Make a Saving Throw

[thwill]

My group has been playing C&C for about month and one of my players brought up a good point that making a saving throw is much more difficult in C&C than (A)D&D and also scales completely differently.

e.g.

Consider a saving throw being made by a 3rd level Fighter against a Hold Person spell being cast by a 3rd level cleric:

* In C&C if WIS is not a prime and the Fighter has WIS 9-12 then they are going to need to roll a 21 on d20+3, which is a 15% probability.

* In D&D that same Fighter is going to need a 16 on d20, which is a 25% probability.

Now assume that our Fighter gets to 10th level and faces up against a Hold Person being cast by a 10th level cleric. Also assume that the Fighter hasn't picked up a ring of protection of other item giving a saving throw bonus:

* In C&C the Fighter needs to roll a 28 on d20+10, which is still a 15% probability.

* In D&D the Fighter needs to roll a 10 on d20, which is a 55% probability.

Does anyone have any comments?

Have I misinterpreted the C&C rules?

Thanks,

Tom

[serleran]

Yeah, the "problem" is that the level of difficulty is not always going to be static and equal. It also allows high-level characters to be taken down by low-level ones, and keeps magic (and other things) truly powerful.

However, if you feel it is "too hard" there are countless ways of resolving it - use the spell level instead of caster level, for example. Use the AD&D charts, if you want. Use flat scores that are unrelated - like: all fighters need a 15 to save against spells, regardless. Use d20-style saves. Doesn't really matter, but the way it works is how it was intended to work.

[Wulfgarn]

That is my biggest gripe against C&C - the saves are overly brutal.....

[slimykuotoan]

I like the fact that certain character types are good in certain situations, while others are not.

Makes for a party that needs a variety of classes/primes to make it effective, instead of one guy who's awesome at everything.

"I can't fight mages!!!" or "Spiders!? That means poison...screw that!"

[gideon_thorne]

*chuckles* The save/siege system is fine, trying to make both sides of the equation equal is the trouble.

One fighter vs one spell caster of equal level is generally an exception. As well, two same level characters are not always equal. Naturally, a spell caster is more likely to be able to tackle a single opponent. They have area effect power that can target at range.

Now, A 10th level party vs a 10th level spell casting villain is more common.

And while the fighter is the focus of the spell caster, the rest of the party, working together, using effective tactics, is most likely going to boot stomp the enemy in question.
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Peter Bradley

[csperkins1970]

thwill wrote:
Does anyone have any comments?

Have I misinterpreted the C&C rules?

Thanks,

Tom

Hey Tom,

I use a 15/10 split in place of the default 18/12 split and find that it works better for me.


A 1st level character (with no ability adjustment) saving against a 1st level arcane spell has a 30% chance of making their save if INT is not a prime, and a 55% chance if the ability is prime.

[serleran]

In my games, I use a base save of 1 and 3. Of course, I also use an inverted d20 system sort of like Alternity.

[Treebore]

I find C&C much better than typical d20. I hated how everyone would save versus spells more than 50% of the time. In high level games it would get into the 80%+ chance of success. C&C does a much better job of keeping spell casters dangerous.

In C&C I can use 5th level casters against 15th level characters and those characters are still going to sweat, especially if its versus a non Prime attribute.

Still, you need to take magic items into account, and how likely spells like Prayer, Protection from Evil, etc... are going to be in use at the time of a given battle. Those can have a HUGE effect on success/failure, and parties who do not make use of them are making a big tactical mistake.

Plus, I do use spell casters much less often because of how deadly they are. Which I also like.
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[DangerDwarf]

I agree with Treebore. In d20, heck even previous editions of D&D I always felt the saves were to easy to make. I like the difficult nature of saves in C&C. It makes spellcasters more formidable. I too keep them rarer to maintain their dangerous mystique.

[Buttmonkey]

thwill wrote:
My group has been playing C&C for about month and one of my players brought up a good point that making a saving throw is much more difficult in C&C than (A)D&D and also scales completely differently.

e.g.

Consider a saving throw being made by a 3rd level Fighter against a Hold Person spell being cast by a 3rd level cleric:

* In C&C if WIS is not a prime and the Fighter has WIS 9-12 then they are going to need to roll a 21 on d20+3, which is a 15% probability.

* In D&D that same Fighter is going to need a 16 on d20, which is a 25% probability.

Now assume that our Fighter gets to 10th level and faces up against a Hold Person being cast by a 10th level cleric. Also assume that the Fighter hasn't picked up a ring of protection of other item giving a saving throw bonus:

* In C&C the Fighter needs to roll a 28 on d20+10, which is still a 15% probability.

* In D&D the Fighter needs to roll a 10 on d20, which is a 55% probability.

Does anyone have any comments?

Have I misinterpreted the C&C rules?

Thanks,

Tom

Your math is good, but a bit uncharitable at low levels. Don't forget that the relevant attribute might be prime for the character. This would bump the chance of success at third level (and 10th level) from 15% to 45%. That compares very favorably to D&D's 25% at third level. So, sure, sometimes the C&C save will be a lot harder, but at least 1/3 of the time (1/2 for humans, 1/3 for demihumans) the relevant attribute will be prime and the PC will have a substantially better chance of success in C&C than in D&D.

This comparison does not hold up at higher levels since the saving throw with prime is still 45% likely at 10th level in your example, but only 15% if the attribute is not prime, compared to a 55% chance of success in D&D.

[seskis281]

My personal reading of the rules indicates just how important CK adjudication of the challenges are... and if run just off the essential base numbers your perspective is right, and saves are far more stressful...

On the other hand, simple adjustments at any given point can alleviate that if you, as CK, so wish to (sometimes use the spell level instead of spell-caster, especially for such things as Hold Person), and the comment above about the single spell-caster vs. party is very important to the concept of C&C -- certainly at 10th level, a fighter with low wisdom is still going to be at greater risk of domination from a spell like that, and would still rely on other members of the party to break such a spell.

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[Matthew]

Generally speaking, I make all saving throws equal to [20 - Level]. A bonus or penalty to the roll might be applied from the relevant attribute, race, class, background, spell, circumstance or whatever.
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[thwill]

Thanks for the responses folks.

One additional comment I will make is that my experience is that a fairly standard D&D encounter involves a party meeting a higher-level magic user. Under such circumstances the STR/DEX/CON primed C&C 'fighter' really is screwed
Anyway after much soul searching (I'm not a fan of house rules that change the basic building blocks of a system) I've decided to go with a 12/16 challenge base split (instead of 12/18). This makes the base saving throw a more generous 25% and also addresses my perception that the 'prime bonus' is too great.

Thanks again, Tom

[Zebulon]

Hum, 12/16 instead of 12/18 sounds perfect to me !

[Foxroe]

thwill wrote:
Anyway after much soul searching (I'm not a fan of house rules that change the basic building blocks of a system) I've decided to go with a 12/16 challenge base split (instead of 12/18). This makes the base saving throw a more generous 25% and also addresses my perception that the 'prime bonus' is too great.

I'm not big into such sweeping rule changes as well, and I like the system as is. However, an idea that I had thought of using once (but never tested), was to get rid of the 12/18 prime/non-prime targets for everything (saves and checks). Instead I would have just used a single target of 15 for all saves/checks. Characters with an applicable prime got to add +3 to the rolls. It's just a muted version of what is already used.

But like I said, I really like the system as is. It forces players to be more tactical and think twice about frontal-assaults on Wizards and their ilk, or else suffer the consequences. Very "Old School".
-Fox

[thwill]

Foxroe

As I'm sure you can see your system would just correspond to a 12/15 challenge base split ... I considered that as well, since '15' seemed like a magic number.

I get the impression that many people's "Old School" experiences seem to have been a great deal more lethal than mine? My friends and I taught ourselves to play from the last red-box D&D about 24 year ago. It leads me to wonder if these "Old School" experiences were all perpetrated by a "select order of bastard DM's" that roamed the lands teaching 1st Edition AD&D?

Tom

[Treebore]

Oh, there were definitely bastard DM's around, but more lethality wasn't a defining element of that. Unlike many I had fun going into Tomb of Horrors and similarly deadly dungeons, etc... It made us feel good to know we played smart and we survived the odds. Yeah, dying sucked, but you don't get the reward without the price.

Like I run Ravenloft very deadly. There are about a dozen people who visit this board who can tell you that. I think those who survived (2 out of the 3 groups actually won!) can tell you that it felt good to win, or survive. Even dying was kind of cool. Deaths were vicious. One can even talk about his character being a statue on the ethereal planes standing at the bottom of one stair way in Castle Ravenloft.

So dying isn't bad as long as you go in knowing the DM is deadly, but fair. Its even less bad if you die cool! I still like talking about my last "cool" PC death, where my cleric is a statue in the garden of a Medusa.
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[Foxroe]

thwill wrote:
As I'm sure you can see your system would just correspond to a 12/15 challenge base split ... I considered that as well, since '15' seemed like a magic number.Tom

This is true. It was just a "shoot from the hip" sort of idea, and not one I'd use. I think the system is fine as is (which is the same as a constant 18 target, and primes get +6 ).

thwill wrote:
I get the impression that many people's "Old School" experiences seem to have been a great deal more lethal than mine? My friends and I taught ourselves to play from the last red-box D&D about 24 year ago. It leads me to wonder if these "Old School" experiences were all perpetrated by a "select order of bastard DM's" that roamed the lands teaching 1st Edition AD&D?

It was never that bad! The DM expected us to understand that characters die sometimes (especially if they did brash/stupid things), and in return the players expected the DM to be fair. That's kind of what I was referring to when I said "Old School"... at least as compared to a more current, mass-marketed, padded for the players' protection, MMORPG.. er, I mean, um... PnP RPG.
-Fox