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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sword of Spirit" data-source="post: 9626720" data-attributes="member: 6677017">So, correct me if I came to a wrong conclusion about how the relative power of attack versus save cantrips work. I believed for years that attacks were more effective than saves. I mean, they are 2 points higher and you can crit, right?But then, a couple months ago, I wondered if that was actually right, and I started fiddling with math. Initially, I examined it from a PVP situation as a baseline (we already know how monsters are different than PCs mechanically, so that lets us later extend the findings).I took the members of your typical 5e adventuring party (you know, that Champion, Thief, Life cleric, and Evoker WotC used in initial design balance) and figured out what the average AC would be at various levels. Figuring out the average spell attack roll was even easier. That gets a % to hit equal level opponents.For saving throws, most characters will only be proficient in 1/3 of the saves, including one of the strong and one of the weak ones. I picked the ability scores that made sense for a class, and then determined what a character's average overall saving throw should be. Determining the save DCs was also easy, and from that their % of failing saves can be detemined.At every level characters were on average more likely to fail a save than to be hit with an attack.If we extend that to monsters, while lower level monsters often have weaker AC than PCs, higher level monsters offen have superior AC. Most monsters have zero saving throw proficiencies, although some (particularly high level ones) might have more than PCs. Except at the high levels where monsters start rocking 3+ saves, monsters are actually going to be amplifying this effect of save spells being more likely to take effect.And that is all assuming the caster is firing blind without knowing which saves are weak for a target. In reality, if a caster knows two cantrips that use different save abilities, and can even guess right about which a foe is going to be weak to some of the time, they should be a lot more effective.So, this is all new to me, and completely reverses what I thought I knew about the relative power of attack vs save cantrips (and spells in general). If I am wrong, I would very much like to be corrected, because it directly impacts my own cantrip designs.</blockquote>

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