Temporary negative levels and buffing before saving throws

[yonman17]

So, now I have a party with a bunch of temporary drained levels. Is there any rules that would allow/disallow my party to buff before the 24 hour timer goes off when they have to roll a fortitude save?

Essentially they want to time it down to the minute and do every conceivable buff to increase their chances.

Thoughts on how to handle this?

[TxSam88]

What are they using for a watch?

IMO, there's no way a character could know exactly when the new save is being made, so unless they are using a buff that lasts for a long time, there is no way they can cast/use something to buff against it. Of course, there may be some buffs that last for along time (I would say it needs to last at least an hour for this tactic to work, but that's just me)

that being said, Restoration is only a 4th level spell and should ne available before too long. Since the CR of your encounter was 13, your party should already have the spell, or will soon.

As such, playing a few games down a couple of levels isn't the end of the world. Our players have had to do it quite often, and for the exact same reasons as your players.

[Mysterious Stranger]

I have to agree with TxSam88 on this. Unless they have some way to accurately track the time of both when they were drained and the current time this in not going to work. Most Pathfinder campaigns don’t have the technical level to have anything that can tell time that accurately.

Something like Heroism that lasts 10 minutes per level or longer would probably work especially if cast by a higher level caster. Other than that it might be easier to remove the levels than to buff the saves.

Since every negative level gives you a -1 penalty on all saves that means if you have multiple negative levels you take those on your save to prevent it from becoming permanent. The alchemical remedy soul stimulant will be helpful for this. A does lasts 12 hours so the problem with timing should not be to hard to deal with. The description is not clear if this only eliminates the penalty for single negative level.

[Pizza Lord]

Agree with the others, without some ability to accurately determine time or track the time, it would be nearly impossible for an ordinary (and even some extraordinary) people to get it right within a minute or two. It's just not logical. Just like it's just game mechanics that make it '24 hours later', it doesn't necessarily actually mean to the very second.

You could certainly roll a random chance (with modifiers for duration) to try and see if they hit the window, but even with a reference point for a day, not everything is exactly 24 hours. Let's say you got hit at dawn or dusk, not every dawn or dusk occurs exactly 24 hours. Granted, only a day apart would be close, but every minute or ten that you're off the mark of dawn, dusk, noon, or midnight is just basically guesswork.

So unless they start a timer when hit (or very immediately after) and start using hourglasses or counting down themselves and making Intelligence checks to keep count (because even a few microseconds off an accurate count will add up over 24 hours), it's really not feasible or believable. Basically it's a luck check to hit the window with a spell and the duration of it will be the factor that really determines if it should be up at the time. I would likely rule a 10-minute window (ie. spell with that duration) to be fair and close enough.

[Belafon]

To quote myself from a previous thread.

Belafon wrote:

Note that trying to "time" the save and pile on short-duration buffs is pretty much impossible in a world where pocket watches and huge immobile clocks are only accurate to within half an hour per day. Borrowing a cloak of resistance for the day, or having an extended heroism cast on you as the time draws near would probably work (subject to GM approval) but resistance has way too short of a duration.

As others have said, restoration is the best choice. It automatically removes all temporary negative levels with a 100gp material component. If they are gambling on making the saves (and a 1 always fails!) then it's 1000 gp for each permanent negative level.

[Azothath]

again, if you need GM advice use the Strange Aeons AP Forum where they are more familiar with the adventure and the PC level (14th I believe).

Timing buffs is tricky without accurate watches. They'll just have to make conservative guesses and cast more spells to cover the time period (say an hour or so).

Personally it sounds like your party is not prepared or has a poor class composition if not both and more (like poor magic item and equipment choices). Only gonna get worse as this AP progresses.
My GM advice is if they are in a pickle they will have to stop the adventure and run back into town. Rest, equip, and then return to the adventure. There are local NPCs but they have specific stuff and the party needs decent diplomacy.