GM advice needed - How to streamline multiple aura / gaze effects?

[Secane]

So in my homebrew over the weekend, I fielded quite a couple of monsters with auras and gaze effects. The monsters were basically low cr compared to the party, but the numbers of the field was meant to give them a sense of being overwhelmed by foes.
*(!) The monsters were also meant to be part of a "hive mind" and the original intent was that the more monsters there are on the field, the more likely the party would succumb to the enemies's aura/gaze effect.

This lead the problem of each player needing to roll multiple saves, bogging down the pace of the game.
When one the players summoned monsters to fight for the party, the roll of saves situation gets even more uncomfortable.

How could I help streamline this?

Should I :
1) Lower the aura's DC, but for each additional aura affecting a target the DC increases by 1 or 0.5? Effectually allowing the aura to stack their DC?

2) Allow one aura to affect any one player at a time? But this might means the players would have to constantly roll a save each round?

3) Have players roll 1 save for all auras currently affecting them? So if they save its against everything, but if they fail the effects are all affecting them in one go?

I'm quite lost about what to do... any advice?

[Secane]

Any thoughts on this?

[Drogos]

I'd personally marry the two. Each one typically has a a range that the aura effects right? When the Character is in an overlapping area, have them make a save roll, increase the DC by 1-2 for each additional aura they are in range of at the same time. If they pass the save, they are immune to each creatures' aura they were in for 24 hrs (as is typical for such abilities). When they get in range of a new groups' aura, they make the save again as modified as above. It makes for more than one save roll, which I think is important in a set up like this but it makes it so it isn't say 17 individual rolls, more likely to be 3-4 over the course of the fight. Of course, this would be dependent on what you wanted it to accomplish.

[voideternal]

For 1), I think counting the number of auras takes as much time as rolling multiple saves.
For 2), I think keeping track of which aura is keyed to which player is too time consuming.
I think 3) would streamline the game, though it is a bit extreme.

I often run multiple creature encounters. In a few extreme cases, I have run 16+ creatures against my PCs, each of which have an AoE Save effect such as a gaze or an aura.

Usually, the creatures I run are all the same kind, so the save DCs and effects are identical. I also publicly announce the save DC, so the PC knows how high s/he needs to roll to pass the save. Then, it's as simple as rolling 16 D20s at once, and counting how many rolls are below the required number. Is this too slow for your needs?

[Chess Pwn]

voideternal wrote:

For 1), I think counting the number of auras takes as much time as rolling multiple saves.

For 2), I think keeping track of which aura is keyed to which player is too time consuming.
I think 3) would streamline the game, though it is a bit extreme.

I often run multiple creature encounters. In a few extreme cases, I have run 16+ creatures against my PCs, each of which have an AoE Save effect such as a gaze or an aura.

Usually, the creatures I run are all the same kind, so the save DCs and effects are identical. I also publicly announce the save DC, so the PC knows how high s/he needs to roll to pass the save. Then, it's as simple as rolling 16 D20s at once, and counting how many rolls are below the required number. Is this too slow for your needs?

This is my suggestion as well

[Secane]

voideternal wrote:

For 1), I think counting the number of auras takes as much time as rolling multiple saves.

For 2), I think keeping track of which aura is keyed to which player is too time consuming.
I think 3) would streamline the game, though it is a bit extreme.

I often run multiple creature encounters. In a few extreme cases, I have run 16+ creatures against my PCs, each of which have an AoE Save effect such as a gaze or an aura.

Usually, the creatures I run are all the same kind, so the save DCs and effects are identical. I also publicly announce the save DC, so the PC knows how high s/he needs to roll to pass the save. Then, it's as simple as rolling 16 D20s at once, and counting how many rolls are below the required number. Is this too slow for your needs?

I think this can work. But how do you keep track of all the different auras keying to each player?

[voideternal]

Secane wrote:

voideternal wrote:

...

I think this can work. But how do you keep track of all the different auras keying to each player?

I assume you're talking about auras that are ineffective to creatures after 1 successful save, such as Frightful Presence. Frankly, these kinds of auras are difficult to manage for multiple creatures for the reason you stated. Namely, keeping track of which PCs successfully saved vs which Aura can be a hassle. I recommending using only a few creatures with these kinds of auras when you're running an encounter with many creatures.

On the other hand, other Auras / Gaze attacks require a save each round regardless of prior successes, such as the Basilisk's gaze. These kinds of auras require each PC to roll saves every round. There's no bookkeeping necessary for figuring out which PCs previously saved. And if your PCs are facing 10+ basilisks (or whatever creature with the Aura), chances are the PCs only fail on a natural 1, so doing 10+D20 rolls is pretty fast. All you do is roll a bunch of D20s and look for 1s.

If you want to use many creatures with the Frightful Presense-like Aura that requires bookkeeping, one suggestion is eliminating the bookkeeping aspect by requiring a save each round and balancing it by reduced the effect of a failed save.

[pipedreamsam]

Another option is to simply up the save DC. For example for every X amount of additional creatures the save DC increases by 1. This can get quickly out of hand in the other direction where players begin to all but auto-fail but will help streamline game-play and adds a neat story bit where every high level adventurers find cause to fear a nest of basilisks.

[DM Livgin]

If you are running home-brew games, the poison rules gives you a nice precedent: Each additional application increases the DC by two. But as others have commented, this is will lead to unintended consequences and will drastically change your challenge ratings. This would be a fun flavorful rule when applied to a squad of twenty hound archons, and a very unfun TPK when applied to twenty basilisks.

[gustavo iglesias]

pipedreamsam wrote:

Another option is to simply up the save DC. For example for every X amount of additional creatures the save DC increases by 1. This can get quickly out of hand in the other direction where players begin to all but auto-fail but will help streamline game-play and adds a neat story bit where

every high level adventurers find cause to fear a nest of basilisks.

A middle ground solution is to add bonus to the DC, but scaling the number.

So 2 auras give +1 DC, 4 auras +2 DC, 8 auras +3 DC, 16 auras +4 DC, etc. This way you have a scaling DC, which represents the challenge of more creatures, but it doesn't break the math of the game so quick (for example, if you give +1 DC for each extra creature, 16 creatures would mean +15 DC, and that's autofail for most players, if not all of them)

[Rerednaw]

1) I would treat it as scaling DCs just as if being hit by multiple doses of the same poison.

2) To mark? Assuming tabletop 3x5 cards with glass castoffs or pennies or (my favorite) M&M's/candies/chocolates to represents rounds of duration. Eat an M&M for each round, so while the player is incapped at least he gets to do something :)

[RegUS PatOff]

I'd strongly suggest extremely low starting DCs and scaling your DCs as Gustavo Iglesias suggested.

When evaluating methods, rolling multiple times or rolling once per round for multiple rounds can be extremely chancy. If a fail is on a roll of 1 only, then a single check has a 5% failure chance. The numbers go up as you add more rolls or if the failure roll is higher (rolling a 3 or less, for example).

If you have multiple saves going off every round, you'll quickly have everyone in the party fail. Depending on the effect of the aura/failed save, you could have a TPK. Therefore, treating the auras as overlaps with a single roll to resolve each round is generally a better choice.

Roll count = failure percentage
1 roll = 5.00%
2 rolls = 9.75%
3 rolls = 14.26%
4 rolls = 18.55%
5 rolls = 22.62%
6 rolls = 26.49%
7 rolls = 30.17%
8 rolls = 33.66%
9 rolls = 36.98%
10 rolls= 40.13%
Formula: (% from previous row) + ((1 minus % from previous roll) * 1/20)

For a failure on a roll of 5, the PC's chance to fail is over 50% at 3 rolls. This also translates if you consider one roll a round, but with multiple rounds in the area of effect of auras.

[pipedreamsam]

gustavo iglesias wrote:

A middle ground solution is to add bonus to the DC, but scaling the number.

So 2 auras give +1 DC, 4 auras +2 DC, 8 auras +3 DC, 16 auras +4 DC, etc. This way you have a scaling DC, which represents the challenge of more creatures, but it doesn't break the math of the game so quick (for example, if you give +1 DC for each extra creature, 16 creatures would mean +15 DC, and that's autofail for most players, if not all of them)

Something like this is what I was trying to get across.