Page 79: Saving! Throws!

Now this is a page I used often.

Not for the Psionic Combat Notes though.  Since Psionic Blast attacks require you to know the WIS of the target, we get some examples of what the average WIS of monsters are.  This might explain why humanoids attack adventurers in wave after small wave until they’ve all died.   Goblins have a WIS score between 2-8.  Xorn (I know you were curious) have a WIS of 3-12.  A succubus has 2d6+6, making them possibly wiser than most Clerics… now if they could just figure out how to get dressed.

Now the good stuff: V. I. SAVING THROW MATRIX FOR CHARACTERS AND HUMAN TYPES

There are five categories of possible ’saves’-

1. Paralyzation, Poison, or Death Magic (All involve some sort of attempt to change a biological condiction?)

2. Petrification or Polymorph (Transformation)

3. Rod, Staff, or Wand (A ray attack, presumably you avoid it with a dodge?  Also, if anyone ever wants to open a gay bar catering to gamers, I call dibs on this as a name.)

4. Breath Weapon (Dragons only?  Perhaps this represents you ability to dive and stay down, though this makes no sense for Green Dragons.)

5. Spells (Now that is a catch-all.)

There isn’t much rhyme or reason and there are lots of things that make sense in multiple categories- does a gorgon’s attack count as Breath Weapon or Petrification?  No idea where this system came from, my guess would be ad hoc.

Another advantage of the multi-classes shows up here- you use the lowest save from any of your classes.  Fighter/Magic-Users are in real luck, again.

Here’s another tidbit I missed back in the proverbial ‘day’; “A roll of 1 is always failure, regardless or magical protections, spells, or any other reasons which indicate to the contrary.”  I guess that’s why monsters have Magic Resistance.

The page concludes with a bit on monster saves (i.e. V.II. SAVING THROWS FOR MONSTERS).  In this sytem hit dice count as experience levels.  Most monsters save as fighters other than those the abilities of other classes (how many monsters can’t climb walls?), which get the lowest value depending on what abilities they have.  Monsters without offensive capability save as the class closest to their powers (no guidelines here).  The only exception are unintelligent monsters who save at 1/2 their HD, save for poison and death magic, which are normal.

Marks and writing: Pencil  underlining of the saving throws for 11-15 level Magic-Users; a few stray marks on the page.