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View Full Version : Saving Throws in various editions of D&D



Talakeal
2015-02-26, 06:27 PM
In my opinion saving throws are something that D&D had never really done "right".

This is my general impression of how saving throws worked in the various editions of D&D:

In AD&D saving throws scaled a lot with level. At low levels they were hard to make, but the consequences of failure were not so severe. At high levels saves were easy to make but failure had dire consequences.

In 3.X saving throws mostly kept pace with the difficulty, but the consequences still scaled. This led to caster supremacy at high levels, but it really came down to character optimization as anyone could shoot their saves or the DCs they imposed into the stratosphere with minimal effort.

In 4E saving throws (or passive defenses) more or less kept pace. You always had a fairly high chance to succeed or fail, but the consequences were seldom that bad.

In 5E saving throws are similar to 4E in that there is almost always a reasonable chance of success or failure, although it is a bit harder to cover all your bases and you are guaranteed to have a few bad saves. The consequences for a failed save are not quite as bad as in AD&D-3.X, but still worse than 4E, a single failed save can easily lead to a character's death or defeat.


Which edition do you prefer? How is my analysis off? How could the saving throw system of various editions be improved? Please let me know what you think!




IMO I like the AD&D system the best, although the 3.X version is much cleaner (Fort/Ref/Will is so straightforward compared to the others) and allows a little customization with feats. One thing that I have implemented in my house rules that no published edition has ever done is allow a caster to increase a saving throw's difficulty by raising a spell's level. So, for example, low level spell cast in a high level slot has a much higher save DC than a spell that is naturally that level, but the consequences for failure are much less severe. So you can either go for a risky spell that is likely to be resisted but will end the fight if it isn't or cast a reliable spell with a more moderate effect.

ewoods
2015-02-26, 06:57 PM
One thing that I have implemented in my house rules that no published edition has ever done is allow a caster to increase a saving throw's difficulty by raising a spell's level. So, for example, low level spell cast in a high level slot has a much higher save DC than a spell that is naturally that level, but the consequences for failure are much less severe. So you can either go for a risky spell that is likely to be resisted but will end the fight if it isn't or cast a reliable spell with a more moderate effect.

You're basically describing the "Heighten Spell" feat in 3.5. You take the feat and you can then cast a lower level spell at a higher effective level, which increases the DC. So you've been giving your spellcasters a free feat.

Talakeal
2015-02-26, 07:02 PM
You're basically describing the "Heighten Spell" feat in 3.5. You take the feat and you can then cast a lower level spell at a higher effective level, which increases the DC. So you've been giving your spellcasters a free feat.

Heighten spell just brings it up to what a spell of that level would normally be, I basically double the effect.

So, for example, if a level one spell is DC 11 and a level 5 spell is DC 15, a level 1 spell in a level 5 slot is DC 19. The consequences though, are still only those of a first level spell, so rather than dying outright like you would to a true level 5 spell you are instead only stunned for a round.

Note that I don't do this in a vacuum, otherwise that would make 3.X casters even stronger than they already are.

Thrudd
2015-02-26, 07:07 PM
In AD&D, saving throws were entirely level/class based. Difficulties did not vary according to level of the caster or monster. If a spell allows a save, it will almost definitely affect low level creatures/characters and will have little chance of affecting high level creatures/characters, no matter what the level of the caster or creature.

Rarely, you will see an ability or spell that says that creatures get a penalty or bonus on their save, and it is always the prerogative of the DM to give bonuses or penalties on rolls if it seems appropriate.

Darth Ultron
2015-02-26, 09:27 PM
In AD&D saving throws scaled a lot with level. At low levels they were hard to make, but the consequences of failure were not so severe. At high levels saves were easy to make but failure had dire consequences.

Not exactly. 0/1/2E were full of save or die effects. Starting at level 1. For example, lots of monsters that had poison like snakes were deadly. One bite, one failed save....your character died.

Other then some limited magic, save were static. You could only increase them by going up levels.



In 3.X saving throws mostly kept pace with the difficulty, but the consequences still scaled. This led to caster supremacy at high levels, but it really came down to character optimization as anyone could shoot their saves or the DCs they imposed into the stratosphere with minimal effort.

3X started the whole build idea, where you could not stack bonuses to get high saving throws. And eliminated save or die effects. And really watered down things saved for to like you take a tiny bit of damage or small effect.

Talakeal
2015-02-26, 09:45 PM
3X started the whole build idea, where you could not stack bonuses to get high saving throws. And eliminated save or die effects. And really watered down things saved for to like you take a tiny bit of damage or small effect.

3X eliminated save or die effects? How do you figure?

Frozen_Feet
2015-02-26, 09:46 PM
I like early D&D more, because there are less things making the saves harder, so your character actually becomes better at avoiding bad stuff as they increase in level.

In 3.x., offense outstrips defense to a point it's not funny. Well, at least until you start playing the grand wizard game, at which point people become unkillable and unfindable.

The core principle behind saving throws, as explained in AD&D, is that some bad things by all rights should happen to a character, but because they're heroes, there should also be a chance for them to survive. Neither outcome should be completely written in stone. I think all editions keep the auto-fail on 1s and successes on 20s because of this.

Valameer
2015-02-26, 09:58 PM
TSR D&D saving throws worked the best for me, mechanically. But Fort/Ref/Will is a cleaner breakdown than the old categories.

In my ideal version of D&D, saving throws might always be vs. DC 20, and slowly scale up from about +8 to about +18. Mechanically it works out similar to older editions of D&D, but it would look like the new style of Fort +10, Ref +8, Will +9.

veti
2015-02-26, 10:10 PM
I like early D&D more, because there are less things making the saves harder, so your character actually becomes better at avoiding bad stuff as they increase in level.

Yeabut, the flip side of that is that at high levels, spells that allow saving throws - i.e. practically all the directly targeted ones that are more interesting than "here, have some damage" - become pretty much useless.

I don't think there is a good answer. Particularly if you think that "having a significant chance of the PC dying" is a bad thing.

Frozen_Feet
2015-02-26, 10:20 PM
Yeabut, the flip side of that is that at high levels, spells that allow saving throws - i.e. practically all the directly targeted ones that are more interesting than "here, have some damage" - become pretty much useless.

The trick is that you're not supposed to use them against other high-level characters. If 5th Edition got anything right, it's the idea that low-level characters should still be able to threaten higher-level ones, creating incentive to use abilities on them. I don't know how well the system pans out in practice, but the idea is there.

BWR
2015-02-27, 03:35 AM
While the 0-2e STs had their good sides (characters becoming almost immune to anything requiring a save after a while, for instance) I prefer 3e's version. Keeping some things difficult even for high-level characters is kind of fun. This is of course just another element in making 3.x very powerful compared to the other systems, but it's one I like.

Kurald Galain
2015-02-27, 05:01 AM
This is my general impression of how saving throws worked in the various editions of D&D:

Ok, let's put some numbers out there.


In 2E at level 1, you'll save about 35% of the time, which of course varies by class.
In 2E at level 10, you'll save about 55% based on class, +10% for items for a total of 65%.
In 2E at level 20, you'll save about 75% based on class, +20% for items for a total of 95%.



In 3E at level 1, save DCs are about 14 and bonuses for a strong save are about +2 (class), +1 (ability) , so you'll save about 50% of the time.
In 3E at level 10, save DCs are about 20 and bonuses for a strong save are about +7 (class), +3 (ability), +2 (item), so you'll save about 65% of the time.
In 3E at level 20, save DCs are about 26 and bonuses for a strong save are about +12 (class), +4 (ability), +6 (item), so you'll save about 85% of the time.
In 3E at level 1, save DCs are about 14 and bonuses for a weak save are about +1 so you'll save about 40% of the time.
In 3E at level 10, save DCs are about 20 and bonuses for a weak save are about +3 (class), +2 (ability), +2 (item), so you'll save about 40% of the time.
In 3E at level 20, save DCs are about 26 and bonuses for a weak save are about +6 (class), +3 (ability), +6 (item), so you'll save about 40% of the time.
This being 3E, there are a lot of ways this can be optimized; both the DC and the save mod can be substantially higher.



In 5E at level 1, save DCs are about 14 and bonuses for a strong save are about +2 (class), +1 (ability), so you'll save about 50% of the time.
In 5E at level 10, save DCs are about 17 and bonuses for a strong save are about +4 (class), +2 (ability), so you'll save about 50% of the time.
In 5E at level 20, save DCs are about 19 and bonuses for a strong save are about +6 (class), +3 (ability), +1 (item), so you'll save about 60% of the time.
In 5E at level 1, save DCs are about 14 and bonuses for a weak save are about +0, so you'll save about 35% of the time.
In 5E at level 10, save DCs are about 17 and bonuses for a weak save are about +0, so you'll save about 20% of the time.
In 5E at level 20, save DCs are about 19 and bonuses for a weak save are about +1, so you'll save about 15% of the time.


So the pattern is that in 2E, your odds for all saves go up by level, to the point where you almost always pass them. In 3E, the odds for your strong saves go up (and most classes have two strong saves out of three) and odds for your weak saves stay constant at about 50-50. In 5E, the odds your strong saves stay constant at about 50-50 (and most classes have one strong save out of three), and your weak saves go down to the point where you almost always fail them.

Arbane
2015-02-27, 05:17 AM
It's worth noting that in AD&D, high-level Fighters had the best saves against EVERYTHING except save vs. Spells, and Magic-Users just barely beat them at that.

Why 3rd decided they needed 2 bad saves, I dunno.

Talakeal
2015-02-27, 01:28 PM
Not exactly. 0/1/2E were full of save or die effects. Starting at level 1. For example, lots of monsters that had poison like snakes were deadly. One bite, one failed save....your character died.

Other then some limited magic, save were static. You could only increase them by going up levels.



3X started the whole build idea, where you could not stack bonuses to get high saving throws. And eliminated save or die effects. And really watered down things saved for to like you take a tiny bit of damage or small effect.

I suppose you are right that there are plenty of low level challenges with save or die effects. I was more thinking about player caused saving throws such as spells or class abilities though, which tend to save the really nasty stuff for high levels even in AD&D.

Darth Ultron
2015-02-27, 02:03 PM
3X eliminated save or die effects? How do you figure?

2e: A snake bites a character. The player must roll higher then 16 or the character dies.

3E: A snake bites a character. The player must roll higher then 14 or the character will take 1d2 damage to dexterity.

2E: spells like Disintegration are make the save or the character dies.

3E Disintegration does not have a save for creatures. It just does damage.

I lot of spells had the save or die effect removed.

Almarck
2015-02-27, 02:15 PM
Mathmatical evidence on saving throws

Wow, that's pretty neat. What's your opinion on what those numbers mean? I'd feel a little insecure about being a weak save character myself in 5e.

Anyways, I do feel some of the OP's concern, though not exactly the same way. One thing I wish D&D3.5 had was "average" saves, a midground between good or bad or maybe a lower "bad saves". The idea was that I felt that the game probably would be better balanced if purely martial classes had no "bad" saves just good and normal stuff while magical classes had only one good one, rest bad.

Probably not as effective or as good as I think it is, but hey, it's something I always wondered. We had Good, average, and low BAB, why not saves?

1337 b4k4
2015-02-27, 04:58 PM
So the pattern is that in 2E, your odds for all saves go up by level, to the point where you almost always pass them. In 3E, the odds for your strong saves go up (and most classes have two strong saves out of three) and odds for your weak saves stay constant at about 50-50. In 5E, the odds your strong saves stay constant at about 50-50 (and most classes have one strong save out of three), and your weak saves go down to the point where you almost always fail them.

Another important thing to keep in mind is that in 2e and earlier, your saves were vs a static save value rather than vs some target number. You have the same change of saving vs a level 1 spell as vs a level 10 spell. Since 3e, saves were targeted against a DC based on what you were saving against, so the increase in save ability (or decrease) is a matter of two numbers moving at different rates. In 3e, you still get better at your weak saves, it's just the things you're saving against get better at the same rate. Same with 5e, you don't actually get worse at your weak saves, but the things you're saving against get stronger.

Personally, I've always been a bigger fan of pre-3e saves. Sure the categories were somewhat arbitrary, but it was nice to not have your saves tied directly to your stats.

Khedrac
2015-02-28, 02:45 AM
3E Disintegration does not have a save for creatures. It just does damage.
Wrong - Disintegration in 3.X is either take twice as much damage as a "normal" damage spell of that level or Save for "sorry, was that supposed to be damage". While both results are damage, there is still a save.

Also, if people like/dislike the AD&D save tables, BECMI used the same principle but continued the tables up to all the human classes making all saves on a 2 at 36th level (Demi-human classes stopped short as their levels stopped short).
This actually becomes a bigger problem when using the Weapon Mastery rules where some weapons had the "deflect" ability at higher skill levels - the ability to deflect (i.e. parry) melee weapon attacks (which went up to 4/round for Grand Master skill with a Staff). The roll to see if you "deflect" is a save (though I don't recall which - Death Magic?) This made a high level wizard nearly un-hitable in melee to a swordsman, but still squishy to something with claws and teeth.

Kurald Galain
2015-02-28, 06:29 AM
Wow, that's pretty neat. What's your opinion on what those numbers mean? I'd feel a little insecure about being a weak save character myself in 5e.

What I find interesting is the contrast between 3E's mindset of "if you build your character for it, you'll usually succeed" (with normal saves being 75%/75%/40%, and those numbers go up against low level spells or with a bit of opimitzation) versus 5E's mindset of "if the DM lets you roll for something, you'll usually fail" (with normal saves being 50%/20%/20%). Actually it wouldn't surprise me at all if we got a quick errata for the latter.