Can a player willingly fail a saving throw?


Rules Questions


In an attempt a counteract a dragon's awesome frightful presence I came across the 2nd level cleric spell calm emotions:

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/c/calm-emotions

that can "suppress any fear effects and removes the confused condition from all targets. While the spell lasts, a suppressed spell, condition, or effect has no effect."

Now this will only last until those effected by the spell are attacked by said dragon but it may be enough time to swallow potions of heroism and have the cleric (who hopefully makes his save this time) cast remove fear before everybody runs for their lives.

This brings me to my question. The calm emotions spell gives another Will save. Can a player willingly fail a Will save on purpose thus falling under the calm emotions spell as to not be affected by the dragon's frightful presence? Until that player is attacked of course.

Grand Lodge

Although the wording does not allow it, you would think "Calm Emotions" would knock a barbarian out of Rage as well


Yes

rules:
core 217 wrote:

Voluntarily Giving up a Saving Throw: A creature can

voluntarily forego a saving throw and willingly accept a
spell’s result. Even a character with a special resistance to
magic can suppress this quality.

It might possibly be worth noting that the spell remove fear is both lower level and does the current job better.


Most definitely!


Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

Normally there is no provision in the rules for voluntarily failing a saving throws unless the spell has "(harmless)" listed under Saving Throw.

Grand Lodge

You can absolutely voluntarily fail a saving throw. It is RAW, and to deny is to houserule. It is also a bit silly to prevent voluntary failure, in my opinion.


Rules RAW say yes, always.
Logic suggest that this should be different for fortitude ST, but with this rule system high level character wouldn't be able to get drunk if not with tons of alcool :)


It's also worth noting that if the character is not in total control of their actions (such as if they've been charmed or dominated), then the player shouldn't be able to choose to fail a save against his normal allies' spells. The solution to having the raging barbarian become dominated shouldn't be "I cast sleep on him. He chooses to fail his save. He's sleeping and we can ignore him." It should be "I cast sleep on him. Hopefully he'll fail, because if he doesn't we're dead."

Silver Crusade

Which brings to the question, can a person, in example, bluff a person into voluntarily failing a save against Cure Light Wounds, when in actuallity they are casting Charm Person. Particularly if said person cannot identify the spell.


Yes, i did it with an evil cleric, convincing my target that i was healing him, instead i cast blindess.
I don't know about the raging barbarian, this is quite different.


Ravenbow wrote:
Although the wording does not allow it, you would think "Calm Emotions" would knock a barbarian out of Rage as well

Ahem...

"This spell automatically suppresses (but does not dispel) any morale bonuses granted by spells such as bless, good hope, and rage, and also negates a bard's ability to inspire courage or a barbarian's rage ability."

Spells only get suppressed, but the barbarian's rage gets negated.

Xzaral wrote:
Which brings to the question, can a person, in example, bluff a person into voluntarily failing a save against Cure Light Wounds, when in actuallity they are casting Charm Person. Particularly if said person cannot identify the spell.

The way the rules are distressingly vague on that subject. While normal saves give the option of voluntarily forgoing a save and Harmless spells give the option of willingly attempting a saving throw, not a lot is said if the spell types "feel" any different. Making a save gets you some after the fact sensations, but other than the that the ruleset does not give much info on the subject.

Succeeding on a Saving Throw
A creature that successfully saves against a spell that has no obvious physical effects feels a hostile force or a tingle, but cannot deduce the exact nature of the attack. Likewise, if a creature's saving throw succeeds against a targeted spell, you sense that the spell has failed. You do not sense when creatures succeed on saves against effect and area spells.

EDIT: After giving it some thought, I would have to rule that first the victim has to fail the opposed Bluff / Sense Motive roll to be bluffed and then fail a DC10 Know Arcana check to realize you don't need to drop your resistances for a beneficial spell.

Grand Lodge

There really is no reason for making special rules for voluntarily failing a saving throw. Unless there is something preventing you from doing so (which is not in the example above) you can fail as you choose.

Dark Archive

Frankthedm wrote:
EDIT: After giving it some thought, I would have to rule that first the victim has to fail the opposed Bluff / Sense Motive roll to be bluffed and then fail a DC10 Know Arcana check to realize you don't need to drop your resistances for a beneficial spell.

But you _do_ have to drop your resistances for a beneficial spell. e.g. Protection from Evil - Will negates (harmless)

This comes into play for example when you have confusion dropped on your party and your fighter is now laying into you. You may have to defensively cast and land the melee touch attack with the prot evil spell and he gets to make a save as well - to defend himself against a hostile caster.


Breakfast wrote:

Yes

** spoiler omitted **

It might possibly be worth noting that the spell remove fear is both lower level and does the current job better.

Thank you. True, but you have to assume that the cleric will make his save in order to cast remove fear and does not run off himself.

Dark Archive

Todays FAQ thread covers drinking potions and saving throws.

Later on Sean K Reynolds qualified:

Sean K Reynolds wrote:

The existence of the "harmless" modifier for saves indicates that the target of such an effect can somehow recognize that the incoming effect is not harmful, and choose to automatically fail the save against it. Thus, you drink a potion of cure light wounds, you realize "ah, delicious healing, I willingly fail my save." If you drink a potion of poison or an instantaneous nonmagical poison, you realize "something is wrong, I'm going to try to resist it."

And if you eat something poisonous with an onset time, you don't make the save until the poison activates, and while you can choose to automatically fail, your mind or your body recognizes it as harmful and tries to reject (save) against it.

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