving throw (10+ to make it)?

I think that in general, the drive of the combat rules is to make everything quick. It's essential to know whether that foe went over the edge right now or the pace of combat slows dramatically as we work out what sort of attack it was, what sort of stats he has, what the climb DC is, whether he gets bonuses etc.

Ideally we'd have a nice fast system that took all that into account and at the same time remained quick and uncomplicated.

Once someone is over the edge (or if this all happens outside of combat), he can afford to take his time looking up the climbing rules and working out what he needs to roll and how many times. He's not going to be holding anyone up.

Finally: for a climbing challenge to be entertaining, it needs extra complexity that won't be useful during the typical combat situation, and won't be conducive to fast, fun combat.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I think that in general, the drive of the combat rules is to make everything quick. It's essential to know whether that foe went over the edge right now or the pace of combat slows dramatically as we work out what sort of attack it was, what sort of stats he has, what the climb DC is, whether he gets bonuses etc.

Ideally we'd have a nice fast system that took all that into account and at the same time remained quick and uncomplicated.

Eyeballing a DC is simplicity (knocked over railings/something near to grab onto? DC10. Knocked over featureless lip? DC20) for monsters we already know their trained skill bonus and untrained skill bonus on their stat block, so that is instantly to hand. No problem there in making the check. For PCs, they also have their information to hand too (and I'd be comfortable using this just for PCs since we don't really care about the monsters)

Seems to me that this would be just as fast.

Cheers