Expanding Auto-Success and Auto-Fail ranges

[Calimehter]

This might belong in the 'Homebrew' section, but its really more of a question about a simple rules change, rather than a request to evaluate a genuinely original creation, so here goes. Mods, if this needs moving, please let me know and/or move it.

What would you think of a change to the game where auto/success or auto/fail had its range expanded? I was thinking of 18-20 auto-succeeding and 1-3 auto-failing, but I would be open to maybe just 19-20 and 1-2 instead. This would obviously still only apply to rolls that have such auto-success or auto-fail rules. Attacks, Saves, and such.

My thoughts:

- Keeps a bit of randomness in the game that monster bonuses and other numbers seem geared toward eliminating, but still leaving a large middle ground where good choices/optimization yield (deserved) rewards.

- Makes Save-or-die *slightly* less good. Your opponent will have a better chance to make his save no matter what, and the expanded failure range really has almost no impact (since most casters will do their best to target weak saves and have many ways to significantly boost save DCs, rolls of 2 or 3 probably would have failed anyway).

- Might make no-save spells and effects even more sought after . . . but then again, these tended to be very sought after anyway. :)

[Dread_Head]

I don't think it would have much effect.

In terms of attack rolls, you were probably going to hit on the 18-19 anyway and miss on the 2-3 so it will only really have an effect on those very rare occasions when you can only hit something with a nat 20 or only miss someone on a nat 1 and even then it's a pretty negligible effect.

As you've noted it has more of an effect on saves but even then it's not that much. You are probably going to succeed a save on a 18-19 and fail on a 2-3 anyway. For characters bad saves it probably makes them more likely to pass some of the high DC stuff but it makes their good saves less likely to pass.

This will make Steadfast Determination and the manoeuvres that let you roll concentration instead of a save more powerful and probably rerolls as well.

Lets look at at the effect at various levels. At level 5 typical DC on a spell will be around 18-20. A typical good save will be in the range 8-12 and a typical poor one will be in the range 0-3. The expanded ranges of auto success and auto fail make very little difference here, only affecting a truly terrible save compared to a high DC and causing it to pass slightly more often.
Now looking at level 15 a typical DC might be around 24-30 depending on how much its boosted. A good save will be ranging from 15-28ish and a bad one from 9-12. At this point the expanded pass range again slightly benefits a dire save against a high DC. The expanded fail range will slightly hamper a very high save against very high DCs.

Overall it doesn't really seem to have much impact with most of it's effect slightly helping poor saves and at higher levels screwing over good saves a little.

[Calimehter]

Good points. I was under the impression that save DC boosters advanced faster than saves for the most part, but I may have been mistaken there. I haven't done a lot of non-E6 stuff over the last few years.

I dunno how much more I'd want to expand the ranges, though. Going with something like 15-20 and 1-5 would result in 50% of the dice roll results being independent of one's class and build benefits.

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Maybe . . . forget about boosting auto-fail ranges. Instead, just say that characters who are levels 1-4 auto-succeed on 19-20, levels 5-8 on 18-20, levels 9-12 on 17-20, and levels 13-16 on 16-20, and 17-20 on 15-20. "Heroic characters are Heroic" and all would be the motto here, and even the lowest op 17th level fighter would make his save vs. Save-or-dies (and auto-hit crazy good enemies) 25% of the time at a minimum.

[Dread_Head]

I'm assuming a little bit of multiclassing and a +1 resistance item at 5th and a +4 or 5 at 15th for saves.

It might be possible to boost DCs higher at higher levels, I've never actually played at that sort of level but I was assuming at 15th level 10 + 8 (spell level) + 6-11 for ability modifier + maybe 1 or 2 misc. Looking at it again the ability modifiers probably going to be near the top of that range, probably 9 or 10 so the average DC would be more like 28-30 so it will help those with poor saves a bit more than I thought.

I like the idea of scaling auto passes better than your original suggestion though, as you say high level characters need all the help they can get to avoid being eradicated by casters.