The Case For A Unified Saving Throw

The whole argument is that it's less annoying to deal with in real life, but let me explain myself real quick.

I do like the original saving throw system, I really do. They feel classic, and they fit a lot of what I would call the “dungeoneering saves,” and that’s pretty sick. But mainly they don’t always make sense. For the player. I’m doing this for the players, and for two types of players: new players, and new school players.

Art by Jason Glover

For the new players, the saves make sense when you explain them in detail. But it does take explanation, and sometimes convincing. Here’s a realistic complaint from a new player: “Why does my Thief suck at dodging wands if I have really high dexterity?” It simple doesn’t make sense in all cases. And a thief has a less than 50% chance of saving against wands until level 9.

For the new school players (i.e. 5e players) this situation is even worse. In my experience, they tend to feel completely lost when they see the saving throws, and only the more open-minded players take to it easily. I want to assuage their reluctance while not giving in to the new ways of doing things.

But we don’t want to handle saves the way 5e does

Why would we handle saves like 5e? We wouldn’t. First, setting a save DC is against OSR ethos because it allows the GM to play soft or hard ball with the players, and we should always avoid that. The GM needs to remain impartial as often as possible. Next, simply rolling horrible stats shouldn’t doom a character. If I rolled a bunch of 8s, it shouldn’t be a “sucks to suck” situation. Don’t get me wrong, it should suck a bit, but not that much.

By virtue of being the class and level that you are, you should have a reasonable chance of saving against certain things. Maybe your Ability modifiers (which, by the way, are much less impactful in B/X than in 5e) should have an effect, but should not be the end of the road.

Social situations

Sure, the paralysis saving throw can resolve some social situations, and the NPC reaction roll can resolve the rest. But maybe you want a bit more granularity. Maybe you want someone to roll a wisdom save to verify a bit of lore, or a charisma save to see how intimidating a certain conversation might be (you’d have the player roll this before the roleplaying part happens.)

Enter the Unified Saving Throw

I did this somewhat lazily, but I like the result. I adveraged the saves at a given level, and made that the saving throw value. The resulting values seem fair, so I have kept them. My primary concern here was maintaining the idea that caharacters get more competent at saving in general as they level. Both through experience with certain situations, and their own ability to handle circumstances as they come. However, this is something I am more than willing to take feedback on to improve.

Combining Ability Scores

Some situations might call for combining ability score modifiers. A quick example off the top of my head: A dragon breathes fire at the party so your first thought is to have them make a DEX save. However, they aren’t very close to the dragon. Maybe this is something that the tougher characters would be able to withstand to a greater degree. So the GM decides to use a DEX + CON save. Now, both the ability to move away from the fire AND the ability to endure the heat are both accounted for.

Saves can be used as a Pseudo-Skill system

In the OSR we hate skill systems, but sometimes you want to have a character check for something. Simply rolling under an ability may not always be the best choice. Because saving throws progress with character level, a saving throw + ability modifier can sometimes be more appropriate than a regular ability check.

This also has the benefit of being more GM-facing than any sort of skill system can be. You don’t have to tell the players what the check is for, or even tell them what ability score to add to the save. And they don’t have to come into your game knowing that it is something you may do. This has the benefit of allowing you to resolve uncertain situations without limiting player creativity.

My biggest apprehensions when making this choice

I was a little anxious when making this choice, for two reason:

1. It’s a bit of a sacred cow. However, I have been sacrificing sacred cows on this blog for a little while, and this was one that kept mooing in the back of my mind.

2. Some classes are meant to progress in certain saves than others. This is largely resolved by adding ability modifiers. However, it does penalize the players who decide to run a character with less than ideal ability stats (and those are often some of the best players). To me, this would simply add to verisimilitude. Yes, you may not be as good at the save as you could be, but you are still getting better with time.