D&D 5E (2014) Weak Saving Throws

[CapnZapp]

Sounds like a good reason to use great caution when choosing which optional rules to add to your game.

Tell that to the official OOTA designers.

 

[CapnZapp]

Followed immediately by even greater caution when choosing frightful creatures/situations designed to force those "impossible madness checks"...

Feel free to explain your point.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Tell that to the official OOTA designers.

Why? They aren't the one making the choice that gets those rules in-play at the table.

...unless you're saying their your home game is actually DMed by said designers, which if that is the case, I really think you should be the one telling them about how you feel regarding their inclusion of rules at the table that you don't find enjoyable.

 

[ChrisCarlson]

If you get worked up about making players have to attempt impossible checks, easy solution: Don't put their characters in situations where they are forced to do so.

 

[CapnZapp]

Why? They aren't the one making the choice that gets those rules in-play at the table.

Wow, now you're reduced to making the "The DM can always remove any rule" defense. That surely must be your last straw?

Why insist on clambering to the belief the designers can do no wrong?

Why not simply agree "yes it would have been (even) better if when you pick up the dice to make a DC 23 save you have an actual chance of making that save?"

It doesn't mean our favorite game is worthless. It just means not everything in it is perfect.

You can still defend their decision to not include any such rules in order to keep the game simple, if you absolutely must. *shrug*

 

[CapnZapp]

If you get worked up about making players have to attempt impossible checks, easy solution: Don't put their characters in situations where they are forced to do so.

Oh great. Now there are no reason to ever try to hold a designer to a bad rule ever again!

That's sarcasm, by the way. But that's not the worst part of your incredibly dismissive stance:

Other DM: -So if I have put my characters in such a position, it's MY fault? Not the designers who I have paid to write the rules?

Pleez

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Why not simply agree "yes it would have been (even) better if when you pick up the dice to make a DC 23 save you have an actual chance of making that save?"

Interesting question. I'm undecided on it. On the "yes" side, that feels more consistent with D&D. On the "no" side I personally like it better if more things are auto-success or auto-failure in my gaming.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Why insist on clambering to the belief the designers can do no wrong?

That's not what I have done.

I have said nothing regarding whether the designers can, cannot, did, or did not, do wrong.

I have said that a DM, as an integral and inherent part of being a DM, is the one responsible for choosing which rules to use, which not to use, which to change, and how to change them, to satisfy their own and their group's enjoyment at the table.

And to make this as fully and finally clear as I possibly can: Yeah, it's not a great idea for the authors of an adventure to write-in the assumption of using a particular optional rule. It's also not great to implement that optional rule in a way that easily promotes a negative view of that particular optional rule.

But most of all, it's not great for a DM to feel their authority over the rules actually used at their own table is overridden by any author - especially, and I cannot be more emphatic about this, those authors that particular DM feels have done wrong.

 

[Khisanth the Ancient]

Yeah, if they put in DC 23 saves expecting that characters who don't have proficiency in that save have a chance of making it, that's a problem (you'd need a score of 16 to have even a 5% chance without proficiency).

But what's the context?

 

[ChrisCarlson]

Oh great. Now there are no reason to ever try to hold a designer to a bad rule ever again!

If the game is designed such that PCs may find themselves in situations where a particular save cannot succeed for them, and many tables handle that just fine, you cannot call that "bad rules". You can call it "bad for you." But you just tried to categorize your personal preferences as objective fact. Not cool.

D&D 5e is designed in this way and I do not have issues with it. It works just fine for me and my fellow players. Not you. So I tried to explain how you could easily modify play at your table to better fit your predilections (by avoiding the things you don't like--I know, almost too obvious, right?).

Pleez, indeed.