Attack vs. Save

[AugustNights]

Optimization in a way I suppose.
I'm curious, how well do [Attack Roll] vs. [Saving Throw] effects work out?
Specifically, I'm curious as how an Attack Roll opposed by an opponent's Reflex Save would pan out.
It seems to me that it would be a relatively balanced 50% success rate, based on who's dedicated to what (as that saves are easy to boost, but so are attack rolls).
Thoughts?

[Deophaun]

They don't work out at all.

Saves are not easy to boost. It requires significant character resources to get them high (such as dipping two levels of Paladin for Divine Grace), and there are far fewer types of save bonuses than there are AC. But this is balanced out by Save DCs also being hard to boost. Your average spellcaster is going to have their Save DCs cap out around 31, which means the game expects targets to have a saving throw around +21 at level 20, so an average roll of 31.5. Meanwhile, I believe the board's math wonks figured that a tank should have an AC of 10 + 2*CL, or an AC of 50 at level 20. That's a massive disparity.

Attack rolls, however, are trivial to boost, which is why Power Attack is considered a great feat even without Shock Trooper instead of being mocked as "Miss Attack." Consider that an IC bard can easily add +10 or more to everyone's attack roll, or that true strike is a first level spell that adds +20.

Forcing people to rely on Reflex is basically telling them not to bother.

[Techwarrior]

Ok. Let me give you the very first, most basic example of why this doesn't work.

Good Base Attack at level 20 is +20.
Your good Base Save at level 20 is +12, barring multiclassing.

The attack roll, before any bonuses at all, is already 140% ahead of your save.

After that, Multiple Attribute Dependency (MAD) vs. Single Attribute Dependency (SAD) is going to decrease the stat bonus you apply to your save even further. There's 3 stats that all apply to separate saves. You apply one stat to your to-hit roll, and only one. Even if you separately count the fact that ranged and melee use different stats, you're still ahead since that's only two stats.

Even after both of those things, you're given more incentive to boost your attack roll than your save. If you can hit the creature, you might not need to save anymore, but the reverse is not true.

Look at the baseline NPC's in the DMG. The Paladin and Monk (who are all about making their saves) still have lower saves than they do to-hit. That's the baseline, WoTC terribad character build characters, and even they don't have more save than to-hit.

[NoACWarrior]

I think the issue with this is avoidance of damage - it could potentially make combat a lot slower. Although I love 10-30 round combat sessions, it can get boring for those in t4 and lower at times depending on the encounter. Having only 3 rounds before the monster pops is a good thing in that people can feel that their 3 arrow hits made a difference (when it was the postman wizard who did the heavy lifting). Dragging combat out with saves vs attacks on top of everything could mean combat that much longer.

But If you are asking if its viable to use, in a gladiator 1 on 1 setting yes. In a version of 3.0 basically you could greatly limit your damage with just the parry skill vs a single martial melee opponent.
For the 3.5 world - monsters tend to have horrible saves in some categories, making the PCs at a great advantage to deal damage, but by the same token, monsters can hit really hard at higher levels (a +20 to hit isn't uncommon at CR 10 and higher) and the PCs' saves would be utterly useless. Also, some monsters have obscene saves, these monsters would be nigh impossible to kill despite their rated CR. I would highly not recommend the use of this extra save vs damage rule unless you are willing to look at balancing any monster the PC faces in combat.

[AugustNights]

Mmm. I was more thinking of a singular type attack, a specific monster's special attack or some such, rather than changing out the combat system whole-sale.
Good feedback all the same.

[Slipperychicken]

Optimization in a way I suppose.
I'm curious, how well do [Attack Roll] vs. [Saving Throw] effects work out?
Specifically, I'm curious as how an Attack Roll opposed by an opponent's Reflex Save would pan out.
It seems to me that it would be a relatively balanced 50% success rate, based on who's dedicated to what (as that saves are easy to boost, but so are attack rolls).
Thoughts?

Have you considered playing with rolled AC? Subtract 10 from all Armor Classes, then use a d20 roll in its place. That should have the same feel as a Reflex save. It works out to be roughly the same hit chance on average (10 base AC -> 10.5 average on d20 roll).

[Urpriest]

Mmm. I was more thinking of a singular type attack, a specific monster's special attack or some such, rather than changing out the combat system whole-sale.
Good feedback all the same.

For that sort of thing, I think you'd be better with a Str-based save DC, like most Trample attacks.