D&D 5E Saving Throws

[Viking Bastard]

Why? Why does having a universal mechanic is such a great idea? I think that adhering to the creed that universal mechanics is the holy grail is wrong, it force you to jump through loops to achieve your desired affects.

I agree to some extent. I've come to the conclusion that yes, the great universal mechanic is no such thing (at least not the d20), and that it is better to have a 'suite' of a few different mechanics for different rolls of different nature.

With that said, I'd like the keep the types of rolls you do to a minimum, because I just find it confusing and hard to keep track of if each rule uses a different die or a different way of resolution. It makes it harder to learn the game, and makes it more likely that you're gonna have look something up during play (and I *hate* that).

 

[Iosue]

I agree to some extent. I've come to the conclusion that yes, the great universal mechanic is no such thing (at least not the d20), and that it is better to have a 'suite' of a few different mechanics for different rolls of different nature.

With that said, I'd like the keep the types of rolls you do to a minimum, because I just find it confusing and hard to keep track of if each rule uses a different die or a different way of resolution. It makes it harder to learn the game, and makes it more likely that you're gonna have look something up during play (and I *hate* that).

Yes, indeed. I don't think Next will do this, because the core is still WotC, which means "d20 resolution die", but B/X is IMO a good example for this. Basically, you got your d20 for to-hit and saving throws. Roll high. Virtually everything else uses the d6. Searching for secret doors/special construction? d6. Listening at doors? d6. Forcing doors open? d6. Chance of falling into a trap? d6. Wandering monsters? d6. Dungeon stocking? d6 for contents, then d6 for presence of treasure. Possiblity of getting lost in the wilderness? d6. Surprise? d6. Initiative? d6. Damage? d6. Reactions? 2d6 for a nice, simple bell curve. Turning undead? 2d6. How many undead did you turn? 2d6. Ability scores? 3d6. Starting money? 3d6.

Then basically you have percentile dice for fine chances of success, like Thieves Skills and specific treasure contents. You have the d12, d10, d8, and d4 to provide variety in Hit Dice, weapon damage, random table results, and making some variant bell curves for amount of treasure, monsters appearing, and the like. So there's a variety of dice to use and dice effects to obtain, but most things require a d6, occasionally 2d6 for effects. 90% of the time, the players in my B/X group are rolling a d20 or a d6, and trying to roll high.

 

[Viking Bastard]

I have been looking towards a d20-fied B/X or OD&D to replace my 4e game, actually.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I would probably go with expertise dice to particular ability scores for each class as a way of applying bonuses to saving throws. It seems consistent with how they're having ability checks in 5e, and it certainly preserves the feel of good and bad saves that 3e had.

 

[Kraydak]

The problem I have with the mechanic Mearls asked about is that it's a different mechanic than the rest of the system, and I'm very much not okay with diverging from the universal mechanic.

The core mechanic doesn't have to be d20 + modifiers versus DC based on difficulty of the task, but it absolutely must be unified across all subsystems.

This is the reason I'm not comfortable having an attack bonus, but no other static bonus to represent training. It's why I didn't like the skill die. Each of these is a fine mechanic by itself, but not within the same game.

Would you be fine with save as DC 10, with a level based bonus going from 0 at level 1 to 5 at level 20? Unified mechanic, bounded accuracy (honestly, they should go from 5 points/20 levels to 10 points/20 levels, but whatever) and reasonable Save-or-suck/die balance.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

Would you be fine with save as DC 10, with a level based bonus going from 0 at level 1 to 5 at level 20? Unified mechanic, bounded accuracy (honestly, they should go from 5 points/20 levels to 10 points/20 levels, but whatever) and reasonable Save-or-suck/die balance.

I don't know if I like the static base DC, but the a +0 to +5 save bonus that lines up with the attack and spellcasting bonus would be fine with me (though I'm not sure what it actually represents, and that bothers me). In return, I want the same thing for ability checks.

 

[Kraydak]

I don't know if I like the static base DC, but the a +0 to +5 save bonus that lines up with the attack and spellcasting bonus would be fine with me (though I'm not sure what it actually represents, and that bothers me). In return, I want the same thing for ability checks.

No. No spellcasting bonus. Spellcasting bonuses break the balance, or rather, save bonuses have to outpace the spellcasting bonuses noticeably. Which breaks bounded accuracy (if spellcasting bonuses go up to 5, only level, or 10, level+stat, then the save bonuses need to go up to 10 or 15). So again, no spellcasting bonus (or casting stat bonus, either) if you want universal mechanics.

 

[Li Shenron]

I have been looking towards a d20-fied B/X or OD&D to replace my 4e game, actually.

Have you tried DIY by replacing thieves' skills with d20 skills?

I don't think an exact conversion is needed, but at least in the early levels the % chance of success increases by 5% per level, which is equivalent to +1 per level to a d20 like in 3e.

 

[GX.Sigma]

Because it enlarges the game audience, obviously. The more rules are necessary to play the game, the less people play, because those who want more rules can easily add, but those who want less can't easily take away. It's the whole point why the designers have decided to publish a "lite" version of the game, but still stuff like saving throws are going to be needed in that Basic game.

I think you can make a game elegant and easy to learn without slavish devotion to aesthetics. If you have two systems that work differently, how do you benefit from pretending they work the same? As Mike said recently on twitter, sometimes having two systems is simpler than having one.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

No. No spellcasting bonus. Spellcasting bonuses break the balance, or rather, save bonuses have to outpace the spellcasting bonuses noticeably. Which breaks bounded accuracy (if spellcasting bonuses go up to 5, only level, or 10, level+stat, then the save bonuses need to go up to 10 or 15). So again, no spellcasting bonus (or casting stat bonus, either) if you want universal mechanics.

Why would the save bonus have to outpace the spellcasting bonus instead of simply keeping up with it? I'm not clear about what you're trying to achieve.