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Hello Gentlemen and you few sexy females, I have a debate going on with my friend on which single saving throw is the most important. I personally say Will is the most important, since most will saves make you lose control of your character. Fort saves hamper you which if you are properly prepaired you can remove such hamperments. Relfex is hey bamn you fail now heal up. :P
so lets hear your opinions, he likes relfex the best by the way.
A failed fort save can kill you. You can remove or dispel mind control affects, but you can't dispel dead.
A failed will save often leads to a CDG attempt so I think will saves are probably at least as relevant.
Basically though it's whatever save is going to come up most often in actual play.
Hello Gentlemen and you few sexy females, I have a debate going on with my friend on which single saving throw is the most important. I personally say Will is the most important, since most will saves make you lose control of your character. Fort saves hamper you which if you are properly prepaired you can remove such hamperments. Relfex is hey bamn you fail now heal up. :P
so lets hear your opinions, he likes relfex the best by the way.
Then your friend has never played a Ravenloft campaign; I'll stick with Will saves.
It's going to depend entirely on the campaign. There are more spells and spell-like abilities that target Will saves than any other. Many of them can stop your character without killing. Fortitude saves are very important for stopping the lethality of things like poisons, some spells, coup de grace, and a few other effects. Reflex is always important if you have evasion or improved evasion. If not, then you might be able to deal with taking the damage and getting a cure or heal spell to help mitigate the problem.
I place favor on a strong fort save... but then again, I usually play arcane casters, so I end up failing a lot of fort saves. Reflex is nice, but it's also the easiest save to optimize, so I wouldn't consider it the most important. Still, a failed reflex save can cost you a lot of hit points, and some characters just don't have the hit points to spare.
A failed fort save can kill you. You can remove or dispel mind control affects, but you can't dispel dead.
I realized I did not answer the question. My opinion is fort saves by a nose.
But let's be honest- a failed save of any kind has the ability to knock off your character. I mean, these are just from a cursory glance at the core books.
Spells that will kill you (or leave you useless):
Fortitude: Phantasmal Killer, Suffocation
Reflex: Forcecage, Clashing Rocks
Will: Sleep, Feeblemind
Let's look at some worst-case scenarios:
Failed Reflex: Lots of damage. Might kill your character, might not. In a couple cases it traps your character in a cage or a pit or something. You sit out for a while, but that's all.
Failed Fortitude: Dead. Admittedly, that is pretty bad.
Failed Will: Forced to kill the entire party.
So I'm gonna go with Will as the most important save.
Let's look at some worst-case scenarios:
Failed Reflex: Lots of damage. Might kill your character, might not. In a couple cases it traps your character in a cage or a pit or something. You sit out for a while, but that's all.
Failed Fortitude: Dead. Admittedly, that is pretty bad.
Failed Will: Forced to kill the entire party.So I'm gonna go with Will as the most important save.
I'd agree to a point, but generally speaking the party is gonna be able to kill you first. If anything, a failed will save is a delayed fort save that creates some bad blood.
However, many will saves will reduce your character into uselessness (feeblemind), which could be worse than the other two depending on how far you are from being able to get help.
Also in some cases fixing death might actually be easier than fixing useless/helpless. Several will save spells can only be fixed with specific spells.
Examples:
Feeblemind (requires heal, limited wish, wish, or miracle -- all sixth level or higher from a 5th level spell -- reincarnate is a 4th level spell -- raise dead 5th)
Magic Jar (soul is missing until the spell ends and they get your body -- no real counter)
Baleful Polymorph (bad enough on a failed fort save, but a failed will save and you are useless until someone manages to dispel it)
Insanity (requires specific spells of which all but one are expensive *heal is the cheap option)
Trap the Soul
All these are harder to deal with than "Jimmy's dead -- who has a raise dead, resurrection, true resurrection, limited wish, miracle, wish, or reincarnate ready?" -- or -- "Quick he just dropped! Hit him with a breath of life!" (since dead creatures are treated as being at -Con hit points)
Will. As others have said, while fort can kill you or do bad thing, will actively turns you into a liability everyone else. There is a reason one of the party fighters just retrained into iron will and improved iron will.
Haha, I think we're finding that the most important saving throw is the one you're most likely to fail.
Will. As others have said, while fort can kill you or do bad thing, will actively turns you into a liability everyone else. There is a reason one of the party fighters just retrained into iron will and improved iron will.
I had Iron Will already. Getting Improved since Iron Will and 18 Wis weren't getting the job done anymore.
Other than that, I fully agree (Have I ever mentioned to you guys how much I hate failing Will saves?). I've been known to take Iron Will as a cleric, that is how much I hate failing Will saves.
I have to agree with Will saves, ironically, being the most important on heavy hitters like Barbarians and Fighters. I know that if my party Barbarian was coming at me with his weapon drawn I would be invisible and running immediately. Admittedly, we allow some 3.5 material in our games and the Barbarian's player is an absurd power-gamer. I am the only party member who could break his DR on average, and even then I can only do so when sneak attacking. Even in a normal situation, however, a well built fighter could full-round a sorcerer or wizard straight into the grave.
In my opinion, the most important save for any character is the one that he is weakest (or at least apparently weakest) at, because that is the one intelligent adversaries will target mercilessly.
That is why it can sometimes be effective to reinforce a character's apparent weaknesses. It can bait the opposition into making sub-optimal attacks (by assuming that every fighter has a low will save, for example).
But let's be honest- a failed save of any kind has the ability to knock off your character. I mean, these are just from a cursory glance at the core books.
Spells that will kill you (or leave you useless):
Fortitude: Phantasmal Killer, Suffocation
Reflex: Forcecage, Clashing Rocks
Will: Sleep, Feeblemind
I meant kill you, not set you up to be killed. I am assuming you meant crashing rocks, which I will assume is a cave-in or similar affect. Nothing in the reflex or will category that you named kills you. If you get put to sleep a party member can wake you up. If you fail a phantasmal killer save, which requires two fails, you are dead.
Also in some cases fixing death might actually be easier than fixing useless/helpless. Several will save spells can only be fixed with specific spells.
Examples:
Feeblemind (requires heal, limited wish, wish, or miracle -- all sixth level or higher from a 5th level spell -- reincarnate is a 4th level spell -- raise dead 5th)
Magic Jar (soul is missing until the spell ends and they get your body -- no real counter)
Baleful Polymorph (bad enough on a failed fort save, but a failed will save and you are useless until someone manages to dispel it)
Insanity (requires specific spells of which all but one are expensive *heal is the cheap option)
Trap the SoulAll these are harder to deal with than "Jimmy's dead -- who has a raise dead, resurrection, true resurrection, limited wish, miracle, wish, or reincarnate ready?" -- or -- "Quick he just dropped! Hit him with a breath of life!" (since dead creatures are treated as being at -Con hit points)
Many of the spells that take care of death require a diamond and/or bring you back at negative levels. Not many parties walk around with expensive diamonds on them.
I have to agree with Will saves, ironically, being the most important on heavy hitters like Barbarians and Fighters. I know that if my party Barbarian was coming at me with his weapon drawn I would be invisible and running immediately. Admittedly, we allow some 3.5 material in our games and the Barbarian's player is an absurd power-gamer. I am the only party member who could break his DR on average, and even then I can only do so when sneak attacking. Even in a normal situation, however, a well built fighter could full-round a sorcerer or wizard straight into the grave.Barbarian DR as in... about 3 or so?
And that's what people around here call an absurd powergamer? *shakes head*
There are ways to get it higher. The Iron Ward diamond from MiC grants DR/- and it states that it stacks with similar DR.
The greater resiliencey feat from complete warrior raises DR if the character already has it. The stalwart defender also raises DR.
I realized I did not answer the question. My opinion is fort saves by a nose.
I generally agree. The way I see it is that in the case of most of the bad failed Will saves, the rest of your team can often compensate or save you if they know what they're doing, but a failed Fort save of about equal badness can be straight to dead.
Reflex has a few more decent incapacitating options in the APG but it's still a distant third.
I'd agree to a point, but generally speaking the party is gonna be able to kill you first. If anything, a failed will save is a delayed fort save that creates some bad blood.
That does, naturally, depend on the group. But I have, once or twice, almost taken out the rest of the party by myself.
This question is exactly why I'm playing an Infernal Sorceror with Spell Focus: Enchantment. (It helps a little that the GM house-ruled that the Bloodline Arcana covers [Charm] and [Fear] spells, instead of just [Charm].) But still, I have nailed down many a combatant with a carefully timed Hypnotism, and succeeded at more than one difficult interrogation with a Cause Fear. A failed Will save is one of the trickiest to deal with.
I think it depends on if your character is selfish or not. Fortitude saves can kill you right now. Will saves can make you loose control and you harm the party... and maybe you die in the process. So if it is all about "you" then Fort is more important. If you are a team player then taking one for the team is better then failing a will save and harming the rest of the team.
The real answer to the question of "what is the most important save?" is "Whatever the save is that you have to make right now."
Many of the spells that take care of death require a diamond and/or bring you back at negative levels. Not many parties walk around with expensive diamonds on them.Also in some cases fixing death might actually be easier than fixing useless/helpless. Several will save spells can only be fixed with specific spells.
Examples:
Feeblemind (requires heal, limited wish, wish, or miracle -- all sixth level or higher from a 5th level spell -- reincarnate is a 4th level spell -- raise dead 5th)
Magic Jar (soul is missing until the spell ends and they get your body -- no real counter)
Baleful Polymorph (bad enough on a failed fort save, but a failed will save and you are useless until someone manages to dispel it)
Insanity (requires specific spells of which all but one are expensive *heal is the cheap option)
Trap the SoulAll these are harder to deal with than "Jimmy's dead -- who has a raise dead, resurrection, true resurrection, limited wish, miracle, wish, or reincarnate ready?" -- or -- "Quick he just dropped! Hit him with a breath of life!" (since dead creatures are treated as being at -Con hit points)
Honestly? You don't walk around with the material components to bring at least one party member back if need be? You never bother with having a scroll of reincarnate or raise dead? Having a means of getting rid of negative energy levels isn't a big deal to "many" parties?
We must be doing it wrong then, since we normally try and ensure we have at least one means of bringing at least one dead party member back to life if needed, and fully healed up as well.
We are talking 3,000 gp worth of materials (reincarnate with two restorations) at level 7 -- while not a little amount it certainly isn't a huge amount either for a party to pool together -- at higher levels the amount it comes out to is even less comparitively speaking.
Also since it's gp value of the gem size doesn't matter -- just worth.
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All are importint but I just went through an arch were by far my reflex kept me alive. fort kept me healthy but my low will made me a liability in the end when we were going agenst the boss. It was the fist will I ever had to do the entire time and i faild it. The result was me being domonated by an evil cleric and being used to almost take out my own party.
Im now looking to boost that save with a feat or a class change.
Many of the spells that take care of death require a diamond and/or bring you back at negative levels. Not many parties walk around with expensive diamonds on them.Also in some cases fixing death might actually be easier than fixing useless/helpless. Several will save spells can only be fixed with specific spells.
Examples:
Feeblemind (requires heal, limited wish, wish, or miracle -- all sixth level or higher from a 5th level spell -- reincarnate is a 4th level spell -- raise dead 5th)
Magic Jar (soul is missing until the spell ends and they get your body -- no real counter)
Baleful Polymorph (bad enough on a failed fort save, but a failed will save and you are useless until someone manages to dispel it)
Insanity (requires specific spells of which all but one are expensive *heal is the cheap option)
Trap the SoulAll these are harder to deal with than "Jimmy's dead -- who has a raise dead, resurrection, true resurrection, limited wish, miracle, wish, or reincarnate ready?" -- or -- "Quick he just dropped! Hit him with a breath of life!" (since dead creatures are treated as being at -Con hit points)
Honestly? You don't walk around with the material components to bring at least one party member back if need be? You never bother with having a scroll of reincarnate or raise dead? Having a means of getting rid of negative energy levels isn't a big deal to "many" parties?
We must be doing it wrong then, since we normally try and ensure we have at least one means of bringing at least one dead party member back to life if needed, and fully healed up as well.
We are talking 3,000 gp worth of materials (reincarnate with two restorations) at level 7 -- while not a little amount it certainly isn't a huge amount either for a party to pool together -- at higher levels the amount it comes out to is even less comparitively speaking.
Also since it's gp value of the gem size doesn't matter -- just worth.
I am not saying it is not a good idea to keep the diamonds around. I am saying I have never seen a group do so. That is why I am not counting it as something that is likely to happen. Even on the boards I don't see it mentioned, well until now.
I am not saying it is not a good idea to keep the diamonds around. I am saying I have never seen a group do so. That is why I am not counting it as something that is likely to happen. Even on the boards I don't see it mentioned, well until now.
I think any campaigns my current group runs will include a cleric carrying around diamonds after some of the things we've done. My cleric kept back some money at creation for diamonds, foci, and other spell components, so Abraham's not alone on that score. Good thing too; the first diamond we needed was one to raise me!
That said, Fort saves are more important IMO when you're in a low-magic world, or at least when you're in a world with lower than expected wealth. Sure, reincarnate exists-if you can find someone to cast it or get a scroll. In your high fantasy world, Will saves matter more, as it's easier to revive the dead.
I am not saying it is not a good idea to keep the diamonds around. I am saying I have never seen a group do so. That is why I am not counting it as something that is likely to happen. Even on the boards I don't see it mentioned, well until now.
I'm sorry I thought it was such a "everyone does it" sort of thing to never have mentioned it. I honestly thought it was just something everyone looked for pass about 7th level.
Invariably the most important saving throw type always seems to end up being the one I have the least bonuses in. Buggered if I know how it always seems to work out that way. I think my DM hates me.
I think it's the 'tell 1 or 2 friends about a good restaurant, tell 20 about a bad experience' phenomenon. The bad ones are more memorable (especially in this case because the result of success is often no outcome, so to speak).