Hierarchy of Saving Throws

[thereaper]

Back when this edition dropped, my understanding of the hierarchy of saving throws was:

Con (nasty effects, also used for concentration) > Wis (mind control, fear effects) > Dex (most common save, but not especially nasty, usually inflicts half damage on miss anyway) > Str and Cha (less common than Str, but more nasty) > Int (too rare to matter)

Does this wisdom still hold true today? Or have things changed?

[Deathtongue]

That's mostly right. I'd bump INT above STR and CHA and still below DEX; sadly, intelligence has become noticeably more common of a saving throw both with adventure design (dammit, AL, stop using Mind Flayers in T2) and post-Xanathar's. It's not common enough that you need to go out of your way to patch it, but when I started playing 5E D&D in 2016 you could go from level 1 to level 15 without making a single intelligence saving throw. That's not the case anymore.

[CheddarChampion]

I think this will be a preference thing since they often have different effects.
Personally, the #1 pick depends on if the character will be concentrating and trying to take blows. If so Con is #1. Otherwise Wis is #1. I've had characters get poisoned before but never diseased.

So for me Con/Wis then Dex, Int/Cha, Str. Int ist For resisting illusions, Cha to resist banishment, Str to resist... getting pushed a few spaces.
I can see someone putting Dex higher if their DM is blast happy.

[Greywander]

I'd say CON and WIS are a toss-up for the number 1 spot. Things like paralyzation and petrification are pretty bad, but so is mind control. Both are pretty common, too.

DEX saves are extremely common, but are mostly just damage. So I'd put them in number 3. It's the weakest of the strong saves, and if the weak saves were more common they'd probably rank higher.

CHA saves are the most common of the weak saves, and they seem to be for things like banishment or possession. Some of these effects can be nasty, but not as common as the strong saves.

INT saves are rare, but typically really nasty. I'd put them behind CHA saves due to rarity, but in many cases you're worse off failing an INT save than a CHA save.

STR saves are more common than INT saves, but the result of a failed save is usually just forced movement. Occasionally you'll get restrained, which is pretty bad, but on the whole STR saves rank last for me.

[thereaper]

So Con/Wis>Dex>Int/Cha>Str

Sounds about right to me. Thanks.

[LudicSavant]

So there are two main factors that goes into ranking saves: How common they are, and how hard they screw you if you fail.

Wis, Con, and Dex are most common.

Wis, Int, and Cha are most devastating to fail.

Str is usually for pushing people around, hindering their movement, giving a foe Advantage, that sort of thing.

Some might be inclined to think that an Int save is "too rare to matter," but let me put it this way. How often do you need to have the entire party take 30 damage and get stunned for an average of 3 rounds in order to regret everyone in the party having a -1 Int save? Not a lot.

(Incidentally, 3 is the average number of rounds a Mind Blast stun will last against a character with a -1 Int save. And yes, that's already accounting for the probability that it misses in the first place and lasts 0 rounds).


So Con/Wis>Dex>Int/Cha>Str

More or less.

[Tes]

So turns out that Gnome Oathbreaker Dex Paladin I always wanted to play is surprisingly optimised.

[stoutstien]

Something that I never see factored in is while WIS saves are important and can be devastating a lot of them are centered around status effects that are avoidable by other means than a good roll. if a party can find ways of having charm and fear immunity/counters that takes a large chunk of them away right off the bat.

*I don't know why everybody seems to skip over devotion paladins but the fact they can have fear and charm immunity auras on top of Aura of protection is huge. Ancient's spell resistance is nice but damage is pretty easy to deal with while getting charmed by a NPC can take you out of a fight all together.*

[thereaper]

So turns out that Gnome Oathbreaker Dex Paladin I always wanted to play is surprisingly optimised.

I honestly don't know why Dex Paladins aren't more popular. Rapier and Shield is the same as Sword and Board, except you trade 1 AC for better dexterity saves and initiative (which translates into slightly more damage and durability, since you can down things before they have a chance to attack you). Your ranged attacks are slightly worse (javelins > daggers), but you're actually better in melee.

[LtPowers]

I honestly don't know why Dex Paladins aren't more popular.

In part, because you can't multiclass Paladin without at least 13 STR, and the Paladin's starting equipment is poorly suited to DEX builds.


Powers &8^]

[NorthernPhoenix]

I honestly don't know why Dex Paladins aren't more popular. Rapier and Shield is the same as Sword and Board, except you trade 1 AC for better dexterity saves and initiative (which translates into slightly more damage and durability, since you can down things before they have a chance to attack you). Your ranged attacks are slightly worse (javelins > daggers), but you're actually better in melee.

Because the aesthetic is weird. Not everything is about charop.

[Unavenger]

From memory, there was a list showing that Strength saves showed up almost as often as Dex saves if you didn't account for dragons (on the basis that they are so, so many variations on one type of creature that it seems odd to list the adult red, wyrmling gold, and so forth as though they were so many very different monsters as they have statblocks as though a single adventurer would likely encounter more than a couple of those types of dragon), and I recall multiple instances of having had to take one, and none of having had to take an intelligence or charisma save. You might think psionics would introduce more intelligence saves, but instead there are telekinetic (and proximakinetic) abilities which rely on strength saves to resist them. On the other hand, failure on a strength save normally only moves you about a bit, which is annoying but not totally debilitating, while intelligence and charisma saves are the stuff of mass stunning. All in all, it probably comes out in the wash at the average table, which is probably rather the intention.

Dexterity saves are a bit of an odd duck because not only are they less important than constitution or wisdom saves, they also show up a lot less - and I think this remained true even with dragons in the running. Usually, the consequence for failure is that you could take double damage, or with evasion one supposes damage at all, from an attack, in an edition where being dropped to no hit points can be fixed with a bonus action and a first-level spell slot. A failed constitution save can make you useless, and a failed wisdom save can make you an active detriment to your team.

As for whether wisdom or constitution holds the top spot, I can only really guess at wisdom, but if you take a class offering any two saves which aren't called "Dexterity" (or if by some accident or strange design they grant you two strong saves), you should end up well enough out of the deal.

[Dork_Forge]

I'd personally go Dex>Con>Wis>Cha>Str>Int

[Chronos]

Str might be more common than Dex among non-dragon monster abilities, but I don't think that's the full picture. In my experience, most saving throws come from enemy spellcasters, and among spells, Dex is a much more common save than Str.

[LudicSavant]

From memory, there was a list showing that Strength saves showed up almost as often as Dex saves if you didn't account for dragons

Citation needed.

[Skylivedk]

Wis > Con > Cha > Int >/ Dex > Str

... And that's based mostly on a campaign where we have killed 2 ancient dragons already (and I don't know how many young and adults).

Damage is not completely ignorable, but I'd normally prefer the extra damage to the strong disables from a lot of int saves. I also tend to have at least 14 con and some way of generating (temporary) hitpoints.

[DrKerosene]

Citation needed.

I would guess it’s skewed by low CR creatures, like how wolves have a Strength based save vs prone, and plenty of other animals with a charge/pounce ability also have a Strength based save vs prone, and pushing effects like Gust Of Wind.



I do think Strength should be at the bottom of the list, unless a DM is very tactical where bad positioning is punished.

I believe that Intelligence Saves and Charisma Saves do include a few “save or die/incapacitate” effects, which should be worse than the prone/forced movement/extra damage (in a theory crafting white room) of most Strength Saves. So those would be higher than Strength for me.

I think Wisdom or Constitution might swap for highest valued save depending on the campaign and Party (lots of saves vs enchantment/fear, and no Paladins or Protection from Good & Evil or Countercharm, or lots of disease and poison with no Paladin, Druids, or Healer).

[thereaper]

Yeah, the more I think about it, the more I realize con and wis probably swap places depending on the class. Fear hurts a fighter more than a wizard, but the fighter likely has nothing to concentrate on.

[Kane0]

In terms of average badness happening to you, mental stats are more important than physical ones
In terms of what happens more often, physical stats are more important than mental ones
Blending the two together varies by game and DM, but safe bet is Con/Wis > Str/Dex > Int/Cha

[LudicSavant]

For the sake of completeness, I should note that some players fall into a trap of thinking Constitution saves are basically the only factor that will impact their ability to maintain Concentration.

For example, losing a mental save will often also make you lose Concentration (or could even make you go full nova with all your spells on your teammates, which is... so much worse). For another example, whether you're taking 30 or 60 damage from that Dex save is going to affect your ability to make the resulting Concentration check than having an extra +3 to Constitution saves is. For another, if you have a higher AC you'll be getting hit less, and making less saves. And so on.

[Moreb Benhk]

I'd agree on the general consensus

Dex Con and Wis saves being most prevalent

Wis and (to a lesser extent) Con saves having much nastier riders than Dex - which is usually just damage. Damage does nothing until it drop you.

But Dex is already the Uber-stat - giving AC, attack, damage, saves, some important skills, and Initiative.

The hierarchy is partly why I'm toying with house rules that pull the saves back towards a modified FORT REF WILL setup (in the homebrew forums) - because, unfortunately the save hierarchy also matches the general ability hierarchy - Strenth Intelligence and Charisma are the most likely candidates for dump-stats already. With saves, the rich get richer.

[LudicSavant]

Incidentally, does anyone actually have a good data spreadsheet for this sort of thing?

If they did, I could do some coding / Google spreadsheet wizardry to make it searchable, and let people ask it questions like "how many saves are there of monster type X from Volo's and MToF of CR 3-6?"

The main obstacle would just be, you know, all the tedious data entry.

[Chronos]

There used to be a guy here who always argued that Str saves were one of the most important ones, because a failed Str save is so often deadly.

I think he must have always fought on cliff faces and in volcanoes.

[stoutstien]

There used to be a guy here who always argued that Str saves were one of the most important ones, because a failed Str save is so often deadly.

I think he must have always fought on cliff faces and in volcanoes.

To be fair alot of games never see the higher levels where the really nasty mental effects come into play where a failed Str check/save vs a few panthers at lv 2 can be deadly.
I'm not saying Str proficiency is more important than it is usually valued near the bottom but the level of play Expectated is a hidden factor.

[Skylivedk]

Incidentally, does anyone actually have a good data spreadsheet for this sort of thing?

If they did, I could do some coding / Google spreadsheet wizardry to make it searchable, and let people ask it questions like "how many saves are there of monster type X from Volo's and MToF of CR 3-6?"

The main obstacle would just be, you know, all the tedious data entry.

[Edit] SORRY WRONG LINK HERE (obviously not saves)
https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?379165-MM-Resistances-Immunities-Vulnerabilities-and-Damage

RIGHT LINK:
https://www.enworld.org/threads/frequency-of-saves-in-the-monster-manual.358588/

OP there has done it for MM only. I've seen others do it for more, but don't have the link at hand.

There's a bit more here including a count including Volo's:
https://www.enworld.org/threads/on-saving-throws-a-monster-manual-analysis.548068/

(Seems I was Shadow Monk'd on this link)

For spells you have a count here:

https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/98107/what-is-the-distribution-of-saving-throws-associated-with-each-attribute-that-ar

[Unavenger]

Citation needed.

Note the use of "From memory," indicating that I might not be 100% sure and thus might not have the citation on hand.

But just for you, I found it (https://www.enworld.org/threads/on-saving-throws-a-monster-manual-analysis.548068/). While there are 65 strength saving throws to be made against MM monsters, and 100 dex saves, over half of the latter are from dragons while only 11 strength saves are. Only 4 intelligence and 6 charisma saves are called for in the entire book, however, and while there are a lot of constitution saves to be made - 156 - there are only 68 wisdom saves, and 21 are from dragons' frightful presence.

Conclusion: while Int and Cha saves are monumentally more debilitating than strength saves, strength saves are far more common, and you're probably more likely to have to roll strength saves than wisdom saves on an average adventure. Wisdom saves are more debilitating than constitution saves, perhaps, but the latter are going on three times as numerous. The only real sucker here is dexterity, which outside of a dedicated dragonhunter will show up less often than Constitution, Wisdom or Strength and even when it does, the penalty for failure is rarely more than "More damage."

VGTM makes the gulf between commonality of int/cha saves and the others less damning but still huge, while wisdom makes gains on constitution, but nothing really changes overall.

In general, if you have strength proficiency and not dexterity proficiency, you're doing pretty well for yourself, I'd say.

[Skylivedk]

Note the use of "From memory," indicating that I might not be 100% sure and thus might not have the citation on hand.

But just for you, I found it (https://www.enworld.org/threads/on-saving-throws-a-monster-manual-analysis.548068/). While there are 65 strength saving throws to be made against MM monsters, and 100 dex saves, over half of the latter are from dragons while only 11 strength saves are. Only 4 intelligence and 6 charisma saves are called for in the entire book, however, and while there are a lot of constitution saves to be made - 156 - there are only 68 wisdom saves, and 21 are from dragons' frightful presence.

Conclusion: while Int and Cha saves are monumentally more debilitating than strength saves, strength saves are far more common, and you're probably more likely to have to roll strength saves than wisdom saves on an average adventure. Wisdom saves are more debilitating than constitution saves, perhaps, but the latter are going on three times as numerous. The only real sucker here is dexterity, which outside of a dedicated dragonhunter will show up less often than Constitution, Wisdom or Strength and even when it does, the penalty for failure is rarely more than "More damage."

VGTM makes the gulf between commonality of int/cha saves and the others less damning but still huge, while wisdom makes gains on constitution, but nothing really changes overall.

In general, if you have strength proficiency and not dexterity proficiency, you're doing pretty well for yourself, I'd say.

As you note: it really, really depends. A lot of the strength throws are also vs very little extra damage and being proned. At higher tiers, when casters are more common, you'll also see a lot more charisma and intelligence saving throws once your own party starts being targeted by Banishments, Phantasmal Force, etc

[Dork_Forge]

Note the use of "From memory," indicating that I might not be 100% sure and thus might not have the citation on hand.

But just for you, I found it (https://www.enworld.org/threads/on-saving-throws-a-monster-manual-analysis.548068/). While there are 65 strength saving throws to be made against MM monsters, and 100 dex saves, over half of the latter are from dragons while only 11 strength saves are. Only 4 intelligence and 6 charisma saves are called for in the entire book, however, and while there are a lot of constitution saves to be made - 156 - there are only 68 wisdom saves, and 21 are from dragons' frightful presence.

Conclusion: while Int and Cha saves are monumentally more debilitating than strength saves, strength saves are far more common, and you're probably more likely to have to roll strength saves than wisdom saves on an average adventure. Wisdom saves are more debilitating than constitution saves, perhaps, but the latter are going on three times as numerous. The only real sucker here is dexterity, which outside of a dedicated dragonhunter will show up less often than Constitution, Wisdom or Strength and even when it does, the penalty for failure is rarely more than "More damage."

VGTM makes the gulf between commonality of int/cha saves and the others less damning but still huge, while wisdom makes gains on constitution, but nothing really changes overall.

In general, if you have strength proficiency and not dexterity proficiency, you're doing pretty well for yourself, I'd say.

It's worth noting that Dex will also be called upon for traps and so on, so Dex saves would probably be the most common saves and the most universal ones across the tiers of play (annecdotal evidence from my own experience supports this).


Str saves can quickly lead to a death spiral in the first few levels just because characters don't have the hp to be taking a bunch of attacks at advantage.

I do think that Wis saves tend to be overvalued on here at least though, Res:Wis is a very very common build suggestion which (imo) rarely makes sense unless the specific campaign is throwing a lot of Wis saves at the party or it's a tier 3+ game (which we know most aren't and won't ever be).

[stoutstien]

It's worth noting that Dex will also be called upon for traps and so on, so Dex saves would probably be the most common saves and the most universal ones across the tiers of play (annecdotal evidence from my own experience supports this).


Str saves can quickly lead to a death spiral in the first few levels just because characters don't have the hp to be taking a bunch of attacks at advantage.

I do think that Wis saves tend to be overvalued on here at least though, Res:Wis is a very very common build suggestion which (imo) rarely makes sense unless the specific campaign is throwing a lot of Wis saves at the party or it's a tier 3+ game (which we know most aren't and won't ever be).

For barbarians I think res Wis is still one of the best investments due to the entire class revolving around staying in rage and having so few uses to start with. Losing a rage at lv 5 is 1/3 of the daily uses. That hurts.

[Dork_Forge]

For barbarians I think res Wis is still one of the best investments due to the entire class revolving around staying in rage and having so few uses to start with. Losing a rage at lv 5 is 1/3 of the daily uses. That hurts.

True, but how often are you actually going to be subjected to Wis saves (specifically that would cause you to lose Rage) at level 5? Then at 6 it bumps up to 4 times a day, mitigating it. Even then though, it's generally never wise to dump Wis fully and a Barbarian has no real use for Int or Cha that some skill profs wouldn't cover, it wouldn't be unreasonable to have some degree of a positive modifier IF a save like that came up.

[LudicSavant]

I found it (https://www.enworld.org/threads/on-saving-throws-a-monster-manual-analysis.548068/).

Thanks for the citation.



Incidentally, does anyone actually have a good data spreadsheet for this sort of thing?

If they did, I could do some coding / Google spreadsheet wizardry to make it searchable, and let people ask it questions like "how many saves are there of monster type X from Volo's and MToF of CR 3-6?"

The main obstacle would just be, you know, all the tedious data entry.[Edit] SORRY WRONG LINK HERE (obviously not saves)
https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?379165-MM-Resistances-Immunities-Vulnerabilities-and-Damage

RIGHT LINK:
https://www.enworld.org/threads/frequency-of-saves-in-the-monster-manual.358588/

OP there has done it for MM only. I've seen others do it for more, but don't have the link at hand.

There's a bit more here including a count including Volo's:
https://www.enworld.org/threads/on-saving-throws-a-monster-manual-analysis.548068/

(Seems I was Shadow Monk'd on this link)

For spells you have a count here:

https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/98107/what-is-the-distribution-of-saving-throws-associated-with-each-attribute-that-ar

I appreciate the attempt, but unfortunately this isn't really what I'm looking for.

All of these links are more incomplete than sources I already have, and none of them actually provide a spreadsheet of raw monster stats (which is what I need).

Basically what I need is something like this:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16ajgJpvUI0wYcSU7kjHutw8oB6Zv6eIAo5JtI6PLvu8/edit#gid=776794522

...except with more relevant variables filled in (for example this particular one tells us ability scores, but doesn't actually tell us their saving throw bonus or what kind of saves they can inflict).

I don't need it to actually count anything or draw any conclusions. I just need raw data to feed my program.

I've been Googling about a bit, but I'm hoping to find ones with a more complete dataset (ideally, I'd want one that includes a complete listing from MM, Volo's, and MToF, with variables like saving throw bonuses, CR, and saves inflicted).

[stoutstien]

True, but how often are you actually going to be subjected to Wis saves (specifically that would cause you to lose Rage) at level 5? Then at 6 it bumps up to 4 times a day, mitigating it. Even then though, it's generally never wise to dump Wis fully and a Barbarian has no real use for Int or Cha that some skill profs wouldn't cover, it wouldn't be unreasonable to have some degree of a positive modifier IF a save like that came up.

IMO I dislike the design concept of weak/strong saves and checks and try to keep them all roughly equal on relevancy in my games starting at lv 1 so its not if it when for me.
At the same time I don't like save or lose action(s) effects so I tend to use a lot of softer effects like disorienting Wis saves that give disadvantage on AOO or whatnot.

[LudicSavant]

Incidentally, here's a list of spells from all official sourcebooks by saving throw (as of Wildemount's release) compiled by me:

Of the 483 spells in said sources...

21 have Strength Saves

Arms of Hadar
Control Water
Control Winds
Dust Devil
Earthbind
Ensnaring Strike
Entangle
Gust
Gust of Wind
Lightning Lure
Maelstrom
Maximilian's Earthen Grasp
Ravenous Void
Storm Sphere
Thunderous Smite
Transmute Rock
Tsunami
Watery Sphere
Whirlwind
Wind Wall
Wrath of Nature


65 have Dexterity Saves.

Acid Splash
Aganazzar's Scorcher
Blade Barrier
Bones of the Earth
Burning Hands
Call Lightning
Catapult
Chain Lightning
Conjure Barrage
Conjure Volley
Cordon of Arrows
Create Bonfire
Delayed Blast Fireball
Disintegrate
Dragon's Breath
Earth Tremor
Earthquake
Enervation
Erupting Earth
Evard's Black Tentacles
Faerie Fire
Fire Storm
Fireball
Flame Strike
Flaming Sphere
Glyph of Warding
Grasping Vine
Grease
Guardian of Faith
Hail of Thorns
Hellish Rebuke
Hunger of Hadar
Ice Knife
Ice Storm
Immolation
Incendiary Cloud
Investiture of Flame
Investiture of Stone
Light
Lightning Arrow
Lightning Bolt
Melf's Minute Meteors
Meteor Swarm
Otiluke's Resilient Sphere
Prismatic Spray
Prismatic Wall
Reality Break
Reverse Gravity
Sacred Flame
Sleet Storm
Slow
Snare
Snilloc's Snowball Swarm
Storm of Vengeance
Sword Burst
Tidal Wave
Transmute Rock
Vitriolic Sphere
Wall of Fire
Wall of Ice
Wall of Stone
Wall of Thorns
Web
Whirlwind
Wrath of Nature


62 have Constitution Saves.

Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting
Blight
Blinding Smite
Blindness/Deafness
Circle of Death
Cloudkill
Cone of Cold
Contagion
Dark Star
Dawn
Destructive Wave
Earthquake
Elemental Bane
Enlarge/Reduce
Finger of Death
Flesh to Stone
Frostbite
Gravity Fissure
Gravity Sinkhole
Guardian of Nature
Harm
Heat Metal
Holy Aura
Holy Weapon
Infestation
Insect Plague
Investiture of Ice
Investiture of Wind
Levitate
Magnify Gravity
Moonbeam
Negative Energy Flood
Otiluke's Freezing Sphere
Poison Spray
Power Word Pain
Power Word Stun
Prismatic Spray
Prismatic Wall
Pulse Wave
Pyrotechnics
Ray of Enfeeblement
Ray of Sickness
Sapping Sting
Searing Smite
Shatter
Sickening Radiance
Sleet Storm
Stinking Cloud
Storm of Vengeance
Sunbeam
Sunburst
Symbol
Synaptic Static
Tenser's Transformation
Tether Essence
Thunder Step
Thunderclap
Thunderwave
Time Ravage
Wall of Ice
Wall of Light
Word of Radiance


9 have Intelligence Saves

Contact Other Plane
Enemies Abound
Feeblemind
Illusory Dragon
Mental Prison
Phantasmal Force
Psychic Scream
Symbol
Synaptic Static



54 have Wisdom Saves

Animal Friendship
Antipathy/Sympathy
Bestow Curse
Cause Fear
Charm Monster
Charm Person
Command
Compelled Duel
Compulsion
Confusion
Crown of Madness
Detect Thoughts
Dissonant Whispers
Dominate Beast
Dominate Monster
Dominate Person
Dream
Enthrall
Eyebite
Fast Friends
Fear
Geas
Hold Monster
Hold Person
Hypnotic Pattern
Illusory Dragon
Imprisonment
Incite Greed
Maddening Darkness
Mass Polymorph
Mass Suggestion
Mind Spike
Modify Memory
Otto's Irresistible Dance
Phantasmal Killer
Polymorph
Prismatic Spray
Prismatic Wall
Reality Break
Sanctuary
Scatter
Scrying
Slow
Spirit Guardians
Staggering Smite
Suggestion
Symbol
Tasha's Hideous Laughter
Temporal Shunt
Toll the Dead
True Polymorph
Vicious Mockery
Weird
Wrathful Smite



16 have Charisma Saves

Bane
Banishment
Calm Emotions
Dispel Evil and Good
Divine Word
Forcecage
Hallow
Magic Circle
Magic Jar
Planar Binding
Plane Shift
Seeming
Summon Greater Demon
Symbol
Temple of the Gods
Zone of Truth


Spells not listed here do not have saves.

Note that this list does not necessarily reflect how commonly you can expect saving throws of each type (for example, a PC is never going to have to make a save against Summon Greater Demon).

[Nifft]

Incidentally, here's a list of spells from all official sourcebooks by saving throw (as of Wildemount's release) compiled by me:

For this discussion, it'd be more useful if there were some indication of how often an PC should expect to need the save.

Spells like Animal Friendship and Planar Binding seem a bit off-target here.

[LudicSavant]

Spells like Animal Friendship and Planar Binding seem a bit off-target here.

Yes, I already mentioned this. Right here:


Note that this list does not necessarily reflect how commonly you can expect saving throws of each type (for example, a PC is never going to have to make a save against Summon Greater Demon).

In addition to this, even if I just excluded those spells, you'd still have to make additional judgment calls, since spells will not show up equally, nor are they distributed evenly at various level ranges. There's also a question of whether things that are self-inflicted would count (being able to make the save against Contact Other Plane is really useful, but it's not like an enemy is going to use it on you).

Which is why it would be valuable to compile raw data so that we can query and sort according to various criteria for what should count. If you would like a tool like that, you are welcome to help (see the post before my last one).


some indication of how often an PC should expect to need the save.

Also covered this, in a previous post on this thread!

[Lyracian]

This seems that it could be very campaign dependent. Between Vampires and Ghosts my players have been making lots of Charisma saves. Now they have moved on to the next adventure and it’s lots of Con saves against poison.

It is good to mix things up with a variety of opponents so everyone gets a chance for their proficiencies to be useful.

[MaxWilson]

Thanks for the citation.



I appreciate the attempt, but unfortunately this isn't really what I'm looking for.

All of these links are more incomplete than sources I already have, and none of them actually provide a spreadsheet of raw monster stats (which is what I need).

Basically what I need is something like this:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16ajgJpvUI0wYcSU7kjHutw8oB6Zv6eIAo5JtI6PLvu8/edit#gid=776794522

...except with more relevant variables filled in (for example this particular one tells us ability scores, but doesn't actually tell us their saving throw bonus or what kind of saves they can inflict).

I don't need it to actually count anything or draw any conclusions. I just need raw data to feed my program.

I've been Googling about a bit, but I'm hoping to find ones with a more complete dataset (ideally, I'd want one that includes a complete listing from MM, Volo's, and MToF, with variables like saving throw bonuses, CR, and saves inflicted).

Well, this looks reasonably complete: https://github.com/CptBackpack/bestiary/tree/master/_creatures

Then you just need to parse out all the saves.

Edit: I did a rough data extraction using regexes and threw the results up on this spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1DUXuPd_v7zsDKHM1CfdIngksB171bZsgVRqvtGdKVfc/edit?usp=sharing I'm not really a spreadsheet user myself but hopefully that will help somebody.



open System
open System.IO
open System.Text.RegularExpressions
let files = System.IO.Directory.EnumerateFiles """c:\code\bestiary\_creatures"""
let (|RE|_|) pattern str =
match Regex.Match(str, pattern) with
| m when m.Success -> [for x in m.Groups -> x.Value] |> List.filter (not << System.String.IsNullOrWhiteSpace) |> List.tail|> Some
| _ -> None

type ParseErr = { line: string; err: string }
type Creature = { name: string; txt: string; mutable saves: (string * int) list }
let ptags = "tags:\s*\[([\w\s ,]+)"
let pname = "name:\s*\"([\w '()\-,'/]+)\""
let creatures = files |> Seq.map System.IO.File.ReadAllText |> Seq.map (function RE pname [name] as txt -> name, txt | txt -> printfn "%s" txt; failwithf "No match for %s" (txt.Substring(0, 50))) |> Map.ofSeq

let getSaves name (txt: string) =
let lines = txt.Split('\n')

[for line in txt.Split '\n' do
match line with
| RE "DC\s+([0-9]+)\s+(Strength|Dexterity|Constitution|Intelligence |Wisdom|Charisma) saving throw" [dc;st] -> st, System.Int32.Parse dc
| RE "DC\s+([0-9]+)\s+(Strength|Dexterity|Constitution|Intelligence |Wisdom|Charisma) savng throw" [dc;st] -> st, System.Int32.Parse dc
| RE "DC\s+[0-9]+\s+.+" [st] -> printfn "Unexpected: %s \n\t\tfor %s" st line
| _ -> ()
]
let annotations = creatures |> Map.map (fun name txt -> { name = name; txt = txt; saves = getSaves name txt })
annotations.["Bulette"].saves <- ["Strength", 16; "Dexterity", 16]
let printRow a =
let v n =
match a.saves |> List.tryPick (fun (label, dc) -> if label = n then Some dc else None) with
| Some dc -> dc.ToString()
| None -> ""
sprintf "%s, %s, %s, %s, %s, %s, %s" a.name (v "Strength") (v "Dexterity") (v "Constitution") (v "Intelligence") (v "Wisdom") (v "Charisma")
annotations |> Seq.map (fun (KeyValue(_, notes)) -> notes) |> Seq.sortBy (fun a -> a.name) |> Seq.map (printRow) |> fun x -> System.String.Join("\n", x) |> fun s -> System.IO.File.WriteAllText("c:\inst\exports.csv", s)

[Chronos]

One thing with saving throws is that enemy spellcasters are generally reasonably intelligent, and generally have a choice both of targets and of which spell to use. So it's advantageous to have proficiency in saves you wouldn't be expected to be proficient in. A spellcaster is likely to target the guy with the big axe with a Wis save spell, but probably won't bother with it against the guy in the dress and pointy hat. For the guy in the pointy hat, the enemy is more likely to use something with a Con save, which they wouldn't try against the axe guy.

So Resilient: Wisdom ends up being much more useful on a barbarian than it is on a sorcerer, even though they both natively lack Wis proficiency, because intelligent enemies are more likely to try to use such abilities on the barbarian. And the sorcerer's Con proficiency is extra-useful, because enemies are likely to assume that's a weakness for them, and target it.

Of course, this can change once you have recurring enemies, or enemies from recurring factions, who know something about the party specifically, not just what they can guess from what they see in one combat.

[Makorel]

Something that I never see factored in is while WIS saves are important and can be devastating a lot of them are centered around status effects that are avoidable by other means than a good roll. if a party can find ways of having charm and fear immunity/counters that takes a large chunk of them away right off the bat.

*I don't know why everybody seems to skip over devotion paladins but the fact they can have fear and charm immunity auras on top of Aura of protection is huge. Ancient's spell resistance is nice but damage is pretty easy to deal with while getting charmed by a NPC can take you out of a fight all together.*

This is the main reason why I think Berserker Barb is underrated. Off the top of my head the only Wisdom Saving Throw spells that don't key off of fear or charm are Hold Person and the Polymorph spells, and most wisdom effects by monsters are fears and charms as well.

[MaxWilson]

This is the main reason why I think Berserker Barb is underrated. Off the top of my head the only Wisdom Saving Throw spells that don't key off of fear or charm are Hold Person and the Polymorph spells, and most wisdom effects by monsters are fears and charms as well.

The thing is though that Hold Person is a lot more devastating than Fear and most forms of Charm are, and Polymorph is almost as bad. Even as a Barbarian you can likely overcome Fear just through switching targets or tactics, plus Reckless Attack, but Hold Person ends Rage and results in auto-crits. Bye-bye Barbarian, hello chunky salsa.

[Makorel]

The thing is though that Hold Person is a lot more devastating than Fear and most forms of Charm are, and Polymorph is almost as bad. Even as a Barbarian you can likely overcome Fear just through switching targets or tactics, plus Reckless Attack, but Hold Person ends Rage and results in auto-crits. Bye-bye Barbarian, hello chunky salsa.

I honestly don't remember the last time Hold Person was not cast by a player character. It doesn't seem to be a spell that a lot of monster have, on the rare occasion when they have spells, especially compared to monsters that have fear auras. The one Berserker I played I even had a Ring of Freedom of Movement so it was a non-issue. I've only been polymorphed once and the DM was playing a bit loose with the rules but from my understanding all you need to do is get yourself hurt enough and you can revert back to being yourself and Barbarians are very good at soaking damage.

[MaxWilson]

I honestly don't remember the last time Hold Person was not cast by a player character. It doesn't seem to be a spell that a lot of monster have, on the rare occasion when they have spells, especially compared to monsters that have fear auras. The one Berserker I played I even had a Ring of Freedom of Movement so it was a non-issue. I've only been polymorphed once and the DM was playing a bit loose with the rules but from my understanding all you need to do is get yourself hurt enough and you can revert back to being yourself and Barbarians are very good at soaking damage.

There are a ton of monsters in the books that have Hold Person (many of them can even upcast it), and even more that have prepared spellcasting and are allowed to have it but don't by default.

So like many things this basically comes down to "how evil is your DM?" Technically a CR 4 Neogi Master and five orcs is only a medium encounter on paper for a 6th level party, but with six chances to be paralyzed (Hold Person IV x2), plus a chance of being effectively Dominated, it won't feel like a normal medium encounter. (Swap that CR 4 Neogi Master out for a CR 4 Girallon or a CR 5 Water Elemental or a Bulette and the encounter will feel much easier.)

Here's a list of all the monster types I know of that have Hold Person in their default spell list:

Adult Oblex
Bheur hag
Hag coven (any hag)
Archdruid
Bone naga
Choldrith
Cult fanatic
Deathlock
Deathlock wight
Drider (spellcaster)
Drow matron mother
Elder Oblex
Enchanter
Guardian Naga
Kuo-toa archpriest
Inspired
Nagpa (plus a Recharge 6 30' radius AoE DC 20 (Wis) paralyzation as a bonus action)
Sahuagin Priestess
Spirit Naga
Tortle Druid
Transmuter
Yuan-ti Nightmare Speaker

Bolded entries can upcast it to affect between 2-4 targets (matron mother can affect up to 8).

[LudicSavant]

Well, this looks reasonably complete: https://github.com/CptBackpack/bestiary/tree/master/_creatures

Then you just need to parse out all the saves.

Edit: I did a rough data extraction using regexes and threw the results up on this spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1DUXuPd_v7zsDKHM1CfdIngksB171bZsgVRqvtGdKVfc/edit?usp=sharing I'm not really a spreadsheet user myself but hopefully that will help somebody.



open System
open System.IO
open System.Text.RegularExpressions
let files = System.IO.Directory.EnumerateFiles """c:\code\bestiary\_creatures"""
let (|RE|_|) pattern str =
match Regex.Match(str, pattern) with
| m when m.Success -> [for x in m.Groups -> x.Value] |> List.filter (not << System.String.IsNullOrWhiteSpace) |> List.tail|> Some
| _ -> None

type ParseErr = { line: string; err: string }
type Creature = { name: string; txt: string; mutable saves: (string * int) list }
let ptags = "tags:\s*\[([\w\s ,]+)"
let pname = "name:\s*\"([\w '()\-,'/]+)\""
let creatures = files |> Seq.map System.IO.File.ReadAllText |> Seq.map (function RE pname [name] as txt -> name, txt | txt -> printfn "%s" txt; failwithf "No match for %s" (txt.Substring(0, 50))) |> Map.ofSeq

let getSaves name (txt: string) =
let lines = txt.Split('\n')

[for line in txt.Split '\n' do
match line with
| RE "DC\s+([0-9]+)\s+(Strength|Dexterity|Constitution|Intelligence |Wisdom|Charisma) saving throw" [dc;st] -> st, System.Int32.Parse dc
| RE "DC\s+([0-9]+)\s+(Strength|Dexterity|Constitution|Intelligence |Wisdom|Charisma) savng throw" [dc;st] -> st, System.Int32.Parse dc
| RE "DC\s+[0-9]+\s+.+" [st] -> printfn "Unexpected: %s \n\t\tfor %s" st line
| _ -> ()
]
let annotations = creatures |> Map.map (fun name txt -> { name = name; txt = txt; saves = getSaves name txt })
annotations.["Bulette"].saves <- ["Strength", 16; "Dexterity", 16]
let printRow a =
let v n =
match a.saves |> List.tryPick (fun (label, dc) -> if label = n then Some dc else None) with
| Some dc -> dc.ToString()
| None -> ""
sprintf "%s, %s, %s, %s, %s, %s, %s" a.name (v "Strength") (v "Dexterity") (v "Constitution") (v "Intelligence") (v "Wisdom") (v "Charisma")
annotations |> Seq.map (fun (KeyValue(_, notes)) -> notes) |> Seq.sortBy (fun a -> a.name) |> Seq.map (printRow) |> fun x -> System.String.Join("\n", x) |> fun s -> System.IO.File.WriteAllText("c:\inst\exports.csv", s)



Very interesting indeed! Would it be possible to extract other variables like sourcebook, CR, monster type, and saving throw bonuses as well? The more data I can get thrown into the spreadsheet the more interesting things I can make it do. In fact, if the spreadsheet could just have a list of their spell names and DC for all their spells, I could parse that into the "save types inflicted" list too.

The current data doesn't seem to include spellcaster stuff but besides that, (if it's accurate) the extract is giving us...

98 Str, 118 Dex, 232 Con, 16 Int, 130 Wis, 22 Cha saves.

[Dark.Revenant]

With the newly gathered numbers, I basically added the # of spells with a save and the # of monsters with a save and formed a "share" for each type of save. I had to expand the rarity scores a bit to encompass the wide range.

On a Very Rare (1) - Rare (2) - Uncommon (3) - Common (4) - Very Common (5) and Setback (1) - Dangerous (2) - Deadly (3) scale:

Strength
Rarity: Uncommon (14% share)
Damage: Dangerous (usually does or facilitates substantial damage)
Control: Setback (basically limited to prone, restrained, and knocked around)

Dexterity
Rarity: Common (22% share)
Damage: Deadly (the definitive blasting save)
Control: Setback (often doesn't have rider effects at all; occasionally prone, restrained, and knocked around)

Constitution
Rarity: Very Common (35% share)
Damage: Deadly (the secondary blasting save, plus various horrible things like poison)
Control: Dangerous (nasty debilitating status effects, but they're not too hard to clear)

Intelligence
Rarity: Very Rare (3% share)
Damage: Dangerous (damage is usually a secondary effect)
Control: Deadly (includes devastating hard-to-clear status effects that can easily kill you—or worse)

Wisdom
Rarity: Common (22% share)
Damage: Setback (most saves don't do any damage)
Control: Deadly (includes all the best fight-enders and hard control effects in the game)

Charisma
Rarity: Very Rare (5% share)
Damage: Setback (almost never does damage)
Control: Deadly (usually shuts you down for an entire fight, often with no possible countermeasure)

In conclusion:
Constitution (10) >> Dexterity/Wisdom (8) >> Strength/Intelligence (6) > Charisma (5)

[MaxWilson]

Very interesting indeed! Would it be possible to extract other variables like sourcebook, CR, monster type, and saving throw bonuses as well? The more data I can get thrown into the spreadsheet the more interesting things I can make it do. In fact, if the spreadsheet could just have a list of their spell names and DC for all their spells, I could parse that into the "save types inflicted" list too.

The current data doesn't seem to include spellcaster stuff but besides that, (if it's accurate) the extract is giving us...

98 Str, 118 Dex, 232 Con, 16 Int, 130 Wis, 22 Cha saves.

Yeah, right now I'm ignoring all of the spellcaster stuff, partly because most spellcasters can change their spell loadouts at will, so it should just refer you back to the spell breakdown. (And also partly because of time constraints.)

I did a rough extraction of CR, size, type, and source plus stats and added it to the spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1DUXuPd_v7zsDKHM1CfdIngksB171bZsgVRqvtGdKVfc/edit?usp=sharing). The source columns don't look completely correct (too many blanks) but that's all I can do with the time I have available today.

I didn't do anything with saving throw proficiencies or the other data (HP, skill proficiencies, etc.).Edit: I added saving throw proficiencies in a separate column, for monsters that have them. For monsters without proficiencies I just left it blank instead of duplicating info.


With the newly gathered numbers, I basically added the # of spells with a save and the # of monsters with a save and formed a "share" for each type of save. I had to expand the rarity scores a bit to encompass the wide range.

On a Very Rare (1) - Rare (2) - Uncommon (3) - Common (4) - Very Common (5) and Setback (1) - Dangerous (2) - Deadly (3) scale:

Strength
Rarity: Uncommon (14% share)
Damage: Dangerous (usually does or facilitates substantial damage)
Control: Setback (basically limited to prone, restrained, and knocked around)

Dexterity
Rarity: Common (22% share)
Damage: Deadly (the definitive blasting save)
Control: Setback (often doesn't have rider effects at all; occasionally prone, restrained, and knocked around)

Constitution
Rarity: Very Common (35% share)
Damage: Deadly (the secondary blasting save, plus various horrible things like poison)
Control: Dangerous (nasty debilitating status effects, but they're not too hard to clear)

Intelligence
Rarity: Very Rare (3% share)
Damage: Dangerous (damage is usually a secondary effect)
Control: Deadly (includes devastating hard-to-clear status effects that can easily kill you—or worse)

Wisdom
Rarity: Common (22% share)
Damage: Setback (most saves don't do any damage)
Control: Deadly (includes all the best fight-enders and hard control effects in the game)

Charisma
Rarity: Very Rare (5% share)
Damage: Setback (almost never does damage)
Control: Deadly (usually shuts you down for an entire fight, often with no possible countermeasure)

In conclusion:
Constitution (10) >> Dexterity/Wisdom (8) >> Strength/Intelligence (6) > Charisma (5)

Thanks for that analysis.

I want to highlight one weird and deadly interaction for Dex/Control: if you fail a Dex save vs. a beholder's petrification ray, you are Restrained, and you will turn to stone next turn if you fail another Dex save... which you make at disadvantage for being Restrained.

Also, the consequences of a failed Charisma or Intelligence save are IMO worse than failed Wisdom saves. The worst failed Wisdom save I can think of is for Dominate Monster, which turns you temporarily against your friends until you break the caster's concentration/whatever. That's bad, but the hardest of hard control effects is possession (ghosts, Tsucora quori, Hashalaq quori, Kalaraq quori, a wizard with Magic Jar, Intellect Devourers) which not only doesn't give you repeated saves but also doesn't rely on concentration, and in some cases is irreversible without a Wish. And those horrible hard control effects are mostly Cha with a little bit of Int, no Wis.

If there's any way to rate something as worse than Deadly, Charisma/Control and Int/Control probably both deserve it.

[Deathtongue]

If there's any way to rate something as worse than Deadly, Charisma/Control and Int/Control probably both deserve it.Disagree, because Protection from Evil and Good is a hard counter to every one of your possession effects except for Magic Jar. And Magic Jar is completely ineffective in combat anyway, to the point where I would hesitate to cast it with a Wish or Tome of the Stilled Tongue.

If we're going to try to determine the gap in lethality between Wisdom Saves and Intelligence/Charisma saves like that, we should also examine counters and practicality. For example, in that spell list LudicSavant posted I as a PC would only be afraid of CHA saves from the spells of Banishment, Divine Word, Forcecage, and Symbol. And Divine Word has a relatively easy hard counter (plug your ears with your Interact With Object action) if you're aware you're facing a high-level divine caster and you get a round to realize what's going on before you fall below the hp threshold.

[MaxWilson]

Disagree, because Protection from Evil and Good is a hard counter to every one of your possession effects except for Magic Jar.

More of a squishy counter than a hard counter, since it doesn't end possession, it just prevents it if you precast the spell. And it has an short duration, 1 minute (concentration).

Where did the sudden mention of Wish come from? There's a *lot* of things I would hesitate to use a Wish for, but wouldn't want to happen to me either. Wish (Feeblemind) for one.


For example, in that spell list LudicSavant posted I as a PC would only be afraid of CHA saves from the spells of Banishment, Divine Word, Forcecage, and Symbol. And Divine Word has a relatively easy hard counter (plug your ears with your Interact With Object action) if you're aware you're facing a high-level divine caster and you get a round to realize what's going on before you fall below the hp threshold.

So you're not afraid of Magic Jar but you are afraid of Divine Word and Banishment? That's interesting.

[Tanarii]

One thing with saving throws is that enemy spellcasters are generally reasonably intelligent, and generally have a choice both of targets and of which spell to use. So it's advantageous to have proficiency in saves you wouldn't be expected to be proficient in. A spellcaster is likely to target the guy with the big axe with a Wis save spell, but probably won't bother with it against the guy in the dress and pointy hat. For the guy in the pointy hat, the enemy is more likely to use something with a Con save, which they wouldn't try against the axe guy.
I don't think I've seen a PC Wizard in a pointy hat and robes since Basic. :smallamused:

Edit: as an actual counter point, how does the enemy know if it's a warlock, wizard or sorcerer? How about Paladin or Fighter? They have different strong saves and primary attributes. Are Pc classes that well known in-universe that enemies can identify them on sight and know which weak saves they have?

Or is this just the DM targeting known weak saves? (I'm fine with that btw.)

[Dork_Forge]

More of a squishy counter than a hard counter, since it doesn't end possession, it just prevents it if you precast the spell. And it has an short duration, 1 minute (concentration).


Protection from Evil and Good has a 10 minute duration.

[MaxWilson]

Protection from Evil and Good has a 10 minute duration.

Never noticed that before, thanks.

[Chronos]

No, the enemy can't always tell the difference between a sorcerer and a wizard, or between a fighter and a paladin. But most warrior-types have poor Wis saves, and most spellcaster types have good Wis saves, so absent any other information, that's what an enemy is probably going to assume. And yes, sometimes that assumption will be wrong: That's why I said that having unexpected strong saves is a benefit for those classes.

As for NPC spellcasters being able to change out their spells, keep in mind that what spells they prepare is part of what goes into the CR calculation. The module I'm running right now has an NPC that casts as a 7th-level wizard, and is CR 2. That made me do a double-take at first, but the character is a pacifist, and nearly all of his prepared spells are non-combat (the only offensive spell he has is Suggestion). If, for some reason, he had a change of heart and decided to pack combat spells, he'd be way too strong for level 2 characters to deal with, but he also wouldn't be CR 2 any more.

[Zuras]

For a proper analysis, looking at the raw numbers in the books seems misleading.

To run an actual analysis you would basically need game logs from a representative sample of campaigns, which isn’t really possible. The closest thing we could reasonably do is survey players for what saves they remember a PC dying or nearly dying from, and the level or at least tier it occurred at.

Personal PC fatalities:
Con: L9, Finger of Death
Dex: L6, Meteor Swarm (probably should be Killer DM, not save, in this case)
Int: L13, Mind Flayers

Close Calls:
Con: Cold Damage in Tier 2- so many Cones of Cold from Mages and Oni. Poison breath weapons in Tier 2 as well. Spellcaster and Undead effects doing massive necrotic damage. Banshee wails. In Tier 3, lots of attempts to recover from Power Word Stun.

Dex: Massive damage spells & spell-likes, principally Meteor Swarm and the Death Knight’s Hellfire Orb. A few Dex saves in T1 to avoid falling off cliffs. I’ve also seen multiple allies disintegrated by Beholders (Zombie beholders in Tier 2 are especially prone to this).

Int: Intellect Devourers, Mind Flayers and spellcasters with Psychic Scream have all come close to killing my PCs.

75% of my 5e time a a player has been as a Druid, Cleric or Paladin, so I don’t have many failed Wis Save stories, and I always prepared Greater Restoration for the inevitable failed fighter saves at Tier 3+.

[Unavenger]

From the spells analysis, we can conclude that certain saves are slightly more important for PVP that no-one does much in this edition than for PVM which everyone does in this edition. I don't, however, think there should be much change in the actual valuation of the saves, certainly not to the effect of assuming that one spell is equivalent to one monster in terms of how important the save is!

[MaxWilson]

As for NPC spellcasters being able to change out their spells, keep in mind that what spells they prepare is part of what goes into the CR calculation. The module I'm running right now has an NPC that casts as a 7th-level wizard, and is CR 2. That made me do a double-take at first, but the character is a pacifist, and nearly all of his prepared spells are non-combat (the only offensive spell he has is Suggestion). If, for some reason, he had a change of heart and decided to pack combat spells, he'd be way too strong for level 2 characters to deal with, but he also wouldn't be CR 2 any more.

According to the MM page 10, changing spells does not change the challenge rating. Besides, CR doesn't take into account which ability scores a monster's saves target anyway. A DC 16 Wis save and a DC 16 Str save result in identical CR calculations.


For a proper analysis, looking at the raw numbers in the books seems misleading.

To run an actual analysis you would basically need game logs from a representative sample of campaigns, which isn’t really possible.

For the record, I 100% agree that raw book numbers are misleading and that there are better ways to do the sampling. Furthermore a single static analysis isn't really useful anyway, because each DM's campaign is different. The ideal analysis IMO would be interactive, with a UI reminiscent of kobold.club: you describe what mixes and quantities of monsters seem to represent your DM's style, and how many PCs are in your party, then it generates thousands of Medium-Deadly encounters for each level 1-20 and shows you what sorts of nasty effects you're most likely to fall prey to for any given build, letting you sort, filter, pivot, and drill down as appropriate. How much does a Yuan-ti Paladin's Magic Resistance or Aura of Protection really help you compared to a Berserker's Mindless Rage, in a campaign where PCs are usually outnumbered by mobs of orcs and star spawn, etc.? The tool ideally should let you explore the question interactively, maybe even showing you sample combats until you get the feel for what's what.

[Deathtongue]

So you're not afraid of Magic Jar but you are afraid of Divine Word and Banishment? That's interesting.
Divine Word: PCs have, for their CR, proportionately fewer hit points than monsters. Especially if the spellcaster is part of a group, it's not hard to knock down 2 or 3 PCs down to the Danger Zone level for hp.

Banishment: Cast at base level, it's not that big of a deal. The problem comes when the monsters upcast it. If they cast it out of a level 6 or 7 spell slot and just leaves your party with two PCs, you can be in a whole heap of trouble. Especially if the spellcaster is part of a group.

Magic Jar: Magic Jar just has too many hoops to jump through to make the possession effect viable on the battlefield. Even if you have it precast, there's the question of the viability of your current body. What are you inhabiting initially? Higher-CR humanoids don't grow on trees. And if you pick something more common like, say, a Thug you run the risk of being killed instantly if you lose initiative to a stray fireball or Stone Giant boulder. But let's say you managed to Magic Jar something reasonably sturdy like a Veteran. First of all, you need to make arrangements to carry both the crystal and your original body with you unless your DM agrees to RAW Death Ward cheese. Then when you find something you want to possess, you need to spend an action to get back to the crystal before you can do further possessing. But then it creates another token on the battlefield. If you chose something chaff like a Scout, it's not a big problem aside from exposing you to a lot of pre-cast risk. If you chose something sturdier like an Assassin, you might be in a whole heap of trouble.

Magic Jar becomes kinda-sorta viable if your DM allows you to possess a second creature without returning to the crystal, therefore placing multiple souls in it. I strongly doubt this is RAI, because then it becomes a repeatable CHA-based save-or-die. And also opens up the loophole of allowing you to control multiple soulless bodies at once.

It's just not a spell I would be afraid of as a PC. If the DM really wanted to screw the party over with possession, they have better options both RAW and RAI.

[Deathtongue]

For a proper analysis, looking at the raw numbers in the books seems misleading.

To run an actual analysis you would basically need game logs from a representative sample of campaigns, which isn’t really possible. The closest thing we could reasonably do is survey players for what saves they remember a PC dying or nearly dying from, and the level or at least tier it occurred at.I generally don't like anecdotal data, but I definitely noticed a large spike in INT saving throws in Adventurer's League after Xanathar's came out. I got my Bladesinger to level 15 (who played Storm King's Thunder + Tales from the Yawning Portal pre-Xanthar's) without seeing a single Intelligence-based saving throw, while my Sorceradin (who played in a post-Xanathar's world) faced like five of them before level 10.

[MaxWilson]

Divine Word: PCs have, for their CR, proportionately fewer hit points than monsters. Especially if the spellcaster is part of a group, it's not hard to knock down 2 or 3 PCs down to the Danger Zone level for hp.

Banishment: Cast at base level, it's not that big of a deal. The problem comes when the monsters upcast it. If they cast it out of a level 6 or 7 spell slot and just leaves your party with two PCs, you can be in a whole heap of trouble. Especially if the spellcaster is part of a group.

Magic Jar: Magic Jar just has too many hoops to jump through to make the possession effect viable on the battlefield. Even if you have it precast, there's the question of the viability of your current body. What are you inhabiting initially? Higher-CR humanoids don't grow on trees. And if you pick something more common like, say, a Thug you run the risk of being killed instantly if you lose initiative to a stray fireball or Stone Giant boulder. But let's say you managed to Magic Jar something reasonably sturdy like a Veteran. First of all, you need to make arrangements to carry both the crystal and your original body with you unless your DM agrees to RAW Death Ward cheese. Then when you find something you want to possess, you need to spend an action to get back to the crystal before you can do further possessing. But then it creates another token on the battlefield. If you chose something chaff like a Scout, it's not a big problem aside from exposing you to a lot of pre-cast risk. If you chose something sturdier like an Assassin, you might be in a whole heap of trouble.

Magic Jar becomes kinda-sorta viable if your DM allows you to possess a second creature without returning to the crystal, therefore placing multiple souls in it. I strongly doubt this is RAI, because then it becomes a repeatable CHA-based save-or-die. And also opens up the loophole of allowing you to control multiple soulless bodies at once.

It's just not a spell I would be afraid of as a PC. If the DM really wanted to screw the party over with possession, they have better options both RAW and RAI.

Your analysis just doesn't make any sense. If you're afraid of being banished for 1 minute, you should be more afraid of being possessed by Magic Jar and forced to attack the other PCs, but for some reason you... start talking about the downsides if a PC uses it to possess a Thug. What? And then you use that to conclude that you're not afraid of it, when you haven't even examined what happens if you fail your save against it.

Divine Word save failure: maybe nothing, maybe deafening, blindness, stunning for up to an hour, maybe death, all depending on how low your HP are.

Banishment save failure: absence and incapacitation for 1 minute, if you're on your home plane.

Magic Jar save failure: absence and the bad guy controls your body until you die or the spell ends.

Perhaps your opinion will change someday when your party Barbarian casts Hold Person V on the rest of the party out of the blue just as a bunch of bad guy minions attack.

[Tanarii]

No, the enemy can't always tell the difference between a sorcerer and a wizard, or between a fighter and a paladin. But most warrior-types have poor Wis saves, and most spellcaster types have good Wis saves, so absent any other information, that's what an enemy is probably going to assume. And yes, sometimes that assumption will be wrong: That's why I said that having unexpected strong saves is a benefit for those classes.Not even sometimes. A large amount of the time. A quick scan of MM NPCs show that spellcasters are not proficient in wisdom saves more often than not, and some non-casters are at about the same frequency. And NPC casters are what the majority of the world is made of, so that's what other NPCs will expect to be the norm.

Certainly if you see someone wielding divine magic in particular you might know to avoid a Wis save just because it's always Wis-based.

Physical attributes are a different matter. They're probably perceivable regardless of the way you dress.


From the spells analysis, we can conclude that certain saves are slightly more important for PVP that no-one does much in this edition than for PVM which everyone does in this edition. I don't, however, think there should be much change in the actual valuation of the saves, certainly not to the effect of assuming that one spell is equivalent to one monster in terms of how important the save is!
NPC spellcasters are a thing. How often your DM chooses to use them is a different matter. But they're built right into the MM and other monster supplements.

I liked to use them for the occasional demon/devil summoning cults or Wicca/shaman for humanoid tribes. But they weren't as common IMC as others here have seemed to indicate they use them as DMs or run into them as Players.

[DrKerosene]

Spells not listed here do not have saves.

Yes, I was going to ask if illusion spells should be included in some way, what with their skill checks instead of saves.

Not that I expect 1-2% being shuffled around to affect the current rating.

[Deathtongue]

Your analysis just doesn't make any sense. If you're afraid of being banished for 1 minute, you should be more afraid of being possessed by Magic Jar and forced to attack the other PCs, but for some reason you... start talking about the downsides if a PC uses it to possess a Thug. What? And then you use that to conclude that you're not afraid of it, when you haven't even examined what happens if you fail your save against it.So let's go over the difficulties of using Magic Jar as a possession engine in combat.

It has a minute casting time, so it only works for combat-possession if you precast it on some other humanoid.
So what humanoid are you pre-casting it on? Finding humanoids shouldn't be too hard, the problem is that you'd mostly be getting CR 1/2 chaff that runs a huge risk of being instant-killed. You might get lucky and find a Knight or an Assassin, but they don't grow on trees.
Once you are in the new body, you need to make arrangements to bring your original body with you unless you're okay with being dead-dead if something goes wrong. You know, like copping a stray Dispel Magic or Beholder eye-beam. Even being dead-dead from hitting 0 hp the first time is a huge concern since RAW (and probably RAI) NPCs who reach 0 hit points for the first time are dead, not dying. Again, not a trivial logistical problem to deal with.
So once you're on the battlefield in your appropriate body, you first need to spend your action to return your soul to the crystal and return the soul to the person you possessed. You now have a hostile unit out on the field. If you picked something sturdier, you now have an extra combatant to deal with.
Then you need to spend ANOTHER action to possess something else out on the field.
Even if you make arrangements to bring your body and your host body dies, you now need to make a Charisma saving throw. If you were a Bard with Magical Secrets, you may be okay, but if in the much more likely case you're an NPC or PC wizard, you're now having to make a DC 16-19+ Charisma saving throw not to die anyway. Even if you took your first level as a Hexblade Warlock, have fun with that.


It's just not a practical spell to use towards that end.



Divine Word save failure: maybe nothing, maybe deafening, blindness, stunning for up to an hour, maybe death, all depending on how low your HP are.
Divine Word is not a very good spell in PC hands, true. The monsters you'd like to spend a level 7 spell slot on, if you manage to get them below 41 hit points, you may as well just kill with hit point damage. I could only see it being useful in very limited circumstances, such as softening up a room of frost giants with a couple of fireballs.

Against PCs, however, Divine Word becomes a lot more scary. A level 13 Fighter with 16 CON can expect to have 121 hit points. A level 13 wizard with 14 CON can expect to have 80 hit points. Being below the danger threshold in hit points for this spell is a real possibility, especially because it's a bonus action.


Banishment save failure: absence and incapacitation for 1 minute, if you're on your home plane.Yes, and Banishment can be upcast to get more targets. Let's say that a Mummy Lord used Banishment to take out 2-3 of your party members. Then ganks the 2-3 people who didn't get banished before it loses concentration -- quite likely since it has a +8 saving throw bonus to concentration checks and good saving throws + Magic Resistance against a lot of incapacitation effects. Why would you NOT scared of this spell?

[NorthernPhoenix]

Divine Word: PCs have, for their CR, proportionately fewer hit points than monsters. Especially if the spellcaster is part of a group, it's not hard to knock down 2 or 3 PCs down to the Danger Zone level for hp.

Banishment: Cast at base level, it's not that big of a deal. The problem comes when the monsters upcast it. If they cast it out of a level 6 or 7 spell slot and just leaves your party with two PCs, you can be in a whole heap of trouble. Especially if the spellcaster is part of a group.

Magic Jar: Magic Jar just has too many hoops to jump through to make the possession effect viable on the battlefield. Even if you have it precast, there's the question of the viability of your current body. What are you inhabiting initially? Higher-CR humanoids don't grow on trees. And if you pick something more common like, say, a Thug you run the risk of being killed instantly if you lose initiative to a stray fireball or Stone Giant boulder. But let's say you managed to Magic Jar something reasonably sturdy like a Veteran. First of all, you need to make arrangements to carry both the crystal and your original body with you unless your DM agrees to RAW Death Ward cheese. Then when you find something you want to possess, you need to spend an action to get back to the crystal before you can do further possessing. But then it creates another token on the battlefield. If you chose something chaff like a Scout, it's not a big problem aside from exposing you to a lot of pre-cast risk. If you chose something sturdier like an Assassin, you might be in a whole heap of trouble.

Magic Jar becomes kinda-sorta viable if your DM allows you to possess a second creature without returning to the crystal, therefore placing multiple souls in it. I strongly doubt this is RAI, because then it becomes a repeatable CHA-based save-or-die. And also opens up the loophole of allowing you to control multiple soulless bodies at once.

It's just not a spell I would be afraid of as a PC. If the DM really wanted to screw the party over with possession, they have better options both RAW and RAI.

Yes, like using Planeshift, which is effectively CHA Save Or Die for the vast majority of characters. I don't think i could actually do that to a player in actual play just because it's such a **** move.

[Nifft]

Yes, like using Planeshift, which is effectively CHA Save Or Die for the vast majority of characters. I don't think i could actually do that to a player in actual play just because it's such a **** move.

Player casts Table Shift.

[MaxWilson]

So let's go over the difficulties of using Magic Jar as a possession engine in combat.*snip*

You're wrong about some of those difficulties (don't need a weak humanoid to possess, don't need to bring your body with you) but none of that even matters because you (again) completely ignored what happens when a monster casts Magic Jar on you.


Yes, and Banishment can be upcast to get more targets. Let's say that a Mummy Lord used Banishment to take out 2-3 of your party members. Then ganks the 2-3 people who didn't get banished before it loses concentration -- quite likely since it has a +8 saving throw bonus to concentration checks and good saving throws + Magic Resistance against a lot of incapacitation effects. Why would you NOT scared of this spell?

Yeah, that sounds moderately bad. Since you apparently blew your Counterspell roll against the mummy, now you have to either defeat the mummy with the 2-3 PCs who weren't banished, or break his concentration (time to pull out your nova spells like Hexblade's Curse + Magic Missile V for 56 HP of damage), or if you can't do that to capture him in a Wall of Force or fall back for a minute via Dimension Door until Banishment ends.

Now imagine that the battle started with a Magic Jar attempt instead, from e.g. a Nagpa. Let's conservatively assume that the Nagpa-in-your-Barbarian's body was immediately detected as a bodysnatcher by your party Rogue with Insight Expertise and a lucky roll, and so didn't get surprise. The exact same Banishment spell now leaves you with 1-2 PCs instead, and even if you break his concentration you're still down by one PC. Even if you win the fight you're *still* down a PC, and if he teleports away instead you're probably down a PC permanently unless you can hunt him down.

Yeah, that sounds worse than Banishment.

(You figure out afterward that the Nagpa's Magic Jar was the medium-sized emerald which he snatched up before teleporting away. While you were exploring the treasure room, he was deciding which PC's body he wanted most.)

[Agent-KI7KO]

intelligence has become noticeably more common of a saving throw both with adventure design (dammit, AL, stop using Mind Flayers in T2) and post-Xanathar's.

I play in AL. I can vouch for this. For three weeks in a row we’ve had to rout from floor one of DotMM because 8 INT characters kept needing Greater Restoration.

[Deathtongue]

You're wrong about some of those difficulties (don't need a weak humanoid to possess, don't need to bring your body with you) but none of that even matters because you (again) completely ignored what happens when a monster casts Magic Jar on you.

1) Unless you have True Polymorph, you can't just snap your fingers and have an appropriately meaty humanoid victim at your convenience. Sure, if you're in a town, you have plenty of weak humanoid fodder to pick from, but if you want something with some more bulk than a Thug it may not be available.

2) You don't HAVE to bring your body but if you know what's good for you then you will. Imagine if someone casts Dispel Magic on you. You'll be dead-dead if your body isn't close by. Or, heck, you might just die by one of the normal ways. It's not a big deal if your body is there because someone can just cast Revivify or even use Death Ward on you -- then you can jump back into the adventure. However, what happens if you're dead-dead and your body is way back in town? What then?

3) I ignored what happens when a monster casts Magic Jar on me because it's a 1-minute casting time. The only way it's a concern in combat is if they precast it, and if they want to go that route there's a bunch of logistical hoops for the monster to jump through.


Yeah, that sounds moderately bad. Since you apparently blew your Counterspell roll against the mummy, now you have to either defeat the mummy with the 2-3 PCs who weren't banished, or break his concentration (time to pull out your nova spells like Hexblade's Curse + Magic Missile V for 56 HP of damage), or if you can't do that to capture him in a Wall of Force or fall back for a minute via Dimension Door until Banishment ends.Let's not get too caught up in the Mummy Lord itself -- the point I'm trying to make is that Banishment cast out of a level 5 or higher spell slot can end really badly for a PC party. Take your pick of Mage, Mind Flayer Arcanists, Alhoons, one of the various flavors of wizard or Warlock in Volo's, soforth. Monsters that could use multi-target Banishment start showing up as early as CR4, and if they're in monster configurations more complex than 'one boss monster in a small chamber' splitting the party can very quickly end in a TPK.


Now imagine that the battle started with Magic Jar attempt instead, from e.g. a Nagpa.Let's not, it makes the battle too easy.

[MaxWilson]

1) Unless you have True Polymorph, you can't just snap your fingers and have an appropriately meaty humanoid victim at your convenience. Sure, if you're in a town, you have plenty of weak humanoid fodder to pick from, but if you want something with some more bulk than a Thug it may not be available.

2) I ignored what happens when a monster casts Magic Jar on me because it's a 1-minute casting time. The only way it's a concern in combat is if they precast it, and if they want to go that route there's a bunch of logistical hoops for the monster to jump through.

The monster just stays in the gem, which it could pre-place in a treasure room (per the Nagpa scenario) or just put in an amulet hung around the neck of a minion.

Response to edit:


2) You don't HAVE to bring your body but if you know what's good for you then you will. Imagine if someone casts Dispel Magic on you. You'll be dead-dead if your body isn't close by. Or, heck, you might just die by one of the normal ways. It's not a big deal if your body is there because someone can just cast Revivify or even use Death Ward on you -- then you can jump back into the adventure. However, what happens if you're dead-dead and your body is way back in town? What then?

Why do you keep changing the subject to PCs casting Magic Jar? (And you just answered your own question anyway: Death Ward and Clone don't require your body to be nearby, and you can also True Polymorph your body into a pebble or something if you do want to keep it close by.)

[Deathtongue]

The monster just stays in the gem, which it could pre-place in a treasure room (per the Nagpa scenario) or just put in an amulet hung around the neck of a minion.And if they know what's good for them they'll have their body close by, which is another logistical problem. Being instant-killed by a Dispel Magic or an Anti-Magic Field is just embarrassing.

[MaxWilson]

And if they know what's good for them they'll have their body close by, which is another logistical problem. Being instant-killed by a Dispel Magic or an Anti-Magic Field is just embarrassing.

Dispel Magic would have to target the gem, which means they'd have to know in advance which gem to target, so Anti-Magic Field is the more serious threat.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I get the impression that you play in a campaign where monsters constantly do things that aren't good for them. How often do you see monsters make a tactical retreat from combat and come back with crushing reinforcements instead of dying uselessly in an encounter that's lopsided in favor of the PCs? How often do monsters in your game divide their forces into multiple "encounters" instead of crushing the PCs as one cohesive force?

Inviting defeat in detail and attacking a superior force is infinitely more stupid than not having contingencies for Anti-Magic Field.

[Deathtongue]

Dispel Magic would have to target the gem, which means they'd have to know in advance which gem to target, so Anti-Magic Field is the more serious threat.Dispel Magic can target magical effects, objects, and creatures. Magic Jar is one of those weird spells, like Astral Projection, where there are multiple points of vulnerability for Dispel Magic.


Correct me if I'm wrong, but I get the impression that you play in a campaign where monsters constantly do things that aren't good for them.

Look, even if a monster is being played as a tactical ninja, I have a hard time seeing a 'smart' monster using the spell in the manner you described. In addition to all of the vulnerabilities and logistical problems I mentioned -- as a DM, Magic Jar puts you at an action disadvantage. Or to put it another way, say you're a Diviner from Volo's and you have a Champion as your lieutenant. You could shore up your squishiness as a Diviner and use the body of your Champion lieutenant as your host.

Or you could just fight alongside your Champion and use some other spell.

Magic Jar would only be tactically useful if, say, Brickface McBarbarian stumbled into your lair a month ago and you Magic Jar'd him. Brickface is a heroic NG barbarian, so there's no chance of him willingly fighting alongside you. But you'd really like the bulk, so Brickface it is. Your real body is being kept on life support in your laboratory in a hidden panel, such that when Brickface's body dies you can just Dimension Door your way back into your lab.

But if you're jumping through all of those narrative hoops with no more justification than 'I'm the DM, and I declare there's a convenient NG-aligned Brickface for the wizard to possess'... why even bother? You're the DM, you can just say that your wizard researched some super-special version of Magic Jar that can be cast as an action and makes the original body disappear.

[MaxWilson]

Look, even if a monster is being played as a tactical ninja, I have a hard time seeing a 'smart' monster using the spell in the manner you described. In addition to all of the vulnerabilities and logistical problems I mentioned -- as a DM, Magic Jar puts you at an action disadvantage. Or to put it another way, say you're a Diviner from Volo's and you have a Champion as your lieutenant. You could shore up your squishiness as a Diviner and use the body of your Champion lieutenant as your host.

Or you could just fight alongside your Champion and use some other spell.

You just keep repeating the same old debunked points over and over again, ignoring the better ways of doing things.

How about instead you plant the gem somewhere that lets you take over the body of one of the PCs, and then lead them into a battle with your Champion lieutenant, and then stab the PCs in the back? You can still use some other spell, but why not do it from the body of the hulking PC Barbarian?


Magic Jar would only be tactically useful if, say, Brickface McBarbarian stumbled into your lair a month ago and you Magic Jar'd him. Brickface is a heroic NG barbarian, so there's no chance of him willingly fighting alongside you. But you'd really like the bulk, so Brickface it is. Your real body is being kept on life support in your laboratory in a hidden panel, such that when Brickface's body dies you can just Dimension Door your way back into your lab.

Or you could, y'know, use your intelligence and divinations and minions to capture one of the PCs prior to backstabbing them. Maybe that's better than a frontal assault on the PCs in your own frail body.

Plus there's a chance then that even if the Barbarian gets killed you'll be able to take over another PC and do it again.


But if you're jumping through all of those narrative hoops with no more justification than 'I'm the DM, and I declare there's a convenient NG-aligned Brickface for the wizard to possess'... why even bother? You're the DM, you can just say that your wizard researched some super-special version of Magic Jar that can be cast as an action and makes the original body disappear.

That sounds too much like cheating. It's important to play by the same rules the players play by, so they have a chance to figure out what's going on.

[Deathtongue]

Why do you keep changing the subject to PCs casting Magic Jar?Why? Does Magic Jar not take a minute of casting time if it's done by an NPC? The only way Magic Jar is a combat problem is if you precast it or you're using it through a Wish/Tome of the Stilled tongue. And if you precast it, you start to run into all of those other issues I mentioned of needing to have your body close by, losing action advantage, being vulnerable to Dispel Magic, needing to find an appropriate humanoid host, etc.


(And you just answered your own question anyway: Death Ward and Clone don't require your body to be nearby, and you can also True Polymorph your body into a pebble or something if you do want to keep it close by.)Death Ward will RAW stop you from dying if Magic Jar ends early and you're not close to your body -- but then you have to get back into the battle/adventure, so you need to have your body close-by anyway. Also, I don't think you're thinking through your True Polymorph idea. One of two things is going to happen.


If you cast True Polymorph on your body, you lose control of your host. Because 'you're' now a rock with no mental stats.
If the DM rules that True Polymorph doesn't affect your soul while it's away from your body, what are you going to do when you're forced back to your pebble-body? You're a dang pebble and now have no way of ending the effect under your own power.

[MaxWilson]

Why? Does Magic Jar not take a minute of casting time if it's done by an NPC? The only way Magic Jar is a combat problem is if you precast it or you're using it through a Wish/Tome of the Stilled tongue. And if you precast it, you start to run into all of those other issues I mentioned of needing to have your body close by, losing action advantage, being vulnerable to Dispel Magic, needing to find an appropriate humanoid host, etc.

Am I talking to a brick wall here? The only issue which is at all an issue is Dispel Magic. The other problems are created entirely by your insistence on doing things the hard way, by possessing a weak humanoid host when you don't need to. Maybe you shouldn't do that?

And BTW Dispel Magic has a chance to kill the bad guy, but it may also kill the PC if the gem is no longer within 100'. Might not be the best idea.


Death Ward will RAW stop you from dying if Magic Jar ends early and you're not close to your body -- but then you have to get back into the battle/adventure, so you need to have your body close-by anyway.

And there you go, talking about PCs again. (And still insisting on doing things the hard way, but I don't want to talk about PCs.)



Also, I don't think you're thinking through your True Polymorph idea. One of two things is going to happen.


If you cast True Polymorph on your body, you lose control of your host. Because 'you're' now a rock with no mental stats.
If the DM rules that True Polymorph doesn't affect your soul while it's away from your body, what are you going to do when you're forced back to your pebble-body? You're a dang pebble and now have no way of ending the effect under your own power.


Now instead of being a magic gem in an Anti-Magic Field next to a pebble that used to be a body, now you're a human holding a gem. Once you get out of the Anti-Magic Field you're back to being a magic gem next to a pebble.

[Deathtongue]

You just keep repeating the same old debunked points over and over again, ignoring the better ways of doing things.

How about instead you plant the gem somewhere that lets you take over the body of one of the PCs, and then lead them into a battle with your Champion lieutenant, and then stab the PCs in the back? You can still use some other spell, but why not do it from the body of the hulking PC Barbarian?Then the PC Barbarian cops a Dispel Magic and unless your body is nearby you die instantly. If you have Death Ward set up (which needs to be cast periodically, how are you doing that?) you just wake up in your own body with 1 hit point. Unless you're far away from the battlefield that's another logistical problem to deal with.


Or you could, y'know, use your intelligence and divinations and minions to capture one of the PCs prior to backstabbing them. Maybe that's better than a frontal assault on the PCs in your own frail body.I dunno man, that sounds like the DM is taking pity on me by turning them into a mustache-twirling villain. I thought we were talking about ways to play the NPC smart? I mean, if I had used my DM powers to concoct a scenario in which I had a low-Charisma Save PC helpless for a minute, I would just kill them and chop up and hide the body. Rather than give the PCs a relatively painless way (Dispel Magic + Revivify/whatever) to get their friend back.




That sounds too much like cheating. It's important to play by the same rules the players play by, so they have a chance to figure out what's going on.What an arbitrary objection. Using your DM powers to declare that the spellcaster has minions, divinations, binds, and the ability the separate the barbarian from the party from a minute is playing by the same rules, but coming up with a custom spell that's not even as scary as a Mass Suggestion or a Wall of Force is you not playing by the same rules?

[NorthernPhoenix]

That sounds too much like cheating. It's important to play by the same rules the players play by, so they have a chance to figure out what's going on.

That's absolutely not true. To demand "RAW Only!" is very much against the spirit of 5e. Now separately from this, the also DMG recommends the DM shouldn't "play to win" using their power, but that doesn't mean you can't make things more interesting. You can (but shouldn't!) give NPCs no save instant death powers. And you can also, with much less moral issue, give them powers that are generally appropriate for their CR. Giving a high level NPC what is essentially the Ghosts possession power but slightly changed is far from "cheating".

[Tanarii]

I dunno man, that sounds like the DM is taking pity on me by turning them into a mustache-twirling villain. I thought we were talking about ways to play the NPC smart? I mean, if I had used my DM powers to concoct a scenario in which I had a low-Charisma Save PC helpless for a minute, I would just kill them and chop up and hide the body. Rather than give the PCs a relatively painless way (Dispel Magic + Revivify/whatever) to get their friend back.

What an arbitrary objection. Using your DM powers to declare that the spellcaster has minions, divinations, binds, and the ability the separate the barbarian from the party from a minute is playing by the same rules, but coming up with a custom spell that's not even as scary as a Mass Suggestion or a Wall of Force is you not playing by the same rules?



It only takes an action to posses someone from the container. Not a minute.

[Deathtongue]

Am I talking to a brick wall here?I should be asking you that. You insist that I'm saying you need to find a weak humanoid to possess, while ignoring the part where I'm saying that strong humanoids don't grow on trees. If you're using your DM powers to declare that an appropriately meaty NPC is conveniently close by, then fine. Say so. But if you're 'playing by the same rules' as the PCs, there aren't convenient Champions and Archmages just lying around for evil PCs to possess, so what narrative reason would there be for NPC wizards? Besides DM parties.


And BTW Dispel Magic has a chance to kill the bad guy, but it will also kill the PC if the gem is no longer within 100'. Might not be the best idea.If you're going to body-jump from the gem to the host: "If another creature’s soul is in the container when it is destroyed, the creature’s soul returns to its body if the body is alive and within 100 feet. Otherwise, that creature dies.". I suppose it's possible for the minions to carve up the de-souled PC's body mid-combat or for the gem to be moved too far out of range of the body. But c'mon.



Now instead of being a magic gem in an Anti-Magic Field next to a pebble that used to be a body, now you're a human holding a gem.Then the body holding the gem goes dead and unconscious because of Anti-Magic Field. The PC kicks the gem away from the corpse with their free Interact with an Object action and then moves away from your temporarily-not-a-pebble body while still over the gem.

[MaxWilson]

Then the PC Barbarian cops a Dispel Magic and

You're assuming that:

(1) The PC wizard survived the initial backstab from the Barbarian-Bad Wizard;
(2) The PC wizard isn't distracted dealing with the Champion lieutenant;
(3) The PC wizard has both Dispel Magic and Counterspell prepared;
(4) The PC wizard has his reaction available for Counter-Counterspell--wasn't surprised, didn't Shield;
(5) The PC succeeds on the DC 16ish Intelligence check for Dispel Magic.

That's a lot of handwaving.


I dunno man, that sounds like the DM is taking pity on me by turning them into a mustache-twirling villain. I thought we were talking about ways to play the NPC smart? I mean, if I had used my DM powers to concoct a scenario in which I had a low-Charisma Save PC helpless for a minute

I think you mean "one action".


What an arbitrary objection. Using your DM powers to declare that the spellcaster has minions, divinations, binds, and the ability the separate the barbarian from the party from a minute is playing by the same rules, but coming up with a custom spell that's not even as scary as a Mass Suggestion or a Wall of Force is you not playing by the same rules?

Wait, so you expect "playing the NPC smart" not to include divinations and minions? No, you don't need to separate the Barbarian from the party. You just look the PCs over from inside your gem, pick the barbarian because he looks the beefiest, and spend an action to take over his body. (If you're a Diviner you may auto-succeed, otherwise you may have to pick a different target if the Barbarian somehow succeeds on his save.)

Magic Jar save failure is scarier than Divine Word or Banishment failure. QED.

[Deathtongue]

It only takes an action to posses someone from the container. Not a minute.It takes a minute to cast the spell originally. You can of course cast the spell ahead of time and then possess someone later, but then it has a whole host of logistical problems. They're not insurmountable, but with the number of hoops you need to jump through to make that effect of Magic Jar relevant you might as well just cast some other spell, especially since that spell can end real bad for you real fast if you cop a Dispel Magic without all of your ducks in a row.

[MaxWilson]

That's absolutely not true. To demand "RAW Only!" is very much against the spirit of 5e. Now separately from this, the also DMG recommends the DM shouldn't "play to win" using their power, but that doesn't mean you can't make things more interesting. You can (but shouldn't!) give NPCs no save instant death powers. And you can also, with much less moral issue, give them powers that are generally appropriate for their CR. Giving a high level NPC what is essentially the Ghosts possession power but slightly changed is far from "cheating".

Sorry, I should clarify:

It's important to play by the same rules the players play by, so they have a chance to figure out what's going on.

Better? It's a playstyle thing. If you're playing certain types of games it doesn't matter if the PCs and NPCs play by different rules.

[NorthernPhoenix]

Sorry, I should clarify:

It's important to play by the same rules the players play by, so they have a chance to figure out what's going on.

Better? It's a playstyle thing. If you're playing certain types of games it doesn't matter if the PCs and NPCs play by different rules.

My goal isn't to convince you to do otherwise personally, but to clarify for a third party reader. You can play whatever game you want, but since we're on the 5e forums, it should be clear this definitely isn't the expected default for 5e.

Custom powers (which are fine!) should generally follow the CR guidelines for saves and so on, but are otherwise unbound from the player spell-list.

[MaxWilson]

My goal isn't to convince you to do otherwise personally, but to clarify for a third party reader. You can play whatever game you want, but since we're on the 5e forums, it should be clear this definitely isn't the expected default for 5e.

Yep, 5E can be played both ways, hence the purple text.

[Tanarii]

It takes a minute to cast the spell originally. You can of course cast the spell ahead of time and then possess someone later, but then it has a whole host of logistical problems. They're not insurmountable, but with the number of hoops you need to jump through to make that effect of Magic Jar relevant you might as well just cast some other spell, especially since that spell can end real bad for you real fast if you cop a Dispel Magic without all of your ducks in a row.
Having a adjacent secret chamber to have an ally stash your body after you've cast the spell, when you've been given warning enemies are invading your lair, seems pretty standard fare for an enemy that has access to and plans to use Magic Jar. No, it's not an on the fly thing. But it's certainly right up the alley as far as something a BBEG would plan.

Now if your point is how often is that likely to happen in a single campaign, sure, that's a fairly reasonable objection.

[Skylivedk]

I don't get why Max' point is hard to get.

A monster caster with Magic Jar that knows the PC group is coming (maybe just from hearing the front guards/bait getting wrecked) would have ample time to set up the trap.

The main point being though: of course you'd rather fail a save against Banishment than against Magic Jar. You might fear Magic Jar less because you find it impractical to set up, but given the choice: roll a saving throw to be possessed/MJ'd or banished, I presume you'd pick banished.

@LudicSavant + MaxWilson: I'm curious to see what you find out. Especially I'm curious to the following:

A) how do the inflicted saving throws as cr progresses?

B) what are common effects of the throws in the different CR ranges?

C) what monster compositions can DMs use to have a sensible in-fiction mix of monsters targeting different defences (also seeing the changes across CR)

I might be one of the few founders I know who is more curious to pick up coding for DnD than for business. Thank you for the inspiration.

[Deathtongue]

Having a adjacent secret chamber to have an ally stash your body after you've cast the spell, when you've been given warning enemies are invading your lair, seems pretty standard fare for an enemy that has access to and plans to use Magic Jar. No, it's not an on the fly thing. But it's certainly right up the alley as far as something a BBEG would plan.
A monster caster with Magic Jar that knows the PC group is coming (maybe just from hearing the front guards/bait getting wrecked) would have ample time to set up the trap.You need to have more preparations than that. If you're expecting the PCs to kill you in your lair, you need a way to rejoin the fight or at least flee to safety once your host body kacks it. And unless your minion has access to Dimension Door themselves, how are they going to stash your body in a place where a PC can't find it?

Alternatively, you could just have a minion with Death Ward hang by your body and cast it on it every eight hours or so. That way you wouldn't have to worry about distance. This requires you to have a minion on babysitting duty (another DM declaration). Which even if you manage to take care of, leaves you with one final problem:

You need to have a contingency for what happens if you fail to possess a currently-living PC but you lose all of your lieutenants in the 'safe' battle. Otherwise the wizard can just, say, put the gem in their Secret Chest and call it a day. Then what happens?

Yes, with enough Batman-like prep time or DM declarations you can jump through all of those hoops. But, from both a game-balance, narrative, and even metafictional perspective -- why are you going through all that trouble just to get a 6th-level spell to work? Just so you can say that your NPCs don't use custom spells or items? Man, who gives a care? Who exactly benefits from your NPCs only using game effects available to PCs?

[Dork_Forge]

I'm not seeing the big fear of Magic Jar to be honest, it seems more like a spell forum folk like us hang on to as a game breaker/definer when it becomes available but in the given context of the scenario:

If you change a Nagpa to have Magic Jar (which tbh I don't even see the need for, that's one NASTY monster), Magic Jar is a pretty terrible strategy for it:

It'll now be in a body that will likely not as high an AC (19 isn't exactly a low threshold to beat like most Wizards) but also unless we're talking armourless and shieldless Barbarians the Nagpa just took away it's ability to cast spells... for what? Maybe more HP and better physical stats that will be irrelevant? It can't make use of any of the Barbarians class features, like proficiency with medium armor and shields, so it's a caster that now can't cast in a body that it can't make the most of without actual melee abilities.

So in this situation how is the posessed Barbarian (or insert other martial here) backstabbing the party in any meaningful way? Meanwhile it has no access to any of its conventional defenses (like... Counter Spell), that doesn't strike me as more Intelligent then just hiding invisibly and then attempting to paralyse the ENTIRE party as a BONUS ACTION.

You can skirt around issues with Magic Jar with racial profs and 1 level dips, but these monsters with access to it liekly won't have the same benefits unless you really want to stack the deck against the players.

The biggest legitimate threat I see from Magic Jar is the monster posessing the Wizard etc., depriving the party largely of it's magical countermeasures and likely not running into armor issues for the most part (unless said Wizard has dipped, gone Bladesinger or has racial prof).

As a monster spell it just isn't as scary in combat as it's being made to seem, in intrigue and sabotauge? Terrifying, but just combat... not seeing it.

[Deathtongue]

I'm not seeing the big fear of Magic Jar to be honest, it seems more like a spell forum folk like us hang on to as a game breaker/definer when it becomes available but in the given context of the scenario:

If you change a Nagpa to have Magic Jar (which tbh I don't even see the need for, that's one NASTY monster), Magic Jar is a pretty terrible strategy for it:Using Magic Jar as a combat-based Save-or-Suck just requires too many hoops to jump through. Are the hoops insurmountable? No, not with sufficient planning. Even so, the end result really isn't all that great. And if the spell goes badly for the caster, it can go REALLY badly. For example, what if someone in the party cast Fog Cloud or Darkness while you were in the soul crystal? You would be utterly hosed, especially if they did that near the end of combat.

I could see that being maybe a once-in-a-campaign thing, sure, just to spice things up. But it's just not that big of an ongoing concern. There's just too many countermeasures, too much setup, and too many special fail states. Compared to other CHA-based spells like Symbol, Forcecage, and Banishment? Magic Jar just isn't scary RAW, even if the user is Batman.

[MaxWilson]

@LudicSavant + MaxWilson: I'm curious to see what you find out. Especially I'm curious to the following:

A) how do the inflicted saving throws as cr progresses?

B) what are common effects of the throws in the different CR ranges?

C) what monster compositions can DMs use to have a sensible in-fiction mix of monsters targeting different defences (also seeing the changes across CR)

I might be one of the few founders I know who is more curious to pick up coding for DnD than for business. Thank you for the inspiration.

I definitely encourage you to do so. :) I don't know how to force a computer to calculate (C), and (B) is probably going to involve a mix of computer work and human work (computer displays relevant sentences, human reads the text and chooses the appropriate categorization from the list of existing effects, or adds a new one, computer stores the result somewhere) but it's definitely easier than doing the same work with a book and pen and paper. I'm not sure exactly what (A) refers to, can you please clarify?

Edit: maybe (C) would work as an interactive encounter-builder, like kobold.club. You select a desired encounter difficulty and a couple of monsters to start with, then it suggests additional monsters and tactics that are mechanically complementary, and you pick the ones that also complement the fiction. As if the computer were saying,

"Pardon me sir, I noticed that you've added a dozen hobgoblins to your encounter, which rely heavily on physical damage output. Might I suggest a Bone Naga, to threaten Dex/Lightning Bolt and Wis/Hold Person, or perhaps a handful of evil Pixies for their Polymorph, Sleep, Confusion, and other disabling spells targeting Str, Wis, and Int? Many patrons have also found Hobgoblin Devastators with Evard's Black Tentacles to be an effective force multiplier, since it denies actions, does damage, and effectively boosts the hobgoblins' anemic to-hit so their ferocious damage can come into play, and because other hobgoblins are immune and can freely enter the AoE to grapple or attack."

"I see you've chosen a Tyrannosaurus Rex, a ferocious and highly mobile predator. Would Monsieur care to add an AoE threat to the encounter as well in the form of a swarm of poisonous stinging bees?"

[Chronos]

One thing to keep in mind when comparing PCs vs. monsters casting Magic Jar is that fights are much more likely to happen on the monster's turf than on the PCs'. The monster doesn't need to haul their body around, because they can just leave it in the next room. They don't have to carry the gem with them; they can leave it in a treasure chest.

[Dork_Forge]

One thing to keep in mind when comparing PCs vs. monsters casting Magic Jar is that fights are much more likely to happen on the monster's turf than on the PCs'. The monster doesn't need to haul their body around, because they can just leave it in the next room. They don't have to carry the gem with them; they can leave it in a treasure chest.

The issue I believe was with a monster possessing a PC so the gem would need to be present though I think prof issue is a bigger hurdle to combat use than anything else.

[Deathtongue]

The issue I believe was with a monster possessing a PC so the gem would need to be present though I think prof issue is a bigger hurdle to combat use than anything else.That's the big problem I have with using this spell even as a cheesy CharOp Theorycraft bulk-adder. 5E D&D isn't very clear about the difference between a monster proficiency and a 'just because' number. For example, if my Necromancer uses Animate Dead to summon a skeleton, if I replace their broken scimitar with a fresh and shiny new scimitar, do they lose their proficiency bonus? If not, where do I find their proficiencies? Hell, if I want to replace their armor scraps with cotton uniforms, would their AC be 12 or 13?

Now imagine what a nightmare it would be now if a Wizard with Magic Jar possesses an NPC Warlord from the 5E DMG. Do I get legendary actions? Do my rolls suddenly get hosed because I'm in a body that's wearing armor I don't have proficiency with? Is the idea of proficiency even relevant for NPCs without class levels?

[Chronos]

The official answer for monster proficiency is that they're proficient with the gear they're described as having in their statblock, and if they instead use some other equipment, the DM decides whether they're proficient with it. How the DM decides that is not specified, but I'd assume that most monsters are proficient with items in the same category as what they're listed with (simple or martial weapons, and light, medium, or heavy armor), or, if they resemble a PC class, with the equipment that class is proficient with.

[stoutstien]

Has anyone ever looked at the amount of each effect each save has like how many of the wisdom saves cause fear and how many Cha saves are charmed based?

[Skylivedk]

I definitely encourage you to do so. :) I don't know how to force a computer to calculate (C), and (B) is probably going to involve a mix of computer work and human work (computer displays relevant sentences, human reads the text and chooses the appropriate categorization from the list of existing effects, or adds a new one, computer stores the result somewhere) but it's definitely easier than doing the same work with a book and pen and paper. I'm not sure exactly what (A) refers to, can you please clarify?

Edit: maybe (C) would work as an interactive encounter-builder, like kobold.club. You select a desired encounter difficulty and a couple of monsters to start with, then it suggests additional monsters and tactics that are mechanically complementary, and you pick the ones that also complement the fiction. As if the computer were saying,

"Pardon me sir, I noticed that you've added a dozen hobgoblins to your encounter, which rely heavily on physical damage output. Might I suggest a Bone Naga, to threaten Dex/Lightning Bolt and Wis/Hold Person, or perhaps a handful of evil Pixies for their Polymorph, Sleep, Confusion, and other disabling spells targeting Str, Wis, and Int? Many patrons have also found Hobgoblin Devastators with Evard's Black Tentacles to be an effective force multiplier, since it denies actions, does damage, and effectively boosts the hobgoblins' anemic to-hit so their ferocious damage can come into play, and because other hobgoblins are immune and can freely enter the AoE to grapple or attack."

"I see you've chosen a Tyrannosaurus Rex, a ferocious and highly mobile predator. Would Monsieur care to add an AoE threat to the encounter as well in the form of a swarm of poisonous stinging bees?"


You hit C) spot on. As for A), no wonder you are confused. The sentence lacked a word:
A) how do the inflicted saving throws as cr progresses?

->

A) how do the inflicted saving throws CHANGE as cr progresses?

Meaning: are some saves more important for low than high level characters? This also impacts choices of Res:Stat.

As for coding: it's always a question of time! I still want to relearn my Arabic and Polish, master my Portuguese and wrap up my skydiving licence... Plus do my own 5.5e, write some fan fiction in the universe of Worm, get my tango skills back to Argentinian levels and do Historical Martial Arts (2h Swords). And well, run a business that I love.

[LudicSavant]

A) how do the inflicted saving throws CHANGE as cr progresses?


One conclusion I can take from my current dataset is that Con saves are arguably *better* to target at low mook CR, especially since dex saves are subject to cover. Then get worse as CR increases.

[thereaper]

Which ones get worse as CR progresses? Con or Dex?

[LudicSavant]

Which ones get worse as CR progresses? Con or Dex?

Roughly speaking, the higher CR an enemy is, the more likely it's a bad idea to target their Constitution save.

[MrCharlie]

INT is basically almost always a good save to target, CON is bad if the target is large or bigger, DEX is good if the target is large or bigger, STR is the same as CON, and CHA is rarely worse than mediocre and sometimes a given (undead, elementals, and constructs typically have awful CHA).

In terms of saves to have; STR protects against prone and restraint, which is a mildly bad condition. DEX protections against damage and restraint, which is either mildly or moderately bad (and DEX is always good to have). CON protects against damage (mostly poisons), stunning, death magic, and paralysis, all really bad conditions. Wis protects against paralysis (yes, some are WIS and some are CON), mind control, a couple instant death effects, and occasional misc. mental effects, all incredibly bad conditions. INT protects against stunning, instant-lose mind-drain, and some mind contrl effects, all awful conditions. CHA protects against some charms, dimensional effects, and possession, alll incredibly awful effects.

In general, WIS and CHA can actually be worse than dying, INT can basically kill you, CON can either kill, do damage, or incapacitate you, DEX just does damage, and STR either moves you, knocks you prone, or restrains you. Given that terrain can do a boatload of damage, STR is kinduve like a sometime damage save and sometimes a movement reducer save. Thus, Wis, Cha, Int, Con, Dex, Str is the effect ranking. CON might be bumped slightly because concentration saves are basically saves for your action to be negated, sometimes after it would have done something and sometimes before.

(I'd also like to re-iterate how surprisingly awful CHA can be; it can turn you into the enemy or take you to another dimensional which means you can't be revived, both worse than mere death).

In terms of frequency, CON, DEX, WIS, STR, CHA, and INT is the order, with more recent printings putting INT, DEX, and WIS higher (INT is the only surprising one; otherwise some AOE damage always pops up, and some mental effect always gets added). We've seen new saves of every type, I'm just saying which are relative increases. CON is still miles and above king though; every necrotic effect or poison is CON, and there are a lot of undead and poisonous ****. Also concentration saves.

So in terms of frequency, CON, DEX, WIS, STR, and either CHA or INT depending on how much your DM draws from.

Combine the two rankings, and CON, WIS, DEX, CHA, INT, STR is how I woudl rank them, in order. CHA/INT mostly depends on the campaign, but either is awful if it comes up, and "Make an intelligence saving throw" has killed parties. "Make a charisma saving throw", on the other hand, has super killed characters.

[MaxWilson]

Wis protects against paralysis (yes, some are WIS and some are CON), mind control, a couple instant death effects, and occasional misc. mental effects, all incredibly bad conditions. INT protects against stunning, instant-lose mind-drain, and some mind contrl effects, all awful conditions. CHA protects against some charms, dimensional effects, and possession, alll incredibly awful effects.

In general, WIS and CHA can actually be worse than dying, INT can basically kill you, CON can either kill, do damage, or incapacitate you, DEX just does damage, and STR either moves you, knocks you prone, or restrains you. Given that terrain can do a boatload of damage, STR is kinduve like a sometime damage save and sometimes a movement reducer save. Thus, Wis, Cha, Int, Con, Dex, Str is the effect ranking.

I'm not following the ranking here. Which Wisdom save failures are worse than permanently possessed via Cha/Int failures?

[MrCharlie]

I'm not following the ranking here. Which Wisdom save failures are worse than permanently possessed via Cha/Int failures? None; there are just temporary charm effects that rank comparably. I should probably put CHA above WIS, you're right.

I don't know of any permanent INT takeovers though, but it's been a while since I've really delved into the mindflayer stuff. The few things I remember off the top of my head are stunning, permament stunning, brain death, a couple spells which remove your ability to discern friend from foe, a lotus-eater-machine that might have been adventure specific, and illusions.

[Wizard_Lizard]

I mean I normally think in terms of DEX (CON if spellcaster), CON (DEX if spellcaster), WIS (Mind control sucks). CHA (Don't want to get banished and whatever), STR (Helps in some situational stuff), INT (Only really useful against mind flayers). Maybe INT and STR are a little interchangeable.

[MaxWilson]

I don't know of any permanent INT takeovers though, but it's been a while since I've really delved into the mindflayer stuff. The few things I remember off the top of my head are stunning, permament stunning, brain death, a couple spells which remove your ability to discern friend from foe, a lotus-eater-machine that might have been adventure specific, and illusions.

I was thinking of Intellect Devourers. Devour Intellect + Body Thief as a followup. Technically Body Thief is an intelligence contest, not an intelligence save, but normally an Intellect Devourer isn't going to be able to sneak into your inn while you're asleep naturally, so that means Body Thief will rely on Devour Intellect (Int save) or an illithid's Mind Blast (also an Int save) to incapacitate the target so Body Thief can be used.

In other words, if you never fail an Intelligence saving throw you're pretty safe from Intellect Devourer possession.

Devour Intellect. The intellect devourer targets one creature it can see within 10 feet of it that has a brain. The target must succeed on a DC 12 Intelligence saving throw against this magic or take 11 (2d10) psychic damage. Also on a failure, roll 3d6: If the total equals or exceeds the target's Intelligence score, that score is reduced to 0. The target is stunned until it regains at least one point of Intelligence.

Body Thief. The intellect devourer initiates an Intelligence contest with an incapacitated humanoid within 5 feet of it that isn't protected by protection from evil and good. If it wins the contest, the intellect devourer magically consumes the target's brain, teleports into the target's skull, and takes control of the target's body. While inside a creature, the intellect devourer has total cover against attacks and other effects originating outside its host. The intellect devourer retains its Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores, as well as its understanding of Deep Speech, its telepathy, and its traits. It otherwise adopts the target's statistics. It knows everything the creature knew, including spells and languages.

If the host body dies, the intellect devourer must leave it. A protection from evil and good spell cast on the body drives the intellect devourer out. The intellect devourer is also forced out if the target regains its devoured brain by means of a wish. By spending 5 feet of its movement, the intellect devourer can voluntarily leave the body, teleporting to the nearest unoccupied space within 5 feet of it. The body then dies, unless its brain is restored within 1 round.

[MrCharlie]

I was thinking of Intellect Devourers. Devour Intellect + Body Thief as a followup. Technically Body Thief is an intelligence contest, not an intelligence save, but normally an Intellect Devourer isn't going to be able to sneak into your inn while you're asleep naturally, so that means Body Thief will rely on Devour Intellect (Int save) or an illithid's Mind Blast (also an Int save) to incapacitate the target so Body Thief can be used.

In other words, if you never fail an Intelligence saving throw you're pretty safe from Intellect Devourer possession.

Devour Intellect. The intellect devourer targets one creature it can see within 10 feet of it that has a brain. The target must succeed on a DC 12 Intelligence saving throw against this magic or take 11 (2d10) psychic damage. Also on a failure, roll 3d6: If the total equals or exceeds the target's Intelligence score, that score is reduced to 0. The target is stunned until it regains at least one point of Intelligence.

Body Thief. The intellect devourer initiates an Intelligence contest with an incapacitated humanoid within 5 feet of it that isn't protected by protection from evil and good. If it wins the contest, the intellect devourer magically consumes the target's brain, teleports into the target's skull, and takes control of the target's body. While inside a creature, the intellect devourer has total cover against attacks and other effects originating outside its host. The intellect devourer retains its Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores, as well as its understanding of Deep Speech, its telepathy, and its traits. It otherwise adopts the target's statistics. It knows everything the creature knew, including spells and languages.

If the host body dies, the intellect devourer must leave it. A protection from evil and good spell cast on the body drives the intellect devourer out. The intellect devourer is also forced out if the target regains its devoured brain by means of a wish. By spending 5 feet of its movement, the intellect devourer can voluntarily leave the body, teleporting to the nearest unoccupied space within 5 feet of it. The body then dies, unless its brain is restored within 1 round.
Oh, that's a good point! The only time I've ever used body thief ability was with a downed NPC, personally, as my groups tend to react to ID with extreme prejudice and they rarely get time to set up a one-two punch like that.

It was at the conclusion of Dragon heist, when an NPC possessed by an ID, Meloon WarDragon, comes in to "rescue" the party; in my group Jarlaxle was the bad guy, but it varies depending on season. Anyway, my players incapacitated Jarlaxle, but not before he killed WarDragon (no reason they would be friends), and I saw an opportunity for fun and gave the ID a stealth check to sneak over to the famous NPC and attempt to steal his body. They found it in the last second, but still!

[Deathtongue]

I'm not following the ranking here. Which Wisdom save failures are worse than permanently possessed via Cha/Int failures?I think this perspective focuses too much on how much a save screws a player versus how much it screws the party. Which is a major concern considering how much more frequent WIS/CON saves are than CHA/INT ones. One person getting Plane-shifted to another plane of existence is less likely to result in a TPK than a Fear that lasts for two rounds and nails three people. Even if the former is much more inconvenient for the individual PC.

Yeah, getting your brain eaten by an Intellect Devourer at low level really sucks and has no counterplay other than to roll a new character or get some DM pity. That still doesn't make INT saving throws, even post-Xanathar's, a concern that needs addressing for most parties, even 8 INT barbarians -- unlike Wisdom, where a badly-timed Fear or Hypnotic Pattern or even Slow can straight-up result in a TPK.

[MaxWilson]

I think this perspective focuses too much on how much a save screws a player versus how much it screws the party. Which is a major concern considering how much more frequent WIS/CON saves are than CHA/INT ones. One person getting Plane-shifted to another plane of existence is less likely to result in a TPK than a Fear that lasts for two rounds and nails three people.

Losing a PC permanently is worse than taking two rounds of opportunity attacks while everyone runs away.

[MrCharlie]

I think this perspective focuses too much on how much a save screws a player versus how much it screws the party. Which is a major concern considering how much more frequent WIS/CON saves are than CHA/INT ones. One person getting Plane-shifted to another plane of existence is less likely to result in a TPK than a Fear that lasts for two rounds and nails three people. Even if the former is much more inconvenient for the individual PC.

Yeah, getting your brain eaten by an Intellect Devourer at low level really sucks and has no counterplay other than to roll a new character or get some DM pity. That still doesn't make INT saving throws, even post-Xanathar's, a concern that needs addressing for most parties, even 8 INT barbarians -- unlike Wisdom, where a badly-timed Fear or Hypnotic Pattern or even Slow can straight-up result in a TPK.
Well, most monsters don't have spells and NPC spellcasters are prone to bull**** anyway.

That said-a Fear spell is unlikely to actually TPK the party, just the ones who save. Dominate person absolutely can TPK a party, as can other charm effects, if it hits someone with high DPS (or the main tank if the main-tank is enough of a juggernaut). Sometimes what's worst for a party is also what's worst for an individual player.

The main reason why plane shift is so awful, as a particular counter-example, is that there are destinations and characters who can never escape. I don't care how tough a Barbarian is, if he's sent to Carcari he's doomed, the ways are shut and he's not going to figure his way out easily. Given that it's worse than merely dying, that's a bad result. In combat, yes, plane-shift is merely 1 person down, but if it's worse than instantly killing someone....

[Deathtongue]

Losing a PC permanently is worse than taking two rounds of opportunity attacks while everyone runs away.
The main reason why plane shift is so awful, as a particular counter-example, is that there are destinations and characters who can never escape. I don't care how tough a Barbarian is, if he's sent to Carcari he's doomed, the ways are shut and he's not going to figure his way out easily.Not if you're fighting something highly damaging like, say, giants. While the party is sorting out their broken line, the monsters aren't just sitting there gloating. It's likely that someone, perhaps multiple people, is going to die in the time it takes people to recover their actions.

And this problem will get worse as the game goes on. Half of your party forfeiting a round or two against high-CR Team Monster can easily result in a surprise TPK. And TPKs are much harder to recover from than the barbarian being send to have a vacation in the Nine Hells.

[MaxWilson]

Not if you're fighting something highly damaging like, say, giants. While the party is sorting out their broken line, the monsters aren't just sitting there gloating. It's likely that someone, perhaps multiple people, is going to die in the time it takes people to recover their actions.

You're positing that the party is already only two rounds away from a ranged giant-boulder TPK even before Fear gets cast by some ally of the giants? If that's the case Fear isn't really responsible for the looming TPK. Your failure was whatever led to the situation where PCs are outnumbered by giants.

In that case, whoever makes their save against Fear needs to be running just as hard as those who do. Hopefully you planned ahead for how to retreat properly.


And this problem will get worse as the game goes on. Half of your party forfeiting a round or two against high-CR Team Monster can easily result in a surprise TPK. And TPKs are much harder to recover from than the barbarian being send to have a vacation in the Nine Hells.

If the Frost Giants somehow Plane Shift the Barbarian you're still going to have to run or TPK, but the difference is that even if you do run successfully... the Barbarian isn't coming back. That's worse than Fear.

[Dork_Forge]

You're positing that the party is already only two rounds away from a ranged giant-boulder TPK even before Fear gets cast by some ally of the giants? If that's the case Fear isn't really responsible for the looming TPK. Your failure was whatever led to the situation where PCs are outnumbered by giants.

In that case, whoever makes their save against Fear needs to be running just as hard as those who do. Hopefully you planned ahead for how to retreat properly.

I agree that it's already a very poor situation if multiple people are actually dropping in a two round period regardless of Fear effect, though that effect causing multiple deaths down the line wouldn't be unexpected. It accelerates damage through AoO and prolongs the life of the Giant, a situation where most of the party is hit by a debuff like that wouldn't be too unlikely to be the top of a death spiral.



If the Frost Giants somehow Plane Shift the Barbarian you're still going to have to run or TPK, but the difference is that even if you do run successfully... the Barbarian isn't coming back. That's worse than Fear.

Permantently losing the player is defintely worse in a lot of ways (especially since it's relocation not more easily rectified death... that probably says something about rez magic being common place) but the specific examples also need to be considered:

Fear is a 3rd level aoe that only requires a save, it's more common and more likely to have an effect but based on those things it's dangers are more single combat orientated that long term. If you make it through the encounter then you're fine.

Plane shift is 7th level, single target when used as a hostile action and requires not just a save but first requires an melee spell attack, it's a rare case where a completely mundane Fighter can actually step in to protect another from a spell (Protection style). Given that it potentially removes a player permanently it can most certainly have long term effects and can start a death spiral, but it's only targeting one creature and has two (three if you have a Counter Spell available, not unreasonable in tier 3) points of failure with more potential counter measures. It's high risk for very high reward but in that specific combat (even if it goes off) is not potentially as lethal as the knock on effect of most of the party getting Feared for 2 rounds.

Banishment is probably a much closer fit for comparison purposes, it's closer in level, is also not melee and only targets a save.

[Moreb Benhk]

How many of these character-ending abilities are gated at CR 11+ (or Caster level 5+ - EDIT - I meant spell level 5+)?

Seems like a lot of the nasty turn-the-encounter effects show up much earlier, where most campaigns are capable of encountering them.

[NorthernPhoenix]

How many of these character-ending abilities are gated at CR 11+ (or Caster level 5+)?

Seems like a lot of the nasty turn-the-encounter effects show up much earlier, where most campaigns are capable of encountering them.

True instant death (plane shift etc) is very rare in 5e (for good reason), but effects which can easily lead into effectively instant tpk are slightly more common. A normal example being the CR 7 Mindflayer nailing 4 people who all have int saves in the 0-2 range with its DC15+ aoe save or stay stunned effect. Anything involving more than 1 Banshee or Ghost could also qualify.

[LudicSavant]

True instant death (plane shift etc) is very rare in 5e (for good reason), but effects which can easily lead into effectively instant tpk are slightly more common. A normal example being the CR 7 Mindflayer nailing 4 people who all have int saves in the 0-2 range with its DC15+ aoe save or stay stunned effect.

If everyone dumps Int (e.g. has an 8), Mind Blast will stun everyone for an average of 3 rounds (yes, that's counting the chance that they make their first save).

Which basically means they're done with those characters if the DM isn't the type to pull punches. :smallsmile:

[thereaper]

The average is a bit deceptive, though. There's a 68% chance that at least one party member makes the initial save (assuming everyone has a -1 to their Int saves and no outside bonuses). In practice, the party is likely to have one of the following: Wizard, Bard, Rogue, Paladin.

But yes, the Mind Flayer is hilariously under-CRed, given the number of classes that have little choice but to dump int.

[MaxWilson]

How many of these character-ending abilities are gated at CR 11+ (or Caster level 5+)?

Seems like a lot of the nasty turn-the-encounter effects show up much earlier, where most campaigns are capable of encountering them.

Ghosts are CR 4, Intellect Devourers are CR 2, Tsucora Quori are CR 7.

[NorthernPhoenix]

The average is a bit deceptive, though. There's a 68% chance that at least one party member makes the initial save (assuming everyone has a -1 to their Int saves and no outside bonuses). In practice, the party is likely to have one of the following: Wizard, Bard, Rogue, Paladin.

But yes, the Mind Flayer is hilariously under-CRed, given the number of classes that have little choice but to dump int.

Add more than 1 Mind Flayer (2 is just slightly above "deadly x1" at level 7), and it becomes a exponentially escalating horror show.

1 Elder Brain and 6 Ulitharid are considered "only" 2x deadly for 4 level 20 characters. But i suspect some parties might struggle with that one.

So anything that does int saves is generally underestimated.

On the CHA save end, 10 Ghosts is a regular deadly encounter for 4 level 15 characters, and not a super contrived scenario for that kind of party to be facing given the tier. I doubt that ones as fair as say, 3 Abominable Yetis.

[thereaper]

Add more than 1 Mind Flayer (2 is just slightly above "deadly x1" at level 7), and it becomes a exponentially escalating horror show.

1 Elder Brain and 6 Ulitharid are considered "only" 2x deadly for 4 level 20 characters. But i suspect some parties might struggle with that one.

So anything that does int saves is generally underestimated.

On the CHA save end, 10 Ghosts is a regular deadly encounter for 4 level 15 characters, and not a super contrived scenario for that kind of party to be facing given the tier. I doubt that ones as fair as say, 3 Abominable Yetis.

That's what I mean. A single Mind Flayer is not an "easy" encounter for four 7th level characters. It's a Deadly encounter.

[Dark.Revenant]

But yes, the Mind Flayer is hilariously under-CRed, given the number of classes that have little choice but to dump int.

If you do the math on Mind Flayer, a trivial calculation of CR makes it CR 4 or 5 if you don't factor in the stuns and just assume it uses Mind Blast (on 2 targets), then Tentacles, then Devour Brain. It becomes an even CR 7 if you, say, double its effective HP because half the party will be stunned, and add 3 to its effective attack bonus because it'll be attacking with advantage on 2 out of 3 turns. I'd say that CR 7 is an accurate representation of a Mind Flayer's challenge as a solo monster.

[Deathtongue]

Ghosts are CR 4, Intellect Devourers are CR 2, Tsucora Quori are CR 7.

Narratively speaking: you're not going to encounter a Tsucora Quori outside of Eberron. You're not really going to randomly encounter Intellect Devourers at low level unless your DM is running some weird alien/Far Realm invasion campaign. Ghosts are more on the table, but they're rare encounters even in hardcovers where you'd expect for them to show up like Curse of Strahd or Tomb of Annihilation.

By contrast, spellcasters with access to mass turn-stealing effects like Fear, Hypnotic Pattern, Hold Person, Confusion, Charm Person, and Command show up in all kinds of encounter sets and adventure designs. A DM doesn't have to really go out of their way to explain why your party is being blasted with a Confusion, because spellcasters are frickin' everywhere in D&D. Out of the Abyss? Drow patrols have a spellcaster. Storm King's Thunder? Oni Mages. Rise of Tiamat? Cult of the Dragon casters. Tomb of Annihilation? Random patrols of Mages/Priests along with a number of NPC spellcasters besides Acerak.

Yeah, with enough DM imagination any kind of monster can show up in any kind of encounter set. Why are you being attacked by slaadi in Waterdeep? Why are there two steel golems in Chult? Why are you being ambushed by Sphinxes in Thay? These aren't narratively impossible, but it's reasonable to not have to worry about spending levels 1-15 in Luskan ever getting blasted by a Mind Flayer. By contrast, never getting mass save-or-sucked by spellcasters in any kind of adventure is an unreasonable expectation. From both a narrative and gameplay perspective, it's a constant worry, which is why getting TPK'd due to failing WIS saves for a round or two is a much bigger concern than an individual being super-killed by an INT/CHA saving throw, let alone the whole party.

[MaxWilson]

If you do the math on Mind Flayer, a trivial calculation of CR makes it CR 4 or 5 if you don't factor in the stuns and just assume it uses Mind Blast (on 2 targets), then Tentacles, then Devour Brain. It becomes an even CR 7 if you, say, double its effective HP because half the party will be stunned, and add 3 to its effective attack bonus because it'll be attacking with advantage on 2 out of 3 turns. I'd say that CR 7 is an accurate representation of a Mind Flayer's challenge as a solo monster.

Don't forget about Dominate Monster on whoever made their saving throw vs. Mind Blast!

I love Mind Flayers. :) And I love the paranoia they engender in players including myself. The game isn't fun unless losing is a real possibility.


By contrast, spellcasters with access to mass turn-stealing effects like Fear, Hypnotic Pattern, Hold Person, Confusion, Charm Person, and Command show up in all kinds of encounter sets and adventure designs.

Yes, that's why Wisdom saves are more prevalent even though the consequences of failure are less severe. But the question I was answering was about the CR of monsters that impose severe effects on an Int/Cha save, and the answer is "it starts waaaay before CR 11."

I fully agree that Hold Person (Wis save) is a very nasty spell even at low level, although I gather from discussion on this thread that most DMs don't abuse it as much as they technically could without violating DMG guidelines, just as they don't abuse Intellect Devourers or Ghosts. 5E is easy by default but it gets harder very quickly if your DM sets out to deliberately game the system with monsters that have abilities that CR doesn't measure well.

[Wizard_Lizard]

I chose the order that I chose based on how common it is to make those saves.. theres what how many monsters that use INT save or CHA save effects? not that many, particularily at low level (Which is where my only experience really comes from.) I guess the rarer saves tend to have much more devastating effects. But a lot of monsters do have CON and WIS and DEX save things. Also if youre a caster. CON is for concentration. so you kind of need that. Strength saves are the worst tho

[Deathtongue]

Yes, that's why Wisdom saves are more prevalent even though the consequences of failure are less severe. But the question I was answering was about the CR of monsters that impose severe effects on an Int/Cha save, and the answer is "it starts waaaay before CR 11."In practical terms: do they? The monster examples you used don't really fit most generic adventure designs. If you talked to ten different 5E D&D tables chosen at random and they told you that they never encountered a ghost or an intellect devourer in combat from levels 1 to 11, I'd find that plausible unless they were all playing Curse of Strahd. However, if HALF of the ten tables never encountered a spellcaster capable of casting 3rd level spells, I wouldn't find that plausible at all.

Not only are the effects rare in terms of gameplay, but the monsters who cause those INT/CHA effects are also rare in terms of how adventures are designed. If I gave a list of monsters to twenty new DMs that didn't have stats, just two-paragraphs of description, and then asked them to draw out a quest spanning from level 1 to 11 the only monster I'd expect to see more than once or twice is the ghost.

[Moreb Benhk]

In practical terms: do they? The monster examples you used don't really fit most generic adventure designs. If you talked to ten different 5E D&D tables chosen at random and they told you that they never encountered a ghost or an intellect devourer in combat from levels 1 to 11, I'd find that plausible unless they were all playing Curse of Strahd. However, if HALF of the ten tables never encountered a spellcaster capable of casting 3rd level spells, I wouldn't find that plausible at all.

Not only are the effects rare in terms of gameplay, but the monsters who cause those INT/CHA effects are also rare in terms of how adventures are designed. If I gave a list of monsters to twenty new DMs that didn't have stats, just two-paragraphs of description, and then asked them to draw out a quest spanning from level 1 to 11 the only monster I'd expect to see more than once or twice is the ghost.

I think it's also possible around the shared thematics of things like Mindflayers and Intellect Devourers - in a campaign where one is present, the other might be quite likely to be present too. So they might be part of an all-or-nothing thematic element - leaving Int saves relatively important or even more side-lined, depending on the campaign, but seldom how they'd appear to be based off the straight Monster Manual statistical prevalence.

[thereaper]

If you do the math on Mind Flayer, a trivial calculation of CR makes it CR 4 or 5 if you don't factor in the stuns and just assume it uses Mind Blast (on 2 targets), then Tentacles, then Devour Brain. It becomes an even CR 7 if you, say, double its effective HP because half the party will be stunned, and add 3 to its effective attack bonus because it'll be attacking with advantage on 2 out of 3 turns. I'd say that CR 7 is an accurate representation of a Mind Flayer's challenge as a solo monster.

There's something like a 20% chance of one or more members of the party dying in that encounter. I don't think that can realistically be called anything but Deadly at that level.

[MrCharlie]

Not if you're fighting something highly damaging like, say, giants. While the party is sorting out their broken line, the monsters aren't just sitting there gloating. It's likely that someone, perhaps multiple people, is going to die in the time it takes people to recover their actions.

And this problem will get worse as the game goes on. Half of your party forfeiting a round or two against high-CR Team Monster can easily result in a surprise TPK. And TPKs are much harder to recover from than the barbarian being send to have a vacation in the Nine Hells.
I guess, to start, I'm confused at why your using a spell that explicitly makes people run away as a TPK vehicle versus something like hypnotic pattern which makes them politely wait to be killed and turns the awakening attack into a critical. In practice both can be solved via breaking the concentration of the caster, but still.

But to put it another way; If we assume that everyone has a 75-25 shot of making any given save a prior, then with a single target INT or CHA save that effectively flips a party member, like Enemies Abound, we've lost a players action, and the actions required to pacify and constrain them. Generously, let's assume that's a 1 to 1 ratio; one INT saved have a 75% chance of negating two actions, one of which is now an enemies action. If we represent allied actions as 1, inactions as 0, and an enemies actions as -1, we've got a net of -3 actions with a 75% chance of hitting.

If we have a fear spell, we've negated 3 people outright, their actions are now somewhere between wasted, actively bad, and somewhat positive, depending on how good running is. Let's assume that running is neutral-either there is nowhere to go, or running is equally bad and good depending on who is doing it. That's a -3 net as well, but it's better because the chance of hitting was already factored in.

Obviously, as the number of people in the party increases, fear becomes better. However we are assuming everyone is clumped, and the AOE can hit everyone too without hitting the massive giants you've got looming over everyone. For that reason, I think 4 people is a fine comparison; often you'll hit more, but often you'll hit less or hit allies as well.

So you're right that fear may have been action economy for the enemies if every save is equally likely to fail. However one key difference is that players and monsters aren't made the same way. Player characters typically deal much higher nova damage than a comparable NPC. A CR 8 frost giant might deal 56 damage, and giants are giant boatloads of HP and raw weapon damage for their CR. But a player might be able to drop their own fireball on the "enemies" surrounding them and deal the equivalent of 140 damage to this four person party once afflicted with enemies abound. And that's honestly a soft-ball; by the time you've got something fearing the party and a bunch of giants, you're dealing with worse than a friendly fireball. It all depends on whom is targeted, and what they do.

I think my message here is that it depends a lot on the circumstances, but I can easily envision a situation where enemies abound ends up being miles worse and does significantly more to the party than fear does. This doesn't mean that enemies abound is a better spell than fear, like most AOEs if you can hit everyone it is probably better, but that I don't think the comparison is as final as you think.

(This is ignoring the fringe case where the charmed person cannot make follow up saves on a 20, which is where spells like enemies abound become a new beast-the enemy can cast it then run, while fear requires some follow up to be deadly).

As for plane shift-Put simply, you're not getting why it's so dangerous.

The real risk is almost never TPKing. The party does not simply lose, at least not most of the time, and almost certainly not at a level where 7th level spells pop up. Hell, at that level, yes, you can easily recover from a TPK. Keep a lock of hair from everyone in a safe box with 10000 gold and a note to reincarnate these people if they don't check in after a month. Then go recover your magic items and kick your killers' ass.

Meanwhile, plane shift imposes consequences even if the party wins. Yes, you've won, yes, you've stopped the evil mage, but that won't bring Bob the Barbarian back. Bob is in hell now. Hope you guys like fiends, it's road trip time!

Because of this, it's dangerous for an entirely different reason than other spells; not because it might defeat the party, but because it might hurt them in victory. And given that most of the time the odds are stacked in the parties favor to eventually win, this is actually a big deal.

(Even ignoring that plane shift, as a one action and done spell, enables fun with hit and run tactics).

[Deathtongue]

INT Saving throw aside, Enemies Abound is just not a very scary spell in the hands of NPCs. It's one of the few effects where it's a bigger pain in the neck for NPCs than PCs. There are just too many ways to subvert it if you're a PC: namely area of effect spells (which don't have targets) and just closing your eyes before making the attack. Not to mention just piling on nuisance damage on the PC of concern -- like, say, the victim intentionally triggering an OA or walking through caltrops.


I guess, to start, I'm confused at why your using a spell that explicitly makes people run away as a TPK vehicle versus something like hypnotic pattern which makes them politely wait to be killed and turns the awakening attack into a critical.
The real risk is almost never TPKing. The party does not simply lose, at least not most of the time, and almost certainly not at a level where 7th level spells pop up.Eh? Aside from level 1, levels 4-7 are the most dangerous ones for PCs. That's when your party can get turbo-nuked by stuff like Fireball and Lightning Bolt. It is absolutely vital for you not to lose actions at this level range, because it's the difference between one or two Mages getting off two 8d6+ AoEs with no counterplay and only getting one such effect while being backed up by Counterspell / Absorb Elements / Evasion / (Mass) Healing Word / etc. How do you feel about your odds when a Hobgoblin Devastator slams your party with an extra-strength Fireball aright before a Priest orders three of your party members to grovel with an upcasted Command?

I brought up Fear because it can screw you over hardcore in a way that a DM can't anticipate. If you're on an open field or, god forbid, your speed is reduced you might not just lose two actions, you might lose five or more unless the problem is dealt with. And Hypnotic Pattern, like Enemies Abound, is just not as scary of a spell for prepared PC parties. That said, a lot of PC parties are not strategy ninjas like we are and they're unprepared to have familiars start the wakey-wakey chain or have low-damage AoEs on standby so I can see how people would just sit there and take it.

[MaxWilson]

Eh? Aside from level 1, levels 4-7 are the most dangerous ones for PCs. That's when your party can get turbo-nuked by stuff like Fireball and Lightning Bolt. It is absolutely vital for you not to lose actions at this level range, because it's the difference between one or two Mages getting off two 8d6+ AoEs with no counterplay and only getting one such effect while being backed up by Counterspell / Absorb Elements / Evasion / (Mass) Healing Word / etc. How do you feel about your odds when a Hobgoblin Devastator slams your party with an extra-strength Fireball aright before a Priest orders three of your party members to grovel with an upcasted Command?

Eh? Why single out levels 4-7? What makes the PCs immune to Fireball and Lightning Bolt at levels 1-3? Just DM pity?

What makes the party immune to Fireball and Lightning Bolt at level 8+? 5 Flameskulls is a Hard encounter at level 10, not even Deadly. What makes 5 Fireballs at level 10 so much less problematic than Fireball at level 4?

I wonder where you're picking these numbers from. They seem arbitrary to me--more about Deathtongue personal DMing style than about 5E per se.

[MrCharlie]

INT Saving throw aside, Enemies Abound is just not a very scary spell in the hands of NPCs. It's one of the few effects where it's a bigger pain in the neck for NPCs than PCs. There are just too many ways to subvert it if you're a PC: namely area of effect spells (which don't have targets) and just closing your eyes before making the attack. Not to mention just piling on nuisance damage on the PC of concern -- like, say, the victim intentionally triggering an OA or walking through caltrops.

Eh? Aside from level 1, levels 4-7 are the most dangerous ones for PCs. That's when your party can get turbo-nuked by stuff like Fireball and Lightning Bolt. It is absolutely vital for you not to lose actions at this level range, because it's the difference between one or two Mages getting off two 8d6+ AoEs with no counterplay and only getting one such effect while being backed up by Counterspell / Absorb Elements / Evasion / (Mass) Healing Word / etc. How do you feel about your odds when a Hobgoblin Devastator slams your party with an extra-strength Fireball aright before a Priest orders three of your party members to grovel with an upcasted Command?

I brought up Fear because it can screw you over hardcore in a way that a DM can't anticipate. If you're on an open field or, god forbid, your speed is reduced you might not just lose two actions, you might lose five or more unless the problem is dealt with. And Hypnotic Pattern, like Enemies Abound, is just not as scary of a spell for prepared PC parties. That said, a lot of PC parties are not strategy ninjas like we are and they're unprepared to have familiars start the wakey-wakey chain or have low-damage AoEs on standby so I can see how people would just sit there and take it.
If your PCs are cheesing enemies abound, then you need better PCs. I mean, seriously man, someone intentionally hurting themselves to break an effect they don't know is on them??? If we're to account for that level of metagaming than anything that has charm on it should be discounted by the PC will lawyer their way out of anything and everything! Hell, you can cheese Fear by closing your eyes and staring at the ground, the enemy is no longer in your "line of sight"!

The text is clear; everyone is an enemy. If they want to metagame that with AOEs, then they should be targeting the biggest cluster, which means the party is likely suffering AOE as well.

The chances that hypnotic pattern or fear actually last until ending normally is very low regardless. Both are concentration, and the standing rule in combat is kill the guy concentrating. The same is true of enemies abound, but in the meantime the players are killing each other. But regardless, Hypnotic pattern keeps you in melee, Fear doesen't and your entire point was that disabling people for the giants is what kills them, so...huh? And I've rarely seen fear do anything like what your suggesting; most of the time it's a simple turn waster, some of the time it leads a couple PCs to safety, but basically never does it disable PCs for five turns. Hypnotic pattern rarely does either, but neither have I seen it be easily nullified (how are familiars making their saves? How do party members know to hit allies with AOE to awaken them?)

But given that there are a couple of non-concentrating monster ways to charm using charisma, and this isn't limited to spells, we're kinduve off target anyway.

Also, level 7 spells aren't showing up at levels 4-7, the earliest CR I know of with that level spell is CR 9 (and it's non-combat) so a party isn't really supposed to be dealing with them at level 4 by any means. By the time you're routinely facing level 7 spells your into later tier 2 and early tier 3, at which point PCs start breaking the balance rapidly. And the most common TPKs are level 1, 2, and 3, and always have been. **** is simply swingy.

And if the party is facing multiple casters of course it's a bad day. In general, casters are poorly designed as enemies and should be used sparingly, for the same reason you don't design characters based on PC rules. If the DM is throwing two mages at a level 4 party, they lose. If the DM is throwing two mages at a level 6 party, he has no idea how to design encounters, and initiative is going to determine who wins unless the group is optimized. Hell, I guaranteeI can TPK virtually any party by intentionally rigging encounters by abusing the CR rules to create what seems like a reasonable challenge while being anything but! Stacking AOE is one of those ways, and says little about how good the AOE actually is.

Eh? Why single out levels 4-7? What makes the PCs immune to Fireball and Lightning Bolt at levels 1-3? Just DM pity?

What makes the party immune to Fireball and Lightning Bolt at level 8+? 5 Flameskulls is a Hard encounter at level 10, not even Deadly. What makes 5 Fireballs at level 10 so much less problematic than Fireball at level 4?

I wonder where you're picking these numbers from. They seem arbitrary to me--more about Deathtongue personal DMing style than about 5E per se.
Encounter design. Fireball throwing enemies are above the CR recommended for levels 1-3. If you want to TPK parties at level 1-3 without any mercy, you use magma memphits instead. CR 1/2, heat metal and fire breath, ability to fly, they appear to be a reasonable challenge but have two unavoidable damage sources, one of which is AOE, and even explode when they die. Two magma memphits is a "hard" challenge 4 level 1 PCs, but they are liable to drop half the party in one round and kill the rest with their death throes if the party is clumped up. It's not fireball but it works, at at CR 1/2 you can liberally season with them at higher levels.

But yeah, in general cherrypicking an encounter to a particular spell or situation is going to bias opinions of it. I could make my point look better by saying "Well, imagine if the PCs are in a box, then one of them gets hit with enemies abound from an archmage. Someone dies in this box!" or "Imagine an archmage swoops in, casts plane shift, and then his contingency dimension doors him away. Now he just does that four times. Boom, plane shift is overpowered!" Exaggeration and stupidity aside, you see my point.

Damaging AOE gets better as you add more overlapping instances of it. You can throw 14 hobgoblin devastators against 4 level 20 PCs, which is 112d6 of fireballs + potentially 28d6 of arcane advantage, and then say it was only a "hard" encounter if the PC's do get dropped by that nonsense. Anything can look nutso when you look at it in a vacuum at extremes.

Deathtongue-all rants about encounter design aside, what this was actually an argument that Fear was more dangerous than many of the spells and abilities which charm or pseudo-charm PCs with INT or CHA saves. I'm still baffled by the idea that you can honestly tell me that an AOE that typically moves part of the party to safety is an ideal TPK tool, but there are other options. The one area where your point is absolutely correct is that it's AOE, which is one typical difference between INT/CHA and WIS saves (other than mind-flayers, which hit beyond their CR in practice anyway and are an outlier). So while the effect is less dangerous, the fact that it works in an area is more dangerous. I think we can agree that the AOE matters if nothing else. I'd put that as a check mark in making WIS saves more "common" more than more dangerous effect wise, but it still widens the gap in terms of how often they are rolled, and at the end of the day that makes WIS more important than INT or CHA even without accounting for it.

[lall]

Thus, Wis, Cha, Int, Con, Dex, Str is the effect ranking.
This would be my ranking. Not positive of the exact order of the mentals, but I try to be proficient in all three so that it doesn’t matter. Flesh to Stone (CON) is nasty, but you have time to dispel it.

[Wizard_Lizard]

This would be my ranking. Not positive of the exact order of the mentals, but I try to be proficient in all three so that it doesn’t matter. Flesh to Stone (CON) is nasty, but you have time to dispel it.

also lets not forget that if you're a caster.. CON is useful for concentration.

[lall]

True. I personally don’t worry about proficiency in CON saves though as 1. I’d rather be proficient in the mentals and 2. I rarely have concentration spells I intend to use in combat (as Dispel Magic exists).

[prabe]

There seem to be two hierarchies of saving throws, based on whether you're targeting or being the target. It has seemed as though most of the discussion has been on the latter (your saves are being targeted), but I think I've seen some discussion of the former (you're targeting someone else's saves). I wonder how different they are--maybe there are datamongers who can wrangle that answer.

[MaxWilson]

There seem to be two hierarchies of saving throws, based on whether you're targeting or being the target. It has seemed as though most of the discussion has been on the latter (your saves are being targeted), but I think I've seen some discussion of the former (you're targeting someone else's saves). I wonder how different they are--maybe there are datamongers who can wrangle that answer.

Int wins, hands down. Almost no monsters are proficient, and many of them have low Int stat on top of that.

Cha is good against low CR, seriously falls off against CR 10+ IIRC.

Against high CR, Dex is pretty good, and Str is often surprisingly good too even against strong monsters just because proficiency is rare.

Low CR monsters remain relevant, but as groups, so for high-level play you'd want to analyze a mix of AoEs (low CR) and single-target (high CR). I know how to do that analysis but I'm honestly not sure how to show that in a way that will be easy to read and analytically justify. I suppose I could just use the Xanathar tables to choose a random monster appropriate for each level, then crudely assume an AoE hits all of your "share" of that monster (per Xanathar's tables), then do that thousands of times and report the "best" saves you target against e.g. the biggest Xanathar mob allowed, the highest-CR solo, the median mob, and a random-sized mob (uniform probability for each column on Xanathar's table for that level range).

I'll edit this post when I have my results. May take an hour or more.

Edit: here's an interactive web app for viewing the results: https://maxwilson.github.io/Simple-SavingThrowGraphsFor5E/

I intend to let it analyze Xanathar's- and DMG-generated encounters as well as just individual monsters, but my brain needs a rest. There are definitely issues with the web app (the JavaScript file for the app is painfully big and the UX is not terrific, since I stink at CSS) but this should suffice to let you spot some interesting patterns in the data, e.g. I never realized before how weak liches are against Charisma-based attacks like Banishment.

[prabe]

That was quick.

Thanks for the answer, and I look forward to seeing the future results, but I'm not attempting to exert pressure for speed or anything. This is mostly idle curiosity: I figure picking saves to target is only part of picking spells (and I'm not playing a spellcaster with lots of choice in that regard, anyway). Seriously, don't let working on this distract you from anything important to anyone.

[Moreb Benhk]

It seems there is a decent correlation on both fronts then? Aside from DEX and CHA saves at higher levels, it sounds like strong player saves roughly correspond to strong monster saves and vice versa. I guess the play-impact of this is inverse though, as you (the player) decide what saves to target vs encountering the saves at 'random' - it makes sense to invest in weaker saves offensively (by choosing spells that fit these) and stronger saves defensively.

[Deathtongue]

If your PCs are cheesing enemies abound, then you need better PCs. I mean, seriously man, someone intentionally hurting themselves to break an effect they don't know is on them???What do you mean, don't know is on them? You can still make spell identification checks as a reaction post-Xanathar's. May not help you for the first round of Enemies Abound. And intentionally hurting yourself to break illusions is a well-established action-adventure trope. Don't make me break out the Naruto and Bleach.


The text is clear; everyone is an enemy. If they want to metagame that with AOEs, then they should be targeting the biggest cluster, which means the party is likely suffering AOE as well.1) That contradicts the text of the spell. Enemies abound has you targeting enemies at random. 2) What's the nature of an enemy that compels you to target the biggest cluster with an AOE? It's an undefined game-term and if we're breaking out RAI/narrative intent, it'd be weird and genre-breaking for someone to focus on Dr. Doom's hated village-destroying minions over Dr. Doom if both of them are in the same room.


The chances that hypnotic pattern or fear actually last until ending normally is very low regardless. Both are concentration, and the standing rule in combat is kill the guy concentrating.If you can. Spells like Fear and Hypnotic Pattern make that 'oh, just beat on the spellcaster' standing order much harder, because they take out multiple concentration-breakers for a period of time.


The same is true of enemies abound, but in the meantime the players are killing each other.Enemies Abound targets one person. One. A player is attempting to kill people at random (which may not even put the other players at risk depending on encounter composition) and it's too easily subverted to last for more than a round.


But regardless, Hypnotic pattern keeps you in melee, Fear doesen't and your entire point was that disabling people for the giants is what kills them, so...huh?Did you forget that a typical party consists of more than one person? Yes, you run away and are 'safe' for 2-4 rounds. Congratulations on you getting yours. What about the rest of your party? What happens to you after the enemies gank them and go after you?


And I've rarely seen fear do anything like what your suggesting; most of the time it's a simple turn waster, some of the time it leads a couple PCs to safety, but basically never does it disable PCs for five turns.Disabling PCs for five turns is a reasonable but uncommon edge case; for example, if it's being used in a featureless plain or out on the desert. I'd expect two rounds in a tightly-packed dungeon, yes, but having more rounds than that is not out of the question for, say, PCs stuck on a castle parapet or on a frozen-over lake.


Hypnotic pattern rarely does either, but neither have I seen it be easily nullified (how are familiars making their saves? How do party members know to hit allies with AOE to awaken them?)I'm not a big fan of Hypnotic Pattern. I've been subject to too many 'monster conga lines of awakening' to view that spell as more than a verbal component-free curiosity.


Also, level 7 spells aren't showing up at levels 4-7,That's generally true, but technically they are in a scary post-Volo's world. Warlock of the Great Old One (14th-level spellcaster), Diviner, Abjurer... not that you need 7th-level spells at that range to cause a TPK. A good roll on a Cone of Cold or a 5th-level Fireball can definitely cause one, and those enemies start showing up at CR 5.


And if the party is facing multiple casters of course it's a bad day. In general, casters are poorly designed as enemies and should be used sparingly, for the same reason you don't design characters based on PC rules. If the DM is throwing two mages at a level 4 party, they lose. If the DM is throwing two mages at a level 6 party, he has no idea how to design encounters, and initiative is going to determine who wins unless the group is optimized.I'm sympathetic to the idea that Volo's and Mordenkainen's foes are way too hard for typical D&D parties, but it is what it is. The game designers expected monsters to show up at that CR, so we're just going to have to deal.

[Tanarii]

CR5 enemies are just about right for level 8.

[MaxWilson]

I edited my post upthread but also wanted to bump the thread to bring this to folks' attention: https://maxwilson.github.io/Simple-SavingThrowGraphsFor5E/

As I said upthread, I'm still working on encounter construction, but you can at least look at individual monsters, filter for specific sourcebooks and creature types, and spot patterns in the data. I never realized before how weak liches are to Charisma-based attacks, or that the Tarrasque is proficient in Int saving throws.

[prabe]

I edited my post upthread but also wanted to bump the thread to bring this to folks' attention: https://maxwilson.github.io/Simple-SavingThrowGraphsFor5E/

As I said upthread, I'm still working on encounter construction, but you can at least look at individual monsters, filter for specific sourcebooks and creature types, and spot patterns in the data. I never realized before how weak liches are to Charisma-based attacks, or that the Tarrasque is proficient in Int saving throws.

That is quite the thing. My English-major-ish dropout brain reels, trying to comprehend the thinking (extent and kind) that went into it. Most sincere thanks for sharing!

[Corran]

I edited my post upthread but also wanted to bump the thread to bring this to folks' attention: https://maxwilson.github.io/Simple-SavingThrowGraphsFor5E/

As I said upthread, I'm still working on encounter construction, but you can at least look at individual monsters, filter for specific sourcebooks and creature types, and spot patterns in the data. I never realized before how weak liches are to Charisma-based attacks, or that the Tarrasque is proficient in Int saving throws.
Preface: I know nothing about programming. I can only think of how I would like to see your application expand. So please keep that in mind if my suggestions are too much work for their worth, or too much work in general (I suspect that they might be).

1) Have an option to exclude creatures with legendary resistances. I presume this might be easier to do if you make it part of the 'set filters' option? Though it would be nice to present it as a question just like you did with magic resistance. So, something like ''Are your attacks affected by legendary resistance?'', followed by ''Yes. Exclude legendary creatures from the results.'' and ''Include legendary creatures in the results and count them as 0% effectiveness.'', and ''No, my attacks are not affected by legendary resistance''. Or something of that sort.

2) The next BIG step would be to account for condition resistances and immunities. For example: without accounting for the effect and the cost involved, how much upside should I expect if I choose a wis-targeting untyped effect (eg confusion) over a wis-targeting typed (eg charm) effect (eg hypnotic pattern)? Sure, the results wont say the whole story, but they would be very helpful in making an informed decision, particularly if I don't know what adventure I will be playing (cause with a smaller sample, the comparison might not be beneficial to begin with, while with a very large sample it is easier to justify limiting your choice to the best one overall; or at least trying to figure out combinations that complement each other optimally). This is probably a nightmare to produce in a single diagram, so I am thinking that the best way to do it would be by adding additional questions that would produce results for a single spell (in a general context, ie cha charm effect, or con restrain effect, or int untyped effect, etc; and this actually could be helpful for less experienced DM's who want to balance homebrew spells, and I am cunningly mentioning this because I think it might spark your interest). Then you run the app as many times as you want, and you compare the different diagrams produced.

ps: I am guessing the option to choose between single target and AoE, and the option to adjust the AoE's effectiveness, are there for the encounter construction part that you are working on, right? It sounds very promising. We could certainly have a few games with this once you complete it. Eg, someone starts a thread and declares a challenge, of which we don't know all the details. For example, we could know the number of creatures involved, and their respective CR's, and we know what level of caster we are supposed to be playing. So other people post their caster builds. Then the encounter is revealed, and we try to determine which poster has the best chance of contributing more to their group's efforts.

pps: I'd like to help you if I can. I don't think I'll be of any help with the programming stuff, but I could certainly do some of the boring job (make this or that list of monsters) should you need someone to.

[MaxWilson]

Preface: I know nothing about programming. I can only think of how I would like to see your application expand. So please keep that in mind if my suggestions are too much work for their worth, or too much work in general (I suspect that they might be).

1) Have an option to exclude creatures with legendary resistances. I presume this might be easier to do if you make it part of the 'set filters' option? Though it would be nice to present it as a question just like you did with magic resistance. So, something like ''Are your attacks affected by legendary resistance?'', followed by ''Yes. Exclude legendary creatures from the results.'' and ''Include legendary creatures in the results.'', or something of that sort.

Would you really want to exclude them, or would you like them factored into the effectiveness percentage somehow? Technically it's easy to determine whether/how many legendary resistances a given creature has--I just can't think of any useful questions to ask/answer with that data. The way I think of it right now is that "effectiveness" has to hit at least 4.0 before you can count on affecting any creatures with legendary resistances, so even if you choose a 100% effective spell (like Mental Prison against an Astral Dreadnought) it will of course always take 4 spells to affect it.

I can't think of any way to include legendary resistance in the picture that wouldn't make it more confusing, but maybe there's a way. Edit: I guess you could define Effectiveness as (average % failed saves) / (Legendary Resistances + 1).

BTW, "are your attacks affected by legendary resistance" is a redundant question. All saves are affected by legendary resistance, and no ability checks are. But you could ask whether you want to see effectiveness scaled down for LR... hmmm, I think I'll do that right now. One sec.... Edit2: [45 minutes later] Done.


2) The next BIG step would be to account for condition resistances and immunities. For example: without accounting for the effect and the cost involved, how much upside should I expect if I choose a wis-targeting untyped effect (eg confusion) over a wis-targeting typed (eg charm) effect (eg hypnotic pattern)?

I actually have this raw data already (including which creatures have advantage against specific conditions like being poisoned or charmed). What would be an appropriate UX? Maybe a selector asking you to optionally choose a type of effect from a list of conditions?

I also have raw data on damage resistances/immunities/etc., and again I don't know how to do anything useful with it, in the current UI. Hmmm, I guess I could make "damage: <dice> of <type> for <dice amount> save for <half or none>" an option for you to select when you choose a spell, instead of picking a condition. And in that case, "Effectiveness" can be total HP of damage inflicted, instead of average % of failed saves.


Sure, the results wont say the whole story, but they would be very helpful in making an informed decision, particularly if I don't know what adventure I will be playing (cause with a smaller sample, the comparison might not be beneficial to begin with, while with a very large sample it is easier to justify limiting your choice to the best one overall; or at least trying to figure out combinations that complement each other optimally). This is probably a nightmare to produce in a single diagram, so I am thinking that the best way to do it would be by adding additional questions that would produce results for a single spell (in a general context, ie cha charm effect, or con restrain effect, or int untyped effect, etc; and this actually could be helpful for less experienced DM's who want to balance homebrew spells, and I am cunningly mentioning this because I think it might spark your interest). Then you run the app as many times as you want, and you compare the different diagrams produced.

Whoops, I should have finished reading.

Would it be helpful to show multiple graphs at the same time?


ps: I am guessing the option to choose between single target and AoE, and the option to adjust the AoE's effectiveness, are there for the encounter construction part that you are working on, right?

Correct. I've now removed them from the "Monster (by CR)" path--there's no reason to ask about AoE in that case, it's irrelevant.


It sounds very promising. We could certainly have a few games with this once you complete it. Eg, someone starts a thread and declares a challenge, of which we don't know all the details. For example, we could know the number of creatures involved, and their respective CR's, and we know what level of caster we are supposed to be playing. So other people posts their caster builds. Then the encounter is revealed, and we try to determine which poster has the best chance of contributing more to their group's efforts.

pps: I'd like to help you if I can. I don't think I'll be of any help with the programming stuff, but I could certainly do some of the boring job (make this or that list of monsters) should you need someone to.

The most helpful stuff for me is actually the design work: what should it ask you, how should it behave, what should it show, how to avoid clutter, etc. I might also ask for some help with data entry at some point, although for right now I have all the data I need for to answer questions about how best to attack monsters. I don't have complete data on monster spells though or monster attacks/damage--in order to answer questions about how best to defend against monsters I'd need more data entry.

However, if you're interested in collaborating we should probably start a separate thread to avoid cluttering up this one. Just post a link in this thread.

I don't promise to do a ton of work on this project (I find pure analysis less interesting than combat simulations) but the suggestions you've made so far are low-hanging fruit that would be pretty easy to do.

[Corran]

However, if you're interested in collaborating we should probably start a separate thread to avoid cluttering up this one. Just post a link in this thread.
Not sure how helpful that would be to you, but my curiosity is piqued, so I made this (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?613103-Saving-throw-data-application&p=24533197#post24533197) thread.

[MaxWilson]

I made a couple of small enhancements to the saving throw analyzer: https://maxwilson.github.io/Simple-SavingThrowGraphsFor5E/

(1) You can now analyze randomly-generated encounters as well as just monsters.

(2) You can now set tags like "Fire Damage, Save for Half" or "Charmed" on your attacks to see how that changes overall effectiveness, since some monsters are vulnerable, resistant or immune to certain attacks.

For example, if I tell it to generate a bunch of undead-only encounters using Xanathar's rules, a typical Wisdom save graph will look something like this:

https://i.postimg.cc/nrQNmKrw/Undead-Wis-Saves.png (https://postimg.cc/hQcCWd99)
But if I'm really interested in casting Hypnotic Pattern, then I want to make sure undead that are immune to charm are counted as immune, so I hit the Effect tags button and tag it as "charmed". You will see the purple line drop substantially.

https://i.postimg.cc/1RnzBLNb/Undead-Wis-Charm-Saves.png (https://postimg.cc/Jt8m4YxQ)
If I want to compare it to Fireball instead I can switch to looking at Dex with effect tags "fire" and "save for half".

Limitations: the UI is still kind of ugly. Sorry. I'm not a design expert, and I'm focused more on functionality than on getting all of the text to line up prettily on each line.

Furthermore, for technical reasons, effect tags are not available on the overview screen--you have to drill down on a specific attribute (Str/Dex/Con/Int/Wis/Cha) in order to apply specific effects. I don't intend to fix this because this app has grown to a point where it's unwieldy and difficult to extend further, and because you should normally know what attribute you're interested in if you're applying a specific effect like "fire, save for half" (probably Dex).