Needle of vengeance - when does the save apply?

[AlastarOG]

Hello community,

Just like the title says, for the needle of vengeance witch focus spell, is the ennemy affected and then saves every attack they make, possibly up to 5 times a round, or do they save once and then use that result across all actions?

I'm leaning towards a basic save per action but I can't seem to find a definite answer to that.

[Deriven Firelion]

I make them save once when cast, then apply the result of that save for the duration of the spell. It doesn't say per attack and says Basic Will Save in the description.

[breithauptclan]

Unless the spell says otherwise (such as Flaming Sphere) then I only allow the save once.

Some spells also explicitly say that you only make the save once. Circle of Protection for example.

Spells that make attack rolls repeatedly (like Spiritual Weapon have to have the attack rolled each time.

[Ravingdork]

That makes sense to me too. Over and over again the designers have taken steps to reduce rolls in this edition, not increase them.

[AlastarOG]

I generally tend to agree, although dang if a beatstick crit fails its will save vs this they're in for a world of hurt !

[breithauptclan]

AlastarOG wrote:

I generally tend to agree, although dang if a beatstick crit fails its will save vs this they're in for a world of hurt !

Yup. That is why it is in my top 3 for Hex spells. They don't even have to succeed at their hostile action in order to take damage. There is some ambiguity on what exactly constitutes a hostile action. But this will definitely disincentivize attacking you or one of your allies.

And this is one of the few Hex spells that doesn't have a lockout on using it again on the same target. So you could have two or three instances of it running on the same enemy. For smaller parties, that means that the big bad enemy is forced to either take a notable amount of damage for their actions, or attack the least favorable target of the entire party.

[Dubious Scholar]

breithauptclan wrote:

AlastarOG wrote:

I generally tend to agree, although dang if a beatstick crit fails its will save vs this they're in for a world of hurt !

Yup. That is why it is in my top 3 for Hex spells. They don't even have to succeed at their hostile action in order to take damage. There is some ambiguity on what exactly constitutes a hostile action. But this will definitely disincentivize attacking you or one of your allies.

And this is one of the few Hex spells that doesn't have a lockout on using it again on the same target. So you could have two or three instances of it running on the same enemy. For smaller parties, that means that the big bad enemy is forced to either take a notable amount of damage for their actions, or attack the least favorable target of the entire party.

In some cases they may not have a choice either, if you have some kind of chokepoint with melees in the way. Also, they don't know the trigger of the spell's damage without identifying it - there's room for them to misinterpret it as any hostile action. Or they're not smart enough to change targets. Which are both wins for the witch.

It also gives the very nice Phantom Pain spell cross-list. The downside is that it's competing with the also excellent Life Boost hex (arcane spellcasters with actually good healing? Who knew?), though that has a less appealing spell granted.

[breithauptclan]

Yeah, no one takes Lesson of Life in order to learn Spirit Link. The Witch has few enough HP already. Maybe you could create scrolls of Spirit Link and beg your higher HP spellcasters (like a Summoner) to cast it to benefit you instead?

Life boost more than makes up for it though.