I don't like save for nothing happens spells.

[Morgen]

I know no one cares about what I think about anything but this annoyed me 10 minutes ago when I cast Howling Agony and everything made their saving throws and my whole turn ended up being pointless.

It really pushes you towards damage spells. Cast a fireball spell and you at least get to do half damage. I'm talking about spells mind you, not picking good or bad targets. All these save or nothing spells just feel bad.

Spells should be like save or be affected for a round almost always past 1st level.

We should invent a time machine and add this to the list of things to fix after doing all the important stuff you'd have to do with a time machine.

[Themetricsystem]

Don't worry, you're not alone for sure.

I hate them for two reasons just as the nickname suggests, either a character makes the Save or they fail it and it Sucks to be them. These things are baked HARD into the 3.0 system that is the foundation of where PF1 all began and well... unless you really just get rid of them and rewrite half the magic rules (ala PF2) you're stuck with them.

Nothing much fun, IMO, about a Spell that either will practically end an encounter outright or just do zilch. This shift in the new edition (not trying to preach I swear) is one of the BIG reasons I've moved onto it.

[Waterhammer]

The spell system of PF2 does seem to be a move in the right direction.

Not what I really wanted to talk about…

If I had a time machine, I’d use it to attend rock & roll concerts in the past.

[Tsukiyo]

I don't have a problem with them. Sometimes your actions fail. Sometimes the fighter misses with his sword. Would you suggest (s)he does some fraction of damage on a miss too?

[Chell Raighn]

Tsukiyo wrote:

I don't have a problem with them. Sometimes your actions fail. Sometimes the fighter misses with his sword. Would you suggest (s)he does some fraction of damage on a miss too?

While I agree with the initial premise to this argument… it is a false equivalency… the fighter can ALWAYS just try again on the following round, so while their actions that turn may have accomplished nothing they weren’t “wasted” in the same sense as when it happens to a Spellcaster. For Spellcasters they are expensing a limited resource. Prepared casters might only have one use of that spell for the day even. When they fail to get even the slightest benefit of their spell it is a complete waste. They can’t always just try again on the following round, often times they simply can’t try again period. This is also the reason why certain witch/shaman hexes are considered good while others are bad despite also having save for nothing for a lot of them… a good hex either affects the target for a minimum of 1 round or the 24hour target lockout is “can only affect a target once every 24 hours” thus allowing those failed hexes to target again if it had no effect on failure.

[Set]

Morgen wrote:

I know no one cares about what I think about anything but this annoyed me 10 minutes ago when I cast Howling Agony and everything made their saving throws and my whole turn ended up being pointless.

It really pushes you towards damage spells. Cast a fireball spell and you at least get to do half damage. I'm talking about spells mind you, not picking good or bad targets. All these save or nothing spells just feel bad.

Spells should be like save or be affected for a round almost always past 1st level.

We should invent a time machine and add this to the list of things to fix after doing all the important stuff you'd have to do with a time machine.

I advocated back when PF was still a gleam in Erik Mona's eye for there to be some sort of staged effects where a failed hold person slowed the target for a time, or a failed blindness spell dazzled them, or a successful save vs stinking cloud still left one sickened or something.

Some time in the interim, other games, such as Mutants & Masterminds, also adapted a 'staged effect' system, where if an effect hit, it did X, and if the target saved, it still did Y, unless you saved by 5 or 10 or more. Sort of 'degrees of failure' and 'degrees of success,' not all or nothing. (Heck, IIRC, the old Marvel FASERIP game worked similarly...)

I also suggested the idea of non-spellcasters getting ways to apply these sorts of debuffs, like morningstar to the junk causes nauseated/sickened condition, or a slash to the temple causing a temporary blinded/dazzled condition, but that manifested as the critical feats, of which I'm not really a fan.

[Sysryke]

Set wrote:

Morgen wrote:

I know no one cares about what I think about anything but this annoyed me 10 minutes ago when I cast Howling Agony and everything made their saving throws and my whole turn ended up being pointless.

It really pushes you towards damage spells. Cast a fireball spell and you at least get to do half damage. I'm talking about spells mind you, not picking good or bad targets. All these save or nothing spells just feel bad.

Spells should be like save or be affected for a round almost always past 1st level.

We should invent a time machine and add this to the list of things to fix after doing all the important stuff you'd have to do with a time machine.

I advocated back when PF was still a gleam in Erik Mona's eye for there to be some sort of staged effects where a failed hold person slowed the target for a time, or a failed blindness spell dazzled them, or a successful save vs stinking cloud still left one sickened or something.

Some time in the interim, other games, such as Mutants & Masterminds, also adapted a 'staged effect' system, where if an effect hit, it did X, and if the target saved, it still did Y, unless you saved by 5 or 10 or more. Sort of 'degrees of failure' and 'degrees of success,' not all or nothing. (Heck, IIRC, the old Marvel FASERIP game worked similarly...)

I also suggested the idea of non-spellcasters getting ways to apply these sorts of debuffs, like morningstar to the junk causes nauseated/sickened condition, or a slash to the temple causing a temporary blinded/dazzled condition, but that manifested as the critical feats, of which I'm not really a fan.

I really like this approach too. It can make things more mechanically complicated, which is why this is normally left to house rule and GM call territory, but degrees of success/failure add a lot to the role play and flavor quality of a game IMHO. White Wolf did this pretty well in the story teller system, and there are a few precedents in some skill checks and combat maneuvers.

@Set: The Marvel Universe Role Playing Game (MURPG) is arguably my favorite system to play in. I come from the diceless generation where everything was measured in "stones" of energy/effort. Which one/what is FASERIP?

[Morgen]

Glad my venting caused some discussion. Hmmm... Spells having a lesser effect on a successful save or perhaps spell slots not being used if no one is affected. Interesting thoughts.

[MrCharisma]

I'm a fan of group debuffs for this reason.

The Slow spell won't havee the highest DC since it's only a level 3 spell, but if you cast it on 5 enemies you've got a pretty good chance to affect at least one of them.

My Occultist uses Slow on groups, and has PERNICIOUS PRANKSTERS for single target debuffing. It's not a huge debuff, but if you're fighting something that's gonna take a few rounds to get through it adds up (it'd be a terrible spell to cast on a group though, not worth the action economy, let alone the spell slot).

[zza ni]

i think they are fine as is. you need to remember that there is spell level scaling going on. spells that have no effect on a save are lower leveled then spells that have some effect on a save with similar effect. you are actually trying to boost their level power without paying for a higher spell slot.

the whole spells system is scaled into ranking like that. the more severe the effect is the higher the level it is, but there are also other things that scale it up or down. say a save each round (like with hold person) vs only one save, vs one save and one more (but only one more) 1 round after (like hideous laughter) both of these spells are around 2nd level (for wizards) but the hold person which make some1 helpless (and there for killable with one full round action) give a save each round while the laughter which take him out of combat without making him helpless give only one extra save. at higher levels spells with similar effect would not give a 2nd save, or give debuffs even if one make his save. (or no save at all, like back in 3.0 with resistible dance & irresistible dance)

messing with the level scaling seem to me like something that should be done very very carefully or not at all.

[Morgen]

Yeah, these spells were way more useful and appealing back in 3rd edition like that. Honestly it's been very appealing to go back that far and try those rules again. :)

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

The biggest problem I've had with SoS recently is that may players save nearly all the time and rarely suck. That's very much in line with pre 3.x thinking for high level characters, but I do want these cool spells to actually affect them sometimes.

[zza ni]

casters should be intelligent or at least cunning.
if they plan on relaying on a spell that has no effect if saved they should use other means to make sure it isn't saved against.

try to have a few minions dispel the party's magical defenses before landing a big heavy sos spell. maybe also have wands of ill omen carried by lower level witchs (who can also drop evil eye when needed) or umd by rogues etc.

there is nothing more embarrassing to a BBEG then to finish his long monolog with the traditional "and now...you die!" cast his spell and watch as the party gaze about with a mildly confused "what he's talking about' stare.

[Dragon78]

I do think there should be some kind of effect on a failed save for 1 round. I like idea that sleep spells on a passed save would still make you drowsy, that all fear based spells would still cause shaken for 1 round, etc.. Though this is only for spells that these effects are the primary use of the spell and not a secondary one.

[Mark Hoover 330]

I'm with zza upthread there, I don't see an issue. If you're going to rely on save-or-suck spells as your primary mode of ending fights, you're willingly acknowledging that sometimes foes are going to save; it's in the nickname. However, there are feats, class abilities and items that either increase YOUR save DCs or debuff the enemy's. While this won't completely eliminate situations where your foes save, it will reduce the frequency of that occurrence.

Then there's save-or-suck spells that do two things (or more). Most fog, mist or cloud spell still, y'know, is a cloud; Web at the very least creates Difficult Terrain and Cover between the party and their foes; the Pit spells still make a big hole in the ground.

My point is only that relying on spells is already a gamble; while I advocate HARD for spellcasters to use consumables like wands and scrolls so they don't run out of spells, even WITH those you've got a finite resource with which to deal with conflict. Add in the mechanic of saving throws and you've got another wrinkle to contend with.

There will be some rounds of combat where your efforts were for naught if you rely on spells that either do one thing or, on a successful save, do nothing.

To that point... how do you think monsters feel?

Look at most spellcasting foes, such as many Fey creatures. They get SLAs like Charm Person, Fascination and so on, spells that, if they work against the PCs could entirely shut down one or more of the heroes instantly. But then, look at the build of those monsters; if those big, important Will-save-or-suck spells DON'T work, they have little to fall back on to defend themselves unless they're a higher-CR Outsider.

Now... how many Feats, Traits, items, class abilities, buff spells and so on are out there for PCs to increase their saves? In my own games it is such a rarity that a monster, straight out of a Bestiary, actually affects a PC that I usually make a note of it after a session wraps.

So yes, save or suck spells carry an inherent flaw; they might not work. This is the contract you enter into when you select spells for the day. It is a mechanic that has existed since D&D 1e and has only recently begun to change, but for PF1 it is a permanent fixture.

[Diego Rossi]

While I don't like the mechanic of all or nothing spells, having them affecting the target for 1 found is a solution worse than the problem.
If I am sure I can "stun lock" the BEEG for 1 round with each spell I cast, it is practically guaranteed I will do that and send the martial member of the party to wipe it away while it is incapable to act.

I don't see any fun in that scenario. The martial will feel like an appendage of the caster, as useful and important as a summoned bruiser. The GM will feel frustrated as the "epic battle with the BEEG" will be roll initiative, get 1 round of action if you win, then the BEEG get stun-locked.
Probably even the spellcaster will feel frustrated, as the only relevant thing he will do is select the right spells to stun-lock the BEEG.

If the spells aren't Save or Suck, but instead debuff, it could work, as long as the debuff isn't too serious.

[Claxon]

Yeah, you are basically required to have debuffs that completely remove the BBEG agency only if they "critically fail a save" like in PF2.

Really you just have to move towards a PF2-like magic system to not have a "save or suck" spell system, including reduced effects on regular failed saves.

Or you have to very carefully write the spells individually so that remove the enemies ability to act is hard to achieve. And to be honest I don't trust any collective group to be able to get it right 100% of the time. Unfortunately it only takes one spell to get through to be THE problem though.

[CorvusMask]

Sidenote, with how "suck hard" effects being reserved only for crit fails on 2e, it feels extra satisfying for players when tough boss fails them :'D

Key in point, there was boss with crappy ac, crappy attacks, but it was flying and aoe caster with high dcs and was located in tower with open windows. So it made players life much easier when it failed critically vs earthbind :'D

[Morgen]

If your players aren't ever failing saving throws you might want to audit their characters. We're constantly failing saves when we're playing in Adventure Paths...

People are having very different experiences playing this game.

It's really frustrating to have to spend three sessions with your character nerfed into the ground or to watch the melee and ranged martial characters knocking down foes left and right with ease and then just waste turn after turn because of successful saves.

The 2e things well... I don't want to get into that. I have opinions on 2e and if Paizo wants to hear them they can ask. Not going to go on their forums and rudely slag them off or anything for it.

[CorvusMask]

Morgen wrote:

If your players aren't ever failing saving throws you might want to audit their characters. We're constantly failing saves when we're playing in Adventure Paths...

People are having very different experiences playing this game.

It's really frustrating to have to spend three sessions with your character nerfed into the ground or to watch the melee and ranged martial characters knocking down foes left and right with ease and then just waste turn after turn because of successful saves.

The 2e things well... I don't want to get into that. I have opinions on 2e and if Paizo wants to hear them they can ask. Not going to go on their forums and rudely slag them off or anything for it.

I mean... Depends on adventure itself ye know, but you might consider possibility that gm or adventure had overly inflated DCs instead? :D Assuming yer party didn't roll bad all the time.

(failing all the time in 2e with dcs has never been my experience with it <_<)

...Wait, did you mean 1e? Because that is even more absurd, 1e monsters have rather low dcs outside of bestiary 5-6 and players have so many ways to increase their saves. Ye sure yer gm doesn't increase dcs arbitrary?

[Mark Hoover 330]

Gotta agree with Corvus here. According to the Monster Creation table, most core bestiary monsters (from books 1-4 at least) have an average of a DC 12 for a CR 1 monster on their "primary ability" such as a giant spider's poison or a ghoul's paralysis. Going up from CR1, these ability DCs increase by +1 per CR on average.

So, a level 1 PC needs to be able to beat a 12 with their bad saves, 13 at level 2, 14 at level 3, and so on. You gotta figure there's Traits, Feats, items and spells that deliver Morale, Resistance and Sacred bonuses to saves, niche spells delivering circumstance bonuses to certain saves, and THEN there's racial and class abilities to boost saves.

The only way PCs are under, say, 50% or higher success rates of making their saves is from a combination of the following

1. PCs started from a 15 point build
2. The PCs are under WBL
3. PCs have 2 bad saves and only niche boosts from their class abilities
4. The players either have a small amount of experience and system mastery with PF1 or they've purposely ignored shoring up their saves

[Diego Rossi]

You can add to that list "players raising one stat or one kind of stats (mental/physical) to the detriment of all others". A player that starts with a 7 in dexterity or wisdom to buy a starting strength or intelligence of 20 is accepting the risk of failing a lot of saves.

Another option is opponents that use a lot of debuffs. Generally uncommon in AP and written modules.

[MrCharisma]

According to DERKLORD'S TABLE save DC's start at 21, get +1 per level till level 4, and then go up by ~3/4 per level after that.

If your party is NEVER failing saves then maybe they're lying about their saves? My party has 2 abilities that allow people to reroll their saves as an immediate action. My Level 13 Bloodrager has a +25 to his Fort-Save and even with rerolls I've still managed to fail every save vs Nauseated that's come my way -_-

Throw enough at them and something should stick eventually.

[Diego Rossi]

MrCharisma wrote:

According to DERKLORD'S TABLE save DC's start at 21, get +1 per level till level 4, and then go up by ~3/4 per level after that.

If your party is NEVER failing saves then maybe they're lying about their saves? My party has 2 abilities that allow people to reroll their saves as an immediate action. My Level 13 Bloodrager has a +25 to his Fort-Save and even with rerolls I've still managed to fail every save vs Nauseated that's come my way -_-

Throw enough at them and something should stick eventually.

Unless I am mistaken, that table says "character creation by the numbers".

Not "monsters".No idea where it comes from and what is meant to represent, but it seems to represent goals for the PC players create, not the monster's values.

A random table without explanations isn't a comprehensible argument.

Anecdotes testimonials, like X always falling against Y, is common in games, but is the result of chance and perception, not a probability argument. My perception is that my d6 (several hundred different dices in the years from when I started playing) regularly roll low in RPG and my life average with d6 is around 3. The times I have recorded the averages during game sessions even seem to confirm that. For sure most of the time my d6 rolls low in crucial circumstances. That doesn't mean that the average result of all d6 of the world is 3.

Very few CR 1 monsters have a 20+ in a starting characteristic, ability focus in it, a racial bonus, and more than 2 HD, and you need all that to have a DC of 20+. Same for a player character ability.
An ability of a CR 1 monster with a high difficulty is around 14, not more.

"Throw enough at them and something should stick eventually." That is absolutely true. A PC roll hundreds, possibly thousands of saves during his career. The laws of averages say that it will fail 5 times for every hundred rolls as a minimum.

The "problem" with saves is that even a little difference in the chances has a serious impact and how our perception work.
If you save in a situation rolling an 11, you have a 50/50 chance of saving, i.e. an even chance of saving, but if you save with a 13 you have a 60/40 chance of failure, i.e. you have 1.5 times a chance of failing the save than the chance of making it.
If you need a roll of 15 to save, the rapport between saves and failures is 3/7, so the chances of failing are more than double that that of saving.
Seeing how our perception work, we will perceive that kind of situation as generating a disproportionate number of failures.

[MrCharisma]

Diego Rossi wrote:

MrCharisma wrote:

According to DERKLORD'S TABLE save DC's start at 21, get +1 per level till level 4, and then go up by ~3/4 per level after that.

Unless I am mistaken, that table says "character creation by the numbers".

Not "monsters".No idea where it comes from and what is meant to represent, but it seems to represent goals for the PC players create, not the monster's values.

A random table without explanations isn't a comprehensible argument.

If you look down the bottom of the table it has average monster HP, saves, DCs, attack values etc. These values were (from what I remember) made by taking the averages of every monster in all the bestiaries.

If you want an explanation for it, you can read THE ACCOMPANYING ARTICLE which is linked at the top of the table.

EDIT: My mistake, the numbers for that table were taken from PAIZO. This is also linked, but at the very bottom of the table.

[MrCharisma]

MrCharisma wrote:

According to DERKLORD'S TABLE save DC's start at 21, get +1 per level till level 4, and then go up by ~3/4 per level after that.

Oh derp, Save DCs start at 12, not 21. That was a typo.

No wonder you had trouble.

-_-

[Diego Rossi]

MrCharisma wrote:

MrCharisma wrote:

According to DERKLORD'S TABLE save DC's start at 21, get +1 per level till level 4, and then go up by ~3/4 per level after that.

Oh derp, Save DCs start at 12, not 21. That was a typo.

No wonder you had trouble.

-_-

Ah, OK. As the DC vs good column starts at 21 for level 1, the coincidence had me reading something very different from what you intended.