Poll: How Often Should Saves be Successful?

[Imp]

Mostly I just kinda wish saves weren't so damn binary. A middle effect for a lot of those things would be cool, if a bit more complicated.

"You manage to shrug off the brunt of the caster's dominate spell, but magical tendrils keep digging in your mind, turning your efforts at the most inconvenient moments. Take -4 to hit for the next 3 rounds."

Sort of like how poison is handled now.

 

[Hussar]

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

Hussar needs to pay attention to posts that he quotes.

Yeah, read that wrong. Thought he was talking about two separate things. My bad.

Meh, so the fighter can drink arsenic? Who cares? He loses out on his other saves anyway.

I don't understand the idea that saves should be failed more than not. The PC's will be called on to make many saving throws throughout their careers, more than a few of which may result in immediate death. Increasing those odds simply leads to more dead PC's.

I don't have problems killing PC's. I have trouble keeping them alive.

 

[hong]

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.

Yes. If you focus on your schtick, then things that are not your schtick will suffer. However, I fail to see why becoming progressively more crappy at your bad saves should be considered part of one's schtick. In fact, seeing as how most casual players seem to feel that offense is far more interesting than defense, and so end up failing to pay attention to their bad saves, it's nothing more than a design flaw. You should not HAVE to multiclass to, say, cleric or monk just to get +2 to a Will save.

Cart <-> Horse.

 

[hong]

I don't understand the idea that saves should be failed more than not.

I can. Some PCs will depend a lot more than others on saves as part of their concept. Being a spellcaster, for example, gets boring if two-thirds of the time, your spells have no effect or only a marginal effect.

Which basically segues into how D&D needs a more elegant way of handling magical effects (especially instakill effects) than just boosting everyone's saves or giving out SR willy-nilly. But that's another thread.

 

[Hussar]

I can. Some PCs will depend a lot more than others on saves as part of their concept. Being a spellcaster, for example, gets boring if two-thirds of the time, your spells have no effect or only a marginal effect.

Which basically segues into how D&D needs a more elegant way of handling magical effects (especially instakill effects) than just boosting everyone's saves or giving out SR willy-nilly. But that's another thread.

Ah, sorry, should have qualified that.

I don't understand why people want PC's to fail saving throws more often than not. Even if you only fail on a 1, eventually you will fail. The odds are always stacked in the favour of the DM. Over a long enough period of time, PC life expectency becomes pretty close to zero.

I dunno, as I said before, I have far more problems keeping PC's alive than that. In 17 levels of my last campaign, we had 5 to 6 players most of the time and I whacked PC's about 25 times. Half of that was permanent. Every player was on his or her third or more PC by the end of the campaign. Half the deaths (permanent or not) were from failed saves.

To me, that's still far too high.

Heck, I had one player make a Paladin/Monk/Pious Templar just so he could make every saving throw I threw at him. He still failed a few times (none fatally). Nice concept but about as effective as a cardboard hammer in combat.

 

[Schmoe]

Ironically, out of the last 10+ character deaths I've seen, I can only remember two that were directly caused by a failed save. One was versus a Fireball, and the other was versus a wraith's touch, neither of which is the egregious "save or die" type of effect people seem to be concerned about.

It's ironic, because from reading this thread one gets the impression that characters never die unless they fail a saving throw. My experience has been far different. Failed saves certainly contribute to the demise of a character, but aren't the only factor.

 

[ShadowX]

Very interesting question. I think the problem with saves is that it is a simple system trying to constrain far too many variables. The obvious culprit for most of D&D's balance problems is the magic system. Who wants saves reaching levels where a caster is all but nullified? Then again, even at low levels one spell can end a fight with something like sleep or color spray. These often have the same effect as a typical save or die spell without actually doing the killing.

So with that in mind, which side of the spectrum do you shoot for and can you really adjust the save system to do it? I don't have the answer. I can say that the save increase from multiclassing always struck me as rather absurd, considering how much WotC discourages frontloading classes. My personal preference encourages a wide gap between good and bad saves to add at least some rudimentary tactical choices and mitigate the chances of one spell wiping everyone out or failing to have any effect.

 

[mmu1]

Ironically, out of the last 10+ character deaths I've seen, I can only remember two that were directly caused by a failed save. One was versus a Fireball, and the other was versus a wraith's touch, neither of which is the egregious "save or die" type of effect people seem to be concerned about.

It's ironic, because from reading this thread one gets the impression that characters never die unless they fail a saving throw. My experience has been far different. Failed saves certainly contribute to the demise of a character, but aren't the only factor.

While I haven't been on the receiving end of too many save-or-die spells either, my frustration with how saves work stems largely from my inability to use them as a DM, because I don't want to have a wholesale slaughter of PCs on my hands. My players tend to be pretty casual about maximizing their characters' abilities, so one well-chosen area effect spell could wipe out half the party. (especially considering how they roll)

A wider variety of spell effects would be nice, even if it'd make for an increased workload.

 

[Celebrim]

While I haven't been on the receiving end of too many save-or-die spells either, my frustration with how saves work stems largely from my inability to use them as a DM, because I don't want to have a wholesale slaughter of PCs on my hands. My players tend to be pretty casual about maximizing their characters' abilities, so one well-chosen area effect spell could wipe out half the party. (especially considering how they roll)

A wider variety of spell effects would be nice, even if it'd make for an increased workload.

I know exactly what you mean.

For a few years now I've been toying with the idea of giving each character 'Will Points', 'Fortitude Points' and 'Reflex Points' in addition to hit points. They would work alot like hit points. Saving throws would work like AC, and things that provoke saves would work more like attacks with a failed save wearing away a certain amount of fortitude, reflex, or will. Only if the attack drove the players resources to 0 or less, would the full effect of the attack be felt. Otherwise, the attack could be shrugged off (except as damage). To avoid completely nerfing things, I figured I could adopt rules similar to the 'temporary insanity' rules seen in many horror games that track 'Sane Score' (from whense the idea comes if it wasn't obvious), where a successful attack that did more than a certain amount of damage (say more than 20% of the players resources) would be effective but at a lesser level. Some sort of heirarchy of effects would be needed so as to define what the lesser effect was for each effect (stunning for paralyzation, unconsciousness for death, whatever).

Unfortunately, while I've got a good outline in my head and I don't foresee alot of intractable problems in this solution, all of this has sounded like too much work to write up given how little I'm able to play lately.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Mostly I just kinda wish saves weren't so damn binary. A middle effect for a lot of those things would be cool, if a bit more complicated.

"You manage to shrug off the brunt of the caster's dominate spell, but magical tendrils keep digging in your mind, turning your efforts at the most inconvenient moments. Take -4 to hit for the next 3 rounds."

Preach it.

I've made similar comments in the past. I believe that it shouldn't be too difficult to avoid instant death effects. (And in this case, by "instant death," I mean anything that makes the player go sit in the corner and watch while his friends play D&D.) By the same token, however, I know that few things are less fun than casting a really cool spell at a really opportune moment, only to have it completely fizzle.

I don't believe there should be such thing as "save negates." I think if a spell is successfully cast (and if it hits, assuming a hit roll is required), it should always have some effect. You might save for a very minor effect, but it should do something.