Crushing Despair?

[Adoendithas]

I was asked if there's any spell that gives a penalty to saving throws in 4e, and remembered Crushing Despair from 3.X. Does that still exist? (I don't have my books with me atm, or a DDI subscription.)

[NecroRebel]

Crushing Despair exists (as a L9 daily cleric power in Heroes of Shadow), but does not give a penalty to saving throws. I can't think of any power that does. It would be vastly stronger in 4e than in 3.x, so I'd be surprised if any such thing existed.

Most forms of saving throw penalty affect only the first save against a power a creature makes.

Also, you don't need a DDI subscription to use the Compendium (http://www.wizards.com/dndinsider/compendium/database.aspx) to find whether something exists and where it would be found. With a subscription, you can also see its description, but if you've got the books to look those up in, a subscription is superfluous. You can use the Compendium to find where something is and then look it up.

[Ashdate]

Well, sort of. You need to take into account is that 3.5 saving throws are completely unlike 4e saving throws; 3.5 saving throws have been effectively replaced by the Fort/Ref/Will defenses. There isn't really a 3.5 equivalent to a 4e saving throw. At it's core, the 4e saving throw is a way to give a short-term "debuff" to an enemy with a roughly 50/50 (actually 55%) chance of "saving" rather than prevented the extreme difficulty/ease at succeeding, or the "save or lose" that many 3.5 spells could become.

Because "save ends" powers have the potential to make it difficult to save out of crippling powers (such as the Wizard Daily "Sleep"), you'll find many more abilities that reduce monster defenses (the "new" Fort/Ref/Will) rather than incurring saving throw penalties, which could turn some abilities into "miss or lose" quite easily.

... of course, there's enough support now that many classes (especially wizards) can "stack" saving throw penalties to extremes that the system probably wasn't designed for. But that's an optimization exercise, rather than addressing your specific question.

So... to answer your specific question (although, perhaps not in a very satisfying manner)? Yes. A brief glance at the compendium lists 80 powers that come up when "penalty to saving throws" is searched for, along with 20 feats and 45 items.

And there IS a power called "Crushing Despair", but unlike it's 3.5 counterpart, it's a cleric weapon attack, and has no effect on the target's defenses or saving throws, so it's probably not what you were looking for :smallbiggrin:

[Adoendithas]

Ah, okay, thanks. What does Crushing Despair do then? -2 to Fort, Ref, and Will?

[NecroRebel]

Ah, okay, thanks. What does Crushing Despair do then? -2 to Fort, Ref, and Will?

No, it causes some damage, and more for each one of your allies the target ends their turn adjacent to until they end their turn adjacent to none of your allies.

Ashdate did say it has no effect on the target's defenses or saves, so you probably could've guessed that that wasn't the effect it had :smallwink:

[Adoendithas]

Sorry, I missed the word "defenses" there. I'm sure there are some lower-level powers, probably several for the Bard, that lower defenses.

But Crushing Despair sounds awesome. What book is it in?

[NecroRebel]

Crushing Despair exists (as a L9 daily cleric power in Heroes of Shadow)

Lots of questions asked that already have answers :smalltongue:

Alternatively, you could've used the Compendium (http://www.wizards.com/dndinsider/compendium/database.aspx) to find out, which, as I said earlier, doesn't require a DDI subscription to tell you where things that you know the name of are found.

[Adoendithas]

Sorry, I must have skimmed over that. I'll see if one of my players has a copy of Heroes of Shadow.