Saturday 17 October 2020

Radical hACKs: Alternate Saving Throws

Early on I had a lot of players cross checking multiple charts to get the right saving throw. On perusing the forums, I came across a post around unified saving throws and I was hooked on this house rule. This rule greatly simplifies the saving throws by having a single progression and a modifier for class. Each class starts level one at a specified level then advances using their normal progression rate for saves. Having ultimately come to ACKs from Castles & Crusades (ACKs did fighters better, but it's still a great game), I also merged it a little with ability modifiers. 

Here, I draw on the alignment to abilities optional rule in the Rules Cyclopedia (p.266). This is similar to the alignment to abilities in Castles and Crusades and as adopted to a more extreme degree in 5th edition (the whole game sort of revolves around it). I don't use the other modifiers in the original post, here fate points act as a balancer for those pesky death saves so I don't feel the need to add further modifiers.

In play, I have found this is much simpler for me to explain and quickly crosscheck with a simple table (at the bottom). It also greatly simplifies my monster saves behind the screen. Overall, this helps improve the flow of the games and gives a single clear base save for players to track.

The original source post is here: Autarc Forums - unified saving throws

Unified Saving throws

To determine a saving throw add: 
Base Save + Class bonus + Ability modifier + Other modifiers

Base saving throw and progression (table below):

Fighter: 15+, advance by two points every three levels of experience
Thief: 14+, advance by two points every four levels of experience
Divine/Eldritch: 13+, advance by two points every four levels of experience
Arcane: 13+, advance by two points every six levels of experience 

Modified by attribute modifier:

Strength: Save vs Petrification & Paralysis
Intelligence: Save vs Staff & Wands
Wisdom: Save vs Spells
Dexterity: Save vs Blast & Breath
Constitution: Save vs Poison & Death

Charisma doesn’t align to a save, though i was tempted to follow Castles and Crusades method (you could easily do this). The charisma modifier applies to a lot of other aspects of the game including henchman moral and reaction rolls, so I felt comfortable in not aligning it to a save.

Finally, each class gets a bonus save for which they receive a +2 bonus (reducing the save). Class bonuses are listed below.  For classes not listed, first check the primes as it should generally be aligned with that. This can be adjusted when the class is created for different flavour at judges discretion. Below are the classes I have had to use in my game.

Class bonuses are:

Fighter bonus to Petrification & Paralysis
Thief bonus to Blast & Breath
Cleric bonus to Poison & Death 
Mages (Spellweaver) bonus to Staff & Wands
Barbarian bonus to Petrification & Paralysis
Scouts bonus to Blast & Breath
Assassin bonus to Blast & Breath
Mechanists bonus Staff & Wands
Bugfolk Dredger bonus to Blast & Breath
Bugfolk Ovate bonus to Staff & Wands
Bugfolk Scavenger bonus to Staff & Wands
Endjinn Electrum Gendarme bonus to Petrification & Paralysis
Endjinn Gnomium Loremaster bonus to Spells

Base saving throw

Level

Fighter

Thief

Divine/Eldritch

Arcane

1

15+

14+

13+

13+

2

14+

14+

13+

13+

3

14+

13+

12+

13+

4

13+

13+

12+

12+

5

12+

12+

11+

12+

6

12+

12+

11+

12+

7

11+

11+

10+

11+

8

10+

11+

10+

11+

9

10+

10+

9+

11+

10

9+

10+

9+

10+

11

8+

9+

8+

10+

12

8+

9+

8+

10+

13

7+

8+

7+

9+

14

6+

8+

7+

9+


2 comments:

  1. Looks pretty reasonable. I'm not a big fan of applying ability score modifiers to saves, since it makes low stats a lot more punitive, but I think that's about the only thing I'd change.

    Where is the scout class from?

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    Replies
    1. Thanks, the Scout class is from the blog in October last year. It has proven to be popular at my table. The synergy "fix" really helped.

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