Saturday Morning Adventure Dev Diaries #8: To Save or Not to Save?

Hey all! In this Saturday Morning Adventure dev diary, I talk about saving throws and their inclusion (or exclusion as the case may be) in SMA.

I've spent enough time browsing D&D subreddits to have seen the idea of removing saving throws brought up a couple times. I do think there's a legitimate argument against saving throws to be made, so I wanted to go through some of the major points for and against them quickly. Though before that, I should probably explain what the main alternative is.

The most common proposal I've seen for replacing saving throws is a set of defence scores, like Armor Class. This is sort of what the Unearthed Arcana: Variant Rules system of "players make all rolls" uses, though they don't specifically refer to defensive scores. So what are the benefits of each system?

Point to Defence Scores: A Defence for Every Attribute is Too Much

Having a separate defence for every attribute in the game usually ends up with some very under-used defences. And this is exactly what happens in D&D 5e. You might have heard some reference to "strong saves" and "weak saves" in 5e. This refers to the idea that Dexterity, Constitution, and Wisdom saves tend to be used fairly often and as such are better, while Strength, Intelligence, and Charisma saves are much less common, and so they are weaker.

Personally, I think having 6 different possible saving throws is just too much really, which leads to some becoming go-to options when it comes to designing abilites while others are largely left alone. You really don't lose much if you just trim off the redundant saves.

Now I know this isn't necessarily a point towards of defencive scores, but if you're designing a system based on defensive scores you can really have as many as you want and calculate them however you like. It would in theory be possible to choose a set of scores that still covers all of the tradtional saving throws but in a smaller set. I'll come back to this later when it comes to designing the system for SMA.

Point to Saves: Die Rolls Indicate Action

By virtue of the core of the mechanics of RPGs, rolling a dice naturally gives some impression that an action is being taken. With regard to saving throws, this can be desirable in giviing the impression that the character rolling is taking some sort of reaction against the effect.

This is particularly noteworthy when you're looking at traps - pitfall trap making an attack roll against you just doesn't feel right to a lot of people. It can really feel more "natural" to have the target rolling to avoid the effect. However, I think it is possible to have this sort of reactionary rolling outside of combat even when using defence scores, which I'll go into later.

Point to Defence Scores: Emphasises Offensive Versatility

When you read an ability description that tells you that the target makes a saving throw of a particular type, its easy to think of that as something that doesn't matter too much even if that's technically false. The basic thought process is "well that's not within my control, so it's not something I can exploit". This doesn't always hold true - I've certainly seen some discussion online about the importance of targeting weak saves where possible. However, I think characters having a list of set defences helps to emphasize the benefits of being able to target an enemy in multiple different ways.

Point to Defence Scores: Can be used for Improvised Actions

If a player improvises a particular action in combat, it can sometimes be difficult to decide exactly how to resolve it. An attack roll? A contested check? A saving throw? But if you design a system wherein there is only one kind of roll that is really used in combat, then it becomes pretty clear how to resolve actions like this. Just pick the most appropriate defence score and roll against it. Simple.

Point to Saving Throws: Determining Ongoing Effects

Saving throws provide a handy way to determine when you overcome an ongoing effect. This is used a lot when it comes to spells in D&D. You'll often see sentences like "At the end of each of its turns, the target can make another saving throw. On a success, the spell ends on the target". And this is certainly a nice option. If you try to resolve this using defencive scores, you end up with whoever initially applied the effect rolling another attack to maintain the effect. Maybe you think that's actually preferable, but it isn't exactly how a lot of players will be used to thinking about ongoing effects. The current system gives the impression that whoever is effected is attempting to take some action to shrug off the effect. As I already said, dice rolls indicate action.

However, I do think that you can probably get around this issue somewhat by designing a new system for resisting effects.

Point to Defence Scores: Consistency of Who's Rolling

Under a defencive scores system, only the character that is currently taking their turn has to worry about rolling the dice. No-one else at the table has to reach for dice and make a roll unexpectedly, the most they have to do is check one of their defencive scores.

In SMA

In SMA, I'm pretty sure I'm going to go for a system based on defencive scores rather than using saving throws. I think a lot of the drawbacks of defensive scores can be avoided by designing the system well, and it fits in with my intentions for the ability system too. I'm not 100% set yet, but I think I'm going to use four defence scores, with inspiration taken from the defence scores in Open Legend.

1. Guard - Calculated using Agility and Strength, this defence covers anything that can be dodged, deflected, or resisted through physical opposition. Regular attacks, grapples, pushing a target, forcing someone prone, and spells like fireball will all target Guard. In reference to D&D 5e, this score will cover both Strength and Dexterity saving throws.
2. Toughness - Calculated using Endurance and Size, this defence covers anything that directly targets your physical health and survivability. Poison, stunning, sound-based attacks, and spells like circle of death will all target Toughness. In reference to D&D 5e, this score covers Constitution saving throws.
3. Resolve - Calculated using Charisma and Willpower, this defence covers anything that attempts to directly influence your thoughts and emotions. Inducing fear, mind control, and taunting your opponent will all target Resolve. In reference to D&D 5e, this score covers Charisma and most Wisdom saving throws.
4. Judgement - Calculated using Intelligence and Perception, this defence covers anything that attempts to deceive or trick you, and effects that target your mental fortitude. Illusions, stealth attacks, and psychic damage will target Judgement. In reference to D&D 5e, this score covers Intelligence and some Wisdom saving throws.

I'm not totally set on this list yet. Specifically, I'm not sure if Judgement covers quite enough to be worth its own score, so I might just end up folding it into Resolve and basically mimicking the three defences in Open Legend.

As for what I mentioned regarding reacting to traps I am once again citing The Angry GM, specifically their article "Tweaking the Core of D&D 5E". Angry propeses a "Reaction Rule", in which if a player has to react to something happening to their character, they must describe how their character reacts based on what they know. Then, the GM determines how their reaction would play out, and the player rolls for success. I like this system for various reasons: its a bit more interesting than just rolling a saving throw automatically; it lets players actually roleplay a bit more; and it lets you just use the core mechanic of the game - the ability check - for another kind of action resolution.

Well thats all for this time. Not sure what the next dev diary will be, I'm currently halfway through about 5 different topics. So next time will just be a surprise I guess. Whatever it is, I hope to see you then!