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 Spell 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 higher the number, the more resistance it offers you. Eq with SAVING_COLD 5% will protect a little bit against cold-based attacks and spells. SAVING_COLD 10% will protect you even more. Effects with negative modifiers, such a SAVING_FIRE -10%, will make you more vulnerable to that kind of damage. Each saving throw type is effected separately, for better or for worse.

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. The saving spell effect is divided by 5 and added to the effective defensive level. An example of this would be your defenses against spells like weaken, blindness, or ice imprison: having SAVING_SPELL 50% 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 SAVING_SPELL 50%, your sanctuary spell will be as difficult to dispel as if it were level 35. Similarly, if you were to have SAVING_SPELL -25%, it would be as easy to dispel as if it were level 20.

The bless spell will give you spellsave.

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 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.

Spell Resistance

The last line listed in the resistances section of the statistics screen is labeled 'Magic'. This is your total spell resistance. Spell resistance modifies the level of potentially harmful spells before they affect you. Equipment that gives you spell resistance will have a SPELL_RES effect when statted.

When spell resistance is applied to a spell cast at you, the level of the spell is attenuated based on how much spell resistance you have. For example, if a level 100 fireball is cast at you and you have 50 spell resistance, it will affect you as if it were a level 65 fireball. Likewise, a level 10 fireball cast at you would affect you as if it were a level 6 fireball.

Only harmful spells are effected by spell resistance, so it will protect you against enemy spells while allowing you to use curative magic without any trouble. Note that the spell level is dropped before anything else is calculated.

Magic Resistance

Magic Resistance (called 'magicres' or 'mr' for short), and it represents a spell's ability to affect you. Note that there is no way for players to obtain magic resistance except by means of the brew-only 'resistance' spell.

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 acid and 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 acid and 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.

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

Spell Level	Saving Throw
0 - 8	20%
9 - 17	25%
18 - 26	30%
27 - 35	35%
36 - 44	40%
45 - 53	45%
54 - 62	54%
63 - 71	58%
72 - 80	62%
81 - 89	65%
90+	68%

Protection that stone skin offers:

Spell Level	Saving Norm
0 - 24	15%
25 - 29	20%
30 - 34	25%
35 - 39	30%
40 - 49	35%
50+	40%