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Dark
2007-01-26, 08:24 PM
In another thread, far far away, someone remarked that as a DM, he always rolled his major villains' saves secretly, and never let them fail on the first round. That struck me as unfair, and I wondered if his players knew that they were wasting their spells on the first round. After some further thought, I concluded that the goal -- having the final showdown last more than 6 seconds -- was good, but it would be nicer if there was a more explicit way of giving the villain that ability. So I came up with these feats:

[edit: added prerequisites to the first three feats]
[edit: added flavor text except for the first where I can't think of any]

Immense Fortitude [General]
Prerequisite: Great Fortitude
Benefit: Once per day, you may treat one failed Fortitude saving throw as a success. This effect must be announced before the die is rolled, but the use per day is only used up if the roll fails.
Special: You can take this feat multiple times to get extra uses per day.

Impossible Reflexes [General]
You can occasionally make last-moment corrections to your reflexes.
Prerequisite: Lightning Reflexes
Benefit: Once per day, you may treat one failed Reflex saving throw as a success. This effect must be announced before the die is rolled, but the use per day is only used up if the roll fails.
Special: You can take this feat multiple times to get extra uses per day.

Adamantine Will [General]
You can occasionally resist the irresistible.
Prerequisite: Iron Will
Benefit: Once per day, you may treat one failed Will saving throw as a success. This effect must be announced before the die is rolled, but the use per day is only used up if the roll fails.
Special: You can take this feat multiple times to get extra uses per day.

Lucky Break [General]
Sometimes fortune just smiles on you.
Benefit: Once per day, you can automatically succeed on one saving throw without rolling for it.
Special: You can take this feat multiple times to get extra uses per day.

Major monsters could use these as well as classed villains, and I think they're a nice way to give them more survivability without making them more lethal. The feats are not really intended for PCs, but I can imagine a fighter taking Adamantine Will for similar reasons, and any paranoid character might want to take Lucky Break just in case, especially if resurrections are not easily available.

Matthew
2007-01-26, 08:35 PM
Not a bad idea at all, this. Well done.

Cybren
2007-01-26, 08:44 PM
wait why take anything other than lucky break?

mikeejimbo
2007-01-26, 08:56 PM
wait why take anything other than lucky break?

The other ones are only used up if you fail, lucky break just lets you dictate that you succeed, apparently.

I think the balance is all right for PC's if you only let them take one of the specific ones, and only once. It's just a smidge better than the luck domain.

Icewalker
2007-01-26, 09:21 PM
I dunno, being able to get a lot of these could allow heroes to make all of their important daily saves. There should be some prerequisites to them, like maybe base stat for that save 14+, and/or a save of that type already at +6 or something. Otherwise they might get a bit too powerful once PCs take several of them.

Golthur
2007-01-26, 09:27 PM
I absolutely love the idea, but I second the need for some sort of prerequisite - Perhaps the Iron Will/Great Fortitude/Lightning Reflexes feats?

Darkshade
2007-01-26, 10:33 PM
and for the luck one you could require luck of heroes...
which i think should be called luck of villains but tahts another discussion

Dark
2007-01-27, 09:41 AM
Interesting responses :) When I said "the feats are not really intended for PCs", I meant that I thought they'd be too weak, mainly because of the 1/day limit.
(Villains don't have to worry about 1/day because they only get one fight :smalltongue:)

I was thinking in terms of shoring up a weak save with one of these feats, but I guess I underestimated their power in magnifying a strong save. A character who only fails on a 1 can rely on this kind of feat for a long time before finally rolling that 1.

The Iron Will/Great Fortitude/Lightning Reflexes feats totally make sense as prerequisites, and I'll add them. (*edit*). I don't think Lucky Break needs a prerequisite, because it really is only once a day, and I like the idea that anyone can have a lucky break.

Golthur
2007-01-27, 11:20 AM
Consider them snatched, if you don't mind :tongue:

dariathalon
2007-01-27, 11:50 AM
I find the feats to be a little bit too powerful for my liking (at least for PC's). If I were to use it, I would probably completely get rid of lucky break and make the others give one automatic save without rolling (like lucky break is now). I would also make the feats only able to be taken once. On second thought, I might leave in lucky break with a prerequisite of the other three to effectively give an extra use of one of the others each day.

I'm not meaning to hijack the thread, but I thought I'd present another alternative. I've done something similar to this with a magic item in a campaign. The goddess of luck, amongst other things, blessed a batch of holy symbols for her clerics. The wearers of the symbols would make their saves normally until they missed one. When they missed one, it would expend "charges" from the symbol. The symbols initially had 50 charges (though by the time the PCs encountered them, most were down some charges). Each charge was worth a +1 to a save. So, if the cleric had a charged holy symbol and got a 10 on a save with a DC of 15 the holy symbol automatically used 5 charges and the save was considered successful. If the symbol didn't have enough charges left to make the save successful, the charges weren't expended, but the spell would take effect normally.

This gives a similar effect to the feats, and in its own way is more powerful; however, with its limited number of charges, would probably be less useful for the long term.

Neon Knight
2007-01-27, 06:49 PM
These are some snazzy feats; I'm certainly going to use them.

Arakune
2007-01-27, 07:15 PM
i think it's overpowered. why not let the pc retake the roll if failed?