Poll: How Often Should Saves be Successful?

[Piratecat]

On average, I like saves as follows:

1. Good saves - 75-80%

2. Poor saves - 40-50%

I'll echo this. It matches my own preferences fairly well.

 

[Viashimo]

I feel that a good save should be successful about 60% of the time
a poor save should be successful about 35% of the time

I concur that monsters should have a slightly better chance of succeeding no theier saves.

I feel this way as both a dm and a player.

 

[mmu1]

On average, I like saves as follows:

1. Good saves - 75-80%

2. Poor saves - 40-50%

That's pretty close to what I prefer as well.

As for monster vs. party saves - I think that, on average, the PCs should have better chances of saving than the opposition, hands down.

Most of the enemies the party faces are disposable - they're there to provide fodder for one more or less challenging encounter, and that's it. The PCs are the ones who will be making tens if not hundreds of saves during the course of a campaign - and once you're past the low levels, having poor saves is just a recipe for spending most of your time incapacitated.

Obviously, the same logic doesn't apply when making a BBEG, who should probably be tougher than the individual PCs in most respects.

 

[Mouseferatu]

On average, I like saves as follows:

1. Good saves - 75-80%

2. Poor saves - 40-50%

I, too, agree with this.

Good saves are supposed to be among a class's best abilities. The notion that something I'm good at has a 50% success rate rubs me the wrong way, and is blatantly unheroic. A failure rate of 20% is still more than enough to make the effects a potential threat.

 

[Lanefan]

Good saves are supposed to be among a class's best abilities. The notion that something I'm good at has a 50% success rate rubs me the wrong way, and is blatantly unheroic. A failure rate of 20% is still more than enough to make the effects a potential threat.

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

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Great responses so far. In an ideal system (not D&D), I would like saves to mirror my first exposure to them which was in 2nd edition. Back then a saving throw was described as "a slight chance to avoid mishap". This of course requires the modification of many spells and effects, most notably save-or-dies, but hey that's what my Fantasia project is for.

Keep the replies comin'!

PS Felix, the Superman speech is what makes Kill Bill worth watching. It's a great film already, but that speech is what makes me want to own it so that I can watch it more than once.

 

[Mouseferatu]

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

That's counter to my own experience, though. IME, assuming a foe with a roughly equivalent CR and without an extreme AC, a fighter's primary attack hits far more than 75% of the time.

I'm not saying saves (or attacks, for that matter) should be infallible. Far from. I'm just saying that when a class is good at X, X should have a pretty good chance of success, all things being equal. Even a small chance of failure is still noteworthy, and there are still plenty of things the class isn't good at, for the more dangerous/nervewracking situations.

 

[kenobi65]

On average, I like saves as follows:

1. Good saves - 75-80%

2. Poor saves - 40-50%

Those numbers feel about right to me, intuitively.

Just out of curiosity, let me show a few numbers, from a purely arbitrary case.

Let's assume a CR 9 monster (a vrock demon), against a party of 9th level adventurers.

At 9th level, your "good" save is +6, and your "bad" save is +3.

The DC for saving against a vrock's nastiest "save-needed" attack (Dance of Ruin) is a DC 18 Reflex. (And, that's probably an average difficulty, at worst, for threats at CR 9; a 9th level wizard or cleric hitting you with a 5th level spell is going to have a save DC of at least 18.)

To hit an 18 75% of the time (good save), the PC needs to be able to save on a 6 on the die. That's a +12 total modifier, so you'd need an extra +6 from either ability scores or magic items. Not outside the realm of possibility, esp. for those classes who have good Reflex saves (which will also tend to have good Dex scores).

To hit an 18 50% of the time (poor save), the PC needs to be able to save on an 11 on the die. That's a +7 total modifier, of which +3 is coming from your base save. Again, not infeasible, esp. if you have a positive modifier on your Dex.

Where the saves really get tricky is when you have the combo of (a) a poor save, and (b) a dump stat (Will save for fighters and rogues, I'm looking at you).

 

[T. Foster]

I (probably not surprisingly) like the way saves were done pre-3E -- not necessarily the categories (which I'll admit are arbitrary and that there are either too many or too few of) but rather the way character level is the primary determinant in likely you are to save -- that low level characters have crappy saves at everything, and high level characters have good saves at everything, and the individual saves are only a matter of degrees within that.

Low level character, bad save: 25%
Low level character, good save: 45%

High level character, bad save: 50%
High level character, good save: 80%

EDIT: Interesting (and uninentional on my part) to note that my "high level" saves are pretty much in-line with what others are quoting.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

I (probably not surprisingly) like the way saves were done pre-3E -- not necessarily the categories (which I'll admit are arbitrary and that there are either too many or too few of) but rather the way character level is the primary determinant in likely you are to save -- that low level characters have crappy saves at everything, and high level characters have good saves at everything, and the individual saves are only a matter of degrees within that.

Low level character, bad save: 25%
Low level character, good save: 45%

High level character, bad save: 55%
High level character, good save: 80%

Star Wars Saga is like this.

The Defenses (which replace both saves and AC) are equal to 10 + your level (+ various other bonuses, like ability scores). Classes give a very small, one-time bonus of +1 to +3 (and only prestige classes give a +3) to one or more defenses, and you take the best for that defense. So a Jedi (which gives +1 to all three defenses) who multiclasses into Soldier (which gives a +2 to Fortitude defense, a +1 to Reflex defense and nothing to Will) would have +1 Ref, +2 Fort and +1 Will as his class defense bonuses, and then add his level and ability scores.

EDIT: The more I look at this, the more I think you're (sort of) asking for something else/more. Do you specifically want saves to get easier at high levels than at low levels? If so, I suppose you'd have to use lower relative CLs (Challenge Levels, Saga's simplified version of CR) as the characters advanced. Which, to be fair, is what the system generally indicates. Emperor Palpatine's attacks are still going to be hell on your defenses no matter your level, though, and a stormtrooper's not so much.