Mirrored Moon - Cultists are better archers than spellcasters


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The Night Herald cultists at the Moonmere have a spell save DC of 22. And while it's been noticed that certain enemy stats are arbitrarily inflated to hit target numbers, that's not true of the save DC which appears to just be the enemy level of 8 plus the Cha bonus of 4 (plus 10). In contrast, the cultists' to-hit bonus of +17 with the crossbows has been seemingly inflated, since the +17 is much higher than lvl+dex+prof+potency.
The result is that the cultists were, at least in my run of the adventure, much more reliable as archers rather than as casters. More attacks per round, larger 'pool' of attacks (30 bolts vs handful of spells), and higher to-hit odds even on iterative attacks. The only tradeoff was the crossbows' moderate damage (2d8+2d6) versus the spells' battlefield control.

PC Numbers:
Barbarian: F +16, R +14, W +13; AC 26
Monk: F +13, R +14, W +15; AC 24
Cleric: F +16, R +12, W +16; AC 28

The cultists didn't have any spells which targeted Reflex saves, so the lowest save bonus was effectively a +13, which means the players had anywhere between 60%-75% chance of saving against any given spell.
In contrast, the odds of not taking a hit from a initial crossbow bolt ranged between 30%-50%. (the iterative bolt matched the spellcasting odds, at 55%-75%)

These are just the base numbers, not accounting for any magic or conditions. However, while there are options for decreasing an opponent's save numbers, most such options allow an unmodified save first, and still don't bring the above percentages much closer to one another. In contrast, there are multiple options for boosting one's own to-hit or lowering an enemy's AC without allowing them to make a roll, e.g. Heroism, true strike, flanking, etc..

These numbers can go both ways; the cleric's spell DC of 23 has somewhere between a 50-60% chance of success against 1 level lower cultists and 40-20% against the 1 level higher dragon, which certainly feels low when I look at it but, as none of players have recently played offensive spellcasters, I can't say how it feels in-game.

I noticed the high odds of saving against magic in Sombrefell Hall, but I thought maybe that was just because, again, the enemy magic was targeting Fort/Will and my players were all armored clerics/paladins. But in Mirrored Moon Enervation was unlikely against any in the party and I couldn't even keep a barbarian confused for more than a round, and where's the fun in that?

I'd like to see Expert/Master Spellcaster happen at much lower levels and allow for other possible lower-level methods of increasing spell save DC's (unless I missing a part of rules, in which case please direct me). I'm not looking to steamroll my players, but I'd like slightly better odds of injecting offensive (damaging and status) magic into combat.


Spells that are mostly reliant on enemies failing their saving throws are generally a bad idea in 2e, because saving throw DCs for spells are too low all around.


Aramar wrote:

The Night Herald cultists at the Moonmere have a spell save DC of 22. And while it's been noticed that certain enemy stats are arbitrarily inflated to hit target numbers, that's not true of the save DC which appears to just be the enemy level of 8 plus the Cha bonus of 4 (plus 10). In contrast, the cultists' to-hit bonus of +17 with the crossbows has been seemingly inflated, since the +17 is much higher than lvl+dex+prof+potency.

The result is that the cultists were, at least in my run of the adventure, much more reliable as archers rather than as casters. More attacks per round, larger 'pool' of attacks (30 bolts vs handful of spells), and higher to-hit odds even on iterative attacks. The only tradeoff was the crossbows' moderate damage (2d8+2d6) versus the spells' battlefield control.

PC Numbers:
Barbarian: F +16, R +14, W +13; AC 26
Monk: F +13, R +14, W +15; AC 24
Cleric: F +16, R +12, W +16; AC 28

The cultists didn't have any spells which targeted Reflex saves, so the lowest save bonus was effectively a +13, which means the players had anywhere between 60%-75% chance of saving against any given spell.
In contrast, the odds of not taking a hit from a initial crossbow bolt ranged between 30%-50%. (the iterative bolt matched the spellcasting odds, at 55%-75%)

These are just the base numbers, not accounting for any magic or conditions. However, while there are options for decreasing an opponent's save numbers, most such options allow an unmodified save first, and still don't bring the above percentages much closer to one another. In contrast, there are multiple options for boosting one's own to-hit or lowering an enemy's AC without allowing them to make a roll, e.g. Heroism, true strike, flanking, etc..

These numbers can go both ways; the cleric's spell DC of 23 has somewhere between a 50-60% chance of success against 1 level lower cultists and 40-20% against the 1 level higher dragon, which certainly feels low when I look at it but, as none of players have recently played offensive...

Yeah, in some cases spells have a fairly high chance of the save being made, sometimes even if you aren't targeting the foe's best save, but this is offset significantly by almost all saving throw spells retaining some effect on a successful save, allowing you to inflict minor debuffs or decent damage while you try to get something stronger to stick. This is a dynamic I FAR prefer to save-or-lose from PF1.


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Edge93 wrote:
Yeah, in some cases spells have a fairly high chance of the save being made, sometimes even if you aren't targeting the foe's best save, but this is offset significantly by almost all saving throw spells retaining some effect on a successful save, allowing you to inflict minor debuffs or decent damage while you try to get something stronger to stick. This is a dynamic I FAR prefer to save-or-lose from PF1.

I agree with the philosophy, and yeah anything that amounts to "save or die" should only fully go off on a crit fail on the save, but I don't agree with the execution. In practice, the majority of spells still do basically nothing meaningful on a successful save, and often even on a failed save. For a fairly significant percentage of spells, the current Failed Save effect or something approaching it should be the Save Succeeded effect, with a more useful effect on Failed Save in between that and Critical Fail.


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Edge93 wrote:
Yeah, in some cases spells have a fairly high chance of the save being made, sometimes even if you aren't targeting the foe's best save, but this is offset significantly by almost all saving throw spells retaining some effect on a successful save, allowing you to inflict minor debuffs or decent damage while you try to get something stronger to stick. This is a dynamic I FAR prefer to save-or-lose from PF1.

I don't think it's even 'some cases' or 'sometimes'; while a hypothetical bad/worst base save for a 9th level PC could be +9 (only 40% chance of success in the Moonmere scenario), it's very easy or even automatic to increase that figure via increasing ability scores, inherent or accessible save rank increases, and item bonuses.

e.g. the cleric in my anecdote, with only trained Reflex and full plate, still achieves 50% odds for her worst save, which may not be fairly high, but certainly isn't low, either.

And I would agree with Fuzzypaws that a lot of spells do very little on successful saves. The effects of non-energy spells (typically?) don't last more than a round, and may or may not do much on that round anyway, while energy spells don't do any more than a hit with a weapon. Which, tbh, I'm mostly okay with, since it's standard that even a successful dodge of a flame breath or fireball will still singe, so a save against blindness or confusion causing temporary flat-footedness or loss or a single action seems more or less in line. But I don't think these results should always be the most common or expected results, as they are now.


If debuffs frequently did some damage whether or not they landed, the current state of affairs on other save effects would be a lot more acceptable, since at least you'd still be making some progress toward ending the battle. For example, Sleep could deal nonlethal damage and Crushing Despair could deal mental damage and Color Spray could deal light damage and so on. It wouldn't be as much damage as an actual blast, but it's still something, and on a successful save the player's turn and spent resources don't feel as much of a waste.


Huh, that's an interesting idea!

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