Saving Throws in our Games

Saving throws, often also called “Attribute Tests” are a particular type of check used to determine if a character's Primary or Secondary attributes protect them from some harmful effect or allow them to succeed at some feat of Strength, Will, Perception or so forth.  This section details a slight alteration in the way saving throws are made compared to some early versions of our rules (Later versions already use this method).

Whenever a saving throw is called for by the GM, the player should roll a d% and attempt to roll equal to or less than the appropriate target number.  If the player succeeds in rolling the target number or less then they have succeeded, or passed, if hey roll higher, then they have failed.

To find the target number of any given saving throw, take the characters attribute number and adjust it according to the difficulty level of the saving throw being called for, as follows;-

Easy Attribute x2.5
Sandard    Attribute x2
Difficult Attribute x1

The GM will set the difficulty level of he saving throw when he or she calls for one, and should base the choice of difficulty level on how easy or how hard he or she feels the task is.  Some common examples are included above, but they are by no means exhaustive and the GM should use his or her judgement.

Quite often a saving throw may be the result of a player trying to do something that may or may not work, but which is not covered by their skill, but is instead likely to depend upon one of their attributes.  For example, if a player wishes to listen carefully to see if they can hear any noise through a door the GM may call upon them to make a Perception saving throw.  If the GM knows there are a number of people on the other side engaged in conversation he may set the difficulty as “Standard”, if hey are engaged in noisy activity (s)he may set the difficulty as “Easy” where as if hey are sleeping but may or may not snore, perhaps the GM will decide the difficulty is “Difficult”.

Alternatively, saving throws may be called for by the text of an adventure or the GM may rule there is a need for one.  For example, a party of Entropy Stalkers chasing an entropy mutant across the roofs of a city come to the end of one roof and must leap, safely, to the next.  The GM calls for each entropy stalker to make either an Agility save to make the jump safely, and, since (s)he feels the gap is not a large one and the building they are jumping to is slightly lower than the one they are jumping former, the GM sets the difficulty as Standard.  Later, the party are called on to jump over a much larger gap and the GM sets the difficulty of that one as Difficult.  Certain skills may be usable instead of the saving throw, in the above example an acrobatics skill may be appropriate.

Unlike skills checks, saving throws do not earn the character experience points and no tick is placed et to the tested attribute.