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5 years ago ::
May 22, 2008 - 1:18PM
#21
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Date Joined:
Feb 26, 2007
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Maybe I don't understand something. Score a 10 or better and boom, you save. Roll under 10 and you fail, and the effect continues. I get that. Simple. Straightforward.
Now, are there negative modifiers to my die roll? I mean, in the example above, the dwarf will be at +5. So, he only needs to roll a 5 or higher. Can the attacker or source of the poison (in this example) have some modifier that makes it harder (say, a -3 to the saving throw)?
I haven't seen anything around that addresses it, but I have to believe there is some kind of mechanic for making the saving throw more difficult.
Mark
In the KotS adventure they have a nice sidebar about this very thing
pg7
Three Basic Rules:
Simple Rules, Many Exceptions: Every class, race, feat, power, and monster in D&D game breaks the rules in some way........
Specific Beats General: if a specific rule contradicts a general rule, the specific wins....
Always Round Down
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5 years ago ::
May 22, 2008 - 2:22PM
#22
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Date Joined:
Aug 18, 2007
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Maybe I don't understand something. Score a 10 or better and boom, you save. Roll under 10 and you fail, and the effect continues. I get that. Simple. Straightforward.
Now, are there negative modifiers to my die roll? I mean, in the example above, the dwarf will be at +5. So, he only needs to roll a 5 or higher. Can the attacker or source of the poison (in this example) have some modifier that makes it harder (say, a -3 to the saving throw)?
I haven't seen anything around that addresses it, but I have to believe there is some kind of mechanic for making the saving throw more difficult.
Obviously this is little more than guesswork, but I'm going to go with "no, it's 10+ or nothing." I don't really understand the relevance of the sidebar Alyri has quoted (maybe s/he can shed some more light on that), but it seems to me that modifiers will probably be applied to the initial roll to "hit." If the saving throw could be modified at all, it stands to reason that it would first be modified by the relevant ability score modifier.
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5 years ago ::
May 22, 2008 - 8:50PM
#23
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Date Joined:
Jan 15, 2004
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If the saving throw could be modified at all, it stands to reason that it would first be modified by the relevant ability score modifier.
Nup. That already got taken into account in your defense score that the attacker beat.
3.5 had a very few spells that allowed periodic saving throws (eg hold person). They had an interesting effect that if the attacker got "lucky" and beat someone with a good save, then the spell would most likely end the next save anyway. In contrast, the spell would likely last a while against someone with a poor save since they'd be likely to keep failing.
In 4E, they are a duration mechanic, and assume that (in general) you already failed to defend. So, for most characters, saves are unmodified. However, some characters throw off certain effects easily (dwarves and poison, for example), and certain effects may be hard to throw off. It is only those saves that are modified.
The big advantage of 4E saves is that the character at least does something every round, and can in addition be granted additional saves by other PCs. Unlike the aforementioned 3E cause fear; unless someone had exactly the right counter prepped you might as well go read a book for the rest of the encounter.
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5 years ago ::
May 22, 2008 - 10:33PM
#24
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Date Joined:
Feb 26, 2007
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Obviously this is little more than guesswork, but I'm going to go with "no, it's 10+ or nothing." I don't really understand the relevance of the sidebar Alyri has quoted (maybe s/he can shed some more light on that), but it seems to me that modifiers will probably be applied to the initial roll to "hit." If the saving throw could be modified at all, it stands to reason that it would first be modified by the relevant ability score modifier.
Simple.
The general rule is a straight die roll of 10+ saves against ongoing effects
Simple Rules, Many Exceptions: Dwarf racial breaks this rule(with poisons at least)
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5 years ago ::
May 23, 2008 - 6:57AM
#25
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Date Joined:
Aug 18, 2007
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Simple.
The general rule is a straight die roll of 10+ saves against ongoing effects
Simple Rules, Many Exceptions: Dwarf racial breaks this rule(with poisons at least)
The eladrin racial breaks it, as well, with a +5 vs. charm, and they also receive a separate bonus to their Will Defense. Thank you for the clarification and correction!
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5 years ago ::
May 23, 2008 - 9:54AM
#26
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Date Joined:
Aug 11, 2003
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Yep, the new saving throws are a duration mechanic. As it was with 3.5, it is independent from:
- the victim's level;
- the victim's ability scores.
In 3.5 though, effect durations were very often dependent on the character level of the source of the effect (i.e. 1d8+1/level rounds, etc.). As far as offensive effects are concerned, I'm not sure it was a good idea. In 4e, effect durations, instead of being uniformly distributed, follow a geometric distribution. The average duration of an effect is thus: (1-p)/p = (1-0.55)/0.55 = 0.818181... rounds. Modifiers to the saving throw affect this average duration as follows: [b]Modif Prob Average (rounds)[/b]
[color=Red]-10 0.05 19.00
-9 0.10 9.00
-8 0.15 5.67
-7 0.20 4.00
-6 0.25 3.00
-5 0.30 2.33
-4 0.35 1.86
-3 0.40 1.50
-2 0.45 1.22
-1 0.50 1.00[/color]
[b]0 0.55 0.82[/b]
[color=Green]+1 0.60 0.67
+2 0.65 0.54
+3 0.70 0.43
+4 0.75 0.33
+5 0.80 0.25
+6 0.85 0.18
+7 0.90 0.11
+8 0.95 0.05
+9 1.00 0.00[/color] As you can see:
- Modifiers do not affect the durations proportionally;
- Penalties have more influence than bonuses.
I would not mess around too much with modifiers for the saving throw. Too high and it becomes irrelevant. Too low, and the effect become virtually permanent, as far as encounters are concerned. I hope there is a stacking rule (worst penalty only + best bonus only). A few things to note about this kind of random distribution:
- Theoretically, an effect might never end, though the probability of this is negligible. An effect might last the whole encounter, however;
- Your chance of making the save this round is not better if you have been failing it for many rounds before. You are never "due" to make it (see: Gambler's Fallacy). This can frustrate some players;
- For this reason, if the average duration of an effect is indicated as 0.82 rounds and you have already been affected for 5 rounds, on average, you will be affected for... 0.82 more rounds.
I like this system as it is less bookeeping for the DM. And the people affected don't forget to make their roll because they have a motivation to do it, whereas they might "forget" to keep track of determined durations.
Sebby
"I'm a bonster. Rawr!"
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5 years ago ::
May 23, 2008 - 11:22PM
#27
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Thanks for the math Sebby. After some crude calculation on Excel, it seems that spell durations would be rather short. Using the standard 55% chance of save success, the probability of a duration ending on or before X round is:
X Prob
1 .55
2 .7975
3 .9089
4 .959
5 .9815
6 .9917
4/5 of the time, a spells ends on or before the second round and 9/10 of the time, on or before the third round. Most spells would not go beyond 5 or 6 rounds. Compared to 3.5, spells durations seem really short.
I wonder if saving throw penalties would be common or rare in 4.0. While 4.0 is moving away from spells that take out a participant for the entire fight, it seems that spells that requires saving throws might not be a very option if the enemy can shrug off most spells in 3 or less rounds.
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5 years ago ::
May 23, 2008 - 11:47PM
#28
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A bit more math:
Using Sebby's probability table, I did some futher calculations using -5 penalty and +5 bonus:
For a save with a -5 penalty, the probability of the spell ending on or before X saving throw roll is:
X Prob
1 .3
2 .51
3 .657
4 .7599
5 .8319
6 .8824
7 .9176
For one with +5 bonus:
X Prob
1 .8
2 .96
3 .992
4 .998
So for something with a +5 bonus like an eladrin vs charm, 99% of the time the spell ends on or before the 3 round. Even for a severe penalty of -5, 3/4 of the time a spell would end on or before th 4th round.
What we do know is that combat in 4.0 is geared towards longer battles with most participants having higher hp and lower damage. So it seems that if most debuffs work off saving throws, then debuffs would most likely not last the entire battle.
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