Saving Throws and Ability Checks

So now we come to the first major rules revision of my AD&D game. During session 1 I used a number of old-style ability score checks — roll 1d20 and get at or under the ability score — except for one occasion where I asked the druid’s player to make a saving throw using the rough premise that saving throw would be harder, and more appropriate for identifying the Winter Wolf, since it was a rare creature out of season (actually, I rolled on the wrong table, but will rehabilitate my mistake as foreshadowing . . .).

Trouble is, saves and ability checks are really quite different:

• Ability checks don’t advance by level. Saving throws do.
• Saving throws are based on the threat; ability checks concentrate on the “channels” of each ability score.
• Class only affects ability checks as far as it makes certain ability scores desirable, but it’s a big part of saving throws.

I don’t think it would much fun to go the Castles and Crusades route and make all checks a common save/ability check hybrid, or to make saving throws a type of level-dependent skill. It’s a good idea to keep level advancement out of some things. Otherwise you end up with 4e-style situations where at 20th level, the same ice is more slippery than it was at 1st level. Plus, there’s flavour to saving throws. They’re against adventuring threats. They represent how people change in response to them. Do adventurers learn to mutter counter charms against incoming spells. Does a thief spend time building a resistance to iocaine powder?

AD&D1e lacks skills except for proficiencies, and I’d like to keep it this way. Some of the PCs in my game have old trades, and that and class seem to be enough to differentiate them. Since I hacked together an “active save” for a hard question, I’m going to keep that and fold this kind of skill into saving throws. I’ll also generalize them beyond things like “Rod, Staff or Wand” because this has long been done in AD&D.

Lastly, I’m turning everything to do with ability checks or saves into d20+mods rolls with one target number: 20. You roll 20, you succeed.

So:

Ability Checks: Some situations require a character to test his or her innate, general abilities, including any trades or background skills he or she was raised with (such as Secondary Skills detailed in the DMG) instead of abilities acquired while adventuring.  These are situations where the average person has a 50% chance of success — areas where almost anyone can do it, but some people can do a better job than others.

To perform an Ability Check, roll 1d20 and add the appropriate ability score. If the result is 20 or higher, the character succeeds. Ability scores match different situations for checks as follows:

• Strength: Opening a stuck door, throwing a heavy object, climbing with a rope
• Intelligence: Remembering an important detail, knowledge of one’s own home and background
• Wisdom: Picking out details, common sense
• Dexterity: Keeping your footing on a slippery surface, scrambling up an incline quickly, grabbing a thrown or falling object
• Constitution: Working or fighting in noxious conditions, fighting off fatigue
• Charisma: Avoiding gaffes, standing out from the crowd, finding places and situations where one can influence events or get noticed

Saving Throws: Strange and intense adventuring situations call for a saving throw. Adventurers learn to cope with these dangers through training, applied experience and a bit of luck — maybe even divine favour. Saving throws are either passive — they respond to some imposed threat — or active, where the adventurer needs to perform some feat to prevail. The five saving throw categories are:

• Shock and Survive: The character resists poison, death magic or another insult to his or her physiology, or meets basic survival needs in unusual conditions such as dungeons, enchanted wilds or other planes.
• Ray and Reflexes: The character avoids magical rays from rods, staves and wands and other directed assaults. These skills also apply to feats that require speed and precision, such as catching  a thrown dagger.
• Area and Athletic: The character takes cover from explosions, gouts of flame, shaking terrain and other dangers affecting a zone; or performs a feat of full-body athleticism such as sliding down a bannister or leaping over a barrier.
• Deformity and Might: The character resists attempts to twist and transform his physical form, binding it, changing its shape or even altering its composition.  This saving throw is also used to perform incredible feats of raw strength — the sort of things seen among carnival strongmen and true heroes.
• Magic and Lore: The character employs force of will, faith and muttered counterspells to ward off malefic supernatural powers, or jogs his or her insight and memory to recall such obscure facts that matter to adventurers; demonology, inhuman battle tactics and the like.

Base save scores are listed below:

Add +1 to each saving throw score per two levels of experience, rounded down. In addition, add adjustments from the following ability scores at the rate of +1 per point above 15, or -1 per point below 6.

• Strength: Might (active) saving throws
• Intelligence: Lore (active) saving throws and others that rely on character knowledge of the unusual
• Wisdom: All saving throws against mind-affecting attacks
• Dexterity: Area and Athletic saving throws, as well as Reflexes (active) saves
• Constitution: Shock (passive) saving throws

To make a saving throw, roll 1d20 and add your character’s saving throw. A score of 20 or higher succeeds.

Priority of Saving Throws: If you believe an action would follow under more than one saving throws, consider them in the following priority: Shock/Survive, Deformity/Might, Area/Athletic, Ray/Reflexes, Magic/Lore. Therefore, a character fighting off magically created poison makes a Shock save, not a Magic save.

Save or Ability Check?

An ability check is called on whenever a 0-level character should be on an even footing with an adventurer. This usually  applies to non-adventuring trades and the basic athletic, social and intellectual tasks performed by entire tiers of society.

Saving throws specifically address those talents that adventurers pick up in their quests: tactics, disciplines, protective gestures, even primitive charms to bend the will of the gods. If the average person would almost never encounter such a situation, it calls for a saving throw. 0-level characters who stumble into these situations use base saving throws of 3 in all categories. Thus, saving throws also apply in situations that are inherently more difficult than the quotidian challenges covered by ability checks.