Bawylie
A very OK person
But the thing is why not have saves against physical/melee attacks then? Why are magical effects dealt with in a separate system? The thing I liked about 4e attacks against defences is that the agent that decides to act always rolls the dice.
The 4e system is elegant idea and the idea of turning saves into ability checks is theoretically a great idea but I have not found it practical or elegant idea (not to mention spells like sleep that bypass the save system entirely). I enjoy 5e but it seems to me that the idea of saving was brought in 100% for legacy/history marketing reasons rather than reasons of elegance.
You mean like, "The Orc attacks you. Make a melee defense save vs DC 15?" Something like that?
I don't know.
Fwiw, tradition is a good reason to keep doing something, IMO. It's not the only consideration, but generally, we did things a certain way for a reason. And often it was a good one.
4e's defense system was cool. I liked playing with it. 5e has put DM adjudication ahead of processes, though, and in that way of doing things, the ability check, saving throw, and attack roll end up as useful methods for resolving player decisions. They're open to more uses, I feel.