How to make opponent fail a save?

[Renen]

Anyone know of a way to severely hamper opponent's ability to make a save?

[kiryoku]

Depends on what you mean by that. DO you mean saves vs spells, saves vs poisons. Like give us a little detail into what you mean.

[JoshuaZ]

For a lot of purposes Fatespinner (from Complete Arcane) is nice for this as long as you only intend to do this once a day and need them to fail a save against a spell.

[Renen]

Any save. For the sake of argument lets use spells, but there gotta be ways to hurt enemies saves somehow...

[Renen]

For a lot of purposes Fatespinner (from Complete Arcane) is nice for this as long as you only intend to do this once a day and need them to fail a save against a spell.

Oh i see. I assume you mean seal fate. Too bad it doesnt work on things with higher HD than you. But it still looks nice.

[DeltaEmil]

Energy draining an enemy, or giving them conditions like shaken and sickening helps with reducing an opponent's chance to succeed on a saving throw. And of course ability damage or drain that attacks an opponent's ability score that do affect their saving throws. Preferably attacks that don't allow a saving throw to resist ability damage or drain, of course.
Another way is to boost the DC so high that only a natural 20 can stop it.

[limejuicepowder]

There's tons. The most common and best ways are

1) Auras. Several classes (paladin variants, binder, hexblade via dark companion) give a -2 to all saves aura that automatically effects everyone in a certain radius, usually 10 ft.

2) Intimidate skill. Demoralizing an opponent is -2 most of everything.

3) Hexblade's curse isn't exactly common but it is notable. Hexblades can make very good debuffers. A paladin of tyranny 3/hexblade 4 with a dark companion can give any opponent within 10 ft automatic -4 to saves and -2 to AC. Intimidation increases that to -6 saves, -4 AC, -2 everything else. Hexblade's curse bumps it another 2 across the board. If CR 7ish opponent's are still making saves with a -8 penalty, it's time to get a new caster.

[Renen]

There's tons. The most common and best ways are

1) Auras. Several classes (paladin variants, binder, hexblade via dark companion) give a -2 to all saves aura that automatically effects everyone in a certain radius, usually 10 ft.

2) Intimidate skill. Demoralizing an opponent is -2 most of everything.

3) Hexblade's curse isn't exactly common but it is notable. Hexblades can make very good debuffers. A paladin of tyranny 3/hexblade 4 with a dark companion can give any opponent within 10 ft automatic -4 to saves and -2 to AC. Intimidation increases that to -6 saves, -4 AC, -2 everything else. Hexblade's curse bumps it another 2 across the board. If CR 7ish opponent's are still making saves with a -8 penalty, it's time to get a new caster.

If CR 8 monsters are making saves with that, your DM is evil! Hmmm... Some great ideas here :-)

[Slipperychicken]

Increase save DC.

Apply status effects (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/conditionSummary.htm) like Shaken and Sickened.

Apply negative levels, those knock the save down by 1 per negative level. Use permanent level loss to reduce base saving throw bonuses from class or hit dice.

Drain, damage, or penalize the ability score relevant to the save. This will usually be Con, Dex, Wis (can include others like Cha if they add it to the save).

Fatigue and Exhaustion will apply large penalties to Dexterity, which lowers Reflex.

A Helpless character is considered to have a Dexterity of 0, which is very nice for dumping his reflex save.

A Mind Fog spell makes the target roll twice for Will saves and take the lower result.

[iDesu]

If you're a bard then the feat Doomspeak from Champions of Ruin is great. Opponent has to make a save against an inflated DC or get -10 on all saving throws for one round.

[Bakeru]

"Unluck", Spell Compendium, Wizard/Sorcerer/Bard spell, level 3 for all. Will negates (so it might just fizzle), but if it hits, for the next [caster level] rounds, whenever the target makes a roll, it has to roll twice and take the worse result.

There's also "Mind Fog", Core, Wizard/Sorcerer Bard spell, level 5 for all, again Will negates, and only gives a penalty to wisdom checks and will saves, but it's an area effect.

[eggynack]

Oh i see. I assume you mean seal fate. Too bad it doesnt work on things with higher HD than you. But it still looks nice.
Nah, he was probably talking about everything except for that. It's a neat ability, but it has severe limitations. For one thing, it comes at the cost of a caster level. That'd be bad in any situation, but on a prestige class that's defined by low impact on any given build, it's particularly horrible. Generally, any given fatespinner is going to go to level four and stop entirely. Fatespinners aren't used because they make the caster's spells impossible to resist, they're used because they make the spell much harder to resist. It's not foolproof, but it's quite nice on any build that cares about the opponent not making saves. It's practically the definition of hampering the opponent's ability to succeed.

If you're really looking for your opponent to auto-fail saves, irresistible spell might be the thing you're looking for. It's a +4 metamagic from Kingdoms of Kalamar Player's Guide which removes the save from any given spell. It's costly, but it could be worth it if that's what you're looking to do.

[Samalpetey]

Increase save DC.

A Mind Fog spell makes the target roll twice for Will saves and take the lower result.

Isn't it -10 to will saves and wisdom checks? That's what the srd says at least
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/mindFog.htm

[eggynack]

Mind fog suffers from the additional penalty that you have to make your enemy fail a will save in order to get your opponent to fail future will saves. If your opponent has a high will save, then the mind fog is unlikely to work, and if he has a low will save, then you'd be better off just shooting the mind control beam at his face directly. It has some utility against groups with high will saves, but I don't really like using spells with will saves against groups. If you plan to throw multiple will saves at a target, then opening with mind fog could help, but that's a lot of work to hit an enemy with a spell.

Edit: Actually, come to think of it, the spell's utility isn't tied to its visibility at all. If you tossed invisible spell onto the fog into a place where you plan to have a battle, you wouldn't have to spend an action on hindering will saves. That could actually be halfway neat, though still probably not all that good. Mind effecting enchantment spells are situational enough that I don't think it's prudent to add either the requirement of facing a mob of high will save enemies, or the requirement of knowing where a battle will be in advance.

[Slipperychicken]

Isn't it -10 to will saves and wisdom checks? That's what the srd says at least
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/mindFog.htm

My memory's going. I figured the OP had some save-or-lose with an expensive material component. If he has the guy tied down and wants him to fail, Mind Fog could help.

[Chronos]

Of course, if the thing with a save doesn't have an expensive component, then you can just go the old-fashioned route of casting it repeatedly. Eventually your opponent will roll a 1.

[Slipperychicken]

Of course, if the thing with a save doesn't have an expensive component, then you can just go the old-fashioned route of casting it repeatedly. Eventually your opponent will roll a 1.

Also, if you can't inflict the Exhausted, Shaken, and Sickened conditions on a creature who is helpless before you without using magic, you aren't trying.

[Sith_Happens]

Giving one creature a -7 penalty to its next save is one of the examples of an "other effect" that Limited Wish can perform.

[Harrow]

If you're really looking for your opponent to auto-fail saves, irresistible spell might be the thing you're looking for. It's a +4 metamagic from Kingdoms of Kalamar Player's Guide which removes the save from any given spell. It's costly, but it could be worth it if that's what you're looking to do.

Sadly, this was errata'd to only raising the DC by 10. Still useful, but only if you already had metamagic reduction shenanigans going on, such as being an Incantatrix or using Divine Metamagic.

Enervation is always fun. Maximized, Twinned, Split-ray... you get the idea.

Howlers can be summoned with Summon Monster IV. If they hit with their bite attack (+6) the opponent has to make a DC 16 Reflex save or get a quill stuck in them which gives them -1 to pretty much any roll ("attacks, saves, and checks") per quill. That's right, they stack. Now, by the time these guys come online they aren't fantastic, but if you have a Malconvoker in the group, they're noticeably better and you get many more of them.

Malconvoker gives a straight +1 creature summoned, so a Twinned Summon Monster V would give 2d3+2, which with Rapid Summoning can be done in one turn, so some of those are going to hit before they get killed. Cast it again on the second turn, after they have had their reflex save lowered from a couple quills the first round your enemy quickly gets so bogged down under them they can't do anything. Which may be even more entertaining than killing them.

[Story]

Oh i see. I assume you mean seal fate. Too bad it doesnt work on things with higher HD than you. But it still looks nice.

Seal Fate? What are you talking about? Fatespinner is only a 4 level Prc.

Anyway, Fatespinner will let you boost the save DC +4 once per day. Another thing you can try is the 3rd level spell Alter Fortune, but it costs XP. At least it's Divination, so you can cast it spontaneously.

[Slipperychicken]

Howlers can be summoned with Summon Monster IV. If they hit with their bite attack (+6) the opponent has to make a DC 16 Reflex save or get a quill stuck in them which gives them -1 to pretty much any roll ("attacks, saves, and checks") per quill. That's right, they stack. Now, by the time these guys come online they aren't fantastic, but if you have a Malconvoker in the group, they're noticeably better and you get many more of them.


1. Incapacitate opponent you want to save-or-lose (Mindrape/Dominate Person/etc).

2. Summon at least one Howler.

3. Spam quills into him, probably using Deathwatch to monitor his status.

4. When he gets low enough that another quill could kill him, heal him for a bit.

5. Is it enough quills? if no, Go to 3.

6. Congrats, now he can only make the save on a 20. Apply Unluck to reduce his chance of saving to 1/400= 0.0025%.