The first step to fixing high level play is to fix the disparity between good and poor saves. In Pathfinder 6 the pregenerated characters are 14th level. Each character has a poor save of +5. The two spellcaster's DC for their 7th level spells are 26 and 24 respectively.
In 2nd edition saving throws (DCs) were static they did not change so as you gained level you became better at resisting magic. At 5th level your hold person was more effective against like leveled enemies than finger of death at 13th level. Third edition has gone the other way, as noted above. In 2nd edition damage spells where the best choice because at least you did 1/2 damage and hp were not too high. In 3rd edition incapacitating/death spells became the best choice because a caster has such a greater chance that an enemy will fail their save. Pathfinder needs to find the happy medium. I have two suggestions.
1) Change poor saves to the same formula (+1/2 levels) rather than the current (+1/3 levels) method. This has poor save trailing good saves by +2 at each level. This should be easy to calculate and thus backwards compatible.
2) Add +2 to all poor saves, this give +2 at 1st level, +5 at 10th and +8 at 20th. Again since you are only adding +2 to each poor save they are not hard to rework.
Let me know if you like either suggestion or if you have one of your own.
Well my suggestion is sort of twofold. Spell DCs are based on primary casting stat and spell level, both of which go up as character level goes up. This double progression advances faster than saving throws.
Either detach the primary casting stat from the DC progression or make it more difficult to boost the primary casting stat.
Making DCs a flat 15+ Spell Level would be a simple way to level the playing field a bit, it also has the benefit of being slightly easier to calculate. This also makes DC boosting feats more valuable. Spell DCs for the most powerful spells would still progress faster than poor saving throws but the discrepancy wouldn't be as big. Your 7th level spells would have a flat DC of 22 (23 with spell focus). Casters still benefit from their primary attribute by more spells.
In general this makes lower level spell 'slightly' more powerful and
higher level spells significantly more likely to be saved against.
An alternate idea is to make the mental stat boosting items much more expensive. At twice their current price these items would still be worth the price. Maybe 3 times the cost?
Of your suggestions I like idea number 1 better because it changes saves at high levels where they are most broken while option 2 nerfs low level casters and doesn't help the poor saves much at higher levels.
The problem is that you don't want everyone to be good at everything.
If you even out the saves then the monk loses something. He already has all 3 good saves. He's the only one who does.
Other PC races have to shore up that gap in other ways. Namely feats (and later, with epic feats, if the campaign progresses that high).
If the PC doesn't spend the resource to shore up the hole in their defenses- then they have a hole in their defenses. And Paizo just gives PC's more feats than they had in 3.5.
Instead, people ignore the save-increasing feats and then gripe that they have low saves.
PC's have the methods already to increase their saving throws. They don't need an extra game mechanic to shore it up automatically, they just need to utilize what's already there.
Just my .02.
-S
The problem is that you don't want everyone to be good at everything.
If you even out the saves then the monk loses something. He already has all 3 good saves. He's the only one who does.
Other PC races have to shore up that gap in other ways. Namely feats (and later, with epic feats, if the campaign progresses that high).
If the PC doesn't spend the resource to shore up the hole in their defenses- then they have a hole in their defenses. And Paizo just gives PC's more feats than they had in 3.5.Instead, people ignore the save-increasing feats and then gripe that they have low saves.
PC's have the methods already to increase their saving throws. They don't need an extra game mechanic to shore it up automatically, they just need to utilize what's already there.
Just my .02.
-S
Unfortunately the divide becomes too great at higher levels. This is why many think spellcasters are too powerful. Against the DC 26 spell even if the characters have iron will or another feat. They only increase their save chance from 20 to 19-20. Add a +5 cloak of resistance and you succeed only on a 14-20, a 35% chance of success when you have done pretty much everything possible to resist magic. Karzoug has a DC 31 wail of the banshee spell. At 20th level what chance does a character with a poor Fortitude save have? Not much if you are only using the SRD. Is not one goal of the PathfinderRPG to make classes viable without other sourcebooks?
so to simplify this a bit.
Saves are equal to 1/2 character and each class gets a plus two class bonus to certain saves. Class bonuses do not stack.
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Rings of Wizardry just double the number of spells per day of a given level.
Spell DCs may be a bit too high at higher (15-20) levels, but once you get into Epic, exactly the opposite happens - spellcasters can't hurt anything. You look for what a spell does with a successful save to gauge a spell's usefulness, almost nobody fails a save at the lower side of Epic (21-27), and certainly not a Rogue. They all have improved evasion and Ref saves of no less than +25 (+12 base, +1 to +3 from Epic levels, +10 from Dex 30+, +3 to +5 resistance, and whatever else you can add in) Paladins are even worse. Charisma 30+ means even a paladin's "bad" save is still enough that they only fail on a 1.
The pendulum swings back, though, (and perhaps for the rest of Epic altogether) once spellcasters start having enough assumed money and spare XP to invest in Epic Spellcasting. Until then, though, it's been my experience in DMing multiple low Epic-level (21-24) games that the spellcasters suffer. I've been letting them add 1/2 their caster level above 20th to spell DCs to help even things out. (30th level Sorcerer with a 34 Cha would have spell DCs of 10 + 12 + ((30-20)/2=5) or 27 + spell level.)
The stat is an attribute bonus. The wizard uses INT and the defender uses Dex, Con or Wis as bonus. Assuming they can be equal, we can remove it.
In addition, at level 20, highest spell level = 9
Good Save: 12
Bad Save: 6
Spell DC: 19.
Well if you assume the caster has no INT bonus you are correct. But the caster usually has an INT bonus of at least +7 (16 base, +4 by levelling +4 item) by the time they are casting 9th level spells which bumps up the DC to 26 with a slightly higher INT base or a +6 INT booster and/ or spell focus this could easily be 30-31. The only way the character keeps parity is with a stat-booster to the resisting stat and a cloak of resistance +5. Even then they fall quickly behind unless they have a high defensive stat. This is why wisdom saves for high level fighters and rogues fall by the wayside. Even with defensive magic and feats it's tough for them to keep their will save viable against a wizards rapidly rising INT plus increasing spell level.
Perhaps make the various save increasing feats scale. For every 5 or 6 character levels the character has the feat gives them another +1 bonus.
so to simplify this a bit.
Saves are equal to 1/2 character and each class gets a plus two class bonus to certain saves. Class bonuses do not stack.
I think this solution will really improve the game but it only does half of the job.
A possible solution could be to make the spellcaster need 2 abilities for his spellcasting : one to know the number of spells he can cast and the higher spell he can cast and another one for the DC of his spells.
This solution has bee nused for the favored soul and it is a good way to reduce the uberness of spellcasters. Depending on 2 abilities, spellcasters will stop being SAD classes and wil have to decide if they want a high DC or a large number of spells ...
Scaling DC's by character level also ignores that there are many, many otherways to be protected.
Each character doesn't need to be superman. They can rely on each other, for buffs and such. Energy protection spells largely ignore saving throws, as do various other protection and resistance type buffs.
True, the fighter may have a crappy Will save but the Prot vs Evil the Wizard has going keeps him from getting charmed or dominated. True, the Rogue has little defense against Horrid Wilting but the /Spell Resistance/ spell or the Cloak of Chaos or the Shield of Law or the Unholy Aura the cleric has going will help protect him from that.
Every character doesn't need to be able to overcome every obsctacle on their own. The game is about team work and cooperation. If every character can make all their own saves all the time then spell casters become /alot/ less potent- in a world where Paizo has already subjected them to the big ole nerf bat. This is another bat to them, in the guise of "lets increase saves". PC's don't need it, they have other means. Yes, characters have good and bad saves. That is the good are called GOOD and the bad are called BAD.
Epic level play (20+) has its own issues, hopefully they can pan all those out when the time comes.
-S
How about adding three new feats, Greater Great Fortitude, Greater Lightning Reflexes and Greater Iron Will, each with a prerequisite of its base feat (Great Fortitude, Lightning Reflexes and Iron Will respectively)?
In this way if a player wants his or her character to have better saves, these are an option, but it still leaves the standard class strengths and weaknesses with respect to saves intact.
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The problem is that you don't want everyone to be good at everything.
If you even out the saves then the monk loses something. He already has all 3 good saves. He's the only one who does.
Other PC races have to shore up that gap in other ways. Namely feats (and later, with epic feats, if the campaign progresses that high).
If the PC doesn't spend the resource to shore up the hole in their defenses- then they have a hole in their defenses. And Paizo just gives PC's more feats than they had in 3.5.Instead, people ignore the save-increasing feats and then gripe that they have low saves.
PC's have the methods already to increase their saving throws. They don't need an extra game mechanic to shore it up automatically, they just need to utilize what's already there.
Just my .02.
-S
But then how would they be able to make their Uber-broken, power-hungry, min-maxed, munchkinized PC happen if they need to 'waste' feats to shore up a weakness?!!?!?!?
That was sarcasm by the way. I totally agree that people should be using feats and abilities to shore up their weaknesses, and not just have a fix arbitrarily handed to them. Use feats to do stuff besides increasing damage output, raising caster level and spell DCs, and other stuff like that.A balanced PC has offense and defense. If you give up some defense to increase your offense why should the rules reward you with a bonus to saves? A fighter is susceptible to will saves so either A.) deal with it. or B.)Don't make wisdom a dump stat, refuse to buy items to shore up the will save and use all your other resources to only boost damage output or Armor class. Gods, a fighter has a ton of bonus feats(even before Pathfinder) compared to other classes yet how many times have you seen 'Iron Will' on a PC fighter's list of feats.
This isn't a superhero RPG, but sometimes it feels like it. Let's not make it worse by adding more freebies for the players.
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How about adding three new feats, Greater Great Fortitude, Greater Lightning Reflexes and Greater Iron Will, each with a prerequisite of its base feat (Great Fortitude, Lightning Reflexes and Iron Will respectively)?
In this way if a player wants his or her character to have better saves, these are an option, but it still leaves the standard class strengths and weaknesses with respect to saves intact.
I like this idea, maybe a +5 to the save for a feat. That gives a +7 boost to a save for 2 feats. I think that works better than just tossing around extra boosts by level or having a higher scaling per level.
Scaling DC's by character level also ignores that there are many, many otherways to be protected.
Each character doesn't need to be superman. They can rely on each other, for buffs and such. Energy protection spells largely ignore saving throws, as do various other protection and resistance type buffs.
True, the fighter may have a crappy Will save but the Prot vs Evil the Wizard has going keeps him from getting charmed or dominated. True, the Rogue has little defense against Horrid Wilting but the /Spell Resistance/ spell or the Cloak of Chaos or the Shield of Law or the Unholy Aura the cleric has going will help protect him from that.
Every character doesn't need to be able to overcome every obsctacle on their own. The game is about team work and cooperation. If every character can make all their own saves all the time then spell casters become /alot/ less potent- in a world where Paizo has already subjected them to the big ole nerf bat. This is another bat to them, in the guise of "lets increase saves". PC's don't need it, they have other means. Yes, characters have good and bad saves. That is the good are called GOOD and the bad are called BAD.
Epic level play (20+) has its own issues, hopefully they can pan all those out when the time comes.
-S
Are you sure you realize the difficulty of some spells DC ???
One month ago, I was playing an Elven Rogue level 7 in a Necromancer Games adventure. The group had to face a necromancer level 11 who cast Circle of Death in the first round with a DC 21 when my Fort save is +4. Off course I failed my save and as it was the first round no buff were cast.
At level 20, a wizard can cast some spells with a DC 32 and he will do because he must focus on the DC of his spells to remain effective.
AT level 20, the maximum you can have on your poor save is 6 (base) + 6 (cloak +5 and stone of good luck) + 2 (feat) + Ability modifier = 14 + Ability modifier. And you won't be able to push 3 abilities to their maximum when the wizard can easily focus on only one for his spellcasting.
The problem is not that you can fail a ST, it is that you fail too often on your poor saves. In second edition, it was frustrating for a spellcaster because ST were too easy, in 3rd edition, it is all the opposite !!
And spells are not a solution to avoid failing a ST !!!
First, in Pathfinder RPG, several protective spells have been changed and no longer grant you immunities but rather a bonus on your ST. Second, this does not promote teamwork, it just make you completely dependent of spellcasters.
Yes. I am aware of how DC's work. I play a wizard now, and was a sorceror in my last campaign.
If you were going against someone high enough to cast a death spell, why did you do so unprotected? First round, no buffs were cast? Do you ever cast spells in preparation for battle?
Next time you are against a spell caster, will you do so unprotected?
Please- say no.
Characters do not need to be 100% protected against all things at all times. Everyone has an achilles' heel.
Yes, you are dependent on spell casters to protect you from spell casters. Small surprise there.
Spell casters use meat shields to protect them from ... other meat shields.
Spell DC's are fine. Saves are fine. Characters don't need to be superman against every attack that comes against them. There are multiple other ways to protect yourself. USE them.
And that's not even getting into the fact that SoD spells have been so severely neutered now. True, Death Ward isn't immunity: But death spells aren't save or die anymore either- they are save or take HP damage. HP! the one thing Paizo has boosted to the 9's.
-S
This solution has bee nused for the favored soul and it is a good way to reduce the uberness of spellcasters. Depending on 2 abilities, spellcasters will stop being SAD classes and wil have to decide if they want a high DC or a large number of spells ...
I'm a big fan of casters using 2 attributes. 1 for bonus spells and 'must have intelligence of 10+SL to cast spells and 1 for scaling the DCs. For the sorcerer I think I would make bonus spells and DCs based on CHA and spells known based on INT. Otto the Bugbear has some rewrites floating around the 'net somewhere which use dual stat casting. I think they work quite well.
My suggestion was mostly based on trying to simplify some of the ideas put forth here.
If you were going against someone high enough to cast a death spell, why did you do so unprotected? First round, no buffs were cast? Do you ever cast spells in preparation for battle?
You don't allways have time to cast protection spells ... In my example, the necromancer gained the init and acted first !!
But you can find a bunch of similar cases : in Expedition to Castle Ravenloft, it is nearly the same thing !!
It is even worse in Curse of the Crimson Throne !!
These are examples of situations where the PCs act fine but see their fate depending on one die roll and with few chances to succeed. It is not a problem when it happens once in a time but at some point you have such dramatical rolls at every fight.
As I said before, it's not a problem to fail a save !! I managed to fail all my Will ST in Savage Tide against
The problem is that at some point, you know you are going to fail all your poor ST and at the same time the effects yo usave against are the nastier in play, and you can't allways have protection spells.
@ Steven Hume : nice try but Ring of Mind Shielding only protects you against Discern Lies, Detect Thoughts and Detect Alignement, and Ring of Evasion is useless if you fail your Reflex saves !!!
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just to throw this out there... here's the spellthief that I am playing currently.
lvl 13 spellthief
Base Save +4/+4/+8
After feats (Luck of Heroes, Obtain Familiar), racial bump (halfling), and magic item (cloak +5) his saves are
Final Save +15/+17/+15
All this before adding in spellgrace which adds a +2 vs spells and spell-like abilities
My DM took one look at those and said, "Well someone won't be failing any saving throws..."
Please note that the saves above are without ANY buffs. Add a morale, sacred, insight, etc bonus to these saves and I have more than a 50% chance to save against the lvl 20 wizards being mentioned here.
Buff spells add a huge factor to any high level game. The three PC's in my AoW campaign were a druid, buff cleric, and transmuter. We stopped the campaign early because the characters just could not be challenged when their buff spells all lasted 3+ hours with rods of extend spell.
is a solo rogue going to be able to go against a high level wizard: no. Is a well prepared, teamwork minded party going to be able to take the same wizard: you betcha.
Ryn, who's Druid was disgusting even after a mutually agreed upon nerf.
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just to throw this out there... here's the spellthief that I am playing currently.
lvl 13 spellthief
Base Save +4/+4/+8
After feats (Luck of Heroes, Obtain Familiar), racial bump (halfling), and magic item (cloak +5) his saves are
Final Save +15/+17/+15
All this before adding in spellgrace which adds a +2 vs spells and spell-like abilities
My DM took one look at those and said, "Well someone won't be failing any saving throws..."
Please note that the saves above are without ANY buffs. Add a morale, sacred, insight, etc bonus to these saves and I have more than a 50% chance to save against the lvl 20 wizards being mentioned here.
Buff spells add a huge factor to any high level game. The three PC's in my AoW campaign were a druid, buff cleric, and transmuter. We stopped the campaign early because the characters just could not be challenged when their buff spells all lasted 3+ hours with rods of extend spell.
is a solo rogue going to be able to go against a high level wizard: no. Is a well prepared, teamwork minded party going to be able to take the same wizard: you betcha.
Ryn, who's Druid was disgusting even after a mutually agreed upon nerf.
Mordenkainen's Disjunction or an Antimagic Field + Golems. There are things that can make PCs afraid, even ones with absurdly high buffs active.
And if your PCs are plotting huge teamwork benefits, why aren't the bad guys? Why don't the bad guys do the Scry/Buff/Teleport combo right into the PCs' rooms at the inn?
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Magic items are a horrible suggestion for fixing saves. Can you honestly look me in the eye and say in every campaign a player will have access to the items he needs to shore up his weak defenses, cause if so I'll tell you when i DM you're likely never to get them.
And it's great to say use optimization to prevent weak saves, but not everyone is an experienced player, and even experienced players don't necessarily know how to optimize, I'll introduce you to a friend who thinks that two-weapon fighting is the best option for a fighter.
Even worst is when you combine lack of optimization skills with a lack of magic items in a campaign. Is there still no problem.
I actually think of all the fixes mentioned that Dennis fix of 15+spell level is the best. I agree that spell dc's shouldn't be attached to the primary casting stat.
We should turn characters into supermen so unexperienced players don't have to learn? Sorry- no.
Unexperienced players do alot of things. That doesn't meant the rules should be altered. It means experienced players should show unexperiences ones the ropes. Lets not dumb the game down instead of showing new guys how to play.
The rules make the assumption that magical items are freely accessable. Many DM's don't do that- and with good reason, I admit- but the rules still make that assumption.
With that assumption as a base, yes,-any reasonably priced magical item for any given level should be available to the PC's. As are spells of any given level. (through scrolls, spell casters, or whatnot).
Saves don't need to be altered. If you build your PC without regard to the holes in his armor, someone will poke a pike through it.
-S
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How is altering a mechanic so that the weak saves have at least some chance of success even though it is a weak on turning them into supermen.
And no magic items being regularly accessable shouldn't be the base assumption the base assumption should be that they aren't and that adding them is at the DMs discretion. They are in the DMG not the PH for that specific reason.
The problem is that you don't want everyone to be good at everything.
Other PC races have to shore up that gap in other ways. Namely feats (and later, with epic feats, if the campaign progresses that high).
If the PC doesn't spend the resource to shore up the hole in their defenses- then they have a hole in their defenses. And Paizo just gives PC's more feats than they had in 3.5.Instead, people ignore the save-increasing feats and then gripe that they have low saves.
Scaling DC's by character level also ignores that there are many, many otherways to be protected.
Each character doesn't need to be superman. They can rely on each other, for buffs and such. Energy protection spells largely ignore saving throws, as do various other protection and resistance type buffs.
...
Every character doesn't need to be able to overcome every obsctacle on their own.
Characters do not need to be 100% protected against all things at all times. Everyone has an achilles' heel.
We should turn characters into supermen so unexperienced players don't have to learn? Sorry- no.
Selgard, my apologies, but I can't help but think you're being a bit deliberately obtuse about all this, either that or you've been trying to push a straw man argument. No one is suggesting that everyone should have all good saves, what they are saying is that the DCs of high level spells progress much faster then the DCs of bad saves, and that there are too few ways of dealing with those bad saves for characters trying to protect themselves.
Spell DCs go up so rapidly, in part, because of the single stat nature of casters, letting them focus their resources heavily on boosting a single attribute for casting DCs, where a character trying to defend themselves from said caster has to devote two to three times as much wealth to boosting their attributes, if they want to keep pace with their saves. This difference is exacerbated by the number of different ways you can pump an attribute, enhancement, intrinsic, level bumps, all of which a caster can focus entirely on a single area, making up for weaknesses in any physical stats with spells like polymorph (admittedly, very much nerfed in pathfinder). On top of the issues with single stat dependence, DCs go up by 1 every two levels, as casters gain access to new spell levels, where poor saves only go up once every three levels.
Given equal resources and equal devotion to their character, a primary casting class will have almost unbeatable saves, compared to most primary melee classes. There are exceptions, of course, paladins are very, very good at making any and all saves, and monks aren't far behind.
No one is suggested everyone should be a "superman" but they are suggesting that perhaps characters that are spending their feats and wealth on defending themselves from casters should progress at least close to as quickly in their saves as caster DCs.
I have to say, as a DM, this:
Yes. I am aware of how DC's work. I play a wizard now, and was a sorceror in my last campaign.
... has all sorts of alarms going off left and right for me that you may be a bit partisan on this issue. My apologies if I'm wrong, I'm just giving you my honest first impression.
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Magic items are a horrible suggestion for fixing saves. Can you honestly look me in the eye and say in every campaign a player will have access to the items he needs to shore up his weak defenses, cause if so I'll tell you when i DM you're likely never to get them.
And it's great to say use optimization to prevent weak saves, but not everyone is an experienced player, and even experienced players don't necessarily know how to optimize, I'll introduce you to a friend who thinks that two-weapon fighting is the best option for a fighter.
Even worst is when you combine lack of optimization skills with a lack of magic items in a campaign. Is there still no problem.
I actually think of all the fixes mentioned that Dennis fix of 15+spell level is the best. I agree that spell dc's shouldn't be attached to the primary casting stat.
RAW is not written with every campaign in mind. If you choose to alter the availability of magic items then sure, you probably want to address the discrepancy this causes with saves, attack bonuses, armor class, spellcasters sudden boost in power, etc. But if you run a RAW campaign with the assumed availability of items and the assumed wealth by level in effect then the PCs WILL have access to the items needed to shore up his weak defenses.
I could run a campaign with no spellcasters at all. Should the RAW reflect this also? No. That is what houserules are for. If you want to rule that items aren't available then you should also alter the rules in your game to reflect the effects that that change has created.But it seems pretty funny that you don't allow some items to boost saves but want to put in a mechanic that would effectively replace that ruling and do the exact same thing. Sounds redundant to me.
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Magic items are a horrible suggestion for fixing saves. Can you honestly look me in the eye and say in every campaign a player will have access to the items he needs to shore up his weak defenses, cause if so I'll tell you when i DM you're likely never to get them.
And it's great to say use optimization to prevent weak saves, but not everyone is an experienced player, and even experienced players don't necessarily know how to optimize, I'll introduce you to a friend who thinks that two-weapon fighting is the best option for a fighter.
Even worst is when you combine lack of optimization skills with a lack of magic items in a campaign. Is there still no problem.
I actually think of all the fixes mentioned that Dennis fix of 15+spell level is the best. I agree that spell dc's shouldn't be attached to the primary casting stat.
RAW is not written with every campaign in mind. If you choose to alter the availability of magic items then sure, you probably want to address the discrepancy this causes with saves, attack bonuses, armor class, spellcasters sudden boost in power, etc. But if you run a RAW campaign with the assumed availability of items and the assumed wealth by level in effect then the PCs WILL have access to the items needed to shore up his weak defenses.
I could run a campaign with no spellcasters at all. Should the RAW reflect this also? No. That is what houserules are for. If you want to rule that items aren't available then you should also alter the rules in your game to reflect the effects that that change has created.
But it seems pretty funny that you don't allow some items to boost saves but want to put in a mechanic that would effectively replace that ruling and do the exact same thing. Sounds redundant to me.
Yes rediculous that I don't want every player to have to have a cloak of resistance and iron will etc. how silly of me to not want characters to need specific magic items to compete.
Saying it's not an issue because a player can take x and buy y is a completely rediculous argument. If players are expected to have their saves fail unless they have a specific magic item then yes that magic item should be mechanically written in. If you want to argue that by RAW there is no problem, then I'm going to argue that RAW is the problem. Yes a character can have decent poor saves. but in order to do so they have to have x feat and y magic item. That's rediculous, and even more redundant since every member of that class will have x feat and y magic item. I'm not arguing for a mechanic that provides three good saves. But a 15th level fighter shouldn't need a cloak of resistance, iron will, and spells in order to even have a chance at saving from the spells of an equal level challange any time a character is automatically reduced to needing to roll a 20 in order to succeed from an = CR threat that is poor design and it happens way more often than a player optimizing and having the right magic items.
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Yes rediculous that I don't want every player to have to have a cloak of resistance and iron will etc. how silly of me to not want characters to need specific magic items to compete.
Well, logically, of course it's not a silly idea... but the way the game is actually designed and statted out, it is, actually, somewhat silly. The default assumption is for characters to have resistance bonuses on all saves. Every (higher-level) character I saw from WotC had a Cloak or Vest of Resistance, or else was a paladin with an insane Charisma. The game basically assumes, at its core, X amount of magic on most NPCs, and X++ on PCs.
Now re-engineering the game to no longer make that assumption is an entirely valid project, and perhaps one way of taking things, but the game the way it is now more or less assumes the items' presence for most PCs.
I also vigorously defend rogues- despite not having played one in 3.5. I've also defended the channeling/turning bit for Clerics, and I've not played one of those either.
I understand your concern that I might be simply advocating you not weakening the power of a class type that I've frequently played- but that isn't the case at present.
If I see someone advocating a substantial change that I don't think is warranted, then you'll likely find me posting about it.
Paladin have excellent saves.
Monks have excellent saves.
If you want excellent saves- be a paladin or monk.
No, I'm not being obtuse. I'm not putting up straw men. I simply disagree with the assertion that we need to boost saving throws.
There are some tradeoffs that exist in the game right now. Some classes are better at some things than others. Those "other things" can either be ignored, or strengthened. It's up to the player to choose which.
If I make a wizard with a high int, a decent dex, and a crappy con- then am I shoring up my fortitude weakness? Not really, no. But it's my choice to have done so. When the fighter ditches wisdom, he's made that same trade off.
Your bad save is your *Bad* save. The term describes it perfectly. When dealing with your bad save you need to find some other means- typically involving magic- to shore it up. I've already listed several spells that help in that regard but the few I listed were by no means an exhaustive list.
I don't want my wizard to be perfect. I don't want my wizard to be a bulwark against all that exists, and to be able to fight anything single handedly. Characters exist in groups, and are able to use the support of the group in order to survive.
We Do not need to start arbitrarily raising people's saving throws, not for players or for monsters. If you want your PC to have a better saving throw then you need to start taking steps to improve that gap. The system doesn't need to hand out freebies.
-S
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I also vigorously defend rogues- despite not having played one in 3.5. I've also defended the channeling/turning bit for Clerics, and I've not played one of those either.
I understand your concern that I might be simply advocating you not weakening the power of a class type that I've frequently played- but that isn't the case at present.If I see someone advocating a substantial change that I don't think is warranted, then you'll likely find me posting about it.
Paladin have excellent saves.
Monks have excellent saves.If you want excellent saves- be a paladin or monk.
No, I'm not being obtuse. I'm not putting up straw men. I simply disagree with the assertion that we need to boost saving throws.There are some tradeoffs that exist in the game right now. Some classes are better at some things than others. Those "other things" can either be ignored, or strengthened. It's up to the player to choose which.
If I make a wizard with a high int, a decent dex, and a crappy con- then am I shoring up my fortitude weakness? Not really, no. But it's my choice to have done so. When the fighter ditches wisdom, he's made that same trade off.
Your bad save is your *Bad* save. The term describes it perfectly. When dealing with your bad save you need to find some other means- typically involving magic- to shore it up. I've already listed several spells that help in that regard but the few I listed were by no means an exhaustive list.
I don't want my wizard to be perfect. I don't want my wizard to be a bulwark against all that exists, and to be able to fight anything single handedly. Characters exist in groups, and are able to use the support of the group in order to survive.
We Do not need to start arbitrarily raising people's saving throws, not for players or for monsters. If you want your PC to have a better saving throw then you need to start taking steps to improve that gap. The system doesn't need to hand out freebies.
-S
Except that it is a strawman argument the strawman being that they have three good saves. I don't want a wizard to have a good fort save, and no one here is saying they want a wizard to be a bulkwark therefore it is a strawman. I don't want it to be a bulkwark against anything thrown at it. What I want is for my wizard to not have to have a cloak of resistance on or a feat in order to have a snowballs chance in heck of making a fort save, heck even with the feat the way DCs can increase the feat alone doesn't help. If I roll a 5 I expect my con 12 wizard to fail his saving throw. but if I roll an 18 and I still fail my fort saving throw because I don't have a cloak of resistance at level 15 then that isn't me wanting to be a bulkwark that's simply pathetic.
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It is EXTREMELY ridiculous if you expect PCs to be able to consistently face challenges that they are not equipped for. The game has ALWAYS operated under the presumption that PCs would, for instance, have access to magic weapons before being expected to take down incorporeal undead; have access (if only by NPC) to spells that restore abilities before being subjected to ability drain; dispel magic before being subject to domination or polymorph; that fighters would have access to weapons and armor. Don't pretend that you are seriously considering game balance if you choose to ignore WBL.
Lets be real here, we aren't talking general magic items, we are talking about one magic item. and if you don't have that one magic item you will in most cases fail a saving throw against an equal CR situation. If you think its okay that every character you ever build needs to have a cloak of resistance then you know what, feel free to make sure that when you DM there are cloaks of resistance all over the place. But face it, it's forcing your expectations on every homebrewed world out there.
The problem is this.
Saving throw magical items are cheap.
If you give out saving throws, then people will still buy the magical items.
It isn't as though you (for instance) raise bad saves by 5, and thus no one buys cloaks of resistance.
No, you raise saves and characters -still- buy cloaks of resistance, to increase their saves by 5.. again.
If you want, in your campaign, to free up the cloak slot and increase saves to compensate then by all means please feel free to do so.
What you are talking about -here- though is a general increase of saving throws. We aren't talking about "raise this instead of doing that". We have to balance against the very cheap, affordable saving throw increase items.
When you say "I don't want to have to have that item to protect myself, I want to be protected without it" you aren't taking into account the people who will accept your system *and still buy the item*.
-S
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The problem is this.
Saving throw magical items are cheap.
If you give out saving throws, then people will still buy the magical items.
It isn't as though you (for instance) raise bad saves by 5, and thus no one buys cloaks of resistance.
No, you raise saves and characters -still- buy cloaks of resistance, to increase their saves by 5.. again.
If you want, in your campaign, to free up the cloak slot and increase saves to compensate then by all means please feel free to do so.
What you are talking about -here- though is a general increase of saving throws. We aren't talking about "raise this instead of doing that". We have to balance against the very cheap, affordable saving throw increase items.
When you say "I don't want to have to have that item to protect myself, I want to be protected without it" you aren't taking into account the people who will accept your system *and still buy the item*.
-S
Yes i am, they will buy the item and their defense will be up, but and here's the kicker, it still won't be as good as their good save. And I never once said I was for increasing saves, I was for removing the primary stat boost to save dc's which while it may have a similar effect isn't the same thing. Also, if say the effects of the change is that a 12 con wiz with no defense can suceed on his saving throw with a roll of lets say 16, then if he has a +5 cloak, and the feat for fort saves he still needs to roll a 9 or better to save, which is pretty darn close to half a chance to fail with his bad save. As it stands now said wizard would need a 20 to save and in some cases can't succeed at all at higher levels. That's what I'm looking for, a system that is fair and gives an advantage to the person who actually puts his effort into his defense, but that isn't an immeadiate loss to the guy who doesn't.
You can couch the term however you want- adjusting the slider from the caster end is the same as bumping up saving throws
And again, unsurprisingly, I am still against it.
You Should have a very very high chance of failing your bad save. If you don't, then it isn't your bad save anymore. Your bad save is your magical achille's heel. The chink in the armor, the hole in your defenses, the blind spot in your protections.
If you shore up every weakness with base attributes then you create characters who are too powerful.
Whether you talk about lowering spell DC's because of bad saves, or increasing saves so there aren't anymore bad saves, you are still talking about the same concept. And it's a concept that doesn't need adjusting.
If your PC's have crappy saves- shore them up. Either adjust your ability scores from the outset so you don't have a dumpstat or get the items and feats to protect you- but don't expect the game system as a whole to adjust because you don't care to do it yourself.
Wizards have bad fort saves.
Warriors have bad will saves.
It's a fact of the game, and a function of the game mechanics. It doesn't need adjustment, it needs for players to be knowledgable of that fact and to use already existing mechanics to shore up the gaps.
I am not putting up "straw men," I simply disagree with your underlying argument that the system needs to be changed from how it is currently.
-S
For those arguing against my suggestion could you please show me the characters you feel are going to do well against Karzoug's DC fort 31 wail of the banshee spell. For the most part you only need to worry about the sorcerer or the thief, since they have the poor fort saves. You may only use Alpha 3 rules and the SRD since my suggestion is for PathfinderRPG.
I hear many people saying I don't like the idea, but why? Do you play a wizard and feel they will be getting the shaft again?
Alpha 3 changes to buff magic items might preclude having one (they cost more) with a dex and con bonus. Here is a breakdown of #1 by level...1st level no change 2nd level +1 to poor save, 3rd level back to no change, 4th thru 7th level +1 to poor saves. 8th level +2, 9th level +1, 10th thru 13th level +2. 14th +3 15th +2 16th thru 19th +3. Finally at 20th level +4.
I have no doubt that if I blindly walk into the encounter and get SoD'd to my lowest save, that I'll die.
And I'll deserve it.
And the group will put on his tombstone "here lies Peregrido, the unprepared. May our next wizard be more intelligent than he.".
If I wander into a level appropriate encounter and don't have any protections up against the things /i know full well/ can potentially be against me then I'm just asking something to kill me.
And those protections can be spells, or items, or both. Or feats and ability scores to help shore up the weak spot.
If someone uses their very best ability against my very weakest defense then I suspect alot of sweating and praying on my end.
I don't expect the game to compensate though and make me better at doing my worst save, without any cost on my part.
If a str based fighter (or barbarian) who's put their feats and ability scores into /hitting things/ comes swinging at my wizard- and my wizard hasn't taken advantage of any of the zillions of protections, then I expect the barbarian will hit me each and every time he swings.
If however I spell up, have magical items, and/or other protections, then Hopefully he'll miss at least sometimes. Hitting things is what barbarians do. Getting hit is what unprotected wizards do.
The same applies for saving throws.
The game already has existing mechanics to shore up your saving throw weaknesses. I am AGAINST any arbitrary "bonuses" added to the game to give away those bonuses as freebies.
-S
@ Biggus : I've tried to convert some of my characters in the Alpha PFRPG rules and it is true that the new feat rule really make it easy to take Save Boosting feats, especially for classes like Rogue or Sorcerer who had really few feats in 3.X.
On the other hand, 6 feats to have decent saves is really too much, even with the new rule. I think having a Greater F/R/W feat giving a +3 would be good (with a prerequisite to take not before level 8-10) : it scales well between the basic and the epic feats and put your poor save only at 1 point under your good save.
For the rogue, I don't think giving him the possibility to take these feats instead of his special tricks is a good idea. I'd rather see a bonus to at least one poor save like the fighter bonus to will save.
Alpha 3 changes to buff magic items might preclude having one (they cost more) with a dex and con bonus.Nonsense. They just standardized the physical/mental slots. The cost for an out-of-place item is a whopping 50% more. There are TWO physical stat slots (belt and shirt), so this doesn't even arise in the case of desiring both Dex and Con.
For those arguing against my suggestion could you please show me the characters you feel are going to do well against Karzoug's DC fort 31 wail of the banshee spell. For the most part you only need to worry about the sorcerer or the thief, since they have the poor fort saves. You may only use Alpha 3 rules and the SRD since my suggestion is for PathfinderRPG.Johnyboy, the halfling rogue seriously dropped the ball. Despite his prodigious stealth and impressive initiative modifier, he found himself investigating his left nostril when the nasty, evil mage attacked and ended up flat-footed and unable to shut the nasty, evil spellcaster down or activate his Ring of Spell Turning to make that nasty, evil spellcaster REALLY sorry! As a 20th level rogue, Johnyboy has managed to collect 700,000+ gp worth of magic items. He started off with 14 con, but being a frequent front-liner as a result of his Two Weapon Fighting style, chose to put 2 (out of 5 total) ability increases in it for the extra hp. At 20th level he still likes hp, so he's gone to the horrible expense (36k) of buying a +6 Shirt of Mighty Constitution.
So - Fortitude bonus: +2 base Con + 1 natural Con increase + 3 Con enhancement (Shirt of Mighty Constitution +6) + 1 halfling save bonus + 5 resistance (cloak of resistance) + 6 poor save = +18
Johnyboy needs to roll a 13 or higher to make that save. But wait! Johnyboy isn't COMPLETELY stupid, and after trying to front-line a horde of spectres earlier in his adventuring career (whose attacks grant 2 negative levels without save) decided to shell out the 38,000 "donation" to induce his...
Possible Spoilers for Rise of the Rune Lords
Shadowdweller I would like to thank you for putting together version of boosting saves for the rogue and sorcerer. I was looking for improvements on the 14th level characters in Spires of Xin-Shalast, but I was not clear on this. The only difference from your Johnboy characters would be neither of them are halflings and each has a 12 constitution at 14th level. This puts them two behind your rogue, giving saves of +16 for a roll of 15+ needed. You did have quite a few mistakes in your post.
For starters, items with no space limitation are x2 cost not 1.5. (p.285 DMG)
You mention a ring of spell turning but since wail of the banshee is is a spread, it is not turnable.
Unfortunately, not many magic items made the Alpha 3 download. Since the scarab of protection is based on death ward which has changed, it would be logical to expect this change in the Beta release. If they miss it, you present a needed change. So with the scarab (+4 morale bonus) the pregenerated characters move to a +11 each. Meaning there is an equal chance either one will die. Giving the characters with good saves the same equipment they need a 5 or better for a 20% chance of survival. If they were all in the spell radius.
Unfortunately for Harry the sorcerer the wail of the banshee spell does not target Harry it is a spread. So Harry is a dead. If the wording is changed then it would require the characters to all walk around holding hands for the teleport to affect all of them. Very Wizard of Oz-like to say the least. If you meant teleport circle which has a 5ft radius, that is a 9th level spells and not available for contingency (only up to 6th). Also everyone would need to not move to attack (except ranged weapons and spells) until the enemies cast a spell. So while everyone is waiting the Rune Giants are moving in and cleaving the party. Teleport is not possible in Xin-Shalast without Sihedron Rings or medallions (lower the above saves by 2). So unless everyone has one, only those who do have one will teleport away (perhaps not known to the party). But to where? I am sure the cautious party is not attacking before casting contingency again (a 10 minute casting time). So more than likely Karzoug would be the one using the teleport ambush. Would you really want your DM to play Karzoug as anything less than his 32 int? Most likely he will contact his minions, wish the better ones back from the dead, then attack the party with an even higher EL than the one they fled from.
I appreciate your list of magic items but please try to make less mistakes. Especially when capitalizing so much in your reply.
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Teleport is not possible in Xin-Shalast without Sihedron Rings or medallions (lower the above saves by 2). So unless everyone has one, only those who do have one will teleport away (perhaps not known to the party).
But don't you know, it's assumed the party will be able to get those because they are supposed to have access to magic items if the price is within their ability to buy them. Otherwise you aren't following RAW and your discussion has no merit.
Firstly: Can we please keep personal attacks out of this? It's a discussion on saving throws- personal attacks have no place here.
Secondly: Can we please keep specific "encounters" away from the discussion? We're talking about a general rules change here, not an attempt to modify an adventure or to prevent a "specific" thing from taking place.
Whether or not Johnny or Bob would survive a specific Wail of the Banshee isn't as important as the overall issue of whether or not PC's, on a grand scale, need their Saves adjusted.
I'm sure we can all come up with pre-published adventure encounters, or homebrew encounters, that throw all sorts of issues up. Those issues aren't really at hand- saving throws are.
(i.e. if you have a specific home-brew item to block teleport, that really isn't the issue at hand. Same as saying "saves aren't a problem for me 'cuz my PC is immune to death spells". Accurate maybe, but doesn't help much).
And now, on to the discussion.
The problem with "fixing saving throws" is that saves are just one part in the overall defense of your character. The PC doesn't Just get a save. He has spells, magical items, sometimes class abilities, and so on that will help him avoid the danger. Saving throws are the easist to increase, and that increase tends to also do the least. (most spells have a side effect even if saving is successful- such as damage and whatnot). Othereffects- such as Spell Immunity or SR tend to grant much more protections, but usually at much greater cost. Compare the cost of Resistance cloak to even a minor SR granting item and you'll see what I mean.
The current case is that:
If a spellcaster has absolutely abandoned everything else in the pure pursuit of being a bad--- spell caster, then he's going to make it nearly impossible for a person who's bad save the spell caster is targeting, to succeed.
The only way around it is for the defender to become absolutely maniacal in their defense: i.e a wizard maxing Con instead of Int, for example. Hardly productive.
But if a person goes all out to pump up one aspect of their character to the negligence of all other aspects- should they not be good at it? If we assume point buy as reference:
a wizard who puts an 18 into int is by default neglecting most of his other scores. If he puts all his leveling bonuses into it, all his inherent bonuses into it, and his enhancement booster as well (granted some of these are non-exclusive with otehr items), does he not deserve to be good at it?
Or should he, after spending every available resource, still be subject to his "victims" succeeding verses his spells 30%, 40% or 50% of the time?
How often are melee types expected to go up against worse than 50% hit chance? And the melee types have as many attacks to go through as they have rounds (and hp) to spend. Spell casters are capped in the number of spells they can cast- especailly at their highest level: their highest DC.
My answer to that is: of course, the wizard who's poured so much of his resources into being successful should be successful. Especially against the weakest aspect of his opponent.
Lets look at what Wail of the Banshee actually DOES.
The Pathfinder treatment:
10/level in untyped damage on a failed Fort save. With a maximum number of people effected equal to caster level.
Instant death? Hardly. a 9th level wizard spell that does 170-200 damage to everyone in range- including the casters friends.
If you save: You negate.
Slay Living?
12d6+1/caster level to one target, fort for 3d6+1/caster level.
Implosion?
1 creature per round
Duration: concentration.
Damage: 10/level per target.
Fort save negates all damage.
Not every SoD in the SRD is covered but I have faith that they'll nerf them with similar treatment in the Beta. These (and there are more in the P3 document) are just a foretaste of the nerf that is coming.
My opinion has been, and continues to be, that saving throws do not need to be altered. Against well rounded opponents, bad saves are merely mediocre. It's only against dedicated spell casters that the bad save needs to be feared- and those single minded characters tend to have big, gaping holes for the PC's to exploit in the process. Furthermore, the dreaded killing spells have been significantly nerfed so as to also not require the saves to be adjusted.
Magical items ought also be taken into account- even if you can't get your hands on exactly the item you want, there are more than enough of them that surely your character can get hold fo SOME protection. If not, then perhaps that's an issue with the DM rather than the game rules.
I will note about magical items:
Many, many DM's do not use the "magic shop" theory of campaign design. The problem however is that the rules as written do support it- and they take it into account when designing rules, spells, saves, and everything else.
It isn't so much that most people believe that every character has at their fingertips every single defensive spell or magical item, as it is the fact that the rules assume the PC's can acquire whatever they need within their level and cash range. They do this to achieve greater balance. (otherwise they'd have to build the game around the assumption that the characters had no items- and then when PC's got them, they'd be too powerful). If you or your DM, wisely, chooses to restrict access in the game to magical items then it should work both ways. That is to say- the wizard seeking to bump his DC will have just as hard a time finding what he wants as will the person seeking to make himself immune to whatever the wizard has planned. It Should not be the case that one side gets special treatment while the other is left in the dirt.
Whether or not the PC uses any given defense though or trades/sells/whatever it to find something else, is another matter entirely and can't be reliably dealt with by the rules.
(i.e. if he trades a scarab of protection for an extra + on his sword, that isn't a matter for the rules to fix).
Saves are not perfect. They are not meant to be. They are but one defense among many to protect your character from the things that may assail him. It needs to be fixed by the player, not the system, by both increasing it and shoring up the character in a general sense. Changing the rules to modify saving throws isn't the answer. Players building their characters intelligently (or at least, with the knowledge that they have a hole, if they choose not to plug it up), is.
-S