Cap of the Free Thinker nerf


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Hello!

Recently I found this item in Ultimate Equipment and was really shocked how powerful it is for it's relatively small price (only 12000).

In case wearer has medium chance (11+ on 1d20) of winning Will save (and it basically affects I would say 80% of Will saves) it gives equivalent of flat +5 on the roll. I'm afraid that my players (if they will find this one in UE) will definitely want it for every PC that have in party. It's new must-have item, basically.

So, I would like to nerf it and I would greatly appreciate your feedback on this.
My idea is keep everything as is, but force wearer to spend immediate action every time he wants to use this cap.


Where do you get all that from "roll twice take the best result?"


darkwarriorkarg wrote:
Where do you get all that from "roll twice take the best result?"

Cause it's same as advantage in D&D 5 edition and it's statistics.

http://andrewgelman.com/2014/07/12/dnd-5e-advantage-disadvantage-probabilit y/


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It takes a head slot, which is better used for a mental stat boost. It is only for mind-affecting, which a spell like protection from evil gives a flat immunity to for the majority of effects that matter. It's fine as is.

Knee jerk nerfing is the kind of reaction that ends with banned trip builds and justifiably unhappy players.

Sovereign Court

Actually it's closer to a +2.5 on the roll, based on a million trials. Taking the best od 2d20 will give you an average of 13.

It doesn't do a lot for your chance to save on high difficulties. But against difficulties around the 50% chance it helps a lot, because you have fewer really low rolls.


Blakmane wrote:

It takes a head slot, which is better used for a mental stat boost. It is only for mind-affecting, which a spell like protection from evil gives a flat immunity to for the majority of effects that matter. It's fine as is.

Knee jerk nerfing is the kind of reaction that ends with banned trip builds and justifiably unhappy players.

Actually you are wrong. It takes HEAD slot, not HEADBAND slot, that is used for mental stat boost.

Regarding Protection from Evil you are wrong again. PfE works only versus minority of mind-affecting effects, as stated in FAQ.

FAQ wrote:


Does protection from evil (good/law/etc.) work against all charm and compulsion effects? Or does it just work against charm and compulsion effects where the caster is able to exercise control over the target, such as charm person, command, and dominate person (and thus not effects like sleep or confusion, as the caster does not have ongoing influence or puppet-like control of the target)?

The latter interpretation is correct: protection from evil only works on charm and compulsion effects where the caster is able to exercise control over the target, such as command, charm person, and dominate person; it doesn't work on sleep or confusion.


Ascalaphus wrote:

Actually it's closer to a +2.5 on the roll, based on a million trials. Taking the best od 2d20 will give you an average of 13.

Dice analysis above (I've posted link) shows that average roll on "2d20 take best" is 15.


The bonus ranges from the equivalent of +1 to +5 (~5%-25%) depending on the DC. It's the inverse of persistent spell (and I wonder how those would interact?)

The price is between that of a +3 and a +4 cloak of resistance, which would apply a similar bonus to all saves rather than to a subset of will. The only way this could be out of line is that it effectively stacks, and there aren't that many good sources of save boosts. I think it's OK as is though.


avr wrote:
The only way this could be out of line is that it effectively stacks, and there aren't that many good sources of save boosts. I think it's OK as is though.

Yes, basically it's my concern that it provides stacking with everything bonus (ok, let it be average +3) for only 12k. Moreover it uses quite unpopular item slot.

Even mind blank (8th level spell!) gives less effect in long run on high level than this 12K item. Imagine you are 15th level PC and you have a choice - use mind blank for additional +3 or +4 bonus over your must-have cloak of resistance, or buy for just 12K item that stacks with everything?


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I think you probably have nothing to worry about. It costs 12,000 gold which is more than a Hat of Disguise and a Jingasa of the Fortunate Soldier combined and failing will saves is a whole lot of no fun for a player. If they want to spend some combination of feats, time and gold to up their will saves, those resources aren't being applied to say CMD and Fort saves, and that's a legitimate tradeoff.


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Not seeing the issue here. It's 12k gold, which is a pretty good chunk of cash at most levels.

In exchange, it boosts your Will save by a decent bit.

It's good, but not game breaking.


Gregory Connolly wrote:
I think you probably have nothing to worry about. It costs 12,000 gold which is more than a Hat of Disguise and a Jingasa of the Fortunate Soldier combined and failing will saves is a whole lot of no fun for a player. If they want to spend some combination of feats, time and gold to up their will saves, those resources aren't being applied to say CMD and Fort saves, and that's a legitimate tradeoff.

I don't quite understand your logic here. Failing all kind of saves could possibly be not fun for such players (you are refering to) - Reflex could kill or hamper, Fortitude can remove from combat, Will can remove from combat, etc.

What I'm talking about is that I'm not happy with having new must-have-for-everyone item and this Cap is very close to such item. JINGASA OF THE FORTUNATE SOLDIER compared to this Cap (constant not requiring action-economy item that grants ability to have average roll of 15 on 1d20 on 80% of Will saves) is not powerful at all in my opinion. And Hat of Disguise is totally different kind of item (not combat-oriented)

And if, ok, on 8th level it's really tough choice how to spend 12K (big chunk of PCs money), then on 15th level I see no reason not to have this item on every PC - moreover it's so cheap, that you can have it's effect as additional one in any other Head item for just 18K.


Mrakvampire wrote:
Gregory Connolly wrote:
I think you probably have nothing to worry about. It costs 12,000 gold which is more than a Hat of Disguise and a Jingasa of the Fortunate Soldier combined and failing will saves is a whole lot of no fun for a player. If they want to spend some combination of feats, time and gold to up their will saves, those resources aren't being applied to say CMD and Fort saves, and that's a legitimate tradeoff.

I don't quite understand your logic here. Failing all kind of saves could possibly be not fun for such players (you are refering to) - Reflex could kill or hamper, Fortitude can remove from combat, Will can remove from combat, etc.

What I'm talking about is that I'm not happy with having new must-have-for-everyone item and this Cap is very close to such item. JINGASA OF THE FORTUNATE SOLDIER compared to this Cap (constant not requiring action-economy item that grants ability to have average roll of 15 on 1d20 on 80% of Will saves) is not powerful at all in my opinion. And Hat of Disguise is totally different kind of item (not combat-oriented)

And if, ok, on 8th level it's really tough choice how to spend 12K (big chunk of PCs money), then on 15th level I see no reason not to have this item on every PC - moreover it's so cheap, that you can have it's effect as additional one in any other Head item for just 18K.

It isn't a must have. That book has been out for 2 years. I've never ever seen any player take that item. Have you? Has anyone? I guarantee you didn't just "discover" the best item since +5 vorpal swords and no one else has seen it. If you want to nerf it or flat remove it from your game then that is your prerogative.

As with most others here I think that is an overreaction. (Note: any reaction to this item is an over reaction, including buying it as a player. At every single level I have better ways to use 12k gold. If some random character handed to me for free I would wear it to the next town where I would promptly sell it and buy something useful. Like 6000gp worth of hookers and blow.)


At 15th level + it is an obvious buy; partly because PF nerfed 3.5's Mind Blank to the point it is no longer essential. If it requires an immediate action it suddenly becomes a bad buy again due the number of things you will want to use your swift/immediate action for at that level. At lower levels it just costs too much for such a specific bonus.

It'd be better to balance it another way IMO, probably with uses/day.


BigDTBone wrote:
It isn't a must have. That book has been out for 2 years.

My only explanation for this is that as I understand majority here plays PFS games and they stop at... 11th level? (I'm not sure)

So yes, at low-levels (1-6) and early mid-levels (7-10) this item is quite costly and it's probably a better idea to buy cloak of resistance +3 and something else. But starting from 12th level (108K per PC) I again see no reason not to buy it.

High bonus. Check.
Stacks with everything. Check.
Can make nearly immune to mind-affecting effects 24 hours a day. Check.


Mrakvampire wrote:
BigDTBone wrote:
It isn't a must have. That book has been out for 2 years.
My only explanation for this is that as I understand majority here plays PFS games and they stop at... 11th level? (I'm not sure)

"It's not as good as you think" doesn't count as an explanation?


Orfamay Quest wrote:
"It's not as good as you think" doesn't count as an explanation?

I would prefer some solid arguments that support this explanation. :)


12th level - you want a cloak of resistance +5 first, either a +5 weapon or metamagic rods of a similar cost, then you spend 20K on minor stacking bonuses ... and you find yourself without the cash to spare. Your initial point when you quoted 15th level sounds stronger.


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Mrakvampire wrote:
Orfamay Quest wrote:
"It's not as good as you think" doesn't count as an explanation?
I would prefer some solid arguments that support this explanation. :)

It's an expensive and overspecialized defense. At low levels, you can't afford it. At high levels, you want protection against everything, not just against mind-affecting -- and at really high levels, mind blank provides better protection (+8 v. mind-affecting) at the cost of only a spell slot.


avr wrote:
12th level - you want a cloak of resistance +5 first, either a +5 weapon or metamagic rods of a similar cost, then you spend 20K on minor stacking bonuses ... and you find yourself without the cash to spare. Your initial point when you quoted 15th level sounds stronger.

It's really not so important to argue about 1-2 levels when this item will become must have and totally costless. For example I've seen a lot of builds without +5 weapons (difference between +4 and +5 weapon is only +1 attack/damage) and those money spent on greatly boosting survival.


Well, I have never played PFS and I have never seen a game last 2 sessions once the characters are 11th level or higher, so maybe I don't understand your problem. Do you want the players to fail will saves? This won't stop you as a pair of witches will reduce most PCs to dominated slaves at this level. By level 11 initiative is almost everything and rocket tag mode is in full effect, specialists dominate everything and defense is of less and less value.


Orfamay Quest wrote:
At high levels, you want protection against everything, not just against mind-affecting -- and at really high levels, mind blank provides better protection (+8 v. mind-affecting) at the cost of only a spell slot.

Yes, you are correct. Using low usable HEAD slot to arguably make yourself immune to ~80% opponents that use mind-affecting special abilities is one step to protect yourself from everything.

And again about mind blank:
1. It doesn't stack with mandatory cloak of resistance +5
2. Apart from cloak or resistance +5 it actually STACKS with this Cap. Mind Blank + Cap of the Free Thinker = arguably total immunity to mind-affecting effects. Only super-focused or really uber-high level enemies with high enough DCs will have slight chance to affect character with this simple combo. And I want to highlight that Pathfinder specifically nerfed any spell or item that provided immunity to any effect.


Gregory Connolly wrote:
Well, I have never played PFS and I have never seen a game last 2 sessions once the characters are 11th level or higher, so maybe I don't understand your problem. Do you want the players to fail will saves? This won't stop you as a pair of witches will reduce most PCs to dominated slaves at this level. By level 11 initiative is almost everything and rocket tag mode is in full effect, specialists dominate everything and defense is of less and less value.

I've played a lot of high level games in D&D 3.5 previously :3

About witches - I would like to know more about how they plan to do this, when from my experience saves in long run always beat DCs.


Cap of the free thinker main balancing factor in my opinion is that it offers no extra protection. If offers consistency but not increased protection. You're paying 12k to more consistently save against mind affecting abilities whose DC you can hypothetically make but could fail on a bad dice roll. Mindblank by contrast allows you to make saves that would otherwise be impossible by increasing your window of possible to save against abilities. Trying to eliminate random chance is completely fine and is a normal quality of life magic item.

The Exchange

Would not buy that over a Jingasa and a clear spindle ioun stone mounted in a wayfinder.


NOG the Demoralizer wrote:
Would not buy that over a Jingasa and a clear spindle ioun stone mounted in a wayfinder.

It won't protect you from confusion, hold monster, mind fog, etc. so good luck combating that den of evil enchantresses! :3


NOG the Demoralizer wrote:
Would not buy that over a Jingasa and a clear spindle ioun stone mounted in a wayfinder.

To be fair, the jingasa is useless to non-combat characters. But of course, those are usually ones with good will saves, so all the cap really does is protect you from the automatic failure on a 1 rule. Those are rare enough that you can use something cheaper and situational -- buy the party bard a 1000 gp page of spell knowledge with saving finale and a 2000 gp runestone of power.

And then spend the remaining 9000 you saved on hookers and blow.


Alex Smith 908 wrote:
Cap of the free thinker main balancing factor in my opinion is that it offers no extra protection. If offers consistency but not increased protection. You're paying 12k to more consistently save against mind affecting abilities whose DC you can hypothetically make but could fail on a bad dice roll. Mindblank by contrast allows you to make saves that would otherwise be impossible by increasing your window of possible to save against abilities. Trying to eliminate random chance is completely fine and is a normal quality of life magic item.

From my previous experience in D&D 3.5 on high levels I would like to state that saving throws always increase more rapidly than DCs of abilities. So main limiting factor of nasty spells in high (or very high) level game is that all saving throws are passed on let's say 6+ or at worst 8+ roll.

Now add to this calculation this item and you will understand what I'm talking about.

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Mind-affecting spells tend to completely shutdown characters/turn them against the party, generally for multiple turns and often with only one save.

That's not too fun for the DM, but he's controlling an entire troop so it doesn't matter if some of them lose their turns. Players only control one character, and it sucks when that happens.

Is it bad if they want to defend against personal boredom as best as they can?


Mrakvampire wrote:

From my previous experience in D&D 3.5 on high levels I would like to state that saving throws always increase more rapidly than DCs of abilities. So main limiting factor of nasty spells in high (or very high) level game is that all saving throws are passed on let's say 6+ or at worst 8+ roll.

Now add to this calculation this item and you will understand what I'm talking about.

I'm not saying it's a bad item. I'm saying that it's an understandable and not overpowering item. It covers only a fairly narrow band of abilities that will be targeting high level characters and the opportunity cost of using up the head slot is enough to balance it out. For the same price you can have alter self at will.


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Petty Alchemy wrote:


Is it bad if they want to defend against personal boredom as best as they can?

Well, doing anything "as best [you] can" is usually a poor decision as it's a poor use of resources. (Look at how ineffective most of the DPR Olympians are at anything other than killing stuff.) The resources you spend in raising your damage bonus from +400 to +402 could probably raise your CMD by ten points or your will save by three.

And that's basically the issue with the cap -- it's overpriced and overspecialized, which makes it a poor choice for overall character capacity.

So I'm largely agreeing with you about there being no need to nerf the cap. It nerfs itself via opportunity cost. If you've already got good defenses against mind-effecting effects, this can up them to near total immunity. On the other hand, if you've already got good defenses against such effects, the difference between "good" and "awesome" can be taken care of more cheaply.

If you have poor defenses, there are better and more consistent ways to boost your defenses.

And for the same price, you can get other, equally situational, defenses against other types of attacks (e.g. veil of fleeting glances, which protects you again gaze and visual-based attacks).


Orfamay Quest wrote:
And for the same price, you can get other, equally situational, defenses against other types of attacks (e.g. veil of fleeting glances, which protects you again gaze and visual-based attacks).

Personally I think that you just can't compare all possible mind-affecting effects (spells and supernatural abilities) and gaze attacks. How many monsters have gaze attack? And how many monsters/NPC have mind-affecting abilities? You just can't compare these two, just can't.


Mrakvampire wrote:
Ascalaphus wrote:

Actually it's closer to a +2.5 on the roll, based on a million trials. Taking the best od 2d20 will give you an average of 13.

Dice analysis above (I've posted link) shows that average roll on "2d20 take best" is 15.

The mean average is 13.825. The median is 15. It's probably roughly equivalent to a +5 bonus, but better for surviving easy saves and not as good for getting you past really hard saves.


Mrakvampire wrote:
Orfamay Quest wrote:
"It's not as good as you think" doesn't count as an explanation?
I would prefer some solid arguments that support this explanation. :)

I'd suggest you give that item a chance.

If no one of your players wants this item, fine. Otherwise, you can have a look at it on your table. After seeing it in action for a while, you can decide for yourself if it is as bad as you thought.

And then, you can come up with solid arguments to us :)


If you want a nerd make it cost a swift action. You arent getting much love here since most people are saying its not that bad of an item and your fighting against it. Its fine. That nerf seems acceptable.


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Count me in the "the item is fine" camp.

Sovereign Court

Mrakvampire wrote:
Ascalaphus wrote:

Actually it's closer to a +2.5 on the roll, based on a million trials. Taking the best od 2d20 will give you an average of 13.

Dice analysis above (I've posted link) shows that average roll on "2d20 take best" is 15.

Yeah, I checked out those links and ran some experiments myself. It's actually doable to test this without any random trials, because it's easy to just enumerate all the possible results of rolling 2d20. That's only 20 x 20 = 400 combinations. So you take the average of max(A, B) for all the possible results of dice A and B, and that's 13. Compared to the average result of rolling just die A and getting a 10.5, that's just a +2.5 bonus.

Where it's sweet however is in the probability distribution. If you roll 1d20 you have a perfectly flat distribution. Your chance of rolling average or bad is the same. By rolling more dice however, the chance of outliers decreases.

One of the other articles referenced in the article you quoted does a much better job of explaining that (with the nice graph) than the one you quoted. LINK

Basically, rolling more dice means you're more likely to have a "normal" performance instead of an occasional extreme failure. If you needed to roll a 11 to save, that's 50% chance on 1d20, but 75% chance on 2d20 drop lowest. (Exactly.) That's where his "+5" comes from. It's not really a +5 bonus, because if the DC is higher it doesn't help quite so much.

Suppose you need to roll a 18 to save. That's a 15% chance of success. With two dice it's 27.75% chance of success; more like a +3. And if you need a 20 to save then it's 5% vs. 9.75%, so only a +1.

(I generated the probabilities through enumerating all the possibilities, rather than through simulation like he did. The numbers are close but not exactly the same. These are my probabilities of getting at least X, using 2 dice: [1.0, 0.9975, 0.99, 0.9775, 0.96, 0.9375, 0.91, 0.8775, 0.84, 0.7975, 0.75, 0.6975, 0.64, 0.5775, 0.51, 0.4375, 0.36, 0.2775, 0.19, 0.0975])

On the low DC front: suppose you needed only a 4 to save (85%). With two dice that's a 97.75% chance, so again a +3. If you only needed a 2 to save (because a 1 always fails), you go from 95% to 99.75%, so only a +1.

===

TL;DR - this item does something different from just giving a +5 bonus. It reduces randomness. If you could probably make the check, now you're much more likely to. If it was a long shot anyway, it becomes only a little bit more likely that you'll succeed.

On the whole, it's a very good item. It's good protection against midrange enemies, not so much against the end boss.


the Item is fine camp for me also, one of my players picked up in random treasure I had rolled up, It saved the party from a TPK, because the level 19 two handed fighter is using it. when everyone else was failing will saves, only he and one rogue sorcerer were left and the sorcerer finally failed it will save, he was the only one left standing. the cleric and oracle did not make the game. That is right the weak and worthless fighter saved the day with his crappy will saves thanks to this magic item. He was able to avoid the psychic crush attack, and kill the remaining attackers, with his scythe and devastating blow ability. He just got the item the game before also. That why I don’t believe the weak fighter BS, I see fighters save the day lots of times especially at higher levels. Another thing the last thing is you want is a fighter like him under mind control, that why it was giving to him. If he ever got mind control you can count the whole party as TPK or retreat because he can one hit any of them and he is not going to miss.

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Removed a post and reply to it. These kinds of comments are totally unhelpful. If it's not advice, don't post it.


the item is price fairly, and i don't think most characters are going to use this item, this item is really the fighter/rogue item. nerfing this perfectly fine item defeats the point of the item, which from the way it works, narrows the gap between classes with bad will saves and glasses with good saves.


ikarinokami wrote:
the item is price fairly, and i don't think most characters are going to use this item, this item is really the fighter/rogue item. nerfing this perfectly fine item defeats the point of the item, which from the way it works, narrows the gap between classes with bad will saves and glasses with good saves.

Just to be clear. If I would say that I want to introduce a new item that allows to roll 2d20 and pick best for saves versus:

1. Mind-affecting effects
2. Death, Poison, Disease effects and spells from Necromancy school
3. Fire, Cold and Acid attacks

... and it would cost 12K+18K+18K = 48000 gp, you would say that this item is OK?

I'm curious if community would approve item that allows to roll 2d20 for attacks and choose best. :)

As for fighter/rogue item. I'm deeply concerned about this item not because it can slightly help those chars that have low Will, no. I'm concerned cause this item makes those will high Will totally immune to those effects. And on high levels this item is going to be game-breaking for all chars that specialize in enchantment for example. And I'm not talking about NPC characters, it affects PCs as in 3.5 Enchanters-PCs after certain level were worthless due to Mind Blank.


Orfamay Quest wrote:

To be fair, the jingasa is useless to non-combat characters.

Eh?

I'm much more afraid of being hit by a random crit on my squishies than my big burly Barbarian man with 300+ HP.

Mrakvampire wrote:


As for fighter/rogue item. I'm deeply concerned about this item not because it can slightly help those chars that have low Will, no. I'm concerned cause this item makes those will high Will totally immune to those effects.

All this really does for high Will characters is save them from that time they roll a 1. Which, really, is more power to it. F+#@ that rule, and whoever came up with it.


Rynjin wrote:


All this really does for high Will characters is save them from that time they roll a 1. Which, really, is more power to it. F$%$ that rule, and whoever came up with it.

It doesn't even do that, since you have to roll the dice at the same time. You don't get to know the result of the first die before you use the second.

It's essentially a more limited version of Improved Iron Will.

Basically, the only people who would want this item are those who have s*!+ will saves so that they have a better chance of making a save at a critical moment.


I don't see the issue with this item. There are at least 10 other items I would say are must haves, where as this particular item is just cool if you find one.

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CommandoDude wrote:
Rynjin wrote:


All this really does for high Will characters is save them from that time they roll a 1. Which, really, is more power to it. F$%$ that rule, and whoever came up with it.
It doesn't even do that, since you have to roll the dice at the same time. You don't get to know the result of the first die before you use the second.

I'm not sure what distinction you're trying to make here:

"Roll twice, take highest" and "reroll once if you fail" are mathematically equivalent.

Sovereign Court

I think it's a good item for people who should statistically make their Will about 70% of the time, but want to take further steps so they don't succumb to a random Charm/Confusion/Domination effect cast by an in-between-boss and slaughter half the other PCs.

Because it's better at middle-difficulty DCs than high DCs, it doesn't do nearly as much in fights against end bosses.


It's not that overpowered. A reroll basically means +3.3 average roll, with an extra shot at a Natural 20 and reducing your auto-fail chance from 5% to 0.25%.

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Athaleon wrote:
A reroll basically means +3.3 average roll

What are the assumptions that go into that average?

Having a reroll is like having a miss chance in that the benefit varies wildly depending on you base odds. If you'll make your save unassisted 50% of the time, a reroll is like having a +5, because it raises your success chances to 75%. If you'd only succeed 25% of the time, it's more similar to a +4: it raises your success chance to 43.75% (a +4 would have gotten you a 45%). If you'd succeed 95% of the time, it's less than a +1.

I think you're giving the average over all 20 possible variations on a save vs. DC, which I suppose is fair enough, but avoids the fact that people with low will saves are more likely to be the ones to invest in an item like this.

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