Quote:
Originally Posted by whswhs
I've looked at this, and I'm enough of a fan of older games to have picked it up, as an interesting exercise in alternative gaming history. But one thing confuses me about it: The mundane humans and animals that have saving throws like F1, F2, F5, and so on. How is that supposed to be interpreted? Why don't the names heroes and villains have it? Is Guardians supposed to be used with the d20 system? or is this just a bit of shorthand that I'm not understanding?
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Fn= Saves as Fighter of level n
Mn= Saves as Magic-User of level n.
Wn= Saves as Wizard of level n - same as Mn
Cn= Saves as Cleric of level n
Tn= Saves as Thief of level n
En= Saves as Elf of level n (BX only); for OD&D or AD&D use, En=Fn/Wn
Dn= Saves as Dwarf of level n (BX only); for OD&D or AD&D, Dn=Fn with bonus vs poison
Hn= Saves as Halfling of level n (BX only); for OD&D or AD&D use, it's Fighter.
They can be combined with slashes, eg C5/T5 saves as better of Cleric 5 or Thief 5.
Note that in OD&D, AD&D and BX D&D, these were explicitly class specific
sets of values, not singular values, varying by level, and the OD&D, AD&D, and BX were different sets for any given class/level.
Several other games in the early days had saves based upon class with different values as well.
In D20, the save categories climb at different rates by class as well, but it's possible some people reverted to old school methods in referencing them.