I was wrong about saving throws

this video is sponsored by hitpoint press and the fablemaker's animated tarot there's a link down below i'm making a response video to xp to level three about seven months ago we uploaded a video called saving throws or dumb and i had a few things to say about it i want to challenge the idea that jacob presented in this video see for the most part jacob was trying to state okay this is a dumb bit i thought i could do it the whole video and i can't that's stupid i have a baby right now i am recording this may third we're gonna watch my saving throws or dumb video which in case you don't know is a video that i made about half a year ago where i talk about why i don't like saving throws and it mostly just boils down to the fact that sometimes evasion is annoying because a character can backflip out of a fireball and i go on to describe how monsters having the ability to telegraph or just removing saving throws altogether would be fun or the really ingenious idea of giving players points that they can spend in order to not get hit by something would create an illusion of choice which i think would be better than just rolling a dice yeah it's month later jacob i forgot to provide context anyways let's read some comments jacob now saving throws are dumb jacob in a month initiative is dub jacob by the end of the year dice are dumb yeah i mean that was kind of the trend which is why i stopped making these videos i feel like it'd be kind of cool and fun for some of the spells if it was a spellcaster ability modifier versus the target's wisdom score that's that's a saving throw right there just reflavored to be armor class i i'm gonna re-examine that i don't know what i was trying to say um i know this was only like seven months ago but i definitely have different views and opinions on this now i'm pretty sure i had just run a game and i was upset that somebody just like had evasion like or something this video should be called jacob is dumb okay here we go howdy gamers it's your angry d d floor goblin here to tell you why i don't like saving throws you know the things you roll when you nearly fall off a cliff or when a spell tries to muddle your mind or when a ghost tries to possess you yeah hold on to your charisma cause it's gonna get weird it's funny because uh charisma is what you use to save against a ghost i don't wanna be divisive today okay subversive jacob is gone i am now predictable jacob being able to backflip out of a fireball is dumb and i'm gonna explain why i still think that but we'll get to the end of the video okay so i went to twitter to ask you guys about what you thought about saving throws and the main consensus i gathered was about two different opinions one being i like saving throws i just wish the other abilities were used more often that's because wisdom and dex are used a lot more than the other at the time of making this video i was a little fatigued of 5th edition in our tomb of annihilation game the party fought a red dragon at the bottom of a mine in chult colton's character ira who is a bard rogue had evasion and when the dragon did their breath weapon because i was just trying to challenge these like 8th or 9th level characters his characters took no damage and i was like that's so lame and so boring and i i was upset by that i think that's where my frustration was stemming from now that we have all of that context out of the way let's continue like them why aren't they just ability checks please bring back fortitude reflex and will yeah and then our squeeze said if you like them then you probably pee with your pants down at the urinal and i would have to agree with him i think saving throws on the text of a reactive ability is fine like when you touch a hot stove and you instinctively pull your hand back in reaction it's like instincts that's kind of what saving throws are yeah or when the doctor hits your knee with a hammer and your leg goes whoop that's kind of like a deck save because it's like reflexes the idea behind these abilities is fine i think it makes perfect sense but just because something makes sense in the game doesn't mean it has to exist okay okay this is where like my my argument gets convoluted what i'm trying to say is that that comes off so dumb just because we think it should be in the game for to seem realistic doesn't mean it has to be represented in the game and i don't know why that's my argument because there's a number of things that aren't represented in the game and i think i then use that as my counterpoint to be like well we don't go to the bathroom so that's not in the game so that we don't need to have reflexes and it's like that's that's obviously not the point but i don't i don't know why i make that a point we don't narrate when our characters go to the bathroom because it's simply assumed and going to sleep for eight hours or four if you are of elven descent closes open wounds yeah we're already willing to suspend our disbelief for this game so i don't agree with the argument that saving throws are a necessity it can change like anything in d i don't think that when d d was being designed they were like hey we should have a mechanic for reflexes no i think that it was more of hmm there should be a way that you can take less damage from a fireball and the answer was saving throws i don't know why i decided for this to be my like opening statement i should have just started with isn't it dumb when the rogue has evasion and takes no damage from a fireball let's find ways to fix that i i should have been trying to argue that the concept of a saving throw is stupid i think you need a balance of is this realistic or is this fun just because something is wholly realistic doesn't mean it needs to be in your game yeah and the same goes for fun and fun is completely relative to you your friends and your group and whoever's playing in your game so if you don't think that what i'm about to say is fun then you can just feel free to call me a dummy dum dum in the comments that is the most overused argument in d d now and i refuse to make it anymore obviously you can do whatever you want in your games this is me trying to dodge criticism but in my opinion saving throws make for a really lame narrative and undermine player actions and agency as a whole i find i should have opened with that the video could have started 30 minutes earlier i didn't need to explain all of this d extremely fun when we get to make decisions that can change or affect the outcome of the game and the more dangerous and riskier those decisions the better i still feel this way but this is also in part like what i said earlier due to the fact that at the time i was having some 5e fatigue 5th edition d d is a very streamlined system meant to make rpgs much easier and more accessible for people to play and so i think at the time what my issue with the system was is that i wanted more i wanted to challenge my players further at the higher levels i wanted to to make the game even harder than it was and that's the thing about 5th edition i i still think that 5e bass on its own has um an issue with the higher level play i think that it's it's way more in the player's favor players steamroll encounters it's very difficult to write games above 15th level and a lot of that is alleviated by breaking the rules which is kind of why i made this video was to kind of show how to actually make encounters above 10th level is when the dm sort of cracks and is like oh i can make this encounter whatever i want and then actually start challenging the players and that's exactly what you have to do there are better ways to sort of challenge your players and break the rules and be outside the box rather than just trying to remove a saving throw which is a core mechanic of the game and the more dangerous and riskier those decisions the better yes i i like when players make decisions i like my games to be challenging but i don't want to tpk them i like difficult enemies in combat because they make everybody think about all of their abilities their movement and who they're going to help or hurt i like high stakes any character can make a decision that will have rippling effects that will change the game i like cursed magic items i could have a plus two to ac but at what cost i just really like give and take the player gets and the player takes and thus the dm gives and takes and it's a relationship where both are having fun because the dm is a player too and the dm should also be having fun i am not a fan of wishy-washy games with invincible player characters and no sense of urgency that that's me just saying i don't know how to dm above 10th level as of recently once he has done a really good job to to fix this to alleviate this especially with fispin's treasury of dragons and with mythic odysseys of theros i think the mythic actions are so cool making a monster mythic and effectively it has two health bars and it gets stronger the more you beat it it's one of the easiest and best ways to make high-level d d really interesting and really fun but if you do then you just have a darn time with that but hey if you want to play stardew valley d and d then go for it it's just not my cup of tea what are you doing here so you know there is urgency in stardew valley right like there is yeah you have to farm your crops and have them ready by the end of the season get up you gotta upgrade the community center for the people of the town you know and some some people like to challenge themselves she just i asked her to be in the video and just asked her to come down and talk to me about things in stardew valley that have urgency and uh she just did all that good job you and your 700 hours in stardew valley my wife is addicted to stardew valley it's not even funny soon do it in the first year and like maybe even get married to your favorite villager but there's no like sense of danger in stardew valley there's the mines which you need to get into and fight off creatures too but the creatures aren't like that difficult yes they are okay but there's no negative for you dying is there yes there is you have to pay a fee to harvey because if you die in the mines you get pretty hurt there's urgency everywhere the form of player sport especially a competitive one played according to the rules decided by skill strength or luck i don't know what i was trying to prove then but um i just found the definition of game was i trying to say that saving throws make d d less of a game okay maybe maybe you just need urgency and uh risk to uh play a good game yes yes the point of that segment was to say saving throws make the game less of a game i don't know about that one jacob okay going back to saving throws saving throws take away from player agency because when a dragon breathes its fire breath onto me i don't get to make a conscious decision i'm just forced into whether i want to dodge or not cool we got to the point six and a half minutes into the video jacob that's a decision the choice on whether to dodge or not is a choice uh how do you guys stand me i'm so sorry god what i'm effectively trying to say is that you don't get a choice in the matter of what happens when you get hit with a fireball you just either take the damage or you try to not take the damage and sometimes if you are a monk or rogue above the seventh level you can take none damage from that attack what if you wanted to surprise your players with something that's happening in the game but you know you can't do that unless you give them a choice ahead of time like you can't just sn you can't secretly have a wizard secretly cast fireball on the players because they should be able to they would just all take damage and die and that would be really lame which you know irks me because saving throws force you into this decision and also make no sense if a dragon has been smart enough to corner a character and breathe fire onto them they could just magically not take any of the damage jacob this is the same game where um dragons exist choosing to play a rogue maybe with the intention to get evasion is a choice i got to choose to take evasion so that when i get hit with a breath weapon i take no damage there's no difference in somebody choosing to play a goliath character or a tiefling character and have resistance to fire damage or resistance to cold damage or a wizard taking counter spell so that when another wizard casts fireball on them they choose to use a spell slot and a reaction to make that fireball go away i like that i also started this video talking about having realistic things in the game is stupid we need to suspend our disbelief a little more because saving throws are ruining our fantasy and then right here i say this is unrealistic ah man i have to suspend my disbelief a little too much for for this whenever i roll a saving throw i feel like a baby and my my widow hand is being held through the game like okay jacob the intellect devourer is going to take your brain and i'm like oh no can i have one chance for that not to happen please i chose to fight the intellect devourer there should be consequences for me fighting an intellect devour that makes okay no so no players rarely ever get to choose what they fight in d and d a lot of the times the dm is just like boom intellect virus and they're all within 30 feet of you all of you make intelligence saves it's never players going i wonder if that intellect devourer over there wants to fight maybe we should decide to go fight it there's a lot of random stuff that could happen in the game that allows for your choice to be taken away from you that's kind of a part of the game the whole game isn't you making choices the entire game is you reacting to what's happening within the space and sometimes an intellect vower gets the drop on you and you would rather the player die than just roll a save it's not it's not hand holding it's the last chance for you to not be dead and and i think that's that's enough i think that's very fair it's also exactly what fifth edition does in fifth edition is fun because it has a lot of instant gratification you read an ability you see the name and you can do that thing if you want to cast fireball you cast fireball and boom it happens it's not like every time somebody casts a fireball or a dragon does a breath weapon every player is going to be immune to fire damage and monks and rogues above level 7. this is me just complaining about one tiny thing that happened in a game and making a whole video about it and then now me months later realizing this was a terrible take and oh god forcing players into a choice is not a choice it's a non-choice it's a non-choice choice that doesn't make any sense that's not that's not what that is but okay however i still think that saving throws should still exist but they should only be used sparingly one main example is traps traps are the only time that i feel like a deck save is extremely appropriate but i think that the dc's should be really high well what are you what are you talking about why why a trap we chose to go into that dungeon you chose to walk onto that floor your character should face the consequences for walking out of that floor this argument is so dumb i'm glad everybody called me out on this it made me better today i was all i was upset but now i understand why and you all were right like you step on a pressure plate and a spear flies at you and if you roll an 18 you dodge it but when why is it any different than a spell there is only one thing about that that i still don't like when you make deck saves you should have at least the choice to move outside of the spells area i don't like the visual imagery of like a fireball going off and your character just doing like a twirl and then they don't take any damage i just don't understand that personally i'm also only using the fireball example there are other spells that have saving throws there are spells like ray of sickness and shatter and thunder wave and lightning bolt there are even spells like mind spike which doesn't have a visual so it doesn't you just resist that this is purely deck saves i'm only arguing dex saves if uh the one uh text in invasion said and you can move outside the spells area or the arab effects area done there i'm happy now that that's all i wanted i didn't care about anything else it comes to everything else and i'll use spells as my example saving throws should really only be used for trap like spells i think fireball should like telegraph instead of just a deck say the wizard picks an area and then at the start of his next turn that's when the fireball explodes and everybody in that area has to either move or try to save somebody else or try to find cover or stay in the fireball and take the damage because maybe yes on paper that's interesting and i did do that in my system and it's fun it just doesn't work for dnd because if you do that with fire like that doesn't work with any that works for fireball but that doesn't work for ray of sickness you know it that works for aoe spells and i'm not talking about aoe spells talking about saving throws and i don't really care about wisdom saves i really only care about evasion and deck saves so it's a stupid argument maybe it's an advantageous position to be in that is just infinitely more interesting than ah oh good i didn't take that fireball damage i love that's that's the rogue in the monk like that's it use a white dragon that is a constitution saving throw no matter what no matter who you are you will take damage if a white dragon does its breath weapon the same goes for mind affecting spells illusion is already so underutilized and underrated because of saving throats no like i create the epitome of your fear in your mind and you're just like no i think what that's that's that's being so facetious about that it's that you overcome the fear there's a way that you can describe that if that kind of spell hits you and you see your fear in your mind there are some characters who are wise enough to realize this is fake and this isn't real i'm not going to believe this and it's therefore it doesn't affect me or i'm going to overcome this because the whatever i'm doing against this person fighting them and resisting the save is more important at the current moment very few illusions use saving throws some of them do but you have to like interact with them i think what would be cool and kind of fun is for some spells if it was more the spellcaster's ability modifier versus the target's wisdom score so that's an attack role that's armor class that is pretty much just a saving throw so it'd be kind of like a jedi mind trick where more clever characters are always going to succeed while not as wise characters will always fail depending on the power level of the caster that's a saving throw that's a saving i don't why am i this is at me i feel like i'm i feel like i'm criticizing someone else this is this was your fault idiot this was you that can also create some really annoying scenarios where just suggestion always works on a certain character yeah can be kind of dumb but that's why i think ability score improvements and feats are so important because eventually oh ability score improvements are helpful guys did you know that your character could learn to overcome them but i also think it would be such a fun weakness to have as a character instead of just uh sometimes i fail more often than everybody else like there are some seriously cool spells in the book that do amazing things but they're never ever used because how many freaking times if you casted a spell and the saving throw succeeded it's just like well this is useless i do agree with that i don't like that there are some spells in the game where if you succeed it just does nothing that's super lame and it looks like they're sort of moving away from that a little bit there are a lot of new spells in the books that don't do that i still agree with this i just don't agree with the argument that it's being attributed to i really like how blades in the dark utilizes a stress mechanic to where you can use stress to create flashbacks and succeed scenarios yeah i think that would be really fun for d d if you had a stat with like a point system maybe it was like wisdom and you could subtract these points in order to succeed against certain spells but eventually you would grow weaker as the game went on and i don't hate that actually i i but that's that is just legendary resistance with the extra steps i think that just makes the problem worse because if jacob at this current time is like it's annoying when a dragon breathes fire on a rogue and they just automatically succeed it now they're gonna automatically succeed it whenever they want instead of it being a chance instead of it being a risk instead of it being maybe like a consequence maybe something that requires a little bit of urgency which is what a saving throw is rolling a dice innately and adding your skill modifier to it is a choice and a consequence that you have built your character to do i probably would have complained about the fact that spells are too powerful against dms and there should be a rule where they can automatically succeed but they just did that that's legendary resistance that's a good mechanic and it should stay on the monster side of the field and maybe if you wanted to save them on smaller spells then you could but those smaller spells would get off more often so a bad guy casts suggestion on a character and they're just like i don't want to waste my points for this so i'll just do the suggestion or the bad guy only gets two turns in that game and the one suggestion they get on that player is always going to succeed and then the bad guy dies or leaves or runs out of spell slots and never got to cast the suggestion because the players all have the ability to automatically succeeded on the first run that sucks that is horrible don't do that that that that is bad like that's you you get to make a choice that's so much more interesting and fun yes in theory you get to make a choice but jacob you know so well you know so well that your players will not make that choice and they will just use them just to make you angry and it will make you more mad and you know you know deep down that this is wrong oh i'm talking to myself i know that's wrong now that's what i'm trying to say you could even have feats or abilities that increase these wisdom points or have spells that can deplete them easier i don't know i just think that would be so much more fun than just rolling saves and you never know if a spell is gonna work or not and as a dm it's really frustrating too when you want to challenge your players with like a really powerful wizard or lich but their saving throws they're just constantly succeeding so they just go hey we have such good luck today and it's like oh good you won because of luck not because of any choices that you decided to make i don't know i just think it'd be more rewarding choices are fun i don't know why i'm saying that i've never run a combat where the players were just rolling good saving throws and that's why they won anyways and i like i like choices i don't know okay this is the is there any choices in the game jake we just need to not play fifth edition for the video i'm i'm i'm done or learn how to uh run run higher level dnd better okay um i'm not trying to i don't want to sound like i'm being so selfish or like i'm just trying to go back on what i said in order to avoid criticism um it is not at all what it is i just realized that everything i said in this video is very dumb um and i wanted to amend some of that i wanted to go back on what i had said because at the time that i made this video i was probably it was in the middle of questanomicon i was stressed out i was just like this is a video idea and this is what i made i should have thought about this a little more i really appreciate everybody in the comments calling me out for this because that that was that was dumb that was a really bad argument that i made and um i'm glad none of y'all fell for it and i i hope none of y'all fell for it i know i have a little bit of an influence here on d d world and um i have a lot of old videos of me just yelling at people saying this is what will make your game better and just just whatever's fun for your game is what you should do don't i'm just an idiot on the internet don't you don't need to listen to me just just laugh at me being stupid and then go haha how relatable and then go about your day oh my camera ran out of memory my own equipment is taking the mic away from me so um i'll see you guys next time thanks for watching oh yeah this video is sponsored by hitpoint press and the fablemaker's animated tarot which is now available for pre-order the fablemaker's animated tarot deck combines tarot and ttrpgs not only do they have these beautifully animated tarot cards but the fablemakers tarot guidebook shows you how to use tarot spreads within your campaign enhance existing 5v classes with tarot cards use the major arcana cards as npcs and much more the book also includes a fully developed tarot themed nbc nova for use in your campaigns you can pre-order the tarot guidebook deck or box set today and you'll get a free pdf of the fablemaker's tarot deck and guidebook with your order you can check it out with the link down below

Channel: XP to Level 3

Views: 420,267

Keywords: dnd, d&d, dungeons and dragons, how to, tutorial, funny, monk, fighter, 5e, player, book, dm, dungeon master, roll, ranger, rogue, paladin, cleric, barbarian, bard, wizard, sorcerer, warlock, artificer, mystic, skits, idea, character, stats, build, new, tips, gm

Id: 6Sry9TF8de4

Length: 26min 33sec (1593 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 30 2022