D&D 5E Weak Saving Throws

[Paraxis]

I think I will play it by the book, but it becomes an issue I think a simple solution would be to give everyone the proficiency bonus to all saves and advantage on the saves they get proficiency in from class.

This issue might be something that leads people to multi-class dip into several classes to get the save proficiencies. I don't like that idea much, I don't want to encourage level dipping like 3e did.

 

[Transformer]

The issue is:

At high levels, will the party wizard be able to easily disable a boss monster with a single spell simply by targeting one of monster's weak saves?

At high levels, will an intelligent monster be able to easily disable a PC simply by targeting whichever PC is weak in the relevant saving throw?

Hopefully not, but the core math of the saving throw system suggests yes, and we have not yet seen any mechanics that mitigate this problem.

 

[Agamon]

Maybe playing high level in 5e sucks just like every other edition. Hopefully not, but I'm going in expecting little and hoping to be surprised.

 

[Thaumaturge]

Time to start another thread about what people think will be in the DMG...

Nah. We need to slow roll it. "What do people think will be in the PH(B)?" should be tomorrow's question.

Thaumaturge.

 

[machineelf]

The issue is:

At high levels, will the party wizard be able to easily disable a boss monster with a single spell simply by targeting one of monster's weak saves?

At high levels, will an intelligent monster be able to easily disable a PC simply by targeting whichever PC is weak in the relevant saving throw?

Hopefully not, but the core math of the saving throw system suggests yes, and we have not yet seen any mechanics that mitigate this problem.

I'm not sure what high levels has to do with it. The same is true at lower levels. You can get badly hurt from one strong strike or one strong spell at any level. At higher levels, yes you can get hit by a powerful spell or a powerful flurry of martial attacks (that can crit you, which many spells can't), but you also have more hitpoints to absorb it. The fact that you can get nearly killed from one powerful spell or flurry of attacks is just what happens when two powerful characters fight each other. It means faster combat and a heightened sense of danger, and I see that as a good thing.

This is not confined to just casters. If there's a rogue assassin NPC hiding in the woods, the first person they hit with an arrow is going to be hurting or dying. I like that sense of danger.

 

[Obryn]

My ability to dodge stayed the same, but your ability to connect got better with training.

The "ability to dodge staying the same" is, in fact, part of the problem.

You are already a much more powerful spellcaster - witness the increased number of spells and the increased potency of the spells you can cast. Outpacing saving throw bonuses is just excessive on top of that.

I was really hoping 5e would take a cue from pre-3e D&D, where you got better at resisting all saves as you went up in level.

I'm not sure what high levels has to do with it. The same is true at lower levels.

It's not, though. That's what we're saying. The disparity gets larger at high levels. There's not as big a problem when the Proficiency bonus is just +2 and the stat bonus is +3. It's when it hops up to +6 and +5 that the disparity becomes excessive.

 

[machineelf]

The "ability to dodge staying the same" is, in fact, part of the problem

You also have to factor in that fact that I may have gotten better at taking damage without going down, while you haven't gotten as better at that as I have. So while you are hitting more often, once I connect you can't take as much damage before being out of the fight. And that is part of the dynamic of a martial vs. caster battle.

Fundamentally I don't see this as an imbalance between casters and martial classes. Martial classes can hit extremely hard as well, such as the rogue assassin example above. And martial attacks can crit, whereas most spells cannot. Imagine being hit 5 times in one round and two of them crit.

Maybe your predictions of problems will be proven correct, but so far I see a system that maintains fast battles and a sense of danger without bogging things down in lengthy combat. And I hope you're not correct.

 

[Transformer]

I'm not sure what high levels has to do with it. The same is true at lower levels. You can get badly hurt from one strong strike or one strong spell at any level. At higher levels, yes you can get hit by a powerful spell or a powerful flurry of martial attacks (that can crit you, which many spells can't), but you also have more hitpoints to absorb it. The fact that you can get nearly killed from one powerful spell or flurry of attacks is just what happens when two powerful characters fight each other. It means faster combat and a heightened sense of danger, and I see that as a good thing.

This is not confined to just casters. If there's a rogue assassin NPC hiding in the woods, the first person they hit with an arrow is going to be hurting or dying. I like that sense of danger.

I was not thinking of hit point damage, but of save-or-suck spells. If WotC has managed not to include any real save-or-suck spells in the game, then this is much less of a problem.

And what it has to do with high levels is that save DCs scale with level, while "weak" saves do not. A first level wizard is throwing out spells with a save DC of 13. Monsters have save bonuses in their weak stats of maybe +0 or -1. So the monster has at least a chance of making its save, and the wizard might not be able to target the monster's weak save anyway due to his limited number of spells.

But at level 20, things are different. The Wizard is throwing out spells with save DCs of 19, while monsters still have weak save bonuses of only +0 or -1. And now that the wizard has a ton of spells, so he can reliable target a monster's weak saves every time. The result is that monsters will almost always fail their saves, no matter how powerful they are. That could be okay, if the designers balanced damage around the fact that high level wizards never miss, and if there are no real save-or-suck spells in the game. But that's a big if.

And even if we assume those things, the converse problem is still present; intelligent monsters can target PCs' weak saves at high levels, and the PCs will almost always fail those saves too. Hence the infamous ghoul slaughter.

 

[Savage Wombat]

I don't expect the monsters to have too much trouble - it'll just turn out that, say, frost giants all have 14 WIS or something.

 

[Unwise]

When I tinkered around with a very high level game, I gave everybody proficiency in all saves. If you previously had proficiency, you now have advantage. It was using outdate monsters though, so I was buffing the DCs a fair bit. That seemed to work well for us.