Mutants and Masterminds 3rd edition: What should my saves be like?

[Mystic Muse]

My group and I are starting a campaign at Power Level 12, and I was wondering how good my saves should be at this point. What's the minimum bonus I want in each saving throw?

[Engorde]

12 if you aren´t making any tradeoffs

[Tengu_temp]

Saves above your PL tend to be high. PL-2 is a save you don't care about much, below that is low. PL is decent.

[Falin]

Depends, which saves?

If you're talking toughness/Defense (the latter being like a save but you always take ten) then it's capped at PL but if you want you can trade five points from one (10 if you're buying up your Defense without feats) and put it into the other. You shouldn't because A) it's somewhat better to trade off three points (and to trade off into toughness) and b) doing that makes it difficult for the GM to build balanced encounters for the whole party.

If you mean Fort, Will, and Ref, then it's a toss up. How often to you think you'll have to use them? Now, no matter what you do the GM is going to build your enemies to take advantage of the party's weaknesses. But as a rule of thumb you can have PL+5 in any of your non defense saving throws, and at your PL is actually a really good place to be. But it's also really expensive, and you have powers, feats, abilities, and skills to buy. So try to get close to your PL in all three and a little over in at least one but don't worry too much if you don't hit that mark. To save points don't spend too many points on raw ability scores, it's much more cost effective to just buy skills and saves.

[Falin]

Sorry, sight freaked out a bit. Um... disregard this one.

[prufock]

If you're talking toughness/Defense (the latter being like a save but you always take ten) then it's capped at PL but if you want you can trade five points from one (10 if you're buying up your Defense without feats) and put it into the other. You shouldn't because A) it's somewhat better to trade off three points (and to trade off into toughness) and b) doing that makes it difficult for the GM to build balanced encounters for the whole party.

If you mean Fort, Will, and Ref, then it's a toss up. How often to you think you'll have to use them? Now, no matter what you do the GM is going to build your enemies to take advantage of the party's weaknesses. But as a rule of thumb you can have PL+5 in any of your non defense saving throws, and at your PL is actually a really good place to be. But it's also really expensive, and you have powers, feats, abilities, and skills to buy. So try to get close to your PL in all three and a little over in at least one but don't worry too much if you don't hit that mark. To save points don't spend too many points on raw ability scores, it's much more cost effective to just buy skills and saves.

I believe you're thinking of 2nd edition rules. Third edition doesn't have Defense or Reflex; it has Parry, Dodge, Fortitude, Toughness, and Will, which are all called "defenses."
There is no "trade-off" limit, and the caps do not work that way. Caps are: Fort+Will=2xPL, Parry+Toughness=2xPL, Dodge+Toughness=2xPL.

Honestly, you want all your defenses at PL or nearly so - nothing lower than PL-2 is advisable unless you have a good reason for doing so. A possible exception is if you're trading Parry/Dodge for Toughness, but I don't like to trade out much because Affliction powers and such can take out out of action without doing any damage at all.

That's the thing about 3rd edition: they did their darndest to balance things and make all your defenses roughly equal in value.

[Falin]

I believe you're thinking of 2nd edition rules. Third edition doesn't have Defense or Reflex; it has Parry, Dodge, Fortitude, Toughness, and Will, which are all called "defenses."
There is no "trade-off" limit, and the caps do not work that way. Caps are: Fort+Will=2xPL, Parry+Toughness=2xPL, Dodge+Toughness=2xPL.

Honestly, you want all your defenses at PL or nearly so - nothing lower than PL-2 is advisable unless you have a good reason for doing so. A possible exception is if you're trading Parry/Dodge for Toughness, but I don't like to trade out much because Affliction powers and such can take out out of action without doing any damage at all.

That's the thing about 3rd edition: they did their darndest to balance things and make all your defenses roughly equal in value.

That's right, sorry, must have missed that. Sorry. So yeah, ignore what I said my brain was kind of fried at the time. Prufock has it right.