Baramay wrote: For starters, items with no space limitation are x2 cost not 1.5. (p.285 DMG) I did NOT say items with "no space limitation". I was talking about items with "nonstandard" space use (uncustomary space limitation). If you check the Alpha 3 ruleset - the ruleset that was actually being discussed, you will find that they are INDEED a mere 50% more. This is unchanged from 3.5
Baramay wrote: You mention a ring of spell turning but since wail of the banshee is is a spread, it is not turnable. I seem to have assumed it was a targeted spell based on the description detailing 1 creature/level. Upon further examination, you are indeed correct. This is an error. Defenses can and would have been different otherwise...but area effect spells ARE considerably harder to defend against.
Baramay wrote: 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. And yet the alpha 3 ruleset explicitly stated that all unlisted items were assumed to function as normal.
Baramay wrote: 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.
Teleport is not possible in Xin-Shalast without Sihedron Rings or medallions (lower the above saves by 2).
I know little about Rise of the Runelords, nor its respective game world. You referenced only a name and a particular challenge. If there were any other circumstances or restrictions present you should have listed them. Please note: If you are looking at a situation where the PCs have ANY action or foreknowledge of the challenge beforehand, you reduce the lethality considerably. For instance, as a sonic spell, Wail of the Banshee is completely stopped by Silence (an excellent defensive spell against casters even at higher levels).
Baramay wrote: You did have quite a few mistakes in your post. I made ONE mistake...well two stemming from one misinterpretation.
Selgard wrote: 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. I myself do not generally use magic shops as a DM. There ARE generally NPC enchanters who can be commissioned or negotiated with to craft particular items...often times defenses against a particular threat even where a given PC is not aware of specific item possibilities. In game worlds where there ARE no high-level caster NPCs I find that the PCs themselves usually take crafting feats.
The tiny fraction of cases where there ARE no friendly or negotiable high-level casters, no defensive items to be found or purchased, no PCs with item-crafting abilities...and yet the PCs are STILL regularly confronted with lethal magic that is all but impossible to resist...are effectively cases where the DM has set challenges with no solution. The epitome of poor and unbalanced DMing.
Selgard wrote: 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. Indeed, saves are the defense of the last resort. As can be amply demonstrated by throwing PCs against a horde of bodaks, those consistently relying upon saves for defense WILL ultimately end up dead no matter how low the DC is.
Another reason not to change base saves has occurred to me: the whole can o' worms problem. Saves are not just about spellcasting, there are a whole range of effects in the game (including many different types of class and creature special attacks) which require a saving throw. If you change base saves, you change the balance of the game against all those effects as well. Since they are all based on the assumption that there are good and bad saves, some of them could be substantially devalued if the save gap is closed significantly, and you'd have to go through them all and decide whether each one needed changing.
So as I said before, I think the way forward is to increase the options available to those characters who choose to spend resources improving their saves, firstly through extra feats, but also through extra spells, items and optional class features if people feel the need.
Btw, neglected to mention:
Baramay wrote: 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. "Targeted" in this particular case was not intended to equate to the game mechanic. If you are hung up on semantics then the tactic is still viable and equally useful if, for instance, the wording is replaced with "directed at or toward". Recall that you requested characters who would "do well against" the spell and save DC in question. Not characters that would be able to save their entire party. That the contingency might save others is just an added bonus.
I would advocate an increase for bad saves simply from a progression standpoint. It is a simple fact that when it comes to saving throws, a character's poor save gets progressively worse as one goes from 1st to 20th level when you compare it to a spell of commensurate level.
Taking out all variables:
A 1st level character with a poor save of +0 vs. a 1st level spell (DC 11) has a 50% chance to save.
A 10th level character with a poor save of +3 vs. a 5th level spell (DC 15) has a 45% chance to save.
A 20th level character with a poor save of +6 vs. a 9th level spell (DC 19) has a 40% chance to save.
I'm not sure of a good solution, but to myself anyway, I would rather your chances on your poor save remain constant at any given level (before variables are taken into account). This would warrant a change to +8 on your poor save at 20th level, rather than the current +6. You could make up this difference with the +2 to "x" save feats, but in reality, your using up what is supposed to be a resource that enhances the quality of your character, to instead make up for lost ground. Indeed, those feats have descriptive text that suggests such enhancement IMHO.
It is also worth noting that, before variables, the loss in efficacy only decreases by 10% over 20 levels, which really doesn't amount to much. Conversely, your good save improves your chances by 10% over 20 levels (from 60% to 70% success). This may lead one to believe that it's not worth tampering with and that the real problem lies elsewhere... the variables themselves.
Just throwing it out there as "food" for this discussion.
That is true, but:
The higher you get, the more you also have access to greater and greater means other than saving throws to protect yourself.
If you are level 18-20 and still have to worry about your bad save very often then you haven't been planning your chracter very effectively. (very often being the key word here- sometimes you just get screwed.) With the multitude of spells and magical items that exist to shore up the problem- either by directly enhancing saves, by granting SR or blanket immunity and so on, the character with the "bad save" has alot of opther options to deal with.
The level 1-5 character may have a "better bad save" than he does at 10-20, but the later level characters use their saves alot less often, due to having other protections.
-S
Don't know what's so hard about buying a cloak of resistance, honestly. In my games, I build rather high powered combats, and my PCs very rarely ever fail saves.
If you want to have a rogue without any defensive equipment to save against the BBEG's big huge SoD, then tailor the encounter to offer a different challenge, or don't make the save as intense.
If you put unoptimized PCs in an optimized encounter, I don't know what else you can possibly expect.
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