OD&D Saving Throws

Mostly, saving throws in OD&D isn't complicated: The saving throw headers "Dragon's Breath, Stone.. etc." tell us exactly when to save, much clearer than later editions' standardized saves. For some reason, spells and saves have caused issues for people - maybe there's something I fail to see. One obvious issue though is saves for monsters and any guidelines for this seems to be missing from the LBBs.

 

Alternative to d20 saves

I considered using 2d6 saving throws, since when ditching d20 for combat, the d20 saves start to seem  out of place. CHAINMAIL used 2d6 saves and offers some guidelines as how a class progression in saves might look like, from the standpoint of Hero, Super Hero and Wizard. Jason Vey has offered some guidelines how to go about this. I decided against it, however. The main reason is that the d20 saves are fully functional and probably fits the OD&D xxx better than the CHAINMAIL equivalent - if adopting the saves in CHAINMAIL, the PC's would fail their saves a lot more frequent and I think this would work poorly considering they have to save a lot more often (any hostile spell) than a Hero in CHAINMAIL. I also considered tossing saving throws altogether and instead making them part of a monster's description for instance - such as "to save against the Basilisk gaze, meed or exceed 7 with two dice" a.s.o. That would take a lot of work however, putting an individual save mini-game in most spells and a lot of monster, and for mainly aesthetic reasons. I'll stick with the standard OD&D saves.

 

When to save?

M&M doesn’t say when to save specifically, so a logical conclusion would be always when suffering an attack from any of the listed categories. I don't see a reason why this would not include all hostile spells. would include all hostile spells.  Also, no individual spell says it can’t be saved against.

 

• Conclusion - PC’s save against all hostile "weapon" categories above, spells included.

Who can save?

PC classes are the basis of saves in OD&D, so logically, everyone with a Class save.

There is no mention in the LBB’s of how or if other creatures (i.e. monsters and normal men) save, except in the descriptions of 3 spells: Confusion, Disintegrate and The Finger of Death (Anti-Cleric). These are the only spells that specifically mentions a saving throw made against them (may well be because it’s taken for granted) and they all mention “creatures”, suggesting not PCs’ only  In Disintegrate, it even mentions “dragons” in the example, and the wording is also interesting - it says “If it fails to make its saving throw against magic”. This to me sounds like it has one, I mean generally.

From that, it would seem monsters are allowed saves. 

This is made complicated by the fact the LBBs’ don’t mention how anyone except classes would save and it is a weird thing to have been simply overlooked or not included by Gygax (but apparently I’m wrong, see below). Were it not for those three spells, I would conclude only classes get to save. 

So if LBBs’ have an obvious hole in the rules, CHAINMAIL is often a good place to look: In CHAINMAIL, saves are only invoked in specific cases. If no saving throw is mentioned in the spell or effect, there is none.

So in light of CHAINMAIL and the obvious lack of a rule for monsters to save, I think it may be valid to conclude that non-classes creatures do not save, unless otherwise specified. But then again, how?

With no other resources I would rule one of two:

• No non-classed creatures make saving throws, except in the cases of the three aforementioned spells. For these, I would perhaps use Fighting-Man saves based on HD.

This is a conundrum I don’t think there is an answer to simply by looking at CHAINMAIL and the LBBs’.

In Strategic Review #2 (Summer 1975), Saint Gary writes:

Saving throws for monsters are the same as for the appropriate type and level of man, i.e. a balrog would gain the saving throw of either a 10th level fighter or a 12th level magic-user (the latter based upon the balrog’s magic resistance), whichever score is the more favorable for the balrog. A troll would be equal to a 7th level fighter as it has 6 dice +3, virtually seven dice.

From this I would make the conclusion saving throws for monsters were there all along - he tells us how the rule “is”, not suggesting a ruling for those that want monster saving throws. In the Q & A section he also offers an explanation why the rule may have been left out: 

The space limitations of D&D (and it was difficult to get all we managed to in three booklets!) forced us to gloss over certain areas, hoping that this would not cause undue problems for readers. While the number of letters with questions regarding D & D indicates that our assumption was correct, even one or two percent of the readers represents too large a portion of unsatisfied buyers, so we herewith offer a few more details in those areas where questions most frequently occur.

• Conclusion: Monsters save as Fighting-Men of monster HD level. In cases where they have some sort of magic resistance, they may also save as a M-U.  

Effect of a Successful Saving Throw

Here, M&M is a bit more clear: 

• Death Ray, polymorph, paralyzation, stone, spell - No effect, no damage

• Poison, dragon breath - Half damage

• Wands of cold, fire balls, lightning etc., staves - Half damage

• Poison scoring one half of total possible hit damage

• Dragon breath scoring one half of its full damage

The only complication would be the given damage reduction for poison and dragon breath: 

I assume this means the referee upon a successful save vs poison calculates the maximum possible damage and the victim takes half that.

I'm still ambiguous in the case of dragon breath: does the referee roll the damage and a successful save halves that figure? Why does that warrant an extra explanation? Or is it half maximum damage, as with poison? “Full damage” is a bit ambiguous here in my opinion.