Castles & Crusades: Saving Throws... Focusing On Death

In the earliest editions of D&D, death, along with poison was your best save.

In Castles & Crusades, the death save is a charisma save. 

Also under the purview of charisma are charm and fear. 

This has consequences.

For example, in C&C, half-orcs suffer a -2 penalty to their charisma stat, thus, they are less personable (of course) but also, more suspectable to death, charm, and fear than any other race. Does that make sense to you?

Also in C&C, bards have charisma as their prime stat. This makes sense for their profession, charming and all that, but, this also makes bards very resistant to fear and death, right up there with knights and paladins. Does that make sense to you?

So, in C&C, saving throws are based off your main stats. You have prime and secondary stats where you roll a 12 or higher for prime and an 18 or higher for secondary. Those are just the base numbers to which you add your level (unless you're stepping on another class's toes, such as a cleric trying to pick a lock) and your ability bonus. So, assuming average stats at 1st level, you're actually rolling over 11 and 17 respectively. Then you calculate in the challenge level, a spell -- the spell caster's level, a monster -- its hit die, for a trap it's the level of the trap setter, and so on. 

• For example: A medusa is a 6HD creature. Here are what various PCs would have to roll (on a d20) to avoid petrification. This assumes an average wisdom score.

• PC level 1, wisdom prime: 17
• PC level 1, wisdom secondary: 23

• PC level 5, wisdom prime: 13
• PC level 5, wisdom secondary: 19

• PC level 10, wisdom prime: 8
• PC level 10, wisdom secondary: 14

• PC level 15, wisdom prime: 3
• PC level 15, wisdom secondary: 9

• PC level 20, wisdom prime: -2
• PC level 20, wisdom secondary: 4

Characters start with 2 primes and 4 secondaries, 1 prime from race, 1 prime from class. Humans are the exception getting 2 primes, thus starting with 3 (other races get other perks, dark-vision and such.)

Here are the C&C classes by prime stat...

• STR: Fighter, Ranger
• DEX: Rogue, Assassin
• CON: Barbarian, Monk
• INT: Illusionist, Wizard
• WIS: Cleric, Druid
• CHA: Bard, Knight, Paladin

Most, but not all, of a class's abilities will function off their prime stat. Class ability rolls are essentially saving throws. So, charisma is crucial for all of the bard's performance and influencing skills, likewise, charisma is crucial for the successful use of a knight's and paladin's battlefield leadership abilities.

Anyhow, bards, knights, and paladins are, by default of this system, the hardest to kill by death attack.   These classes are also the most resistant to fear and charm. Charm makes sense for bards and the other two make sense for knights and paladins, but all three classes  inherently have an advantage in situations specifically calling for death. Now, you can choose charisma as your second or third prime, but you're probably sacrificing some class abilities in doing so. 

Charm makes sense for charisma to some degree, but fear and death do not. Look at those around you, impersonable grouches are usually quite resistant to charm and those who think they're slick often fall prey to other slicksters. Of course, the smart-ass might say, impersonable grouches can be charismatic in their own way, but now we're muddying the waters.

Of the six abilities, the charisma saves make the least sense. This is probably a case of trying to spread the saves evenly among six stats so as to avoid the game having a dump stat. How better to give charisma some weight than by linking it to death? And this is not necessary. You see, charisma is the social save.

Should there even be a death save?

For example: Poison is damage (and pain.) When you're stung by an insect or bitten by a snake, the amount of damage you take depends on the strength of the poison/venom/toxin. If that particular beast (whatever it is) hits you, you've been poisoned. What exactly, are you then saving against? It's like you have a free, vague, parry maneuver to reverse reality, saying -- no, actually, I was not bitten. 

Larger animals with poisonous bites, due to their sheer size, also do damage with their bite/sting/claw. This is where modern versions of D&D might have it correct in the fact that they might state damage as 1d6 (+2d6 poison damage.) If you do not have the hit points to survive this, have you not then, by default, suffered a death attack?

Going back, death should not be linked to any one particular stat. Perhaps the only death save that should exist in any game should come into play if your hit points happen to fall to exactly zero and you are making a save every round to see if you fall negative and die. In such a case, you could argue for a con-based save or a will-based save (wisdom.)

Going back to C&C. I believe fear should be covered by wisdom. Charisma should only handle social interactions, bard stuff, the knight's/paladin's warlord stuff, the assassin's disguise ability, bribing a guard, etc. I would also shift confusion from wisdom to intelligence, with, charm and fear going to wisdom. This leaves charisma to dominate the social realm. 

So the abilities and their saves in C&C, rules as written are...

• STR: Paralysis, Constriction
• DEX: Breath Weapon, Traps 
• CON: Energy Drain, Disease, Poison, 
• INT: Arcane Magic, Illusions
• WIS: Divine Magic, Confusion, Gaze, Petrification, Polymorph
• CHA: Death Attack, Fear, Charm

My changes...

• STR: Paralysis, Constriction
• DEX: Breath Weapon, Traps 
• CON: Energy Drain, Disease, Poison, Polymorph*
• INT: Arcane Magic, Illusions, Confusion
• WIS: Divine Magic, Gaze, Fear, Charm, Petrification
• CHA: Loyalty, Morale, all things Social

*Polymorph was originally attached to wisdom, but I moved it to constitution because of its archaic ties to system shock. Though petrify/polymorph are also classically linked, petrification is usually caused by gaze attacks which seem to be, at their core, an assault upon your will, where as polymorph is battling the structure and health of your physical body.

Now those pesky half-orcs aren't so shit-on by fate. Not that their existence is pleasant.

As for death attacks (not counting death specifically linked to things like poison) the best way to handle this is to allow the PC to use their BEST saving throw. This way, death favors no single class and with saving throws scaling as the threat-level rises, success is no guarantee.

 And so it's full circle with death becoming your best save.

And if your best save can't save you, then to Hell with you!