Eldritch Cock's New Saving Throws

I've been thinking about Lamentations of the Flame Princess' new book, Eldritch Cock, ever since I picked it up on FreeRPGDay. The new spells in the book are pretty interesting, but the new playtest rules in the back inside cover are what I've been thinking about most. James Raggi has made a number of changes with the intent of increasing the influence of the ability scores in the game. One of the biggest changes is how saving throws are handled. IvanMike1968 just covered this very well on his YouTube channel (here), and it kind of prompted me to put my thoughts down.

To be perfectly frank, the new E.C. saves feel pretty foreign to me. I've only just started coming around to Swords & Wizardry's single saving throw mechanic after having used the standard five categories from old school Dungeons & Dragons for years. S&W creator, Matt Finch, gives special bonuses to certain classes for particular types of saves which gets it close to the original D&D rules. It's also extremely elegant which is part of the reason I've come around after my initial resistance. Now Eldritch Cock's new saving throw system comes around and has challenged my old school prejudices once more.

The new E.C. saves are based on a character's Charisma score for magic-related saves and their Wisdom score for non-magic-related saves. Instead of the traditional roll high on a d20 save against a target number based on the character's level and class, the new system is a dice pool mechanic where the relevant ability score determines how many d6s you throw. A roll of one 6 is a partial success, and two or more 6s are a full save. These saves don't improve with level progression, but last the lifespan of the character. The percent of at least partial success, however, is generally better with this new system.

Although I've never struggled too much with the idea of level progression impacting saves, it does make a lot of sense to keep it relatively static. The idea that a character gets better at ingesting poison without dying after going on a lot of adventures is a little absurd (although maybe you work up a tolerance, or learn to distinguish some telltale aftertaste/scent). At the same time, I'm still not a big fan of dice pools. I understand the utility of a bell curve, but there's just something about clattering all those dice on the table which doesn't thrill me.

So I came up with a d20 approximation of the new system that combines S&W's single saving throw, takes ability scores into account, and approximates the math of the new LotFP system so that characters have more of a shot of survival at 1st level without ever getting crazily invulnerable at high levels.

With this new hack, all saving throws would be made on a d20 with a roll of 1-10 indicating failure, a roll of 11-17 being a partial save, and a roll of 18-20 a full save. This universal saving throw wouldn't increase with level progression, but would (or could, based on GM ruling) be affected by your ability score modifier, from a -3 to a +3. When you break it down into the math it looks something like this:

Ability Score	Failure	Failure %	Partial Save	Partial %	Full Save	Full %
3 (-3)	1-13	65%	14-20	35%	NA*	0%
4-5 (-2)	1-12	60%	13-19	35%	20	5%
6-8 (-1)	1-11	55%	12-18	35%	19-20	10%
9-12 (0)	1-10	50%	11-17	35%	18-20	15%
13-15 (+1)	1-9	45%	10-16	35%	17-20	20%
16-17 (+2)	1-8	35%	9-15	35%	16-20	25%
18 (+3)	1-7	30%	8-14	35%	15-20	30%

*Maybe a natural 20, plus a second partial save gives you a full save.

For comparison, here is the new saving throw rules for Lamentations featured in the back of Eldritch Cock. Again, a character's Charisma score determines the number of dice thrown for magical saves, and their Wisdom score determines the number of dice for non-magical saves. One roll of "6" is a partial save, and two or more "6s" are a full save.

Ability Score	Dice	Failed Save	Partial Save	Full Save
3-4	2d6	69.44%	27.78%	2.78%
5-8	3d6	57.87%	34.72%	7.4%
9-12	4d6	48.23%	38.58%	13.19%
13-16	5d6	40.19%	40.19%	19.63%
17-18	6d6	33.49%	40.19%	26.31%

Now, right away, you can see that my d20 method and the EC save percentages are not exact, but they're close. The d20 saves are generally a little better, but not by much. The big difference is one is a flat distribution (d20) and the other is a bell curve (xd6) which leans towards the middle values. The outcome of this is that Partial Save category is dynamic with xd6 bell curve where it's static for the flat d20 roll.

Where my d20 version does make up the dynamic difference is in its use of multiple ability scores depending on the type of save, whereas LotFP's new system just uses Wisdom or Charisma. Having Constitution affect the save versus poison makes more sense than Wisdom. Having Dexterity affect versus Breath Weapon/Devices/Jump-out-of-the-way saves seems more appropriate. So on and so on. I get that by using only Wisdom and Charisma, Raggi makes them not dump stats, but I don't know if that justifies it for me. If I were to use the d20 global save system above I would keep the traditional, seven-bracket B/X ability score modifiers ranging from -3 to +3 to give it that dynamic swingy-ness.

At the end of the day, I'm not sure I'm sold on a global saving system for one big reason: how it affects adversary saves. Traditionally in OSR games, "monsters" save as a Fighter class would at the same hit dice level (or possibly M.U. if more appropriate). In a system that uses ability scores to modify a global save range, a couple of things happen.

First, not only do your low-level PCs have better saves, but all of your low-level adversaries/minions do too. It might make spellcasters possibly less effective against lower-level opponents. Next, you will either need to assume a standard 4d6 save for all NPCs and monsters, or start giving full stats for all your monsters. The first option works fine for your average bandit or evil human in LotFP, but doesn't feel right if you add in any otherworldly or eldritch horrors. The second option is where all the modern D&D systems have gone, creating huge stat blocks for monsters, something I have no interest in. While it wouldn't be too hard to ballpark a stat in the moment, I might bias myself for or against the players in the moment.

In the future, I'm toying with using a S&W style single save that improves with level and may be influenced by an ability mod at the GM's discretion. That leaves it open for a flexible rulings approach, helps low-level PCs save better against threats that test their strengths, allows for experience to influence your chances, and keeps running a monster fairly low-crunch.

I have heard some playtest reports on G+ that the new level-less spells found in Vaginas Are Magic and Eldritch Cock are way too powerful at lower levels, making the fighters feel useless. I wonder how many of them are using the new saving throw rules, where the average opponents has a decent chances at saving for half. The new LotFP Ref book should be out in 2019 so maybe we'll find out if these new save rules make the cut.