D&D 5E Weak Saving Throws

[Sadrik]

Well, let's take a look at that. If you use the array, you have an 8, and Wisdom is one place to put it, I suppose!

Each 2 points of increase costs a feat - and one he's not spending on strength, constitution, etc. So to go from 8 to 20 takes 6 feats. Sounds kind of pricey, but we wouldn't want to be a dirty min maxer, would we? So we'll do that.

So now the wisest Fighter in the land has a massive +5 to save vs. Wisdom. This means he still has the privilege of saving vs. Hold Person 35% of the time. What a bargain! It only cost him 6 feats!

As for the rest, I'm totally on board with PCs having weaker saves.

I'm totally not on board with how 5e is doing it, with this disparity getting worse as you increase in level.

And then if there is a feat that gives you proficiency in WIS and/or CHA saves. Does that become a feat tax?

 

[Obryn]

And then if there is a feat that gives you proficiency in WIS and/or CHA saves. Does that become a feat tax?

Honestly, I expect anything that gives proficiency in high-impact saves will become a feat tax. I'd rather see the core probabilities refigured than for the designers to do another 4e Expertise-style feat patch.

 

[Sadrik]

Honestly, I expect anything that gives proficiency in high-impact saves will become a feat tax. I'd rather see the core probabilities refigured than for the designers to do another 4e Expertise-style feat patch.

Agreed, saves were a bit of a mess in the playtest and they continue to be in v 0.1 of the basic rules document. Hopefully they can actually make some updates to the system. If not actual rules updates perhaps a list of the most common house rules to the game. I am curious actually how they will roll out rules updates. Will they simply be in the basic rules document and then you are expected to simply use that document over what it says in the PHB or other printed source. I would assume upon 2nd printing and later printings they would include those updates...

 

[Thaumaturge]

Well, let's take a look at that. If you use the array, you have an 8, and Wisdom is one place to put it, I suppose!

Each 2 points of increase costs a feat - and one he's not spending on strength, constitution, etc. So to go from 8 to 20 takes 6 feats. Sounds kind of pricey, but we wouldn't want to be a dirty min maxer, would we? So we'll do that.

We only have 5B right now, so there aren't a whole heck of a lot of things for the fighter to do with feats except improve scores. He even got to bump his Strength once doing this.

So now the wisest Fighter in the land has a massive +5 to save vs. Wisdom.

An improvement of +6 from where he started. And he's decent at Wis related skills, too. Even without proficiency, which he may have through a background. So it isn't as if the saves are his only benefit for his cost.

This means he still has the privilege of saving vs. Hold Person 35% of the time. What a bargain! It only cost him 6 feats!

I was thinking about this. Both Hold Person and Otto's Irresistible Dance require concentration. When the wizard casts one of these on the fighter, the fighter might be okay with failing. If I'm a fighter who considers my job in combat to protect my allies from harm, then a Hold Person on me does a pretty good job of removing the wizard from combat. He's certainly not dropping orbital nukes on me and my party with his 9th level slot. Instead he's concentrating on me.

I'm not saying your impressions are wrong. But concentration, I think, mitigates many of the problems.

Thaumaturge.

 

[Obryn]

Hold Person works against me targets with higher level slots for a single concentration.

 

[Thaumaturge]

Hold Person works against me targets with higher level slots for a single concentration.

Sure. So fireball formation is bad. Having a party of all characters with 8 Wis is really bad. But that's probably obvious. Or soon will be.

Even if the wizard throws Hold Person at the whole party and half the party fails, the wizard isn't doing much else interesting. Now, if he has a party of Balors with him, yes, things just got ugly.

Thaumaturge.

 

[Obryn]

An improvement of +6 from where he started. And he's decent at Wis related skills, too. Even without proficiency, which he may have through a background. So it isn't as if the saves are his only benefit for his cost
....

I'm not saying your impressions are wrong. But concentration, I think, mitigates many of the problems.

I agree that Concentration looks helpful, and it won't be possible to fully appreciate how helpful it is outside of play.

However. Even with this dude who spent 6 of his entire 8 increases in Wisdom, he's still worse off than he was at Level 1. He won't catch up.

If there's one thing messing with 4e - which had its own form of bounded accuracy, controlled by level - taught me, it's that a +3 is just as good at Level 20 as it is at Level 1. That d20 isn't getting any more sides on it.

So this seems unnecessarily sloppy and punitive; there's no good reason for the gap between good saves and bad saves to increase so substantially vs. at-level foes, and yet they do.

 

[Stalker0]

Personally, I find the notion of a 1st level commoner with an 8 Wisdom having a good chance of avoiding a 20th level wizard's charm spell- or, hell, even a decent chance of avoiding it- far more troubling than the reverse.

In general, I would rather the rules were balanced around the scenarios that are common and likely.

The 20th level wizard isn't going to be throwing the big guns on 1st level characters that much...and if they does a quick DM fiat is fine. But if the DM has to fiat because none of his monsters can save against super spells that is a problem.

 

[Stalker0]

If that fighter has gone through 20 levels of play with an 8 Wisdom, sucking up the failed saves all that time, then he has made the choice to have a bad save, especially given how easily he could bump that Wisdom up a few notches.

There is truth to this by the basic rules.

For example, a fighter gets 7 +2 stat raises. If you assume the first 2 go into strength to max it to 20. That's another +10 to put in other stats, so that should shore up the weak stats at least a bit.

However, when feats come out, you will likely see fighters take more of those, so the problem may resurface.

 

[Evenglare]

I'm kinda stuck scratching my head here. I don't see how this is a problem. It's called a flaw within a character. Characters need flaws that are apparent and exploitable to be believable and not just a one dimensional boring character. If a wizard is crappy at con saves things in the world should be scary that affect con-saves, and rightly so. I don't... I just don't understand the complaint I guess.