is there a benefit to going past 0 on saves????

[UserUnfriendly]

as far as i understood the saves and thaco system on bg, thaco the lower the better...but is there a point to which you start seeing a wrap around effect, so it actually makes you hit less???

like around neg 25 or so, is it worse than neg 10????

and i know if the enemy rolls a natural 20 or so, the spell still gets thru and you are charmed, confused or what ever, so is going for negative saves for spells desirable???

tashia is hitting neg 2 for spellls, and below -2 for some other saves.....

the wrap around effect is when you increase via sk, or if you overdose on potions of master theivery, you actually start getting worse in opeing locks past skill points around 250 or so...

but for saves, if the spell manages to roll a natural 20, it will not be saved, so is a negative save useful or even a good idea???

one would think save of 0 for spells will protect you 19 out of 20 times, and no further protection is possible...

and bun bun, even with thaco of around -20 still manages to miss sometimes, instead of hitting really hard...

[Sojourner]

Negative saves are useful, especially when your enemy is hitting you with Greater Malison. I don't believe saving throws are handled the same way as attack rolls - there's no "critical hit" for spells, from what I've seen in the game.

I don't know at what point the saving throws begin to wrap - which is dependent on the amount of memory allocated for them (which I don't know off-hand).

[Ode to a Grasshopper]

My Lorelei (Think Bun-Bun, but cheesier) has a THAC0 of -25 or so, and she only misses her target on critical misses.

[Thrar]

i would expect that the range the THAC0 is saved in is 1 byte, most likely -128 to 127. If thats right u have to go down very low to wrap around. Considering memory, there is no reason to use less than 1 byte, 7 bits might b enough (-64 to 63) but less no way. with that 1 bit u could save a boolean, additional calculation is needed so imo it would b nonsense.
u said the thieving skills wrap around at 250 or so, i guess 255 is the largest possible value then (1 byte, again).

the way saves work is when a spell is cast on someone, and he gets a save, a d20 is rolled, penalties r added (e.g. -4 for gr malison, or -4 for symbol fear/stun, ..., cumulative) and if the final result is above ur save, the spell effect is weakened (usually), not sure but i think its also saved when u get a roll equal to ur save.
the basic value of the saves is determined by level, equipment is added (e.g. when it says -1(-3) for a save u have to roll more than -1, and w/o items u would have to roll 2+). I would expect they r saved as a byte each, but their range is a bit shorter so maybe -32 to 31 would b enough. if they wanted to save memory they probably did that and put all the 5 saves into 4 bytes, but it means extra processing for hardly any benefit so i really dun think so.

as far as i know there is no critical on saves, neither 20 nor 1. whenever the game says "-name-: save vs -whatever- : X" the save was successful, otherwise its not shown. however it does not print the roll result, nor the result with the penalties, i had saves with -2, and others with 24+, dunno which way the output is given. generally, if someone scores low, u can expect that a gr malison, doom or another penalty helps (fire giants have so sucky saves compared to most others, gr malison + symbol stun and 4 out of 5 r stunned...).

is there any stacking effect on saves, no matter if + or - ? would b interesting to try out.

[Catalyst]

Sojourner is correct, there is no "Critical Hit" for spells...but they will always have a 1 in 20 chance of getting through.

The misunderstanding is that the enemy spellcaster has a part in the saving throw. The caster doesn't "roll" anything when casting a spell, the only roll that's made is the victim's, to save. The saving throw roll, with any applicable bonuses and penalties applied, is what is displayed on the console. A result of 24 is very high and will almost always be successful, a result of -2 is terrible and unless your saves are in the low negatives you're going to be hit.

However, *regardless* of what the total added result of your saving throw is, if your character rolls a 1 it's an auto-failure. So in this respect UserUnfriendly is correct...no matter how far below 0 a save goes, you're still vulnerable 1 time out of 20. The reason you want a negative save is so that Greater Malison and other conditions penalizing your saving throw don't bump it into positive numbers.

Thrar--are you sure the result of a saving throw isn't displayed if it's a failure?

Anyway, no idea about the wrapping thing, but someone achieving saves low or high enough to cause problems is *probably* cheating somewhere...(or at the least, blasting past the XP cap).

[UserUnfriendly]

hmmm...forgot about the penalty for symbol stun and others, like finger, as well as for mailison effects...but seriously, once you get to -4, unless the spell being thrown at you is spook...greatest spell in game, IMHO, you basically will save unless you blow your roll completely...

immunity items rock!!!

so do chaotic commands and if you have balderdash patch installed, prot from elemtns and prot from energy...

sigh...

yeah, i considered the bits involved in the flags, and youre right, 4 bits is probably correct....

still, immunity is better all around...looks like the helm of charm protection and free action are still best items in the game, or what...

[Littiz]

Catalyst explained how it works in PnP, my question is, is that
REALLY so implemented?
Do a natural roll of "1" mean always failure in the game engine?

[UserUnfriendly]

once i hit and get past the underdark, to my experience i put my helm of charm protection in bag of holding and go back to helm of simmy, (looks good on elvish mage avatar....) or helm of baldy i almsot never get charmed or dominated anymore, and seemingly the ring of free action takes care of it when i do, since i have had charm icons on my char, and still was able to move around...cast disepll whenver...

s funny,,,

[Catalyst]

From what (admittedly little) I know of the Infinity Engine, saving throws and critical hits/failures were implemented as per the PnP.

This seems to be backed up by my runs through the game...at best, about one spell effect in twenty somehow sneaks through no matter how low my saves are. I rarely have Feedback set to tell me what the rolls are, but it makes sense. I don't profess to know for absolute certainty, though...

[Sojourner]

Originally posted by Littiz
Catalyst explained how it works in PnP, my question is, is that
REALLY so implemented?
Do a natural roll of "1" mean always failure in the game engine?

I wonder about that, too. Black Isle admittedly didn't implement the saving throw bonuses granted by high stats as per P&P, so they may have not implemented the "fail to save" bit, either. Once my PC's saving throws have gone negative, it seems that none of the spells/spell components that allow saving throws get through.