D&D 4E One thing I miss from 4e...the Saving Throws

[mellored]

A better system would be a three-save system which took into account both relevant stats - if your Fortitude save was equal to the sum of your Strength modifier and your Con modifier, and so on. That way, you could stand a decent chance of resisting charm whether you were wise or forceful, but the rare character who was both would be even better.

I agree, adding would work well.

Reflex = Dex + Int
Will = Wis + Cha
Fort = Str + Con

DC = 10 + stat.

 

[mellored]

Can you expand on that? I'm curious as to what won you over.

(For the record, I don't have a problem with either system's style.)

I like the saves as defenses because it was always the attacker rolls the dice. It simplified things.

Doesn't matter if it's fireball, firebolt, sword, trip, bluff, acrobatics, or whatever. You rolled 1d20+stat vs defense.

 

[Magil]

Personally, I liked 4E's take on it (saves as defenses) just because it had the attacker rolling all the time, rather than the attacker rolling half the time and the defender rolling the other half. That made a lot more sense from a design standpoint to me than the weird save system in 5E. Though obviously the 5E way of handling it still works.

 

[Pvt. Winslow]

The biggest problem is Wisdom.

Wisdom conflates both Perception and Will.

Not only are Perception (versus Illusion and versus Hidden) and Will (versus Charm/Fear and versus Psychic damage), each, extremely powerful on their own, they represent mental agility and mental toughness respectively, and have little to do with each other.

Wisdom as insensibly BOTH Perception AND Will, becomes more powerful as a defense than both Intelligence and Charisma put together.

4e resolved this poor definition for Wisdom, and resolved the imbalance of Wisdom, by acknowledging Charisma as personality force to be a kind of mental strength, and a Will defense.

At the same time, 4e used Intelligence for Perception/Search during combat thus anticipating attacks and traps, for the Reflex defense and AC defense.

4e offers a solution for the Wisdom problem.

It may be worth noting, but most saves against illusion in 5E are Int saves, not Wis, and in later rounds characters make Investigate checks to pierce illusions.

 

[iserith]

Can you expand on that? I'm curious as to what won you over.

(For the record, I don't have a problem with either system's style.)

I thought D&D 4e's innovation in regard to having everything being an attack roll against a defense instead of some things being attack rolls and other things being saving throws is great. It's elegant in my view and easy to understand for the kind of game that it is.

D&D 5e is not that kind of game, however, and given its goal of trying to be true to its roots, bringing saving throws back makes a lot of sense. Making them largely like ability checks makes them easy to internalize as well as opposed to 2e's save versus this or that specific thing(s).

Having said that, I think I would prefer that saving throws not mandate a particular ability score apply. By saying it's a Wisdom save, it's essentially telling the player what the character is doing to avoid the affect. I'd rather present the incoming effect and ask the player what he or she does to avoid or mitigate it, then decide which ability score (if any) applies best to the situation. I can live with what we have now though.

 

[bganon]

A three-save system that sums pairs of ability score modifiers runs into problems with wide spreads in save bonuses, though. The Barbarian might start out with +8 to Fort and max out at +16, while the Wizard stays at +0, and that's before any magic items/class abilities/etc. With 5e's default system the max spread is more like +11/+0, which I think works much better with the flattened power curves.

 

[Yaarel]

It may be worth noting, but most saves against illusion in 5E are Int saves, not Wis, and in later rounds characters make Investigate checks to pierce illusions.

True.

Intelligence and Wisdom still lack distinct definitions and uses in 5e. But in the case of certain kinds of illusion, the thinking seems to be, the sensory deception is perfect. Therefore Wisdom is useless because it cant ‘notice’ any sensory details that others might be missing. Only Intelligence is able to realize if what one is looking at is somehow inappropriate.

 

[Yaarel]

Wisdom sews together,

• Sensory perceptiveness (seeing, hearing, smelling)
• Emotional perceptiveness (insight)
• And willpower (will)

One thing has little to do with the others.

Perhaps emotional perceptiveness and willpower go together, because of sense of self, sanity, ability to evaluate the wills of others, and social skills, but then this bleeds into what Charisma is said to be.

The mental skills need rethinking.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

A three-save system that sums pairs of ability score modifiers runs into problems with wide spreads in save bonuses, though. The Barbarian might start out with +8 to Fort and max out at +16, while the Wizard stays at +0, and that's before any magic items/class abilities/etc. With 5e's default system the max spread is more like +11/+0, which I think works much better with the flattened power curves.

Saves are pretty rare in general, though, compared to something like attacks against Armor Class. While it would be kind of broken for someone to have an AC that's 16 points higher than someone else, you're not usually making a save every round. Small variations in AC are meaningful because you check them often, but a small variation in saving throws is more likely to get lost in the variability of the dice. To put that another way, it's okay for the Barbarian to succeed on 90% of Fortitude saves, because you only make a handful of Fortitude saves in a session.

From a practical standpoint, it's more important to raise the floor on saves rather than lower than ceiling, and using two stats would help from that perspective. Currently, there's a major issues where a spell aimed at your bad save requires a 20 in order to resist, so even if you have advantage and get to try again every round, you're still out of luck. Given that the average stat for a PC is above-average, though, getting to add a second stat to your bad saves would let you succeed (roughly) on a 17 or better.

 

[Bawylie]

I thought D&D 4e's innovation in regard to having everything being an attack roll against a defense instead of some things being attack rolls and other things being saving throws is great. It's elegant in my view and easy to understand for the kind of game that it is.

D&D 5e is not that kind of game, however, and given its goal of trying to be true to its roots, bringing saving throws back makes a lot of sense. Making them largely like ability checks makes them easy to internalize as well as opposed to 2e's save versus this or that specific thing(s).

Having said that, I think I would prefer that saving throws not mandate a particular ability score apply. By saying it's a Wisdom save, it's essentially telling the player what the character is doing to avoid the affect. I'd rather present the incoming effect and ask the player what he or she does to avoid or mitigate it, then decide which ability score (if any) applies best to the situation. I can live with what we have now though.

Sure, roll vs a defense was good. But I like the saving throw bc it does go back to the player doing something when the action is with someone else.

And frankly, I kind of like the idea of asking for a response. "The sorcerer lobs a fireball, you see it streaking toward you, the explosion imminent. What do you do?" And then adjudicating a response on the saving throw.

It's a little dungeon-worldy. But that's not necessarily bad. I think I may try it out - maybe tied to reaction - so if you have a reaction this round, you can try to weight the outcome, but if not, you're stuck with the default.