Group Saves: Standard or House Rule?

[Afgncaap5]

So, our Pathfinder GM has a rule that impacts the flow of a lot of adventures. He says that it's how the game is meant to be played, but I feel like it's a house rule (and I dislike it). I've not found it myself but I'm just wondering if I've missed it somewhere: is it a recommended rule that GMs roll a single die for groups of enemies who are dealing with saving throws?

So, all enemies in the area of a fireball share the same die result for a Reflex save, all enemies share the same die result for will saves to resist fear effects, and all enemies in a cloud of poison gas would share the same die result for fortitude saves. I'm familiar with the suggested rule option that enemies share an initiative check (which makes more sense to me, and in fact the GM cited that as the primary example reason for why his rule is suggested by the rules), but I've never heard of this.

I'm going to go with it either way... the occasional gang of bandits and monsters all coincidentally making a DC 21 will save at the same time is something I can deal with, and all the other times when I'm chasing away massive groups of enemies at a time when I'd expect one or two to make the save are nice... but I'm curious to know if I'm wrong here. Does this come up in the Core Rulebook (or any other rulebook for that matter) and I've just missed it? If so, it's cool, I'll just be... surprised.

[Jack_Simth]

As far as I'm aware, it's a common shortcut houserule to make things easier on the DM for large groups, not something written into the rules anywhere.

[Gildedragon]

It is a house rule, not the best... though it does make things quicker. I'd go for making the players do the rolls if it hinders the DM to be making a number of rolls.
Way it goes:
Subtract 10 from the DC-as-written
Add 11 to the monsters' bonuses
PC rolls 1d20 (or 3d6) + Modified DC per monster affected. On a 1 the monsters auto make their save, on a 20 they auto fail

For expediency's sake I'd allow a single roll affect 3-5 nearby monsters at the same time (which also allows for some monsters to remain hidden/undetected)

[Deophaun]

This is why you do not play with a single set of dice. If you have groups of 20, have 20 d20s (OK, 5d20s if you're cheap) on hand and roll them all at once. It also looks and sounds impressive.

[Elder_Basilisk]

I've never seen it done, but it seems like a tactic lazy and inexperienced DMs might do in order to ease their workload without realizing that it is a terrible idea and doesn't actually save significant time or work.

It's a terrible idea because it results in swingy combats and encourages excessive optimization. If everyone saves against the fireball or slow spell, the spell is either largely or entirely ineffective--probably a wasted action. On the other hand, if everyone fails the save--especially against a status effect spell like slow, confusion, glitterdust, or sound burst--a combat can essentially be over. If groups of monsters use the same die roll, they will tend to either all save or all fail. Now under the normal rules, area effect spells like slow, fireball, or glitterdust tend to mitigate the effect of mediocre DCs. If you started with a 15 casting stat, you can still toss out a slow or a glitterdust, hit four level appropriate targets and expect that it will stick to at least one of them. It is often still a worthwhile action even if the odds are good that you won't get more than 50% of the enemies to fail the saves. (If the enemy makes their save 2/3 of the time, you still have nearly an 80% chance of getting at least one of the four to fail). On the other hand, if it is all or nothing because there is only one die, even a 60% chance of getting the enemy to fail their saves probably is not enough. That's a 40% chance of accomplishing nothing. As a consequence, you are encouraged either to crank your DCs sky high so that the enemy needs a 20 to make their saves (I'm sure playgrounders can provide any number of builds that either accomplish or approach that goal for given sets of spells) or eschew spells with saves entirely and only cast spells that don't have saves.

The problem is that the kinds of builds this encourages (summoners, god wizards, or hyper-optimized DCs) are often not fun to play with (summoners tend to eat up table time and if the enchanter ends every combat with his "get a natural 20 or every foe becomes my minion" mass charm, no one else gets to do much that matters). By hollowing out the otherwise playable middle, the practice limits viable playstyles and encourages ones that are less fun.

It also will tend to result in more TPKs. Everyone has been at the table where the DM rolls 5 20's in a row. Play long enough and it will happen. If it's a fire giant rolling a full attack and confirming crits with a greataxe, odds are good that someone dies as a result. Luck happens. On the other hand, it usually doesn't kill the whole party because someone casts magic jar (or something) and the DM's 20s run out. However, if the DM only has to roll 1 die per spell the PCs cast, it's quite likely that before too long there will be one combat where nothing the PCs do works. If it was a challenging combat, that could easily be a TPK. (To use an analogy, it's not terribly unusual for you to toss a coin five times and get the same result five times in a row. Stage 20 coin toss events and it's reasonably likely to happen at least once. On the other hand, the odds of getting the same result 20 times in a row start to approach the odds of winning the lottery (not going to happen)).

As far as saving time and work--it doesn't really do that either. The DM still has to keep track of separate hit points for the various monsters and when the spell sticks, which monsters are effected and which aren't. It's not significantly harder to roll one die and apply a modifier four times than it is to roll a fistful of dice and apply the modifiers in order to the red, green, blue, and yellow dice. If you really have lots of monsters (20+ of the same monster), you could even assume an even spread--one rolls a 1, one a 2, all the way up to 20 and not roll any dice at all. (But if you are using that many monsters, the system is probably starting to break down in other ways and how to roll dice is the least of your worries).

[Spore]

If you dislike that and your DM is a bit better with numbers you could suggest that a percentage based save system.

Example:
You hit 10 goons with a DC 16 Fireball. They all have +4 on their saves. This means on an average that 16-4 = 12 and 12/20 = 60% fail their saves. So 6 get full damage, 4 get half damage. This looks complicated and if your DM has no approach to numbers he probably shouldn't do that, otherwise it's the fairest solution that doesn't involve rolling the dice 10 times.

[Florian]

So, our Pathfinder GM has a rule that impacts the flow of a lot of adventures. He says that it's how the game is meant to be played, but I feel like it's a house rule (and I dislike it). I've not found it myself but I'm just wondering if I've missed it somewhere: is it a recommended rule that GMs roll a single die for groups of enemies who are dealing with saving throws?

Does this come up in the Core Rulebook (or any other rulebook for that matter) and I've just missed it? If so, it's cool, I'll just be... surprised.

I can see where your gm got that idea: Taking fireball as an example, you do roll "group damage" only once and not for individual targets. It´s easy to come to the conclusion that "group damage" means "group saves", too. It´s still wrong handling of the saving throw rules.

[AtlasSniperman]

I personally make all the checks individually. But since I use a large number of mooks all with the same mod I can just put the mod and dc into a spreadsheet and have it spit out who passes and fails. If I wanted I could do a check for everyone hit by the locate city bomb in an instant. In fact my players fear my looking at the laptop more than the random sound of rolling dice; I could be checking a rule, I could be rolling a listen check, I could be rolling 800 hide checks.... they never know.

[Quertus]

I don't like it. Under this rule, you automatically know something's up when guard #3 makes his save.

As for playability... I have little problem with the idea of playing a swingy character, or bad luck with magic resulting in a TPK (or, you know, a retreat from what should have been a winnable battle). Many systems (WoD Mage, Warhammer, etc) have magic that may or may not work in the first place, so it's obviously a viable play style. It's just not what one normally expects when sitting down to play D&D (outside of 2e psionicists & wild mages, that is).

[ericgrau]

I'm playing with a rather trustworthy group and so far my plan is to write down monster AC and saves in plain view so players can roll everything before they even take their turn. To save time. I don't mind them strategizing based on it either, since you can already make an ok guess at the low defenses, if not ahead of time then after a round or a previous fight.

I don't like the idea of group saves since it tends to make things all or nothing except during the 1/4 of the time that you roll on the border. That seems too swingy to me.

[Dravda]

The easiest thing for me to do as a DM in this situation is to find a way to avoid calculating every single saving throw individually ("This guy got a 23, this one a 15, this one a 17, this one a 22...what did you say the save DC was again?") Instead, I endeavor to simplify it in my head. Take the save DC, subtract the enemy's saving throw modifier to get the number I need on the d20 (for example, rolling a 12 or better saves).

With one calculation per unique enemy in my head, it saves time and is satisfying at the table. The DM can throw a fistful of dice, then point at enemy minis in turn: "Save, fail, fail, save, fail."

Try suggesting this method to your DM. Point out what's been said here, and ask him if he'd be willing to try it another way.

If he doesn't go for it, try DMing a game yourself to show the concept off in action. Having been on the other side, the DM will likely agree that rolling individually is a more reasonable way to run mass saving throws.

[johnbragg]

Another option for your DM (or anyone's DM, actually). When you have a large enough group of mooks that rolling saves separately is a pain in the butt, semi-arbitrarily space their rolls out on a 1-20 scale.

So if you're "rolling" for 6 mooks, 20/6 = 3 2/3. So they "roll" 2 5 8 11 14 17.

10 mooks "roll" 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 20.

More than 10 mooks, maybe you rough out a percentage of how many save.

[Nibbens]

If you dislike that and your DM is a bit better with numbers you could suggest that a percentage based save system.

Example:
You hit 10 goons with a DC 16 Fireball. They all have +4 on their saves. This means on an average that 16-4 = 12 and 12/20 = 60% fail their saves. So 6 get full damage, 4 get half damage. This looks complicated and if your DM has no approach to numbers he probably shouldn't do that, otherwise it's the fairest solution that doesn't involve rolling the dice 10 times.

I've done this before in certain situations. No dice needed and as long as the DM is fair and judicious with deciding which enemies make their save vs those that fail, it's a legitimate shortcut.

[heavyfuel]

If you dislike that and your DM is a bit better with numbers you could suggest that a percentage based save system.

Example:
You hit 10 goons with a DC 16 Fireball. They all have +4 on their saves. This means on an average that 16-4 = 12 and 12/20 = 60% fail their saves. So 6 get full damage, 4 get half damage. This looks complicated and if your DM has no approach to numbers he probably shouldn't do that, otherwise it's the fairest solution that doesn't involve rolling the dice 10 times.

This becomes less complicated when you realise that every point equals an additional 5% chance of success.

Keeping to your example of a DC 16 Fireball, it would affect with 16*5=80% of creatures with 0 Reflex. if they have +9 to Reflex, it would 7*5=35% of creatures affected.

I use this a lot, and it's pretty much a must in mass combats.

[Florian]

It´becoming even less complicated if you use a simple dice rolling tool on your smartphone and hit the roll button multiple times.