D&D 5E Weak Saving Throws

[Obryn]

This is only an issue if you're going to fail to improve upon your weaknesses.

Which is to say, yes, if you dump a stat and don't do anything to pump it up, it will be the point at which you can be reliably attacked by significantly higher-level characters. This is literally a character using their STRONGEST ability against another character's WEAKEST ability.

If that shouldn't almost always (20's excepted) result in the strong character actually having their effect take, I don't know that it would be satisfying at all to play the strong character.

This is the equivalent of a high-level fighter hitting that dude without armor and with an 8 in DEX. Yes, that fighter SHOULD be hitting.

Now, it's important that the effects of hitting aren't over-stated. And given that a lot of suck spells are Concentration, this seems fine. Yes, if your weak point is WIS, you might lose a turn and have to have your friends help you out of a pinch. This is not all that dire of a penalty to face for basically letting your WIS be for crud and expecting to be fine.

[MENTION=23935]Nagol[/MENTION] covered it. Basically, even if you pump your stat to max, you still have an issue and fall further behind. The gap just widens less.

I'm now reminded of the famous 4e expertise gap. After publication, players noted that PCs' to-hit and FRW defenses were both too low, ending up in a lot of whiffs on their attacks and unavoidable attacks from monsters.

The original party line was that this was intended, since the PCs will have buffs all over the place. Turned out this wasn't quite right, and didn't make much sense because the d20 wasn't getting any more sides on it, so we ended up with expertise feats and improved defenses.

That's what I'm hoping doesn't happen. I can see making a feat to give you half proficiency on all non-proficient saves. That would pretty much be a "tax" (and a boring one) from what I'm seeing with the math.

 

[Stalker0]

This is the equivalent of a high-level fighter hitting that dude without armor and with an 8 in DEX. Yes, that fighter SHOULD be hitting.

Now, it's important that the effects of hitting aren't over-stated.

The second point is the reason the fighter analogy doesn't really work. The fighter does hit more often as levels get higher...but the consequences of those hits change very little. In fact, damage as compared to a percentage of the characters health goes down. The fighter has to hit with more attacks in order to do the same amount of damage.

The problem at high levels is its a double whammy....the spellcaster hits you more easily AND there effects are even stronger. If the spell effects didn't increase in severity there wouldn't really be a problem. But because they do, that is the concern.


That said, we are concerned about the poor fighter but the effect doesn't end there. For example, many high level wizards will take a power word Stun at full hp and still be affected with no save.

 

[Kraydak]

...
The problem at high levels is its a double whammy....the spellcaster hits you more easily AND there effects are even stronger. If the spell effects didn't increase in severity there wouldn't really be a problem. But because they do, that is the concern.
...

Which was brought up in response to the various playtest packets. Repeatedly. Ad nauseum. There is no excuse. Fortunately, it can be quickly rectified. Give everyone Proficiency bonus on ALL saves, AND double Proficiency bonuses on proficient saves, AND several more Proficient saves.

 

[Vicar In A Tutu]

Why not just make the following house rule: Everyone gets half their proficiency as a bonus on saving throws they are not proficient with. Would that break or fix the game?

 

[pemerton]

This is only an issue if you're going to fail to improve upon your weaknesses.

Just adding my voice to [MENTION=11821]Obryn[/MENTION] and [MENTION=23935]Nagol[/MENTION] in reply - you can spend a lot of feats taking your WIS to 20 and you still have pretty poor saves (because of the lack of proficiency).

And as [MENTION=5889]Stalker0[/MENTION] noted, the effects of failing a save can be quite severe.

I'm now reminded of the famous 4e expertise gap. After publication, players noted that PCs' to-hit and FRW defenses were both too low, ending up in a lot of whiffs on their attacks and unavoidable attacks from monsters.

The original party line was that this was intended, since the PCs will have buffs all over the place. Turned out this wasn't quite right, and didn't make much sense because the d20 wasn't getting any more sides on it, so we ended up with expertise feats and improved defenses.

In my 4e game (currently at 26th level) we use the various defence feats (though with a houseruled cap on how much you can get from "Epic *", to let it supplement a low stat but not buff an already high stat). But we don't use Expertise. And so far the PCs attacks have kept up (combat advantage, the +1 from Battlefield Archer, the +3 from Demonskin Adept Action Point power, etc).

So I'm open to the possibility. But in 4e I can see (and from the beginning of the game, could see) where a +1 to +3 gap might be made up. Where in Basic is the ability coming from to make up a 6-point gap? That's what I can't see.

 

[Zardnaar]

Personally I like a 1-3 point difference in good and bad saves and no more than 4 at the max. HTis is more or less how it worked in AD&D with a fixed saving throw DC.

 

[Obryn]

Why not just make the following house rule: Everyone gets half their proficiency as a bonus on saving throws they are not proficient with. Would that break or fix the game?

You're still going to be losing that war. Maybe not as quickly, but it'll still happen.

There's two factors contributing to this. (1) You will still be short by 3 on the proficiency bonus when it's all said and done, and (2) you will probably not increase that secondary stat to 20, whereas the guy setting the DC has no reason not to.

In the example of a 20th-level Wis 12 Fighter vs. a 20th-level Int 20 Wizard, you're looking at +4 vs. DC 19 instead of +1 vs. DC 19. An improvement, but still not great. If the Fighter had spent a ludicrous amount of stat bumps getting to a 20 Wisdom, it becomes +8 vs. DC 19, which is still no better than 50-50.

Which - again - might be fine. But how are your Intelligence saves now? Charisma saves? You didn't put anything there, obviously, because you just spent all of them resisting Wisdom saves.

So let's flip it around to [MENTION=12306]Kraydak[/MENTION]'s suggestion at level 20.

20th-level Wis 12 Fighter would have +8 vs. DC 19 again, or 50-50. Maybe this is too good for something you've invested nothing in, or maybe it's just right. He'd have +17 vs. Strength saves, which personally strikes me as a bit too much.

Personally I like a 1-3 point difference in good and bad saves and no more than 4 at the max. HTis is more or less how it worked in AD&D with a fixed saving throw DC.

Yeah, I tend to agree. Basically the same in RC D&D. You can have real, noticeable strengths and weaknesses without an 11-point spread between them. That's kinda the point behind bounded accuracy, I thought.

 

[Vicar In A Tutu]

You're still going to be losing that war. Maybe not as quickly, but it'll still happen.

There's two factors contributing to this. (1) You will still be short by 3 on the proficiency bonus when it's all said and done, and (2) you will probably not increase that secondary stat to 20, whereas the guy setting the DC has no reason not to.

In the example of a 20th-level Wis 12 Fighter vs. a 20th-level Int 20 Wizard, you're looking at +4 vs. DC 19 instead of +1 vs. DC 19. An improvement, but still not great. If the Fighter had spent a ludicrous amount of stat bumps getting to a 20 Wisdom, it becomes +8 vs. DC 19, which is still no better than 50-50.

How about this house rule, then: Casters do not get their Int / Wis / Whatever modifier as a bonus on the DC of their spells. If this makes it too easy to save against the spells, a possible solution would be to change the base spell DC, maybe to 10 + proficiency bonus. (In the case of Wizards, Int would still be very useful as it gives them a bonus as a spell attack modifier as well as a bonus number of spells per day).

 

[Stalker0]

You're still going to be losing that war. Maybe not as quickly, but it'll still happen.

Well the war stops at 20th level, and another 15% to your bad saves isn't too shabby.

Going back to my example from earlier, with that change my fighter would have resisted the dominate 55% of the time, or about 80% with indomitable. Those are pretty decent numbers.

 

[mach1.9pants]

I don;t have too much of a dog in this fight, mainly cos levels above 10 I never see. But I am looking forward to the official line on this, why they chose this way. I just hope that WotC don't just ignore it. In the non scientific 'longer thread means most meaningful to the player base' this issue is right up there!