[RPG] If you are a willing target, do you decline your save or do you just not get one

dnd-3.5epathfinder-1esaving-throw

When playing 3.x we've always played that the willing target of a spell can decline their saving throw and allow a spell to affect them automatically. Recently a comment was posted on an answer of mine reading:

Yeah, we're talkin' about protection from evil, which says that "the subject immediately receives another saving throw (if one was allowed to begin with)," yet when the spell marionette possession was cast the target was not allowed a saving throw because the target was willing when the spell targeted the creature!

This makes it matter in quite a few situations whether or not a willing target declines to take a saving throw to which they are entitled or whether willing targets are just not allowed saving throws in the first place. Which is correct?

a 3.5 example is the 1st-level Clr spell resurgence [conju] (SpC 174-5), which says: "The subject of a resurgence spell can make a second attempt to save against an ongoing spell," presuming the creature made a first.

Best Answer

Magic (CRB):

Voluntarily Giving up a Saving Throw: A creature can voluntarily forego a saving throw and willingly accept a spell's result. Even a character with a special resistance to magic can suppress this quality.

If the creature is a willing target, they forego the saving throw: in other words they choose to fail it. You can do this at any time, for any spell, even the ones that don't ask for a willing participant (although it is rare to willingly fail against a harmful spell).

I don't really understand your entire question. If the subject of Marionette Possession was a willing target initially, and are then targeted by Protection from Alignment, why wouldn't they choose to fail the reroll, too? In any case, yes, that quote is technically false. Willing creatures get a saving throw (unless the spell says otherwise).

That's the RAW.

I suppose there is some ambiguity with the word forego. Some might argue that it means "refuse" or "bypass", and not "surrender" or "yield".

But I think it's pretty clear what the RAI is. And my experience, from what I've read online and heard from other players and GMs, supports this idea. It's also a common (house?) rule that a creature can choose to purposely fail any save, not just against spells.