Saving Throws

There are three types of saving throws: Fortitude

saves, Reflex saves, and Will saves. In all

cases, saving throws measure your ability to shrug off harmful effects in the form of afflictions, damage, or conditions. You’ll always add a proficiency bonus to each save. Your class might give a different proficiency to each save, but you’ll be trained at minimum. Some circumstances and spells might give you circumstance or status bonuses to saves, and you might find resilient armor or other magic items that give an item bonus.

Fortitude saving throws allow you to reduce the effects of abilities and afflictions that can debilitate the body. They use your Constitution modifier and are calculated as shown in the formula below.

Fortitude save result = d20 roll + Constitution

modifier + proficiency bonus + other bonuses +

penalties

Reflex saving throws measure how well you can respond quickly to a situation and how gracefully you can avoid effects that have been thrown at you. They use your Dexterity modifier and are calculated as shown in the formula below.

Reflex save result = d20 roll + Dexterity modifier +

proficiency bonus + other bonuses + penalties

Will saving throws measure how well you can resist attacks to your mind and spirit. They use your Wisdom modifier and are calculated as shown in the formula below.

Will save result = d20 roll + Wisdom modifier +

proficiency bonus + other bonuses + penalties

Sometimes you’ll need to know your DC for a given saving throw. The DC for a saving throw is 10 + the total modifier for that saving throw.

Most of the time, when you attempt a saving throw, you don’t have to use your actions or your reaction. You don’t even need to be able to act to attempt saving throws. However, in some special cases you might have to take an action to attempt a save. For instance, you can try to recover from the sickened condition by spending an action to attempt a Fortitude save.

Basic Saving Throws

Sometimes you will be called on to attempt a basic saving throw. This type of saving throw works just like any other saving throw—the “basic” part refers to the effects. For a basic save, you’ll attempt the check and determine whether you critically succeed, succeed, fail, or critically fail like you would any other saving throw. Then one of the following outcomes applies based on your degree of success—no matter what caused the saving throw.

Critical Success You take no damage from the spell, hazard, or effect that caused you to attempt the save.

Success You take half the listed damage from the effect.

Failure You take the full damage listed from the effect.

Critical Failure You take double the listed damage from the effect.

Fortune and misfortune effects can alter how you roll your dice. These abilities might allow you to reroll a failed roll, force you to reroll a successful roll, allow you to roll twice and use the higher result, or force you to roll twice and use the lower result.

You can never have more than one fortune and more than one misfortune effect come into play on a single roll. For instance, if an effect lets you roll twice and use the higher roll, you can’t then use Halfling Luck (a fortune effect) to reroll if you fail. If multiple fortune effects would apply, you have to pick which to use. If two misfortune effects apply, the GM decides which is worse and applies it. If both a fortune effect and a misfortune effect would apply to the same roll, the two cancel each other out, and you roll normally.