Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Had a issue in a game today. Guy had a obliterator's in some chaos ruins granting him a reroll to his invul save. Due to some chaos warp storm they had a 3+ re rolled save. He was shot with a AP3 weapon and he says according to the wording. "Take the best save available." He chose to take his 3+ re rollable and said that is was the best save. I thought "best save is based off of armor and or cover.

It's best numerical save.
Oblits have a 2+ iirc so they cannot choose to take the 3++ rerollable.

Can I get a page number I am at a loss

16-17-18-19 with the "best save avalaible" idea on the 19. It doesn't say it has to be cover or armor

I am looking at those pages and it does not say anywhere that its numerical.

"a model only ever gets to make one saving throw, but it has the advantage of always using the best available save." PG 19 Bold text.

This is one of the topics that has come up in the past and it did bring to light what I believe is a very interesting problem. This problem stems from the fact the rules related to Saves do not take into account the possibility of the 'best' save being anything other then the lowest numeral value. This is because, in an earlier section, it explained that a lower save is a better save. It is hard to say if this is an oversight or not, I personally believe it is, but regardless this means the official 'best save' is always the the lowest number regardless of what other factors might be in play.

The "saves are better the lower they are" is on the page about characteristics at the very beginning. In the rules re-rolls aren't taken in account to see what the best save is, although HIWPI just let the player pick the save that has the most chance to succeed

lynxstrife wrote:
I am looking at those pages and it does not say anywhere that its numerical.

"a model only ever gets to make one saving throw, but it has the advantage of always using the best available save." PG 19 Bold text.

The rules define better as numerically lower.
If you're using a definition of "best" that is not "the most better" I'd love to know why.

I am quoting from the rules book, that is the rule books wording.

Invulnerable and cover saves work like armor saves, with a few diferences each. They still have the "the lower the better" mechanic.

lynxstrife wrote:
I am quoting from the rules book, that is the rule books wording.

I'm also quoting the rule book - a numerically lower armor save is better.

You're saying that the best save is not the "most better". Why?

 B0B MaRlEy wrote:
Invulnerable and cover saves work like armor saves, with a few diferences each. They still have the "the lower the better" mechanic.

I will go over the rule book again and take a look. The guy I played was so adamant about it, it was not good at all.

The idea that invulnerable saves work like armor saves is in the shooting phase part, in one of the pages I gave you (probably 18).
I'll reiterate though that making someone use a save that has less chances to succeed while it's RAW , is not being a sportsman.

Best available, the melta took the.standard armour save away leaving you with the cover save. For the remainder.the best available was the armour save as it was available, where with the melta it was not. each save is made separately so you use the best available for each wound one at a time.

A re-rollable 3+ save is mathematically better then a 2+. If the rule indeed said "Best save available", then the re-rollable 3+ is the better save.

Pg. 19 of the BBB is pretty clear, and it's even bolded "...a model only ever gets to make one saving throw, but it has the advantage of always using the best available save."

Best available save is a 3+ re-roll save.

 Tamwulf wrote:
A re-rollable 3+ save is mathematically better then a 2+. If the rule indeed said "Best save available", then the re-rollable 3+ is the better save.

Pg. 19 of the BBB is pretty clear, and it's even bolded "...a model only ever gets to make one saving throw, but it has the advantage of always using the best available save."

Best available save is a 3+ re-roll save.

Incorrect. Best is defined as lowest numerically.

"unlike other characteristics, the lower an Armour save is, the better. A model can never have an Armour Save better than 2+." (Page 2, Emphasis mine)

The lower the better, the most better/best would be the lowest number available.

So a 2+ armor save is better than a 3+ invuln save with a re-roll

 Tamwulf wrote:
A re-rollable 3+ save is mathematically better then a 2+. If the rule indeed said "Best save available", then the re-rollable 3+ is the better save.

Pg. 19 of the BBB is pretty clear, and it's even bolded "...a model only ever gets to make one saving throw, but it has the advantage of always using the best available save."

Best available save is a 3+ re-roll save.

When comparing armor saves to determine the best, what criteria do you use?
The rulebook states, unequivocally, that a lower armor save is better. There is no rule discussing anything other than numerical order.
Mathematically better is absolutely, 100% irrelevant. The actual rules require you to use a 2+ save instead of a 3+ rerollable.

rigeld2 wrote:

 Tamwulf wrote:
A re-rollable 3+ save is mathematically better then a 2+. If the rule indeed said "Best save available", then the re-rollable 3+ is the better save.

Pg. 19 of the BBB is pretty clear, and it's even bolded "...a model only ever gets to make one saving throw, but it has the advantage of always using the best available save."

Best available save is a 3+ re-roll save.

When comparing armor saves to determine the best, what criteria do you use?
The rulebook states, unequivocally, that a lower armor save is better. There is no rule discussing anything other than numerical order.
Mathematically better is absolutely, 100% irrelevant. The actual rules require you to use a 2+ save instead of a 3+ rerollable.

Is there any re rollable armor saves in the game per chance?

 Nem wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:

 Tamwulf wrote:
A re-rollable 3+ save is mathematically better then a 2+. If the rule indeed said "Best save available", then the re-rollable 3+ is the better save.

Pg. 19 of the BBB is pretty clear, and it's even bolded "...a model only ever gets to make one saving throw, but it has the advantage of always using the best available save."

Best available save is a 3+ re-roll save.

When comparing armor saves to determine the best, what criteria do you use?
The rulebook states, unequivocally, that a lower armor save is better. There is no rule discussing anything other than numerical order.
Mathematically better is absolutely, 100% irrelevant. The actual rules require you to use a 2+ save instead of a 3+ rerollable.

Is there any re rollable armor saves in the game per chance?

Fortune? Why is the question relevant?

IMO, 'better' under page 2 is not a rule, it's an explanation, the comparative is against 2 armour saves of different values the lower value is better. This will always be true, a 5+ armour save will always be better than a 6+ save, this explanation scope does not include variant scope of multiple options for a save, it only handles 1 alone option. For this reason I am reluctant to apply it to situations outside its scope, and prefer 'best' save to be played at the players discretion

It's not a rule?
Even when it's repeated on more than page 2?

You have two saves. Using the rules, how do you determine which is better?

 Nem wrote:
IMO, 'better' under page 2 is not a rule, it's an explanation, the comparative is against 2 armour saves of different values the lower value is better. This will always be true, a 5+ armour save will always be better than a 6+ save, this explanation scope does not include variant scope of multiple options for a save, it only handles 1 alone option. For this reason I am reluctant to apply it to situations outside its scope, and prefer 'best' save to be played at the players discretion

I will agree that it is an explanation.

It is an explanation within the rules of what save value is the better save

Just my opinion, the lower the armour save is, the better. It's better both numerically, and statistically. Armor save is explanation is self contained and of limited scope, no where in the rule book explanation goes as far as saying your best available save is always the one of lowest numeric value. It's just not explained very well, and is probably better off under the first notation of saves and the rules for saves starting on page 16.

^ This.

The rulebook is just explaining that 2+ is better than 3+ which is necessary because WS4 is worse than WS5. It's necessary to explain that unlike most other figures on the statline lower-numbered saves are better than higher-numbered saves.

 Nem wrote:
Just my opinion, the lower the armour save is, the better. It's better both numerically, and statistically. Armor save is explanation is self contained and of limited scope, no where in the rule book explanation goes as far as saying your best available save is always the one of lowest numeric value. It's just not explained very well, and is probably better off under the first notation of saves and the rules for saves starting on page 16.

We only have ONE definition of "better", ergo we only have one way to determine what is best.

We are not given any other measure by which we can determine what is best, so RAW we cannot consider anything else

nosferatu1001 wrote:

 Nem wrote:
Just my opinion, the lower the armour save is, the better. It's better both numerically, and statistically. Armor save is explanation is self contained and of limited scope, no where in the rule book explanation goes as far as saying your best available save is always the one of lowest numeric value. It's just not explained very well, and is probably better off under the first notation of saves and the rules for saves starting on page 16.

We only have ONE definition of "better", ergo we only have one way to determine what is best.

We are not given any other measure by which we can determine what is best, so RAW we cannot consider anything else

More like RAW there is no reason to consider anything else.

Look, Warhammer 40,000 is not written for Statisticians and Math Majors. It is written for average everyday people.

Better save is as the rules say, the lower numeric value; memorizing the percentages for rerolls is noce extra credit but utterly worthless to the rules.

The odds of you rolling 3 or better on two dice is in fact better then the the odds of you rolling 2 or better on a singe die. That's not what we are comparing here. The 're-roll' requires you fail the 1st roll. The odds of you rolling a 1 or a 2 followed by you rolling a 3 or better are much much lower then the odds of you rolling a two or better.

So what looks best to you?
83% = Odds of rolling a 2 or better.
67% = Odds of rolling a 3 or better.
22% = Odds of rolling a 1 or a 2 followed by rolling a 3 or better.

It is better, mathematically, however not in 40k terms, as has been proven.

 DJGietzen wrote:
The odds of you rolling 3 or better on two dice is in fact better then the the odds of you rolling 2 or better on a singe die. That's not what we are comparing here. The 're-roll' requires you fail the 1st roll. The odds of you rolling a 1 or a 2 followed by you rolling a 3 or better are much much lower then the odds of you rolling a two or better.

So what looks best to you?
83% = Odds of rolling a 2 or better.
67% = Odds of rolling a 3 or better.
22% = Odds of rolling a 1 or a 2 followed by rolling a 3 or better.

I have it on the highest Authority that GW does not expect you to whip out a Calculator(Or to have memorized the percentage chances for every save and every reroll); they expect you to follow their example of what is a better save.

While I agree that a 3+ rerollable is technically 'better' than a 2+, insofar as it is more likely to save the wound, allowing you to use what is 'mathematically' better rather than 'numerically' better opens up the door for people using what is 'tactically' better or 'strategically' better (or any other kind of personal determination).

IIRC, you are not allowed to take a worse 'numerical' save (or simply forgo the save entirely) simply because that might be a tactically superior move (e.g. prevent an ensuing assault due to models being removed) in the same way as you are not allowed to voluntarily fail morale/statistics/leadership tests (unless a special rule allows you to) regardless of what might be more advantageous to your situation.

The book describes a single way in which it considers saves to be 'better' and that is, as others have mentioned, the lowest number. Allowing the use of other metrics (mathematical, strategic, tactical, ecumenical, etc.) to determine 'best save' is outside the bounds of the rules.

DoW