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Okay, Story time. One time I had an unbreakable archetype fighter, with just about all his resources spent on being tough. At level 13 he had +20 to fort saves, and could reroll a fort save 1/day. I want to reiterate, hale had spent 2 feats on great fortitude and the better version, his highest stat was con, he had a belt of physical perfection, he was meant to be TOUGH and little else. But he constantly went up against fort saves that challenged even him and crippled the rest of the party. A lvl 16 creature with a poison DC 26 (+2 per additional time you've been stung), or a vampire with a DC 25 save to avoid a permanent negative level (mind you, you are making those save at minus the number of levels you've been drained, in my case, 4 saves at -4).
In another, less anecdotal example:
Let's take a look from the NPC codex, which isn't optimal I KNOW, bit since both our attacker and our defender are from the book, let's assume the sub-optimization shakes out. The DC for a 9th level spell as cast by a 17th level caster is 25 The fort save from a 17th level raging barbarian is +17. They need an 8 to succeed against a level 9 spell TARGETING their best save! That's a 40% failure rate for casting a spell against a dude who is supposed to be good at resisting it. And if that isn't your good save? Forget about it! That wizard trying to resist is own fort spell needs a 15! Almost a 75% failure rate!
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Yes, I know about cloaks of resistance (but not the kimono). My character had a cloak of resistance +2 (best he could manage at the time). The point is, after being hit 3 times by mr poison I mentioned, I had to make a 10 on the die not to be poisoned, and the other fighter was on the ground twitching because his strength had been reduced to 5. It just seems like a lot of the DCs are really high to me. It's like playing paper scissors rock, but even if you through paper against rock you have a 40% chance of losing anyway.
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Did you have any spellcasters in the party? Anyone with access to delay poison or neutralize poison? How about buying some antitoxin? A bard who can provide buffs to saves? A druid to cast a bear's endurance on you?
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Frankly - those DCs seem a bit high for level 13. But not crazily so.
Part of that is the whole save or die stuff that goes down starting about that level. Though frankly - I think that the whole system starts to break down about then anyway.
Too many options to balance (about then when martials start to really fall behind casters). Too much crazy stuff going on. And save vs death (or save vs extremely horrible things) stuff certainly doesn't help.
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I guess you didn't have a cleric; usually a nice, tasty heroes' feast is the first order of business. But as for NPCs, that's about right. Their toughest abilities should challenge your party. If your GM is being fair about the CR you should be able to overcome it as a group, even if an individual or two is incapacitated.
I think your group might be misplaying the poison save in particular. You make a save each time you are hit by the attack that carries the poison. The DC goes up ONLY after you fail a save.
For a DC 26 poison:
1st hit: Make a DC 26 save (pass)
2nd hit: Make a DC 26 save (pass)
3rd hit: Make a DC 26 save (fail)
4th hit: Make a DC 28 save (...)
Needing to roll a 6 against a creature 3 levels higher then you is really good. The saves are hard but in the favor of the character.
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At level 13 he had +20 to fort saves, and could reroll a fort save 1/day. A lvl 16 creature with a poison DC 26 (+2 per additional time you've been stung)
Okay, let's take a look. You're going up against a monster that is APL+3, which is meant to be a a challenging fight. This isn't meant to be a cakewalk.
The creature in question has to manage to do two things to impact your fighter. It's got to hit, and then it has to hope its target doesn't make its save. I'd like to point out that your character makes its save on rolling a 5. You had a 80% chance of making your save, assuming you got hit. Which isn't a given. You should have a decent armor class by that point, meaning the monster shouldn't be landing every hit. Each successive hit reduces your chance of making your save by 10%. Even if you got hit four times (which suggests your AC wasn't up to snuff, even for an APL+3), you're 50/50 to make your save.
Next, this is a party game. neutralize poison is a staple spell to have prepared by 13th level. A monster that is all about pumping poison into you should have a bad Will save. Your party cleric would have had a good chance of using the spell offensively and simply shutting down its poison sacs.
or a vampire with a DC 25 save to avoid a permanent negative level (mind you, you are making those save at minus the number of levels you've been drained, in my case, 4 saves at -4).
So you have an 85% chance of success, minus 20% due to the negative levels. You're still two-thirds in the advantage. This ignores that when you make these saves, you should have a caster dumping guidance on you to give you a helpful +1, bringing you to a cozy 70% success. On the first and worst negative level. Each one you remove increases your odds of success by 5%.
Basically, so far the answer to "how am I ever supposed to make saving throws" is "don't roll incredibly crappy rolls" with a side order of "let your party help you make your near-certain saving throws actually certain".
The DC for a 9th level spell as cast by a 17th level caster is 25 The fort save from a 17th level raging barbarian is +17.
That's actually pretty reasonable to start off. Saving throws should be in the general vicinity of 50/50. As in, your good saves should be something you can make more than 50% of the time and your bad saves should be something you can make less than 50% of the time. Say... 70/30 good and bad.
If you don't have that, there's a balance problem. What I mean is that if PCs are making their saves more than roughly half of the time, there's almost no point playing the game. Monsters can't do anything. Why play? There are so many awesome challenges available in this game, but if I as a DM have to pull out monsters six levels - or more - higher than you to scratch the paint on your shield, again, why play?
Player abilities should work roughly 50% of the time. Monster abilities should work roughly 50% of the time. Roughly. Clever targeting and selection of what abilities to use when are what pulls the odds in one direction or the other from time to time. Tactics.
But he constantly went up against fort saves that challenged even him and crippled the rest of the party.
Now this... this suggests that maybe your GM is trying to adjust for an "overpowered" character. In order to impose some suspense, some sense of danger, some sense of challenge, he/she may be pulling some minor tweaks behind the scenes, so as to not be saying "roll for initia... never mind... you win." The lesser-optimized characters are getting creamed because of this adjustment. Maybe. I don't know for sure.
Some of your numbers seem totally legit, and I can't understand the complaint at 80% success figures. So I dunno.
I don't understand the complaints. You are level 13, the opponent is level 16 (or was it CR 16?), difficulty is hard (epic if CR 16).
You have 75% chance of making your save (roll 6 or more). Sounds ok, no?
As someone already mentioned, DC seems a tad high for CR 15/level 16, less so for a CR 16 creature.
But...
to be honest, I also hate my DM for forcing my save-optimized characters to be rolling more than a two to succeed (no irony) And even worse: more than once a round.
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The point I was trying to make was that I had dumped EVERYTHING into being tough, and I still needed a six to save on my best chance. I had crappy AC and crappy other saves and my damage wasn't terribly high. My big thing was HP and fort and it was still touch and go for me. The other fighter had about a +14 IIRC (he was damaged based) and the rest of the party was 10 or less. Our druid was killed with finger of death because he needed a 15 not to take 130 damage outright, and that vampire was able to mind control everyone except the arcane trickster (who turned improved invisible) and me because I happened to roll a 17 on the die.
And yes, we were able to de-poison after the fight, but during the fight, what would have happened if the two fighters hit 0 str? It would have roflstomped the rest of the party no sweat.
Oh, it is also worth noting that we had six players, so CR 16 shouldn't have been THAT challenging a fight.
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You're here. You're talking about the fight. You WON.
I call it a great game and pat your GM on the back.
==Aelryinth
Yes, I know about cloaks of resistance (but not the kimono). My character had a cloak of resistance +2 (best he could manage at the time). The point is, after being hit 3 times by mr poison I mentioned, I had to make a 10 on the die not to be poisoned, and the other fighter was on the ground twitching because his strength had been reduced to 5. It just seems like a lot of the DCs are really high to me. It's like playing paper scissors rock, but even if you through paper against rock you have a 40% chance of losing anyway.
Cloak of resistance +2, and a belt of physical perfection (assuming also +2?). I would switch the items values right there. +4 cloak of resistance, and choose the 1 stat that you want that +2 in. That will raise will by 2, and fort or reflex by 2, the other by 1.
Could you post the build? There may be more places like this where we can find some help.
Basically the higher level you go the harder it is to make saves against an optimized opponent.
Even when expending resources.
I did some save math at the link below in another thread to simply illustrate caster DC VS saves, but I think it is viable here as well.
Effectively a caster that is CR+3 to you should allow you a 72% chance when using your re-roll against your good save and a 44% chance against your poor save.
If you have already used your re-roll for the day these chances drop to 40% and 25%.
This is without any shenanigans just basic feats and int item.
Now if you have some debuffs applied this becomes a death spiral rather quickly. That is why spells such as Heal exist.
I hope this helps.
P.S.: Best viewed in Excel rather than Google Docs.
Edit: All math is assuming levels 13 as in OP.
The point I was trying to make was that I had dumped EVERYTHING into being tough, and I still needed a six to save on my best chance. I had crappy AC and crappy other saves and my damage wasn't terribly high. My big thing was HP and fort and it was still touch and go for me.
I could be wrong, but it actually sounds like your GM was letting your character *shine*, by presenting challenges that you could reasonably overcome, while others would need to take a backseat.
Also - poison rules are complex. You can only take poison damage from one kind of poison when you're initially afflicted and then once per your turn, no matter how many times it stings you (it just gets harder to save).
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The point I was trying to make was that I had dumped EVERYTHING into being tough, and I still needed a six to save on my best chance.
To me, this is more an indictment of two things ...
1. The linear nature of the d20, and2. The presence of save-or-die/save-or-lose effects,
along with the too-great-of-a-swing between good saves and bad saves.
One single die roll should not have that great an effect on a character or a combat.
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You're here. You're talking about the fight. You WON.
I call it a great game and pat your GM on the back.
==Aelryinth
Actually, no, the GM TPKed us with a mythic CR 17 Dragon. BTWs that was the playtest version of mythic where mythic agile monsters got two full actions a round.
No, we were not mythic at the time (it was supposed to be us getting into mythic.)
GM was a DICK. Straight up murdered our rogue because "Rogues are underpowered and no one should play them." She never got a chance to do ANYTHING in that campaign.
As for the build: No, that character is dead. It just made me realize that the DCs I've seen have been typically high enough that people with good saves have a 50/50 shot of making it, and people with bad saves have almost no chance.
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+20 at level 13 isn't even super high for a Fighter.
You have +8 just from levels. Presumably, if Con is your highest stat, you have a 22 or 24, for a 14-15 already. The average Fighter will have an 16-18 for an 11-13.
You SHOULD have at least a +3 or +4 Cloak of Resistance already. The fact that you do not, means that you have not actually put "everything you have" into Fort saves. That would bump you up to an 18-19 or 20-21 with Great Fortitude.
Presumably you have some other things helping you out in the saves department so if you had a level appropriate Cloak you'd be at 22-23, in the territory of saving those things on a 2-3.
In addition, you have not one, but TWO abilities that let you re-roll a Fort save once (giving you a pretty much 0% chance of failure on a DC 25 wit the above saves).
Not sure what your problem is her.
You look at it like "Oh, I have a 30% chance to fail! That's terrible!".
You should be looking at it as "Any given enemy has, at maximum, only a 30% chance to succeed! That's awesome!".
It'd be even less if you'd actually focused on saves like you said you did (in addition to the Cloak of Resistances, there's Ioun Stones that boost saves, stuff like a Luckstone, etc. which help as well).
Likewise a dip into another class with a good Fort progression gives you a free +2. Dipping Barbarian would give you a +2 Fort with an addition +2 for a few rounds a day.
Then you toss on buffs, which your party should have, like Heroism or Good Hope or something.
In short, you haven't "pumped everything" into boosting your saves, and they're still pretty damn good.
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Antitoxin lasts for an hour and gives an extra +2, right?
Wrong :)
Antitoxin Price 50 gp; Weight -- This substance counteracts a specific toxin. If you drink a vial of antitoxin, you gain a +5 alchemical bonus on Fortitude saving throws against poison for 1 hour.
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The point I was trying to make was that I had dumped EVERYTHING into being tough, and I still needed a six to save on my best chance.To me, this is more an indictment of two things ...
1. The linear nature of the d20, and
2. The presence of save-or-die/save-or-lose effects,
along with the too-great-of-a-swing between good saves and bad saves.One single die roll should not have that great an effect on a character or a combat.
Off track----I like how 5E D&D is handling this stuff. They seem to have softened the line a lot.
On track----I don't see the problem here, you need to roll a 6, and you can reroll. If you failed you failed. Your GM sounds like a bit of a jerk but you had 6 players, probably were using something higher than 15 point buy (which is the default standard that basic encounters and CRs are geared towards) and was not totally optimized for Fort saves. The GM upped the encounter level to account for more players than the standard 4 and (an assumption) probably a 20-25 point buy...I think party preparation and tactics are more of the problem here.
In general, if you're looking to make your saves, play more dwarves. Hardy grants +2 to saves vs all spells and SLAs, and don't forget that the bonus to WIS and CON grants another +1 bonus to the related saves. Then there's steel soul and glory of old. All told, even a fighter can start off with a +6 will save against spells and SLAs without investing anything in the point buy.
Consider a succubus. The save DC on their Dominate Person is 23. A 7th level fighter has a mighty +2 for their base will save. If they don't have sky-high wisdom, a good cloak of resistance AND some luck, the rest of the party now has TWO huge problems to deal with.
I see this complaint pretty regularly, including from my players. It definitely sucks when someone gets mindslaved, but I feel like the reason it seems completely unbalanced is that there's an oft neglected way to counter it. Remember that protection from evil, a level 1 spell on the cleric/oracle, wizard/sorcerer, and paladin lists, grants full immunity to mind control effects, and grants a reroll to those already slaved. If you have the foresight to have a protection spell ready for demon and vampire fights, the encounters will be a whole lot smoother.
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Antitoxin lasts for an hour and gives an extra +2, right?Wrong :)
Antitoxin Price 50 gp; Weight -- This substance counteracts a specific toxin. If you drink a vial of antitoxin, you gain a +5 alchemical bonus on Fortitude saving throws against poison for 1 hour.
Beautiful! I forgot it was that powerful. So yeah, if you expect to be fighting poisonous beasties, drink up and you're safe for an hour. Drink up after being poisoned and you have a much better chance of kicking it.
Against things like succubi, magic circle against evil lasts for ages and gives you complete immunity to that dominate person. Even a potion of it (750 gp is cheap for a level 13 character) lasts for close to an hour. If you're not making the saving throws you want to make, then you're not using enough of the tools available to you.
I dunno...this just seems like whinging to me. A monster has to not only beat your save, but also deal with the entire party...it should be possible for a bad guy to stop or at least slow down a PC if it using its standard action for a SU or Spell-like ability or it wouldn't be any challenge at all.
You're here. You're talking about the fight. You WON.
I call it a great game and pat your GM on the back.
==Aelryinth
Actually, no, the GM TPKed us with a mythic CR 17 Dragon. BTWs that was the playtest version of mythic where mythic agile monsters got two full actions a round.
No, we were not mythic at the time (it was supposed to be us getting into mythic.)
GM was a DICK. Straight up murdered our rogue because "Rogues are underpowered and no one should play them." She never got a chance to do ANYTHING in that campaign.
As for the build: No, that character is dead. It just made me realize that the DCs I've seen have been typically high enough that people with good saves have a 50/50 shot of making it, and people with bad saves have almost no chance.
...Yeah, sounds like you have bigger issues than saving throw mechanics. Find a new GM.
In general, if you're looking to make your saves, play more dwarves. Hardy grants +2 to saves vs all spells and SLAs, and don't forget that the bonus to WIS and CON grants another +1 bonus to the related saves. Then there's steel soul and glory of old. All told, even a fighter can start off with a +6 will save against spells and SLAs without investing anything in the point buy.
Consider a succubus. The save DC on their Dominate Person is 23. A 7th level fighter has a mighty +2 for their base will save. If they don't have sky-high wisdom, a good cloak of resistance AND some luck, the rest of the party now has TWO huge problems to deal with.
I see this complaint pretty regularly, including from my players. It definitely sucks when someone gets mindslaved, but I feel like the reason it seems completely unbalanced is that there's an oft neglected way to counter it. Remember that protection from evil, a level 1 spell on the cleric/oracle, wizard/sorcerer, and paladin lists, grants full immunity to mind control effects, and grants a reroll to those already slaved. If you have the foresight to have a protection spell ready for demon and vampire fights, the encounters will be a whole lot smoother.
Also if your players really mind being mindcontrolled it would be better to just pick a different monster. Keeping the mindcontrol secret, while the succubus is disguised can also be a great roleplaying challenge.
Crafting antitoxins? *At least* one day per antitoxin. 4-6 person group means an entire week or more just sitting in town making these.
Most people play adventure paths - other than Kingmaker, which one gives you this much free time?
Cloak of Res? Unless the GM is handing these out like candy, there's no guarantee you'll be getting exactly what you need. Maybe you found a different magical cloak. Maybe the d% roll showed that +2 was the highest that Ye Olde Magick Shoppe had to offer. Maybe there was no Ye Olde Magick Shoppe.
Magic items are not guaranteed.
Lots of contingencies to consider here before trashing on OP.
Seriously: Someone above said 70/30 is a good balance. That's totally true. But unless your GM loves and provides, the game doesn't really give you 70/30; It tends to give you 50/10.
Like it or not, OP has a valid concern.
(The opposite being true for spellcasters - Monsters have elevated saves that make spell DCs a joke half the time. No fun to watch things fizzle, and not everyone wants to play a God Wizard.)
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Play a Dwarven Paladin with Steel Soul. Never fail a save.
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An antitoxin has a DC of 25 to craft. A wizard by level 13 should have something like 13+3+8= +24
With a valet familiar that can go up to +28 and double gold/day. Without any investment that comes up as 40g/day craft.
With afeat that is 8vials/day
Without a feat... Just use fabricate.and craft up to 4-5/day
Except the Craft rules don't allow for more than 1 item a day. And the minimum time for the check is also 1 day. At the absolute best you get 1 vial/day.
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Why are multiple people misspelling 'whining'? Is there a meme on that today or something I don't know about? What's with the added 'g'?
Making saves is not a big deal. There are many classes that have excellent saves. Monks and paladins are generally the best (with the monk being the better of the two IMO).
You're complaining about needing to roll a 6 on your best save. I am confused. Exactly what number would you like to roll (if you even want to roll at all) to pass a save?
My level 8 monk has a +10 ref save and that is his lowest save. He plays up as often as possible and has poor constitution. With no cloak of resistance (he sees no point in making his saves better) he has a +12 fort save. His will is +15. Every one of these saves will improve. By 13, his poor save will be nearly as good as your 'I pumped everything' best save. So, your character design is evidently missing a lot of things since you intentionally focused on your classes one good save and I made no attempt to make mine good and have no intention to do so. My saves are good as a byproduct of my support build characters class and item selection.
My support build......
There are plenty of tools I could use to handle other types of threats that could get through my saves. But honestly, I just don't care. I expect to make most of my saves even when I play up against epic challenges. I also expect to fail several saves and for my party to be there to do their thing when it happens.
In short, I don't sympathize with your argument. Things were hard and went rough for you. It happens. Honestly, if that never happened for me, I would enjoy the game less. Trying to survive instead of having survival guaranteed is a more rewarding play experience to me. YMMV.
PS. Whatever your build is- I am almost positive that I could offhand make your fort save 5 points higher, constantly, with very little effort. It is very clear that you did not invest as well as you think you did into being tough in the fort save department. Especially not when you claim that you are 13 and invested everything into it. No sleight. Just truth.
Why are multiple people misspelling 'whining'? Is there a meme on that today or something I don't know about? What's with the added 'g'?
Its not misspelled. Its British English as opposed to American English.
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By rolling the d20, then taking the result and adding it to your relevant save modifier. Then, if the sum equals or exceeds the difficulty class for the attack made against you, then you've succeeded!
Simple.
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;P
Why are multiple people misspelling 'whining'? Is there a meme on that today or something I don't know about? What's with the added 'g'?Its not misspelled. Its British English as opposed to American English.
To whit:
whinge
British informal
VERB (whinges, whingeing or whinging, whinged)
Complain persistently and in a peevish or irritating way:
stop whingeing and get on with it!
Pronounced like "cringe".
Why are multiple people misspelling 'whining'? Is there a meme on that today or something I don't know about? What's with the added 'g'?Its not misspelled. Its British English as opposed to American English.To whit:
whinge
British informal
VERB (whinges, whingeing or whinging, whinged)Complain persistently and in a peevish or irritating way:
stop whingeing and get on with it!Pronounced like "cringe".
Dark Immortal - you weren't the only one who was wondering. Thanks to Jeraa and Chemlak for teaching me another British-ism. I was wincing at each of those and now I can stop!
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Quite alright. Anything to give our American friends something to whinge about!
Quite alright. Anything to give our American friends something to whinge about!
We don't need your help with that. Whinging is pretty much a national past time for us.
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Why are multiple people misspelling 'whining'? Is there a meme on that today or something I don't know about? What's with the added 'g'?Its not misspelled. Its British English as opposed to American English.
To the point where Harry Potter's home town is Little Whinging, Surrey. That's rather like my writing a fantasy novel and setting it in Pissandmoan, New Jersey.
An antitoxin has a DC of 25 to craft. A wizard by level 13 should have something like 13+3+8= +24
With a valet familiar that can go up to +28 and double gold/day. Without any investment that comes up as 40g/day craft.
With afeat that is 8vials/day
Without a feat... Just use fabricate.and craft up to 4-5/day
Alternatively you can buy a flask of antitoxin anywhere you can buy a chain shirt -- more places, in fact, as antitoxin is cheaper.
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To all that are calling me a whiner or a sub-par optimizer: fine, okay, I am, you win, I suck, I shouldn't have even mentioned my character. But can we get back to the point I was trying to make? It seems that if you have a favorable save (your good save) you have around a 50-60 percent chance of making a given save for your level in general. If it not your favored save? Around a 25% chance. As someone said one die roll shouldn't condemn a character, but when the evil Mage casts a DC 25 finger of death at the sorcerer, what do you do?
Sure, things like antitoxin are nice if you know you are going into the den of dire scorpions and snakes, but not as good when the evil Mage teleports a poison demon to you while you are relaxing at sea. It just seems to me that there is too much variability in the save system and that if you don't want to play a paladin/monk you are gonna get screwed over eventually.
I mean, my friend invented a build to have a sleep dc of 21 at level 1!what do you do when your DM pulls that on you?
To all that are calling me a whiner or a sub-par optimizer: fine, okay, I am, you win, I suck, I shouldn't have even mentioned my character. But can we get back to the point I was trying to make? It seems that if you have a favorable save (your good save) you have around a 50-60 percent chance of making a given save for your level in general. If it not your favored save? Around a 25% chance. As someone said one die roll shouldn't condemn a character, but when the evil Mage casts a DC 25 finger of death at the sorcerer, what do you do?
Sure, things like antitoxin are nice if you know you are going into the den of dire scorpions and snakes, but not as good when the evil Mage teleports a poison demon to you while you are relaxing at sea. It just seems to me that there is too much variability in the save system and that if you don't want to play a paladin/monk you are gonna get screwed over eventually.
I mean, my friend invented a build to have a sleep dc of 21 at level 1!what do you do when your DM pulls that on you?
I find this to be a problem with SOS/SOD spells more so than with DC scaling.
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To all that are calling me a whiner or a sub-par optimizer: fine, okay, I am, you win, I suck, I shouldn't have even mentioned my character.
Not to disagree with you again but, no. You don't suck. And people who are not on-side with your premise aren't saying you do. It's possible to have a problem and be mistaken about the nature of the problem. I believe that's what's happening here.
See, your problem is "I'm not good enough at saves". Your conclusion is "the system is broken". While yes, at high levels there is a wider disparity between good saves and bad saves, the game is actually playable at least to 20th.
The question becomes how? The answer(s) include planning, and character build. That's not criticism, it's people answering the question.
By 13th level, you've got a recommended 140,000gp of character wealth. You chose to spend 4,000gp of that on boosting your saves. I don't know where the other 136,000gp went, but even if part of it was a belt of physical perfection +4, you've still got 72,000gp left to explain. Just saying... 21,000gp would have bought you (another) +3 to all your saves by making your cloak +5 instead of +2.
That kind of stuff is the build answer. Had you actually optimized for saving throws, you could have been making those saves against poison on anything but a natural one. Same thing with the negative levels. So... the answer isn't "the system is broken". A build optimized to make its saves will.
But then there's the preparation topic. This game can be played casually, like a beer & peanuts get-together and throw some dice game. Sure. But then don't be shocked that sometimes bad things happen to your not-taking-it-seriously characters. On the other hand, it's quite possible to delve into the system and recognize that much like a realistic world, there are counters and balances for everything. A character with 140,000gp living in a world where poisonous creatures are common really should own some antivenom. Why not? I mean, you're mega-stupid rich. And an adventurer. You should always have a handy haversack nearby loaded with goodies. You know, it's a move action to get out WHATEVER you want, and a standard action to use it. Even when vacationing.
Potions of invisibility, and fly and protection from evil are just... staple items that you should have a few of. There are a bunch of alchemical "helpers" in the Advanced Player's Guide as well.
I'm not saying you're playing the game wrong. You're playing it the way you want to play. But it's not unlike participating in a marathon and then wondering "how come they make these so long?" when you never conditioned yourself. Because they're balanced for people who take them seriously. So too is Pathfinder.
Again, my goal here isn't to make you feel bad, or wrong, or broken, or stupid or whatever. I'm taking time out of my life - time that could be spent doing lots of fun things - and trying to help you. It is my belief that what you need is perspective. And that's what I'm trying to give you. Not a brow-beating or criticism, just "hey, you know, maybe look at this question of yours... this way."
Good luck.
I mean, my friend invented a build to have a sleep dc of 21 at level 1!what do you do when your DM pulls that on you?
Addendum... what do you do? Get a DM who isn't being a dork. That's not a build... that's an assassination attempt*. Because everyone in an even remotely balanced group will fall asleep, then get coup-de-graced to death. Game over. Not cool. Also very, very likely not even remotely a legal build.
* Or a plot-mechanism for a "you all wake up in someone's basement" moment.