Goodman Games

Now that my players are getting characters into the second and third level range, a question popped up about saving throw modifiers. Obviously, when a player moves from zero level to level one, they add the level one bonuses of that class to their existing saving throw modifiers. So a zero level with Ref +1, Fort 0, Will -1 who becomes a warrior now has saving throws of Ref +2, Fort+1 and Will -1. But what about when they go to level two. Are the modifiers cumulative, or just an indication of what the overall warrior modifiers are at level two (+1, +1, 0), which are the same as level one.

In other words, does a second level warrior still have modifiers of +1, +1, 0 or are they added to give a bonus of +2, +2, 0?

I am guessing they are not cumulative, otherwise a level 8 warrior would have an overall bonus of +15, +22, +9. But I wanted to see how other people handle it.

Not cumulative.

Are attack bonuses, spell slots, thief skill bonuses, action dice cumulative? Nope, so why would be saving throws cumulative? That would be insane, as you already realized. The modifiers in the table are the current modifiers for that level.

Yeah, I figured they weren't cumulative, but I wanted to double check myself. There are plenty of things in DCC that are insanely high, so I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something...

I had the same issue pop up when I was leveling characters. For some reason I looked at the chart and thought sure they are cumulative. This was at the end of a six hour session. I sat down later and took a breather and went..wait, that's not right. Wasn't hard to correct but it is something that apparently can be confusing to some.