Upping Spell DCs

[Honest Tnarg]

We've been experimenting in our game with upping Spell Dc's as I've discovered that as things stand, both the PC's and the bad guys could avoid getting hit by the full effect of a spell quite often.

What we've done is allow half the caster level to be added to the DC of the spell or spell like ability. So far it seems to be working quite well and I haven't come across any major problems but I'd be intrigued to see if anyone has done something similar (or indeed, different) and how well it's worked out for them.

[Benchak the Nightstalker]

What level are your players? How did you go about generating ability scores?

Edit: Also, what classes are your players playing?

[wraithstrike]

It is not needed if the player want to pimp out their DC's. I think you can force a DC of 32 or higher at level 20.

The other issue is that most of the time a spell will be saved against. That is why spells with saves are risky. At the same time failing a save against a high level spell can be a game changer.

[Honest Tnarg]

Current roster of party is a Lvl 10 Paladin, Lvl 10 Cleric (Fire and Healing domains), Lvl 10 summoner and a Level 10 sorceror (gold dragon bloodline)

Ability scores were generated using the good old 4d6, drop the lowest and assign where necessary.

The general complaint was that using the spells with saves tended to have a low success rate. I haven't come across many game changers yet which might be down to the spells chosen by my players so far, although I think I might start to run into problems with the cleric at some stage.

[Corlindale]

I think it makes save spells too powerful. With normal rules, in my experience one can expect a somewhat better than 50% succes rate with spells that target an enemy's weak save - which is as it should be, I think, as many save spells will significantly cripple both enemies and players that are hit by them.
It's no fun to be able to hit ALL the enemies with that Confusion spell every time, which I suspect could happen with your houserule (heck, it happens in the 8th level game I GM with normal rules more often than I'd like) - on the flip side, it is REALLY no fun if everyone in the party fails that save against Circle of Death because it's 6 higher than normal, whereas fort saves didn't scale similarly.

If your players are frustrated, they can easily deal with the issue by focusing on boosting their save DCs or becoming better at targeting weak saves. You could also point them in the direction of the amazing Persistent Spell metamagic feat.

It may seem innocent enough at lower levels when the impact is not so significant, but it will get dramatically worse later on. With your suggestion, a 20th level wizard would throw out a DC 41! (19 + 12(Int bonus + 10)) Wail of the Banshee spell - and that's WITHOUT trying to boost the DC. He could easily reach 45 (spell focus and spell perfection), or an Arcane bloodline sorceror could reach 47. No non-immune enemies are going to survive that - monster base saves are made with the assumptions that spell DCs scales in a certain manner, and boosting them so significantly will make save-or-die/save-or-suck spells dramatically better (and I would argue they were already plenty powerful to begin with)

[Weables]

Honestly, this seems to be the case of your players not using the spells that'd benefit greatly from this. Clerics don't have a whole ton, really its based on your sorcs spell list.

At level 10 is he using things like Hold Monster? at that level, with say a 24 cha (20 starting, +4 item) not unreasonable at all, your sorc has a DC27 save (10+5 from spell level, 5 from caster level, 7 from cha). Throw in spell focus, greater spell focus, and we're at DC29.

lets look at some CR10s with weak will saves (the ones he'll target of course.

Giant Anaconda: Will +5
Fire Giant: Will +9
Adult White Dragon: Will +10

These are all CR10s that will pretty much autofail for this spell. The dragon needs a 19, but close enough.

Note that this was effective before, a 75% chance or better. You've just jumped it to 100%. Smart casters target weak saves with save or dies, and specializing in things like enchantment are good ways to destroy encounters like this.

The reason you're not seeing the power level, is your characters spell choices arent reflecting the right way to use it.

If I was in your campaign, I'd be a crossblooded sorcerer...forget the bloodlines, but can affect animals and plants and undead. Go enchantment and make sure to grab a few fort save targeting spells, and commence to wrecking your day.

[Benchak the Nightstalker]

Honest Tnarg wrote:

Current roster of party is a Lvl 10 Paladin, Lvl 10 Cleric (Fire and Healing domains), Lvl 10 summoner and a Level 10 sorceror (gold dragon bloodline)

Ability scores were generated using the good old 4d6, drop the lowest and assign where necessary.

The general complaint was that using the spells with saves tended to have a low success rate. I haven't come across many game changers yet which might be down to the spells chosen by my players so far, although I think I might start to run into problems with the cleric at some stage.

At this level, they already have access to some pretty powerful 'game-changer' spells. Dominate person, for instance, can completely change the balance of the right adventure, and baleful polymorph can shut down an encounter right quick.

What are their save DCs now (before adding in the 1/2 level bonus)? Did they put good scores in their casting ability scores? They should probably be somewhere close to 20 for their highest level spells. That'll affect a level appropriate monster about half the time (more or less, depending on what save you target), which is what you should be shooting for.

Have you compared what their new save DCs would be to what CR appropriate monsters from the Bestiary or NPCs from the NPC Gallery have for saving throws?

If you're dead set on the idea, rather than change the way save DCs are calculated, you might try putting your party up against creatures that just naturally have lower saves, or adjust each creature's save modifiers down on a case-by-case basis.