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This is a question that can often be seen on Reddit threads or asked by new players. Commonly, they'll be told to use Recall Knowledge, and that's an excellent answer.
However, there is a better answer.
It's Will. Target the Will save and you will be correct the vast majority of the time.
I was curious about something, and have gone through all the Remastered potential adversaries thought Titanbane that are currently in PF2. I did not include NPC Core, as most of the things in that are not meant for combat, and I felt would devalue my primary research project. The books I did use are in the spoiler below.
In addition, I used the following stand-alone adventures: Claws of the Tyrant, Night of the Frogs, and Prey for Death. Lastly, 6 APs were covered: Curtain Call, Mythspeaker, Shades of Blood, Spore War, Triumph of the Tusk, and Wardens of Wildwood.
I used Howl's publication date as a starting point, as it is the first ORC book.
What did I find?
There are currently 897 monsters in PF2E.
Of those:
437 (or 48.7 percent) have a high Fortitude save;
344 (or 38.3 percent) have a high Reflex save; and
162 (or 18 percent) have a high Will save.
Astute readers may note that those numbers add up to more than 897. That's because there are a decent number of monsters that have a tie for their high save.
As you can see, if you target Will blindly, you have an 82 percent chance of it not being the high save! That alone would be great information, but most of the ones that do have a high Will save are also monsters that focus on spellcasting. So, if the monster does not cast spells, you have close to a 100 percent chance that its Will save is not the high save.
So, the answer to the question is easy:
Target Will.
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Reminds me of the "'I' before 'e' except after 'c'" rule.
Unless the creature has the Mindless trait or is a Construct. Or is a homebrew creature or the GM has otherwise tweaked the stats of the creature.
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Since the D&D 3.0 but probably earlier, the monster's high and low saves have a pattern that make it easier to guess:
We have some minor exceptions to this general rule like dragon casters that are still fortitude stronger because they are build using the default dragon template, but these things are rare.
But the OP point is right. Most creatures and NPCs in most adventures usually aren't full casters and due to this also doesn't focus on will. This concept is specially beneficial for occult casters, where most offensive spells are will based.
But will also have a disadvantage specially at lower levels that is the lack of AoE effects and even multi-target once that most of them appears at mid and high levels a thing that reflex and fortitude receives earlier.
Reminds me of the "'I' before 'e' except after 'c'" rule.
Unless the creature has the Mindless trait or is a Construct. Or is a homebrew creature or the GM has otherwise tweaked the stats of the creature.
This is when you cast non-mental illusions like illusory object.
Reminds me of the "'I' before 'e' except after 'c'" rule.
Unless the creature has the Mindless trait or is a Construct. Or is a homebrew creature or the GM has otherwise tweaked the stats of the creature.
Any GM who tweaks existing stats without informing his players that, that is something he might do from time to time during the course of play is not only cheating, but subverting the expectations of both the game and its players.
This is when you cast non-mental illusions like illusory object.Reminds me of the "'I' before 'e' except after 'c'" rule.
Unless the creature has the Mindless trait or is a Construct. Or is a homebrew creature or the GM has otherwise tweaked the stats of the creature.
This.
You use what you've got.
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Any GM who tweaks existing stats without informing his players that, that is something he might do from time to time during the course of play is not only cheating, but subverting the expectations of both the game and its players.Reminds me of the "'I' before 'e' except after 'c'" rule.
Unless the creature has the Mindless trait or is a Construct. Or is a homebrew creature or the GM has otherwise tweaked the stats of the creature.
Citation needed.
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My citation is common sense. If a group of people come together to play soccer, and the referee is changing the rules on the fly, or following the rules of American football, then expectations have been subverted. That is very likely to make for a bad time for all, and players would rightfully be calling foul if such changes weren't agreed to by all parties in advance.
It's simple adherance to the basic social contract of gaming.
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My citation is common sense. If a group of people come together to play soccer, and the referee is changing the rules on the fly, or following the rules of American football, then expectations have been subverted. That is very likely to make for a bad time for all, and players would rightfully be calling foul if such changes weren't agreed to by all parties in advance.
It's simple adherance to the basic social contract of gaming.
One of the most basic principles of the basic social contract of TTRPG gaming is No metagaming.
Changing monsters from what is published is good GMing when faced with players who do not respect it.
It has absolutely zero thing in common with houserules that indeed must be shared beforehand
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OP, though your approach is interesting, though metagaming, it does not really answer the title's question. Because you want to target the lowest save.
It seems, according to YuriP, that Will is indeed a good target as long as the opponent has no casting ability.
Which you often have to use RK to know.
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I wouldn't consider it metagaming to prefer will saves against a monster that behaves like a big dumb brute. It's an educated guess, you might be wrong. It's a reasonable guess because it's likely that its fortitude is going to be really high because it's a hulking brute, so then you're better off targeting something else.
If guessing isn't to your taste you can Recall Knowledge. Metagaming would be sneakily looking up the monster's stats on your phone.
If it's something you as a player can figure out but your character can't figure out, that's metagaming. But if it's a reasoned bet that your character can make based on the evidence your character has, that's fine.
One of the most basic principles of the basic social contract of TTRPG gaming is No metagaming.
Changing monsters from what is published is good GMing when faced with players who do not respect it.
If the GM is dealing with players at their table that do not respect the game, its rules, or the GM and their rulings, then that is a problem outside of the game's rules that probably warrants a serious conversation.
My citation is common sense. If a group of people come together to play soccer, and the referee is changing the rules on the fly, or following the rules of American football, then expectations have been subverted. That is very likely to make for a bad time for all, and players would rightfully be calling foul if such changes weren't agreed to by all parties in advance.
It's simple adherance to the basic social contract of gaming.
Nope & nope.
An RPG collaborative story experience is too dissimilar to soccer's competitive experience for that analogy to hold. For example, table variation is a norm in one while field variation (if caused by refs) sparks hostile responses.
The basic social contract of an RPG is the GM promising a worthwhile RPG experience and all participants being civil, etc. There's no required adherence to some imaginary platonic rigor. Whether or not and to what degree a GM should tweak encounters, even mid-encounter, has been an ongoing discussion since the dawn of D&D. So when you say that it's both cheating and subverting the expectations of the game and the players I laugh. It seems you have that expectation, but a citation would be necessary to show where the game does or players as a whole. Does PF2's advice to GMs ever argue such rigidity?
Following campaign threads shows many veteran GMs & their players accept such tweaking without batting an eye. Which is to say it's a given that doesn't need to be announced in fear of cheating, etc. This includes Paizo leadership & devs so I doubt they've integrated rigidity into their own RPG or consider invisible tweaking to be cheating. If anything they're very fluid about GMing styles, that is as long as it's done in the spirit of providing a worthwhile RPG experience that's suitable for those GMs' tables.
Heck, I've seen GMs explicitly tweak stats in response to players metagaming about those stats.
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As for the OP, I thought it was obvious Will was the default except vs. casters. It's not always true, but seldom will Will be a thug's best. Judging from the Daze Cantrip, I suspect PF2 might even balance for this. The trickier part is facing Aberrations and the weird or extraplanar.
OP, though your approach is interesting, though metagaming, it does not really answer the title's question. Because you want to target the lowest save.
It seems, according to YuriP, that Will is indeed a good target as long as the opponent has no casting ability.
Which you often have to use RK to know.
As the OP,
First, the title is more of an eye catcher, and is intended to represent something a new player might ask. It's not something I'm asking for myself, as I already knew the answer, though I did not expect the gap between Fortitude and Will to be as high as it is.
I do find it interesting that you bring up Yuri's reply. His post is excellent and relatively accurate, though, in the end, it's guesswork. Very good guesswork, but guesswork.
I gave actual hard numbers for Paizo's adversaries for PF2E Remastered, as of the time of the post. That shows a clear, non-guesswork result that Will is the save that is most likely not to be the highest one.
Finoan makes an excellent point that Mindless and Construct do limit Will spells against those types of foes. However, even that does not change the basic facts of the research project.
As for Metagaming, yes, you could call my dataset metagaming. So what? Nearly everything one does in the combat part of the game is metagaming.
Make a party that is synergistic and covers each other's weaknesses? Metagaming.
Build your martials all around Trip and Reactive Strike? Metagaming.
Make sure your party has plenty of action denial? Metagaming.
Measure out your fireball precisely so it only gets enemies? Metagaming.
A crunchy system demands system knowledge to get good at, and system knowledge leads right into metagaming, and nothing is wrong with that at all.
I also think that the dataset could help newer players or more experienced players who are trying a spell caster for the first time. If you are not in a heavy undead or construct campaign (and again, that would be metagaming since your character would not know that at the start of the campaign, but the players should), Will is going to be the most effective save by a mile.
That does not mean a player should go all Will for their saves, but a player who needs to succeed a lot to have fun might want to lean in that direction.
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If people weren't already aware, the Contrarian is literally a joke account from Ravingdork. I don't think RD actually believes the things said in that account, merely being funny creating.
That aside, it is reasonable to discuss whether a GM is in their right to modify monsters without explicitly informing the players they are doing such, and without question a GM is free to change things 100%.
If a GM is merely switching around save values (not adjusting up or down just switching which the numbers around) that's something smalls the requires no extra work. As long as the same creatures always behave the same way, or have some indicator about "oh, these creatures look a bit different from the ones you saw earlier". Essentially you're creating a custom monster that is very similar. And as long as the SAME monster always has the same saves that's fine. I say that part, because otherwise you're invalidating the characters experience having fought those monsters before.
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If people weren't already aware, the Contrarian is literally a joke account from Ravingdork. I don't think RD actually believes the things said in that account, merely being funny creating.
Quite right, though it's fast becoming my "devil's advocate" hat as well.
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OP, though your approach is interesting, though metagaming, it does not really answer the title's question. Because you want to target the lowest save.
It seems, according to YuriP, that Will is indeed a good target as long as the opponent has no casting ability.
Which you often have to use RK to know.
As the OP,
First, the title is more of an eye catcher, and is intended to represent something a new player might ask. It's not something I'm asking for myself, as I already knew the answer, though I did not expect the gap between Fortitude and Will to be as high as it is.
I do find it interesting that you bring up Yuri's reply. His post is excellent and relatively accurate, though, in the end, it's guesswork. Very good guesswork, but guesswork.
I gave actual hard numbers for Paizo's adversaries for PF2E Remastered, as of the time of the post. That shows a clear, non-guesswork result that Will is the save that is most likely not to be the highest one.
Finoan makes an excellent point that Mindless and Construct do limit Will spells against those types of foes. However, even that does not change the basic facts of the research project.
As for Metagaming, yes, you could call my dataset metagaming. So what? Nearly everything one does in the combat part of the game is metagaming.
Make a party that is synergistic and covers each other's weaknesses? Metagaming.
Build your martials all around Trip and Reactive Strike? Metagaming.
Make sure your party has plenty of action denial? Metagaming.
Measure out your fireball precisely so it only gets enemies? Metagaming.
A crunchy system demands system knowledge to get good at, and system knowledge leads right into metagaming, and nothing is wrong with that at all.
I also think that the dataset could help newer players or more experienced players who are trying a spell caster for the first time. If you are not in a heavy undead or construct campaign (and again, that would be metagaming since your...
Your definition of metagaming is wider than mine.
I would just add a (necessary, IMO) layer of complexity for PF2e: It also depends on if you want to impose a specific condition or effect from/with the spell. For example, casting earthbind (targets Fortitude) on a flying enemy is often more useful than casting a different spell that targets Will.
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Will and sometimes fort at low levels, will and reflex at higher levels. I would venture a guess that a majority of creatures you just need to look at them and you'll know what is their highest, if not then will is the safe bet.
Finding the low is often a bit harder, and if the medium is still slightly high with the low being very low then even the safe bet might not be great. Then that's when RK becomes important.