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Pathfinder RPG (2nd Edition) Pathfinder RPG (1st Edition) Starfinder RPG

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Pathfinder Unchained / Fractional Base Bonuses

Base Save Bonus

Source Pathfinder Unchained pg. 40
There are only two base saving throw progressions: good and poor. Good saves progress at a rate of +1/2 per level, while poor saves progress at +1/3 per level. Additionally, saving throw bonuses with a good saving throw progression start higher, effectively incorporating an additional +2 bonus. Under the core rules, this additional bonus stacks between classes, letting a character who’s a 1st-level barbarian and a 1st-level fighter have a +4 Fortitude save bonus while his Reflex and Will saves stagnate. However, this higher initial saving throw bonus is intended to act like the +3 bonus received on a class skill: you should get it only once for a particular type of saving throw, regardless of the number of classes in which you have levels. Under this variant, the +2 bonus at 1st level to a good save no longer stacks between classes, so a character’s strongest saves are sometimes decreased. However, the improvements to that character’s weakest saves usually make up the difference, and such characters are much less likely to leap ahead of (or fall dramatically behind) their single-class peers.

When calculating each saving throw bonus, first determine whether each class you have levels in grants a good or poor saving throw progression for that type of save. To tell whether a class has a good or poor save progression for a particular saving throw, look at the 1st-level saving throw bonus it receives for that save in the core rules. If the bonus is +2, the class has a good save progression for that type of save. If it’s +0, the class has a poor save progression for that type of save. Next, for each class, find the value in Table 1–7: Fractional Bonuses by Level corresponding to your level in that class and whether the saving throw progression is good or poor. Add the values from all your classes; if you have a good saving throw progression from at least one class, add 2 to the total (this is a one-time increase and doesn’t stack).

For example, in a standard game, a character who’s a 5th-level cleric and a 2nd-level fighter would have a Fortitude base save bonus of +7, a Reflex base save bonus of +1, and a Will base save bonus of +4. In this variant, the same character would have a Fortitude base save bonus of +5 (rounded down from +5-1/2), a Reflex base save bonus of +2 (rounded down from +2-1/3), and a Will base save bonus of +5 (rounded down from +5-1/6).

In the core Pathfinder rules, prestige classes advance at the same rate as base classes but have different class bonuses. These adjusted bonuses were meant to compensate for the leftover fractions from the character’s base classes, since the only way to gain a prestige class is via multiclassing— taking levels in both your original class and the prestige class—or racial Hit Dice. Because fractional base bonuses already account for those fractions, instead use the base save bonuses from Table 1–7 just as you would for any other class. To tell whether a prestige class has a good or poor save progression for a saving throw, look at the 1st-level saving throw bonuses it receives for that save. If the bonus is +1, it has a good save progression. If it’s +0, it has a poor save progression.