[Fixing 5E] Saving Throws - Fortitude Reflex Will

[CapnZapp]

As I said above I expect a campaign that pulls from the system without bias will generally reflect the balance of the system.

I am not trying to poke holes in your houserule, just to have you consider the utility of presenting your data as accurately-sounding percentage numbers. But I'm prepared to rest my case. I am not saying this because I disagree with your work. I find the idea to keep Fortitude based on Constitution worthwhile and thank you for it.

 

[dave2008]

I will probably stick to my simple "pick your highest score" rather than average. It's only fair to let you ask yhy, when I heard you say you want dump stats to retain a meaning?

Well, because for Fortitude, it doesn't matter.

And for Reflex, well, almost no character picks both Strength and Dexterity. You go either Strength and heavy armor, or you go Dexterity and light armor. So it seems overly harsh to ask the martial characters to focus on both, just for the sake of getting their one save up.

A bit of the same with Will. Few characters focus on more than the one mental stat they use for their spellcasting.

That is one of my favorite parts of the system. You can't get a high save by focusing on one stat (except Fort, I still might combine it CON w/ STR).

 

[dave2008]

That will result in monsters who are more likely to succeed than RAW success levels and dump stats for players, but that's your choice.

It might be worthwhile to point out in another post in this thread Capp mentioned that he isn't concerned about Monster save bonuses, but Player saves. He just wants the players to have a reasonable chance of success at high levels

 

[Fanaelialae]

(cont'd)

As for Resilient, my question was that if you take the average of, say, Wisdom and Charisma to compute a character's Will save, it becomes important to know if the feat applies to abilities still, or to your new save categories.

That is, do you pick Resilient (Wisdom) or do you pick Resilient (Will)?

In the first case, the actual Will save is only impacted half as much, since the final Will score does not only depend on Wisdom, but another value too.

My recommendation would be to drop the + 1 ability modifier from Resilient and just have it give you proficiency in one of the three saves. That's arguably balanced since if a + 1 and proficiency in one save is appropriate for a feat, effectively gaining proficiency in two saves is also appropriate.

 

[Jester David]

One balancing time I'd recommend is looking at pregens:
http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/character_sheets

Consider those characters at low and high levels and see what effect the house rule would have.

 

[Kryx]

[MENTION=37579]Jester David[/MENTION] my spreadsheet does exactly that. See https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...8Pb0KxDU7sizhmebp-U7FuzLY/edit#gid=1095279036 It examines all levels.

 

[CapnZapp]

That is one of my favorite parts of the system. You can't get a high save by focusing on one stat (except Fort, I still might combine it CON w/ STR).

Well, my concern is "not having a low save".

After all, what we here discuss as "high" saves are nothing close to the 3E era of invincible saves (thanks to how multiclassing let you add +2 for each cherrypicked prestige class).

Except possibly for the Paladin's aura, even a fully tricked out save does not come even close to autosuccess on a DC 20 or DC 25 save.

So while I agree in principle I don't see it in practice.

You will only ever manage to focus on two stats. If you need both those stats to achieve a great save, it means one out of two things:
a) you never get a truly great save
b) you only get a truly great save by sacrificing both the others

I simply mean that while on the surface "you can't get a high save by focusing on one stat" sounds perfectly reasonable, I would argue it is more important to ensure a high level hero stands a reasonable chance at not having any truly horrid saves.

I mean, to me there is nothing wrong with a trio of saves like +12, +6, +6 where you have stat+prof, prof and stat, respectively.

Then you could choose instead +12, +12, +0 or some other combination, but as a reasonable choice, and not by some nearly inescapable fundamental design decision.

And if you choose two feats, you'd end up with +12, +12, +6. Still fine.

I'd even go so far as to consider allowing Resilience to stack with class proficiency. If a character wanted an +18 save at the expense of having +6, +0 in the other two, what's the damage in that?

PS. Feel free to consider any number low-balled. I'm perfectly aware it would be easy to turn a +0 into a +2 or a +6 into a +7 for example. Still, we're talking about a level 20 character, so nothing untoward there.

 

[CapnZapp]

One balancing time I'd recommend is looking at pregens:
http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/character_sheets

Consider those characters at low and high levels and see what effect the house rule would have.

* At low levels, the current span is from a -1 ability modifier with no proficiency all the way up to +4 from ability plus +2 proficiency, for a -1 thru +6 span.

* At mid levels, the current span is from -1 ability modifier with no proficiency all the way up to +5 from ability plus +4 proficiency, for a -1 thru +9 span.

* At high levels, we'll be generous and assume no ability scores lower than 10 and a cloak/ring of protection to boot. We'll also assume a score of 22 is possible (from whatever source). The current span is then from 0 ability modifier with no proficiency all the way up to +6 from ability plus +6 proficiency, plus +1 magic bonus, for a +1 thru +13 span.

Of all these numbers, my issue is only with the lower end of the mid and high level spans. Having one or more saves still hovering at or near zero at level 10, 15 or 20 is strange as hell, and not the least fun.

Now let's eyeball what my current proposal does, i.e.: Con>Fort, MAX(Str, Dex)>Ref, MAX(Int, Wis, Cha)>Will. Essentially everything Kryx suggested except the aritmethic justification and the averaging instead of taking-the-best.

At low levels it is reasonable to expect a positive modifer to Con for pretty much every character. Many characters dump either Str or Dex, but very few dump both. And almost every character will have at least a +2 in one mental stat.

* So the span becomes +1 from ability with no proficiency, up to +4 from ability plus +2 proficiency, for a +1 thru +6 span. This I consider a success. It's an improvement, but without threatening game balance.

At mid levels not much change at the low end. I will still up the ability bonus one step for the sake of argument.

* So the span becomes +2 from ability with no proficiency, up to +5 from ability plus +4 proficiency, for a +2 thru +9 span. This I consider a success. It's an improvement, but without threatening game balance.

Only at high levels do I consider players to have spare ASIs to use on shoring up their defenses. Also, since it is only now they start to feel the hurt of having very low saves, so arguably only now is when they start thinking about shoring them up.

Again for the sake of argument, we'll consider a fairly well-build character. It is not unreasonable to expect at least a +4 in either Str or Dex, at least a +2 in Con with proficiency, and at least a +4 in a mental stat with proficiency. Add a magic +1 bonus on top.

* So the span becomes +4 from ability with no proficiency at worst, or +2 from ability with proficiency. The top span remains unchanged, +6 from ability plus +6 proficiency. Plus +1 magic bonus.

This leads to a trio of saves in the vincinity of +5, +9, +13.

Does this look reasonable to you, Jester?

Or have I forgotten something?

I am aware this is only a rough generalization, and that it might well be possible to create more optimized characters already at low levels.

But do you agree my general conclusions stand? That some (perhaps not all) characters will still sport a +1 low save at low levels, and that this will only slowly rise, until (and if) the character spends a feat to "plug" it.

And that at that time that character's lowest save will shift to something like a +5 or thereabouts? (Since the "plugged" save will probably scoot up to something like a +9)

 

[CapnZapp]

that at that time that

Yes, I'm just as amazed as you are

 

[Jester David]

* At low levels, the current span is from a -1 ability modifier with no proficiency all the way up to +4 from ability plus +2 proficiency, for a -1 thru +6 span.

* At mid levels, the current span is from -1 ability modifier with no proficiency all the way up to +5 from ability plus +4 proficiency, for a -1 thru +9 span.

* At high levels, we'll be generous and assume no ability scores lower than 10 and a cloak/ring of protection to boot. We'll also assume a score of 22 is possible (from whatever source). The current span is then from 0 ability modifier with no proficiency all the way up to +6 from ability plus +6 proficiency, plus +1 magic bonus, for a +1 thru +13 span.

Of all these numbers, my issue is only with the lower end of the mid and high level spans. Having one or more saves still hovering at or near zero at level 10, 15 or 20 is strange as hell, and not the least fun.

Now let's eyeball what my current proposal does, i.e.: Con>Fort, MAX(Str, Dex)>Ref, MAX(Int, Wis, Cha)>Will. Essentially everything Kryx suggested except the aritmethic justification and the averaging instead of taking-the-best.

At low levels it is reasonable to expect a positive modifer to Con for pretty much every character. Many characters dump either Str or Dex, but very few dump both. And almost every character will have at least a +2 in one mental stat.

* So the span becomes +1 from ability with no proficiency, up to +4 from ability plus +2 proficiency, for a +1 thru +6 span. This I consider a success. It's an improvement, but without threatening game balance.

At mid levels not much change at the low end. I will still up the ability bonus one step for the sake of argument.

* So the span becomes +2 from ability with no proficiency, up to +5 from ability plus +4 proficiency, for a +2 thru +9 span. This I consider a success. It's an improvement, but without threatening game balance.

Only at high levels do I consider players to have spare ASIs to use on shoring up their defenses. Also, since it is only now they start to feel the hurt of having very low saves, so arguably only now is when they start thinking about shoring them up.

Again for the sake of argument, we'll consider a fairly well-build character. It is not unreasonable to expect at least a +4 in either Str or Dex, at least a +2 in Con with proficiency, and at least a +4 in a mental stat with proficiency. Add a magic +1 bonus on top.

* So the span becomes +4 from ability with no proficiency at worst, or +2 from ability with proficiency. The top span remains unchanged, +6 from ability plus +6 proficiency. Plus +1 magic bonus.

This leads to a trio of saves in the vincinity of +5, +9, +13.

Does this look reasonable to you, Jester?

Or have I forgotten something?

I am aware this is only a rough generalization, and that it might well be possible to create more optimized characters already at low levels.

But do you agree my general conclusions stand? That some (perhaps not all) characters will still sport a +1 low save at low levels, and that this will only slowly rise, until (and if) the character spends a feat to "plug" it.

And that at that time that character's lowest save will shift to something like a +5 or thereabouts? (Since the "plugged" save will probably scoot up to something like a +9)

First, assuming any magic at all is a bad idea, let alone assuming every character has the exact same cloak.

And the you're assuming a) feats are being used and b) people will have a spare ASI they can use to shore up a weakness rather than buff themselves. (At that point, why even give the "trap" choice of an ASI and just mandate the feat/ give another save proficiency? Level 12, everyone gets a new save.)

When looking at this sort of house rule, you need to use the ability arrays: 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8.

With five ability score boots and a +2/+1 from race this could end up as 17, 14, 14, 12, 10, 8. And at 20th level either 20, 20, 15, 12, 10, 8 or 20, 20, 14, 13, 10, 8. If any character puts two of the three low scores into Dex & Str or all three into mental then they're still at a +1.
Now, you say, why would anyone do that rather than putting the second 14 into a mental stat for better saves? Well, hypothetical straw man in my head, in that instance you're designing for the saving throws rather than the character you want to make. Which isn't that much of a stretch as many characters (barbarian for one) might really want a trifecta of Str/Con/Dex with, say, a 12 Wisdom. Conversely, a cleric might have high mental stats and Con but a low Str/Dex.

Which is why I suggested looking at pregens rather than theoretical math. And then provided a link. Look at how some people wanted to design their characters and see how the house rule impacts them, rather than just working with the numbers in a design vacuum.