Saving Throws and Resistances

A saving throw is a representation of how well-protected you are against a particular type of damage. The term originates from the tabletop version of Dungeons and Dragons, where dice are rolled (thrown) to determine the effectiveness of certain spells and special attacks. In Alter Aeon, the term is a bit of misnomer, since no dice are "thrown". There are seven classes of saving throws, and each has an abbreviated form that is more commonly used:

• Saving Spell (spellsave)
• Saving Poison (poisonsave)
• Saving Breath (breathsave)
• Saving Fire (firesave)
• Saving Cold (coldsave or icesave)
• Saving Zap (zapsave)
• Saving Normal (normsave)

Using the 'statistics' command, you will see a column with the heading "Resistances", and under this column are each of the saving throw names. If you have the 'elemental lore' skill, a percentage will follow each saving throw class; these percentages indicate how protected your character in each category. (Magic is listed last, this will explained in the Magic Resistance section.) They will all begin at 0% for a new player, but they can be modified through use of spells, skills and equipment.

(If you are new to the game, it is recommended that your learn the elemental lore skill, which can be learned at most low-level spellcaster teachers.)

Sometimes equipment will have a saving throw effect, such as SAVING_FIRE or SAVING_ZAP, that will be listed when it is identified. When referring to the piece of equipment, this is said to be the object's saving throw.

When statting pieces of equipment for saving throw effects, the lower the number, the more resistance it offers you. Eq with -1 SAVING_COLD will protect a little bit against cold-based attacks and spells. -2 SAVING_COLD will protect you even more. Effects with positive modifiers, such a +2 SAVING_FIRE, will make you more vulnerable to that kind of damage. Each saving throw type is effected separately, for better or for worse.

With the elemental lore skill, these numbers will converted into percentages on the stats screen. Positive percentages indicate a resistance to that damage type and how much it will be reduced, while negative percentages are indicative of vulnerability, and damage you take from that type will be increased. At 0% you take normal damage.

Here are some specific rules for each type of saving throw:

Saving Spell

This will help protect you against most types of spell and weapons with strong magic damage types. There are a few notable exceptions to this, such as the clerical harm spellgroup, and spells with a substantial material component, such as the 'crystal spear' spell. Most cleric spells use at least in part god-granted power, and as a result saving spell is less effective against them.

Additionally, spellsave adds directly to your defensive level against various spells. An example of this would be your defenses against spells like weaken, blindness, or ice imprison: having -10 SAVING_SPELL gives you an effective bonus of ten levels when defending. A good amount of spellsave can protect you against casters that are much higher level than you are.

In the case of 'dispel magic', the defensive level is the level of your spells, not your own level. If you are affected by a level 25 'sanctuary' spell and have -10 SAVING_SPELL, your sanctuary spell will be as difficult to dispel as if it were level 35. Similarly, if you were to have +5 SAVING_SPELL, it would be as easy to dispel as if it were level 20.

Saving Poison

This will not only help you take less damage from poison attacks and spells, it will also slow how quickly you become poisoned. It will help you recover more quickly if you are already poisoned.

The slow poison spell offers you temporary poisonsave, but the cure and remove poison spells are far more effective to get heal you when you are poisoned. The poison resistance skill will give you a natural amount of poisonsave, and is a good idea to get if you anticipate encountering poisons regularly.

Saving Breath

This helps you take less damage from breath/gaseous attacks and spells, such as those from a dragon's breath attack. There are very few spells and weapons that use this damage type.

Saving Fire

This will protect you from fire attacks and spells. Fire is a common element for fighting. The ice shield spell will help protect you against fire by temporarily improving your firesave.

Saving Cold

This saving throw works like firesave except against cold-based attacks and spells. Note that many ice spells actually hurl icy projectiles at the target, thus dealing normal damage in addition to cold damage. The fire shield spell gives you coldsave.

Saving Zap

Zapsave will protect you from electricity spells and weapons with the zap damage type. The ground spell offers you zapsave. Electrical spells are less common than fire and ice.

Saving Normal

Normsave reduces the amount of damage you take from non-magical attacks. Stone skin offers you additional protection by giving you normsave. The armored skin skill will give you normsave. Note that there is no normsave effect for objects: 'stone skin' and 'armored skin' are the ONLY methods of obtaining normsave.

Magic Resistance

The last line listed in the resistances section of the statistics screen is Magic. This is your Magic Resistance (called 'magicres' or 'mr' for short), and it represents spells ability to affect you. Equipment that gives you magic resistance will have a MAGIC_RES effect when statted. In the case of magic resistance, positive effects are good, which is the opposite of saving throws.

Magic resistance works against a huge number of spells. There are a number of spells it does not work against, but these spells are largely ones with material components. Examples of spells that are immune to magic resistance are 'crystal spear' and 'magic missile', because these spells use physical objects to do damage. Even cleric spells may fail against magic resistance.

For spells that are affected, a percentage (100-sided) die is rolled to see if the spell overcomes the target's magic resistance. If the die result is lower than the target's magic resistance, the spell fails.

One final, yet very important note, is that magic resistance is indiscriminate about which spells are tested: healing and protective spells are resisted just as strongly as your opponent's fireballs or curses. The inability to heal while using magic resistance is a significant handicap.

Damage has a bit of a random factor. Spell and elemental damage is multiplied by a random number from 0.5-1.5 before saving throws are applied. This random factor is applied to normal damage if the target has normsave.

Damage resulting from most spells is tested against spellsave. Damage resulting from a melee attack is tested against normsave (except for no-norm weapons). Damage resulting from a dragonbreath attack tests against breathsave.

After this first test, other tests may be made depending on the type of damage of the attack (saving fire for a fire breathing dragon, saving zap for lightning bolts, saving cold for freezing weapons, etc.) Except for no-norm weapons and a few special attacks, nearly all attacks in the game are tested against a saving throw. Weapons with multiple elemental damage types can only do one type at a time while fighting.

Here is a table of some of the saving throws versus the resistance conferred. Positive saving throws make you more vulnerable, and have negative percentages. You can check your exact percentages using the 'statistics' command and the 'elemental lore' skill.

Saving Throw	Resist %
20	-100%
18	-90%
16	-80%
14	-70%
12	-60%
10	-50%
8	-40%
6	-30%
4	-20%
2	-10%
0	0%
-2	10%
-4	20%
-6	30%
-8	40%
-10	50%
-12	58%
-14	65%
-16	72%
-18	77%
-20	82%
-24	88%
-28	90%

Note that the resistances use a graduated scale: additional saving throws above 50% are less effective the more you already have. At -10 saving throw you take roughly half damage from that damage type. At -17 you take roughly one quarter, and at -28 one tenth. Alternatively, at +20 you will take double damage.

If one is dedicated to obtaining a single type of saving throw, a high level player can obtain a very high resistance, making them almost invulnerable to a particular kind of damage.

Protection that ice shield, fire shield, ground and slow poison offer:

Spell Level	Saving Throw
0 - 8	-4
9 - 17	-5
18 - 26	-6
27 - 35	-7
36 - 44	-8
45 - 53	-9
54 - 62	-11
63 - 71	-12
72 - 80	-13
81 - 89	-14
90+	-15

Protection that stone skin offers:

Spell Level	Saving Norm
0 - 24	-3
25 - 29	-4
30 - 34	-5
35 - 39	-6
40 - 49	-7
50+	-8