I suppose this is a general rules issue, but it's come up for me in connection with LOLR. I'm unclear on whether or not the improved evasion ability of the rogue in the party I'm DMing applies to the Reflex save against cave-ins and collapses (DMG 66). Krathanos can knock over the towers and walls of his "fortress" to bury the PCs. When the rogue passes her reflex save, what is the result? If she were saving v. a fireball spell, she would take no damage, and maybe in the case of the collapse/cave-in it's the same. But . . . is she still buried like everyone else in the collapsed area? Am I making this too complex? Can anyone offer me a general principle which helps me discern when the rogue evasion advantage is relevant? Thanks.
If the 'attack' would only deal half damage on a successful reflex save then evasion qualifies. If thats not part of the 'attacks' modus operandi then evasion and hence improved evasion does not enter the picture. Now if its a cave in things get kind of strange - rogues evade through the rather strange ability to ignore the laws of physics they still right there in the middle of the fireball blast radius but apparently unharmed. What this means when the actual roof falls on you ... yeah thats not so clear. I suppose their buried like everyone else - its just that they took no damage while being buried.
Still looking for some rule of thumb I can use here. Anyone?
I suggest sticking with the description of the ability in the PH. The rogue that makes a successful Reflex save under these conditions takes no damage. The ability mentions nothing about additional effects, so if they can be buried regardless of the result of the save, then they dodge all the debris and manage to land in a small gap in the rubble.
Be that as it may, our DM has occasionally grumbled about the absurdities that can result from this ability. I have argued that rogues and monks don't have so many HP that they can afford to have this ability altered, especially the rogues. Our DM was considering making the ability null if the attack was so large that you couldn't take a move action and find yourself outside of the radius of the attack. On the other hand, I argued that I don't get to take a move action when rolling that saving throw (yes, there are feats that might change that fact, but those weren't in use here), so his ruling implied that I had to be able to move out of the attack radius. As you can't take a move action when it isn't your turn, that meant no one could then make a Reflex save. We still argue about this occasionally.
The rules support the lack of damage, all that said.
Yeah, what they said.
Besides, Krathanos has more than one way to deal with them pesky runts.