D&D 5E Weak Saving Throws

[FormerlyHemlock]

Nope, I was addressing the (admittetdly less common) case where you're targeted by save-or suck effects each round and either save or sit out of action, each round.
On the other hand, while I see your point, it's worth mentioning that, given that most fight only last 3-4 rounds in 5e, cutting the duration of the spell from, say, 8 to 4 rounds might still not work to the party's advantage ( because combat might well be over before the spell expires anyway ).

You mean, like when you're fighting in the middle of a Web or Evard's Black Tentacles and have no way to get out? Yes, that's a case where advantage helps the 50% guy the most.

 

[CapnZapp]

I presume we're talking about the common 5E idiom in which one successful save removes the spell and puts you back in play. (That makes it bell-curved again.) For example, Confusion or Tasha's Uncontrollable Laughter. In this case, you're best-off helping the guy with the weakest save, within reason, in order to reduce the effective duration of the spell.

If you succeed only on a 16+, the spell will keep you out of play for (1/(1-3/4) = 4) rounds on average. With advantage, you'll be out of play for (1/(1-9/16) = 2.28) rounds on average. You've just gained 1.72 rounds of effectiveness.

If you succeed only on a 11+, the spell will keep you out of play for (1/(1-1/2) = 2) rounds on average. With advantage, you'll be out of play for (1/(1-1/4) = 1.33) rounds on average. You've just gained .67 rounds of effectiveness.

If you're the guy granting advantage, and you can only grant it to one person, you'll add more to party effectiveness by helping the guy who needs a 16+ than by helping the guy who needs 11+. Which brings us neatly back, full-circle, to non-proficient wizards with Foresight, who only get to grant advantage to one PC, which might be the non-proficient wizard.

This is what I meant upthread when I said:



It really isn't possible to generalize a specific point on the d20 where advantage is "most helpful." It depends on the details of the situation and what the save is being made for.

That may be true, but that doesn't change the fact that when you choose between granting advantage to the guy who needs to roll 11+ and the gal who needs to roll 2+ (or 19+), choosing Mr 11 is "most helpful".

In exactly the same simple unequivocal way it's better to give the Mr 11 guy a +5 bonus than it is to give the Ms 19 gal a +1.

Again, you're muddling the issue. Sure it's possible to construct cases where that +1 is better than a +5 elsewhere. But please don't.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

That may be true, but that doesn't change the fact that when you choose between granting advantage to the guy who needs to roll 11+ and the gal who needs to roll 2+ (or 19+), choosing Mr 11 is "most helpful".

In exactly the same simple unequivocal way it's better to give the Mr 11 guy a +5 bonus than it is to give the Ms 19 gal a +1.

Again, you're muddling the issue. Sure it's possible to construct cases where that +1 is better than a +5 elsewhere. But please don't.

Wait. You just acknowledged that it's actually less helpful to grant advantage to the 11+ guy, to the point where you put scare quotes around "most helpful" when you repeated the claim, I suppose to acknowledge that it's not really the most helpful in actual context... and you're telling me that I'm muddling the issue?!? At this point I have no idea what you're even saying.

You don't get to tell other people to shut up, CapnZapp. If you want to make a counterclaim, go ahead. Tell people why it's more useful to think of it in terms of what kind of advantage is "most helpful" in raw percentage terms. I suspect there are even people who need your guidance, because I've seen some messed-up claims about probability on Internet forums, such as people who will tell you that advantage is an effective +5 bonus all the time (it's obviously not). But the conversation doesn't end there.

 

[CapnZapp]

At this point I have no idea what you're even saying.

Uh...

 

[Krachek]

Each time I read about this I wonder why we used the term : Bounded accuracy.
Monsters weak save stay the same, but Spell caster DC go up slowly, but surely.
Same thing with attack vs AC. You face the same AC from level 5 to 10. But your bonus dont stop to get better.
Why call this bounded accuracy?

In 4ed it was the reverse.
It was the illusion of having a better accuracy as you level up, but Monster defense level up as your accuracy!
So you still need a good roll to hit.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

I have no problem with that. Keeps high-level characters on their toes.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Now, you can do what 4e did and add your level or half your level to everything, but that doesn't actually change the math for equal level creatures. You'll still suck at what you suck at.

In 5e, it'd be your proficiency bonus, without the +2, so +0 to +4 over 20 levels. Enough for you to sorta tread water vs increasing save DCs (you'll still fall behind, but by one or two instead of around six).

It just makes lower level creatures not a threat and higher level creatures overwhelming.

Not when scaled to Bounded Accuracy's almost moot degree of advancement. It won't eclipse even the lowest save DCs for characters with really bad saves (like a -1 dump stat you never improve), at 20th, you'd still fail a DC 10 on a natural 6, a more typical first-level-monster DC of 13 is still going to overcome your 20th level PC almost half the time. I don't know how much more vulnerable you'd want to be...

The only thing I don't like about 5e saves is the fact that there's six of them. Any time the DM calls for Str, Int, or Cha saves, I tend to get the feeling of, "Well, this is a attack." Overall, I prefer just having three saves.

Heh. The classic game had 6 saves, not by stat but by category, and not without ambiguity (including various things calling for a save vs categories not listed in the DMG). Using all 6 stats is a nice incentive against dump stats and for more all-'round sorts of characters. Just not enough of one.

Depends how you measure "most helpful". For example, if you fail your saves only on a 1 (95% success), advantage cuts your failure rate by 95%. If you fail 50% of the time, it cuts your failure rate by only 50%. ...On the other hand, if you succeed only on a twenty, advantage doubles your success rate, which can e.g. halve the duration of enemy spells on you.

Statistical sleight of hand. Yes, nearly doubling your rate of success sounds better than merely increasing it by half. But, the reality is that if you have advantage an need a 20 to succeed, you'll fail 90% of the time instead of 95%, the equivalent of gaining a +1 to the roll, while, if you are looking at a 50/50 shot, you'll by succeeding 75% of the time, the equivalent of a +5.

+5 is better.

Advantage/Disadvantage has the greatest impact when your chances are close to 50/50.

I'd argue that it's actually fallacious to interpret advantage/disadvantage as a linear bonus on a d20. Advantage isn't "equivalent" to +4 on your roll, nor is disadvantage equivalent to -4. Both of them are actually ways of transforming the probability distribution into something roughly bell-curved.

The equivalents are perfectly valid, and very helpful for making the point to gamers used to comparing them.

A +5 on a d20 when you needed an 11 is going from a 50% to a 75% chance, exactly the same% as having Advantage, bell-curve be damned. And, it's not a bell-curve, anyway.

In 5E fights, it's usually more advantageous to impose disadvantage on an enemy than it is to gain advantage yourself. In fact, there are even cases (e.g. archery duels) where it can be a smart move to impose disadvantage on both parties

Sure. It depends on who is more greatly impacted by the mechanic. PCs actually tend to hit around 65%, but how often they're hit varies more depending on class, build, & gear. The combatant whose roll is closer to 50/50 will be more greatly impacted by either advantage or disadvantage.

I presume we're talking about the common 5E idiom in which one successful save removes the spell and puts you back in play. In this case, you're best-off helping the guy with the weakest save, within reason, in order to reduce the effective duration of the spell.

You're making several questionable assumptions, there. One is that the combat goes on long enough for the difference between being out for a long time vs a very long time matters. 5e combats tend to be short. Another is that you're applying a bell-curve average that's valid over many, many combats, to a decision that happens in a single combat. Now, yes, over a character's entire career, that kind of reasoning holds. But, that's not how people made decisions, and the degree to which it's better won't really be experienced at the table, by anyone.

Now, if Advantage were an optional re-roll, take the second roll - or even 'roll two different color dice, designating one as the normal die, one as the advantage die,' it might, what you're talking about might be more evident to people. As it is, the tendency is to look at advantage having 'helped' you whenever one die succeeds and the other fails - which overstates it's apparent value across the board. With an alternate method by which you could note what you 'would have rolled without advantage' it becomes more apparent that "half the time" advantaged is 'wasted' on a 50/50 roll, because you 'would have succeeded anyway.' On a series of saves, that makes the point you're making apparent.

However, if you're just trying to maximize the chance that, on the next round, one of your locked-down allies gets to act, going with the 50/50 guy is the best bet.

And you're not making an entirely invalid point. If you're trying to maximize the total number of round available to your allies with no particular time horizon or preference for when they take those rounds. That's just not what most people are trying to do. Because combats are short. Because advantage looks, in play, even better than it is. And because people simply don't make decisions that way.

It really isn't possible to generalize a specific point on the d20 where advantage is "most helpful." It depends on the details of the situation and what the save is being made for.

For certain more nuanced and farther-looking definitions of 'most helpful,' perhaps. But the + equivalent is entirely valid. In a situation where a +5 to a roll with a 50/50 chance of success wouldn't be very helpful, and a +1 to a different 95/5 roll would be more helpful, sure, advantage wouldn't be very helpful, either.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Each time I read about this I wonder why we used the term : Bounded accuracy.

It's because the developers used that term as a way to differentiate the 5th edition system from some of the prior systems, such as 3.5, in which there was no hard limit on attack bonus/save DC - you could always have a larger bonus because there is always a higher possible (even if only theoretical) ability score, or a theoretically larger bonus of one type or another, and the other side of the accuracy equation of AC/saving throw modifier had the same lack of any hard limits.

 

[Bacon Bits]

In 5e, it'd be your proficiency bonus, without the +2, so +0 to +4 over 20 levels. Enough for you to sorta tread water vs increasing save DCs (you'll still fall behind, but by one or two instead of around six). Not when scaled to Bounded Accuracy's almost moot degree of advancement. It won't eclipse even the lowest save DCs for characters with really bad saves (like a -1 dump stat you never improve), at 20th, you'd still fail a DC 10 on a natural 6, a more typical first-level-monster DC of 13 is still going to overcome your 20th level PC almost half the time. I don't know how much more vulnerable you'd want to be...

By level 9, if your DM uses standard arrays and skips ASIs (-2) and skips racial bonuses (-1), NPC spellcasters are throwing around DC 14 spells (but they should be DC 16-17). That's versus PC save bonuses of as little as -1, and likely you'll have +2 or less in three saves. Low saves are likely to never improve, but spellcaster DCs are almost certain to reach DC 19. And unlike armor, where any class can buy their way to endgame AC and be protected against physical attacks -- worst case with a 1 level dip in Life cleric -- you can't cover all the bases with saves ever even with a feat.

Now, I'm fine with PCs failing saves at high level, because the game should have HP step in to protect them (which it largely does against direct attacks) so that no matter what a single attack (be it a spell or a physical attack) can wholly eliminate a single character, and high level casters should be terrifying. However, having to guard six directions when you can only improve one or two to protect against end game threats (three with Resilient feat) is really pushing it. And yeah, the game's saves are 35% Dex, 25% Con, 25% Wis, 5% Str, 5% Cha, 5% Int (or some similar distribution). But most classes are still going to have two of the main saves as poor (+2 or less).

Yes, at some point a Fighter's always going to hit, but HP scale faster than damage. Yes, concentration is a major complication. It's still a really concerning design because every character has this issue.

Heh. The classic game had 6 saves, not by stat but by category, and not without ambiguity (including various things calling for a save vs categories not listed in the DMG). Using all 6 stats is a nice incentive against dump stats and for more all-'round sorts of characters. Just not enough of one.

There were 5 saves (usually, Poison/Paralyze/Death, Rod/Staff/Wand, Poly/Petrif, Breath, and Spells, with a fair amount of variance) and (critically!) they also all advanced as you gained levels no matter how bad you were starting out. Not at the same rate, of course, but but by level 11 (endgame in my experience) every save was about 50% or better for every category for every class.

And trust me, I get bounded accuracy. I get that the spellcasters get better at spellcasting as they gain levels but a Fighter isn't spending time on his Wisdom saves. I'm saying I don't like having six saves to try to keep up with. No matter what the PCs do, they can never be good against magic. Maybe that's a style of play that you like and that's fine, but it's still a significant departure from previous editions (4e excepted, thanks to treadmill math).

 

[Tony Vargas]

By level 9, if your DM uses standard arrays and skips ASIs (-2) and skips racial bonuses (-1), NPC spellcasters are throwing around DC 14 spells (but they should be DC 16-17). That's versus PC save bonuses of as little as -1, and likely you'll have +2 or less in three saves. Low saves are likely to never improve, but spellcaster DCs are almost certain to reach DC 19. And unlike armor, where any class can buy their way to endgame AC and be protected against physical attacks -- worst case with a 1 level dip in Life cleric -- you can't cover all the bases with saves ever even with a feat.

Yep. I'm with you, that far. What I was proposing was a 5e bounded-accuracy appropriate variant. Add to all saves each time your proficiency bonus goes up. So proficient saves get a +2 to +6 over 20 levels, and non-proficient a +0 to +4.

Compared to typical DCs, which, yes, range from 13 (down to 10 for really minor stuff) up to 19 or so at high level. +4 is about 'treading water' - maybe you'll get a +1 ring of protection or a stat bump or feat or something to really keep you even, but even if it's not quite, it's better than falling 6 points behind the curve.

There were 5 saves (usually, Poison/Paralyze/Death, Rod/Staff/Wand, Poly/Petrif, Breath, and Spells, with a fair amount of variance)

I've heard "back to 6 saves" so many times.... but, yeah, that sounds right.

and (critically!) they also all advanced as you gained levels no matter how bad you were starting out.

And, while fighters didn't set out with the best saves, they advanced the most quickly. Tangent, I know, but it was one of the things I liked about 1e.

I'm saying I don't like having six saves to try to keep up with. No matter what the PCs do, they can never be good against magic. Maybe that's a style of play that you like and that's fine, but it's still a significant departure from previous editions (4e excepted, thanks to treadmill math).

3e also suffered from the phenomenon, even with only 3 saves, it was hard to keep all three of them competitive, because 'bad' saves progressed so slowly, and because you only got so many stat boosts - /and/ because casters could boost save DCs into the stratosphere. Even in 4e, it was hard to keep your worst Defense from falling behind, because you usually had to max two stats, leaving one non-AC defense out in the cold. No nearly as bad, but, well, bad.