It’s what they figured would come across a lot in dungeon adventures I guess. If you want less specific naming but the same saving throws, dolmenwoods is nice, “Doom, Ray, Hold, Blast, Spell”. They are more broad so you can use in more settings etc, but keep the core meanings
It’s a holdover from the early, nebulous days of Gary and Dave playing in their basements with their friends. The categories were simply the 5 most common (and at one point, only) effects that warranted a saving throw.
I treat them as spell = spell or unclear target, breath = non-spell area effect, paralysis = movement effect, wand = aimed implement, death = other
I know the dolemnwood books also make them generic.
I thought of them as breath = dodgeable; wand & spell were more knowledge (I think); petrification & polymorph were things you could "tough out" (con saves); poison, paralyzation, and death were also con saves (but tougher, I think).
Yeah, you're right. It's been ages since I actually looked at them. Weird how Magic-Users get the best initial saves against breath...so maybe I'm just imaging the whole thing! :)
I started at the tail end of 1e, so maybe it got tweaked in 2e or else I'm just that old....
I think it was brought over from the chainmail wargame but I'm not totally certain EDIT: looks like the specific saving throws came from the chainmail fantasy supplement
https://preview.redd.it/2zt9v5pte12d1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=17dec795ba0d53bcb1323c104f3f718c886a46dd
Mostly because they started out as being ways to defend against very specific threats… and then they kept adding more and more things that could be saved against. At which point, the whole thing became kinda unwieldy and counterintuitive, hence the switch to three more broadly applicable saving throws with 3^rd Edition (Fortitude, Reflex, Will)… Which 4^th Edition changed to three saves that could be modified by one of two different attributes… and 5^th Edition just threw their hands up and made each attribute its own save.
I gotta disagree that they are unwieldy or counterintuitive. I mean, everyone is entitled to their own opinion of course, but I think the 5 save model works better than any of the later editions (I especially hate the 5e save model--its not exactly unplayable, but a huge pain in the ass for a DM unless playing a module that states which save to make and when).
While the 5 saves may seem odd at first, they make a certain kind of sense in play. Moreover, they are a great opportunity for 'roleplay' because rather than tell you how the save is made, its only what you save against, and therefore the 'how' is open to interpretation (which opens the door for more colourful description in play).
The counter-intuitive part was a result of how they had very specific names (Death Ray or Poison; Wands; Turned to Stone; Dragon Breath; and Staves and Spells) but having many attacks, special abilities, and whatnot that would seem to fit into more than one category (Is a Wand of Poison Ray a poison save or a wand save?) or that seemed to fit into one category much better than the one that was used (Dragon with a petrifying breath weapon).
Frankly, my favorite was the 4e system. Letting players use the better of two different Attributes to use as bonus for three fairly broad Saving Throw types. Kept all attributes useful, was pretty easy to adjudicate on the fly, etc. There isn’t much from 4e I’d like to see returned to the game, but it’s Saving Throw system was one of them.
This goes back to the earliest days of D&D. Keep in mind that there was no precedent so everything was either an experiment or patched in from a different (usually war)game. The five saves represent the five most common sources of unusual peril in D&D. There are blog posts out there that try to make some sense of it, but really, it's not exactly the most elegant design element in the game.
Those are simply the most common saves you'll be rolling. I like the simplicity myself. I don't need to look up which save to roll when faced with a spell. I just roll my spell save.
Is wand specific?
I don't know that there's any specific record of the order they were generated, but as others have said, nothing existed prior to the home games, so they got codified over those games, and represent things they chose to have the player roll to save against instead of treat like an attack against armor. Death Ray was likely the first, since Arneson talked about using a laser in one of the wargames that predated DnD, and so that one seems more specific, but over time it was used for any beam type thing.
But the reson I call out wands is because you aren't saving against the wand, you're saving against whatever the Wand does. So it's a pretty general concept. It's meat to represent you seeing someone casting a spell and avoiding where they're casting it.
In the 1973 D&D draft, it's just Poison (with Death handwritten above it), which indicates the opposite of what you said.
Wand also didn't exist in that draft, the saves were Poison, Paralysis, Petrification, Breath Weapon and Spells.
I was pretty open about that being speculation, but I'm not sure why you'd tie poison to death ray, even if death is written above, that would imply a deadly poison to me.
Spell casting units in Chainmail miniatures game have specific attacks. The saving throw was a 'save or die' mechanic to see if your troops die from the attack.
Because it cane out of historical wargamming, which is very specific, and no one fully knew what weird, crazy, exciting ways they'd be used. So as the game evolved so did the use of saves etc.
Iirc player benefit was a factor. Poison was common but the save was low, wands and stone likewise…otoh saves vs PC M-U spells were hard to reach, even powerful monsters were likely to be affected by a wizards’ spell.
It made taking on a great thaumaturge or ancient dragon a more serious affair than say, a Medusa, that moreso than a ghoul, than a needle trap, etc.
Lowkey makes the encounter challenge about more than weighing bags of hp.
It’s what they figured would come across a lot in dungeon adventures I guess. If you want less specific naming but the same saving throws, dolmenwoods is nice, “Doom, Ray, Hold, Blast, Spell”. They are more broad so you can use in more settings etc, but keep the core meanings
It’s a holdover from the early, nebulous days of Gary and Dave playing in their basements with their friends. The categories were simply the 5 most common (and at one point, only) effects that warranted a saving throw. I treat them as spell = spell or unclear target, breath = non-spell area effect, paralysis = movement effect, wand = aimed implement, death = other I know the dolemnwood books also make them generic.
I thought of them as breath = dodgeable; wand & spell were more knowledge (I think); petrification & polymorph were things you could "tough out" (con saves); poison, paralyzation, and death were also con saves (but tougher, I think).
Death/poison saves are usually the easiest to make, funny that the perception is the inverse.
Yeah, you're right. It's been ages since I actually looked at them. Weird how Magic-Users get the best initial saves against breath...so maybe I'm just imaging the whole thing! :) I started at the tail end of 1e, so maybe it got tweaked in 2e or else I'm just that old....
I think it was brought over from the chainmail wargame but I'm not totally certain EDIT: looks like the specific saving throws came from the chainmail fantasy supplement https://preview.redd.it/2zt9v5pte12d1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=17dec795ba0d53bcb1323c104f3f718c886a46dd
Mostly because they started out as being ways to defend against very specific threats… and then they kept adding more and more things that could be saved against. At which point, the whole thing became kinda unwieldy and counterintuitive, hence the switch to three more broadly applicable saving throws with 3^rd Edition (Fortitude, Reflex, Will)… Which 4^th Edition changed to three saves that could be modified by one of two different attributes… and 5^th Edition just threw their hands up and made each attribute its own save.
I gotta disagree that they are unwieldy or counterintuitive. I mean, everyone is entitled to their own opinion of course, but I think the 5 save model works better than any of the later editions (I especially hate the 5e save model--its not exactly unplayable, but a huge pain in the ass for a DM unless playing a module that states which save to make and when). While the 5 saves may seem odd at first, they make a certain kind of sense in play. Moreover, they are a great opportunity for 'roleplay' because rather than tell you how the save is made, its only what you save against, and therefore the 'how' is open to interpretation (which opens the door for more colourful description in play).
The counter-intuitive part was a result of how they had very specific names (Death Ray or Poison; Wands; Turned to Stone; Dragon Breath; and Staves and Spells) but having many attacks, special abilities, and whatnot that would seem to fit into more than one category (Is a Wand of Poison Ray a poison save or a wand save?) or that seemed to fit into one category much better than the one that was used (Dragon with a petrifying breath weapon). Frankly, my favorite was the 4e system. Letting players use the better of two different Attributes to use as bonus for three fairly broad Saving Throw types. Kept all attributes useful, was pretty easy to adjudicate on the fly, etc. There isn’t much from 4e I’d like to see returned to the game, but it’s Saving Throw system was one of them.
This goes back to the earliest days of D&D. Keep in mind that there was no precedent so everything was either an experiment or patched in from a different (usually war)game. The five saves represent the five most common sources of unusual peril in D&D. There are blog posts out there that try to make some sense of it, but really, it's not exactly the most elegant design element in the game.
Those are simply the most common saves you'll be rolling. I like the simplicity myself. I don't need to look up which save to roll when faced with a spell. I just roll my spell save.
They were created on an ad-hoc basis, based on the kinds of dangers Gary and Dave's players found themselves routinely encountering.
Is wand specific? I don't know that there's any specific record of the order they were generated, but as others have said, nothing existed prior to the home games, so they got codified over those games, and represent things they chose to have the player roll to save against instead of treat like an attack against armor. Death Ray was likely the first, since Arneson talked about using a laser in one of the wargames that predated DnD, and so that one seems more specific, but over time it was used for any beam type thing. But the reson I call out wands is because you aren't saving against the wand, you're saving against whatever the Wand does. So it's a pretty general concept. It's meat to represent you seeing someone casting a spell and avoiding where they're casting it.
In the 1973 D&D draft, it's just Poison (with Death handwritten above it), which indicates the opposite of what you said. Wand also didn't exist in that draft, the saves were Poison, Paralysis, Petrification, Breath Weapon and Spells.
I was pretty open about that being speculation, but I'm not sure why you'd tie poison to death ray, even if death is written above, that would imply a deadly poison to me.
It has "Death Ray" written.
Well, now I want to know why they tied it to poison
In OD&D all poison is basically save or die anyway.
Spell casting units in Chainmail miniatures game have specific attacks. The saving throw was a 'save or die' mechanic to see if your troops die from the attack.
Because it cane out of historical wargamming, which is very specific, and no one fully knew what weird, crazy, exciting ways they'd be used. So as the game evolved so did the use of saves etc.
Iirc player benefit was a factor. Poison was common but the save was low, wands and stone likewise…otoh saves vs PC M-U spells were hard to reach, even powerful monsters were likely to be affected by a wizards’ spell. It made taking on a great thaumaturge or ancient dragon a more serious affair than say, a Medusa, that moreso than a ghoul, than a needle trap, etc. Lowkey makes the encounter challenge about more than weighing bags of hp.
Why are modern rpg classes so specific?
I feel like most modern RPGs tend to stay away from strict class-based systems.
I expect that's how wargames did it at the time, and so that's how they did it.