Poll: How Often Should Saves be Successful?

[hong]

The problem isn't the fact that people fail good saves on a 1. It's that they frequently fail bad saves on a 19.

 

[Doug McCrae]

10th level fighter. Str 21, Con 16, Dex 13, Wis 12, Int 10, Cha 8. Iron Will. Cloak of Resistance +2. Fort: +11 Ref: +6 Will: +8.

Versus CR 10 challenges -

Rakshasa's Suggestion (DC 16). Succeeds 65% of the time.
Salamander Noble's Fireball (DC 15). 60%.
Gargantuan Scorpion's Venom (DC 23). 45%.
Bebilith Venom (DC 24). 40%.
Guardian Naga's Lightning Bolt (DC 17). 50%.
Guardian Naga's Poison (DC 19). 65%.

This proves you make your poor saves (58% average) more often than your good saves (50% average), if your a 10th level fighter.

 

[Hussar]

Nevertheless, I agree with DragonLancer. Yeah, 50% is harsh, but that's because there are so many devastating effects.

I hate it when saving throws are a foregone conclusion. My campaign plays with the "natural 1 is negative 10 and natural 20 is 30" rule for saves. For example, many of the Fortitude saves I throw at the fighter automatically succeed, even on a natural 1. That basically removes the Fortitude dimension from that character entirely.

There's a reason Superman is the most boring comic book hero.

Not sure if it got mentioned, but, a 1 ALWAYS fails on a save.

A Fighter's good at swinging his weapon but he still might miss 75% of the time...yet it's his best ability.

That said, if saves are a problem in any regard, just tweak things to perhaps do less but have no save involved...

Lanefan

If your fighters are missing 3/4 of the time, there's something SERIOUSLY wrong. Maybe missing that much on iterative attacks, possibly, but on primary attacks? I certainly hope not.

And, just for the novelty of saying so:

*snip*

This is more or less my preference. At low levels poor saves should fail more than 50% of the time, and good saves at least 25% of the time. But a character's saves should scale more rapidly than the DC's, and that eventually they should fail only 5-10% of the time and even the poor saves should not fail more than 25-40% of the time.

I totally agree with Celebrim.

 

[hong]

10th level fighter. Str 21, Con 16, Dex 13, Wis 12, Int 10, Cha 8. Iron Will. Cloak of Resistance +2. Fort: +11 Ref: +6 Will: +8.

Versus CR 10 challenges -

Rakshasa's Suggestion (DC 16). Succeeds 65% of the time.
Salamander Noble's Fireball (DC 15). 60%.
Gargantuan Scorpion's Venom (DC 23). 45%.
Bebilith Venom (DC 24). 40%.
Guardian Naga's Lightning Bolt (DC 17). 50%.
Guardian Naga's Poison (DC 19). 65%.

This proves you make your poor saves (58% average) more often than your good saves (50% average), if your a 10th level fighter.

That's at 10th level. The gap just gets wider as the level increases, especially if saving against supernatural abilities.

Consider a CR 20 old red dragon's breath weapon: DC 31. Give it Ability Focus and it becomes DC 33. A 20th level fighter has base Ref +6. Add Lightning Reflexes, +5 resistance item and 16 Dex = total Ref +16. That's a 17 needed to save.

A very old red dragon is just 1 CR higher, and the base DC is 33, or 35 with Ability Focus. That's 19 to save.

A CR 20 lich can easily have top-level save DCs around the same (Int 34, Spell Focus = DC 32 with 9th level spells).

 

[Bad Paper]

You might try changing that to the following:
Natural 1 = Roll again and subtract 20
Natural 20 = Roll again and add 20
Repeat for each subsequent natural 1 or 20 (unbounded).

ooo, I like that, thanks. I'll try that in the next campaign.

Hussar needs to pay attention to posts that he quotes.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

The more I think about it, the less I like how saves and DCs interact in current D&D. I'd rather that PCs and monsters have the same relative chances to succeed on saves no matter their level/CR. As a game progresses, there should be progressively higher bonuses but the d20 roll should never become just a wrist excersize.

I also don't like a saving throw to ever have good odds on succeeding. It just sounds oxymoronic to me, and very un-magical and un-fantastic. Well, maybe a good save + good stat should have a good chance of success. In Fantasia I've decided to rig saves and DCs so that a poor save succeeds 25%, a good save 50% and a good save + good stat 75%. To keep save-or-KOs in line, they will each have a level/CR cap. Above this cap, the spell/effect auto fails. The caps will be anywhere from the user's level/CR -1 to level/CR -5.

I feel that this mechanic will be more reminiscent of D&D's literary and dramatic roots. Drastic, I know, but that's why I don't just call it 'My Buttload of House Rules'.

 

[Quartz]

If one of your saves is bad, why not take a few levels in a class that boosts it?

So you lose out on spellcasting progression? So what?

 

[hong]

If one of your saves is bad, why not take a few levels in a class that boosts it?

Cart <-> Horse

 

[Quartz]

Cart <-> Horse

I disagree: it's one of the trade-offs of the d20 system that makes it so good. If you focus on one thing, then something else will suffer.

 

[Doug McCrae]

So you lose out on spellcasting progression? So what?

You're funny.