Non-proficient saves [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

quindraco

2021-10-20, 12:08 PM

I'm sure this has been discussed here (maybe even by me). One of the minor things that bugs me about 5e is that characters don't improve at all in saves with which they aren't proficient. A 20th level character saves as well/badly as a 1st level character if not proficient.

Is there a good workaround for this? I've seen treatments that allow 1/2 proficiency bonus for non-proficient saves, but that may be too much. I'm considering a -2 or 3 for a non-proficient save. That way low-level characters really get squat if they're not proficient, which is appropriate IMO; but a L20 character would still get +3 or 4 as opposed to a +6 for an actual proficient save.

Has anyone had a house rule that works without offending the "bounded accuracy" gods?

Yeah, pretty sure I've seen you bring this up before. If not you, someone with a very similar post.

Bounded accuracy isn't an issue here, since you're talking about staying within the bounds - the real issue is devaluing the proficiencies others have, and the ideal solution is making sure whatever buff you hand out has a commensurate cost.

Here's an option you could hand out that should stay within reason, letting people Jack of All Trades their saves if they want:

Anyone with proficiency in Dexterity, Constitution, or Wisdom saves can swap that out for half proficiency in all three.
Anyone with proficiency in Strength, Intelligence, or Charisma saves can swap that out for half proficiency in all three.

Note: the game has both half proficiency rounding down and half proficiency rounding up in it, for different class features. If you want to be really elegant about it, I recommend neither, instead replacing the proficiency progression with this, which is half round down until level 14, and starting at level 14 it's half round up:

1
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
2
2
2
2
2
3
3
3
3
3
3
3

For reference, the sum of the standard pb across 20 levels is 80. Half round down is 36 and half round up is 44. The above progression sums to 40, which is half of 80.

Instead of 7 levels at +1, then 6 at +2, and then 7 at +3. you can also do 6 at 1, 8 at 2, and 6 at 3 for the same sum, if you want 2 to be the most common value instead of the least common; the sum will remain 40:

1
1
1
1
1
1
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
3
3
3
3
3
3

MoiMagnus

2021-10-20, 12:08 PM

KorvinStarmast

2021-10-20, 12:14 PM

Additionally, save are usually required for damage effects (and level 20 character have more hit points, so survive longer to them that a level 1 character) or concentration spells (and you have a whole bunch of teammates to kill and/or break the concentration of the associated enemy).
One word: Feeblemind. :smalleek: It isn't just cast on spell casters anymore.

Dork_Forge

2021-10-20, 12:42 PM

paladinn

2021-10-20, 01:07 PM

Maybe I'm missing something, but why should non-proficient saves get better without investing in them?

That just feels like it defeats the point of having 'bad' saves and reduces the value of secondary and tertiary stats, nevermind taking away from some class abilities.

If as the levels progress, the character that dumped the relevant stat to -1 in a save they don't have, then why shouldn't they have an increasingly harder and ultimately impossible chance of passing that save?

This just feels like it's making the game easier, whilst reducing the risks of dumping stats, neither of which are really necessary, or necessarily good for the game.

I think it's a matter of general competence. A higher-level character should save better than a low-level one if neither are proficient in a save. At least IMO.

How/might it work to bring back the "good save/ meh save" from 3e? Adapted to 5e, if you're proficient in a save, you use the good save column, otherwise the meh save. That at least helps some.

Eldariel

2021-10-20, 01:09 PM

Yeah, obviously you should get half proficiency in them. It's the easiest solution, and while the gap between proficient and non-proficient is still massive, at least you get to roll the die without a convenient Paladin or Bless on high levels. It also makes stuff like Indomitable less embarrassing. There are plenty of DC 21-22 saves but fewer DC 25-27 ones (few do exist, but at least you don't sit back and watch against the upper echelon of the whole monster manual).

Level 1 getting +0 to a bad save is fine - they're at worst facing DC 15-16 so they're like 25% to succeed, but they at least have a chance. But level 20 getting +0 means they simply don't get to roll against a significant subset of enemies, especially if the save targets a weak save. It just doesn't feel good; you should at least be on the dice without hyperspecialisation. 66% failure rate is fine since the 33% will feel really good, but 100% failure rate is just anti-climactic and boring and punishes the weaker classes (Fighters, Barbarians, Rogues, Rangers, etc.) disproportionately. Especially since one of the most common saves is vs. Fear which can get hard enough that it's literally impossible for a level 20 Fighter or Barbarian to make it no matter how many times they roll. Like the Frightful Presence of Ancient Red Dragon is DC21. You're a Fighter who wanted to be charismatic leader type so you aren't wise. Your Wisdom is bogstandard 10. You simply don't get to roll by default. Your Indomitable, your Halfling Fear advantage, etc. don't matter. You're off the die. That feels terrible and the fact that the same Fighter on level 1 and level 20 has the same shot at making the save is stupid. The Fighter should've gotten better at handling fear in spite of not being the wisest guy over their 20 levels of experience and very probably numerous fear-using adversaries. Sure, they could feat for proficiency but then they'd be equally ****ed against the Kalaraq Quori using an Int-save. You wouldn't get to roll.

In general, anything that denies you the opportunity to roll is straight-up bad design and this is doubly so when it mostly punishes the classes that already don't get to play the game in many cases on higher levels. Half proficiency in saves is a bandaid but it's better than nothing. It speaks volumes that Resilient is still a near-obligatory feat (in a game where feats shouldn't be obligatory) for anyone who doesn't get Wis-save proficiency by default.

loki_ragnarock

2021-10-20, 01:23 PM

I'm sure this has been discussed here (maybe even by me). One of the minor things that bugs me about 5e is that characters don't improve at all in saves with which they aren't proficient. A 20th level character saves as well/badly as a 1st level character if not proficient.

Is there a good workaround for this? I've seen treatments that allow 1/2 proficiency bonus for non-proficient saves, but that may be too much. I'm considering a -2 or 3 for a non-proficient save. That way low-level characters really get squat if they're not proficient, which is appropriate IMO; but a L20 character would still get +3 or 4 as opposed to a +6 for an actual proficient save.

Has anyone had a house rule that works without offending the "bounded accuracy" gods?

I find it way more galling that so few monsters add proficiency to *any* saves, but that's just me.

I had this discussion with someone the other day; it comes down to how you set your DCs.

You want the saving throw to have about a 50%sih chance of success or failure? Aim for DC 12. No higher than that. It means that the folks who are proficient in that save likely have a greater than 50% chance of success, and that people with no proficiency will have slightly less... and that's about it, with a slight, slow scaling towards success as they become higher level. But over all, in a four person party you can expect to probably get two people with whatever effect on the average.

Hyperinflating DCs is easy to fall into if you've played 3e or 4e, and breaking that habit is hard. A DC 18 save would be pretty low tier in either of those editions, but now it represents an almost insurmountable challenge even for those who *are* good at the save. It means that whatever generated that effect is one of *the* badasses of the multiverse. To put it in perspective, a Demilich generates DC 15 saves for most of its abilities, with one ability - "the eff you, I'm an immortal badass and you were a fool for entering my demense, so cower now brief mortal because I'm about to be what briefs you" ability - set at a DC 19.
The 15s are hard; significnatly less than 50% of the non proficient will succeed, but the proficient are still looking at slightly higher than 50%. The 19 is supposed to make people quiver in fear.

If you make people more likely to be proficient with things - or even half proficient with things - as a passive feature, that actually is going to futz about with some of the principles of bounded accuracy. The prospect that the DC 12 save (that so many creatures generate) doesn't produce a likely 2 out of 4 effected means that every creature that produces a DC 12 save have been greatly devalued. You can't use the whole monster manual, anymore. You can only effectively use those monsters, traps, and effects that produce saves that are significantly higher than DC 12, and that in turn throws off normal scaling and table assumptions of X effected out of Y players.

It's... a tougher dial to tweak than you'd think.

Willie the Duck

2021-10-20, 01:40 PM

Dork_Forge

2021-10-20, 01:55 PM

I think it's a matter of general competence. A higher-level character should save better than a low-level one if neither are proficient in a save. At least IMO.

How/might it work to bring back the "good save/ meh save" from 3e? Adapted to 5e, if you're proficient in a save, you use the good save column, otherwise the meh save. That at least helps some.

But... why? If both characters have no investment or reason to be good at it, why should it progress? For fiction this doesn't make sense, let's take Wis saves as an example:

Wis saves become increasingly common towards the top end of Tier 2, but for most of the levels, people play they generally don't matter too much unless they're against the low-level casters that use Hold Person etc. So if the character is not encountering the saves as they level up, what reason or justification is there for them getting better at the save?

From a mechanical standpoint I see two things:

- This flies in the face of lower-level monsters remaining relevant if everyone's saves just get better no matter what.

- These are just big numbers, if the numbers are increasing around the same as DCs are, or even close to it, then the failure rates just end up being similar and all you've achieved is the same level of 'competence' whilst having a larger number on your sheet. It takes away from the difficulty going up, whilst adding the across-the-board number increases that 5E tried to avoid compared to something like 3.x

Unoriginal

2021-10-20, 02:11 PM

I'm sure this has been discussed here (maybe even by me).

Yeah, pretty sure I've seen you bring this up before. If not you, someone with a very similar post.

OP did indeed do that previously:

Hola all,

I've been enthusiastic about 5e since it was first announced; and I particularly like the proficiency bonus mechanic that drives everything from attack to saves to skills. Pretty cool really!

I do have two issues with it though..

1. There is no provision for higher level characters to improve in any areas in which they aren't proficient. This is particularly true for saves. A 10th level fighter doesn't save any better than a 1st level wizard, if they both aren't proficient.

2. All characters who are proficient with a given weapon are equally good with said weapon. So the wizard above is equally as proficient with a staff as a fighter.

For # 1, I've been advised to use a "common" proficiency bonus equal to half the proficiency bonus, at least for saves. For #2, it was suggested to apply both proficiency bonuses for fighter attacks, but it seems a little high to me.

Has anyone house-ruled any of these? any other thoughts?

Thanks!

I thought this was thread necromancy, at first.

loki_ragnarock

2021-10-20, 02:12 PM

I feel like I dislike the DC 21+ effects more than I dislike fighters not advancing their Dex saves and the like.
Bingo to the front row, don't gotta tell me twice.

Angelalex242

2021-10-20, 02:16 PM

As a Paladin with Oath of the Ancients, this isn't something I tend to lose sleep over. Particularly since I play Charisma maxing paladins, who get Cha 20, or even 22 with the book.

Eldariel

2021-10-20, 02:17 PM

- This flies in the face of lower-level monsters remaining relevant if everyone's saves just get better no matter what.

They don't get enough better to make low level monsters not relevant. A level 20 Barbarian at +3 Int from half proficiency can still easily fail an Intellect Devourer's DC 12 save and die. Even one with 14 Int and +3 to Int-saves is failing 30% of the time, which is a pretty high likelihood for a CR2 monster to have a chance at one-shotting a level 20 character who invested a 14 in a quaternary stat that pretty much only helps in this specific case. Those save-or-X monsters are certainly still way more relevant on high levels than CR 2 brutes hitting for ~15 damage vs. 200+ HP and resistance.

- These are just big numbers, if the numbers are increasing around the same as DCs are, or even close to it, then the failure rates just end up being similar and all you've achieved is the same level of 'competence' whilst having a larger number on your sheet. It takes away from the difficulty going up, whilst adding the across-the-board number increases that 5E tried to avoid compared to something like 3.x

They don't scale at nearly the same rate. A high level save is like DC 21. A low level save is like DC 12. That's +9 save DC. +3 is one third of the save DC increase; it just keeps you on the dice, it doesn't make you equally likely to succeed even with all your class features.

In short, neither is actually a problem.

paladinn

2021-10-20, 02:41 PM

OP did indeed do that previously:

I thought this was thread necromancy, at first.

Mea culpa. I have a photographic memory; it just never developed.

Psyren

2021-10-20, 02:52 PM

I could see the half-proficiency thing working well as an optional rule, particularly for those games that go past 14+. Maybe 5.5 will add it.

Mea culpa. I have a photographic memory; it just never developed.

ba-dum-tss

Chronos

2021-10-20, 03:37 PM

Quoth loki_ragnarok:

You want the saving throw to have about a 50%sih chance of success or failure? Aim for DC 12. No higher than that. It means that the folks who are proficient in that save likely have a greater than 50% chance of success, and that people with no proficiency will have slightly less... and that's about it, with a slight, slow scaling towards success as they become higher level. But over all, in a four person party you can expect to probably get two people with whatever effect on the average.
I'm not sure what edition you're talking about, here, but it sure isn't 5th. Is there anything in the Monster Manual or any published adventure above CR 1, with a save DC that low?

Dork_Forge

2021-10-20, 03:46 PM

They don't get enough better to make low level monsters not relevant. A level 20 Barbarian at +3 Int from half proficiency can still easily fail an Intellect Devourer's DC 12 save and die. Even one with 14 Int and +3 to Int-saves is failing 30% of the time, which is a pretty high likelihood for a CR2 monster to have a chance at one-shotting a level 20 character who invested a 14 in a quaternary stat that pretty much only helps in this specific case. Those save-or-X monsters are certainly still way more relevant on high levels than CR 2 brutes hitting for ~15 damage vs. 200+ HP and resistance.

You chose one of the most infamous low level creatures to support your point and even then this isn't true. For an Intellect Devourer to actually kill that Barbarian the following has to happen:

-It needs to get within 10ft of the character and take an action, with a +2 to initiative, low AC, and 21 hp.

-Barbarian fails DC 12 Int save

-3d6 roll comes out equal to, or higher than, the Barbarian's intelligence

-On a separate turn, or an entirely separate Intellect Devourer, initiates and wins an Intelligence contest with the Barbarian, when it only has a +1 itself.

At this point the PC isn't actually dead, and for death to actually occur that PC needs to have a party entirely devoid of high level heals or the Wish spell.

Dying from an Intellect devourer is never a one shot, they're explicitly countered by a 1st level spell, and the number of spells and abilities in the game that can help any given character is already so high they don't really need the extra saves at all.

All giving this Barbarian +3 to saves does is reduce the tension of that encounter, of a thing that wasn't actually likely to happen to begin with.

They don't scale at nearly the same rate. A high level save is like DC 21. A low level save is like DC 12. That's +9 save DC. +3 is one third of the save DC increase; it just keeps you on the dice, it doesn't make you equally likely to succeed even with all your class features.

To 'stay on the dice' you need a +1.

Why should any old adventurer be able to have a chance to succeed against a DC 21 save without anything helping them?

How is that serving the game?

In short, neither is actually a problem.

Not getting free advancement to non-proficient saves is not a problem to begin with.

Eldariel

2021-10-20, 04:21 PM

To 'stay on the dice' you need a +1.

Why should any old adventurer be able to have a chance to succeed against a DC 21 save without anything helping them?

A 5% chance is a 5% chance. There "is a chance" but it isn't much. Though if you dislike it, just give this as a categorical buff on Tier 2 instead.

Not getting free advancement to non-proficient saves is not a problem to begin with.

Why? Why is it okay for save-or-X from the same enemy to remain equally dangerous 1-20 but damage to become significantly less of a threat? Why does one type of defense scale but the other not? Why should characters be by default poor at majority of the saves? Isn't it enough to have one or two big weaknesses? Why do they need 4?

loki_ragnarock

2021-10-20, 04:22 PM

I'm not sure what edition you're talking about, here, but it sure isn't 5th. Is there anything in the Monster Manual or any published adventure above CR 1, with a save DC that low?

In anticipation of this being brought up, here's a a full list of the MM creatures that generate DCs 12 or lower!

Creatures that produce a DC 12, an incomplete survey from someone lazy:
Basilisk
Vine Blight
Chasme
Bearded Devil
Blue Dragon Wyrmling
White Dragon Wyrmling
Bronze
Drow Elite Warrior
Drow Mage
Gnoll Fang of Yeenblah blah
Deep Gnome
Green Hag
Hell Hound
Intellect Devourer
Kua-toa Whip
Lizardfolk Shaman
Wereboar
Werewolf
Mummy
Myconid Sovereign
Bone Naga
Nothic
Gelatinous Cube
Pixie
Sahuagin Priestess
Green Slaad
Troglodyte
Yuan-ti Pureblood
Deathdog
Elephant
Giant Scorpion
Panther
Winter Wolf
Acolyte
Druid

DC 11
Cockatrice
Dretch
Imp
Black dragon wyrmling
Green
Brass
Copper
Drow
Ettercap
Faerie dragon
Deep Gnome
Grell
Sea Hag
Harpy
Kuo-toa
wererat
magmin
Magma mephit
Mud Mephit
Mummy
Myconid Adult
Orc Eye of Gruumsh
Psuedodragon
Rust Monster
Scarecrow
Thri-kreen
Mezzoloth
Boar
Giant Centipedes
Giant Crab
Giant Frog
Giant Poisonous Snake
Giant Sea Horse
Giant Spider
Giant Wasp
Giant Wolf Spider
Mastiff
Phase Spider
Wolf

DC 10
Quasit
White Dragon Lair Actions
Flumph
Gas Spore
Ghast
Ghoul
Gibbering Mouther
Homunculus
Jacklewere
Dust Mephit
Ice Mephit
Smoke Mephit
Steam Mephit
Psychic Grey Ooze
Specter
Sprite
Will-O’-Wisp
Diseased Giant Rats
Goat
Octopus
Poisonous Snake
Swarm of Poisonous Snakes

DC 9
Scorpion
Spider

Look at that, eh.

Saelethil

2021-10-20, 04:46 PM

Why? Why is it okay for save-or-X from the same enemy to remain equally dangerous 1-20 but damage to become significantly less of a threat? Why does one type of defense scale but the other not? Why should characters be by default poor at majority of the saves? Isn't it enough to have one or two big weaknesses? Why do they need 4?

I get the desire to boost all non-prof. saves but I also like the idea of characters having actual weaknesses throughout the game. So maybe a reasonable middle ground would be allowing them to pick two saves to be half-proficient in, that way they could choose their weakest stats to round them out and make them a little bit of a safer bet or they can boost the middle stats up to a decent range.

Eldariel

2021-10-20, 05:12 PM

I get the desire to boost all non-prof. saves but I also like the idea of characters having actual weaknesses throughout the game. So maybe a reasonable middle ground would be allowing them to pick two saves to be half-proficient in, that way they could choose their weakest stats to round them out and make them a little bit of a safer bet or they can boost the middle stats up to a decent range.

Let's be fair: someone with +3 to a save on level 20 is still pretty damn weak at that save. Like a CR 1/4 Acolyte casting Bane is still gonna nail that 10 Cha Barbarian 20 almost 50% of the time (+3 vs. DC 12 = 40% fail chance). We're also literally talking about whether character has a 0% or 15% chance of making a save against a big enemy; in ~9 fights out of 10 they're failing anyways. Get that: they are quite likely to go through 9 boss fights and never make that Wis save. It's fully possible to go through an entire campaign without making a single high impact save with those odds and every single time they roll that save, they expect to fail; they just have a slight chance vs. not having to bother to roll. IME rolling a 20 and still failing on level 20 when you're supposedly badass just doesn't feel good. But yeah, you could also have two weak and two inexistent saves - that's less awful than the current system at least though I prefer having 4 weak saves and 2 strong saves.

Let's not forget that there are characters with good stat but no save progression which leads to weird stuff too. Dex Fighter for example has no Dex save advancement but is likely to have +5 Dex. A Ranger with 10 Dex is more likely to make that save than a Fighter with 20 Dex. No progression means that they're still likely to fail those Dex saves vs. strong enemies; with half progression, that 20 would actually mean that they have almost 25% chance and rerolls are actually relevant! Yay! Ancient Red Dragon fire breath is DC24 so at +5 they're almost critfishing but at +8 they have 1/4 chance of making the save. Which is...minimum of what I'd expect for a level 20 character with 20 Dexterity. Add Indomitable and they'll have an actually significant chance of making it: 43,75%! So they're still a dog failing over half their saves (and unlike specialists, they lack stuff like Evasion) but at least one that doesn't need to have stars align to succeed every now and then!

OTOH poor stat + poor progression would still lead to cases where the character is basically never making a save. Someone with 8 in Wis and +3 from poor progression has +2 total which is still that 10% grade vs. a Pit Fiend for example.

Frogreaver

2021-10-20, 06:14 PM

Assuming a 21 DC and a max level character, here's some fairly typical save success rates.

Max Stat and Save Proficiency = 55% success rate
+2 Stat Mod and Save Proficiency = 40% success rate
No Stat Mod and Save Proficiency = 30% success rate
+2 Stat Mod and no Save proficiency = 10% success rate
No Stat Mod and no Save proficiency = 0% success rate

To me that reads that characters without save proficiency tend to have much too low of a save chance for most non-proficient saves. 0% and 10% chances of success feel terrible - especially when its nearly all of your saving throws.

I personally think PC's should have been considered proficient in all saves. Let classes give a +2 save bonus to their class saves. Let resilient give you the +2 class save bonus in a save that doesn't already have it. That would lead to a common save range of 25% to 65% at max level. That feels much better than the 0% to 55% range we currently see. You can still be bad at stuff as 25-30% chance of success isn't good by any means. You just are no longer quite as bad at those things as you previously were.

You'd probably want to reign in some other saving throw bonuses like the paladin's aura so that the curve doesn't get too messed up.

Akkristor

2021-10-20, 06:22 PM

5e and 3.5 have the same spread between Proficient/High saves and non-proficient/low saves.

The difference between 5E proficient saves and non-proficient saves with the same stat bonus at 1st level is 2. (Proficiency bonus is +2)
The difference between 5E proficient saves and non-proficient saves with the same stat bonus at 20th level is 6. (Proficiency bonus is +6)

The difference between 3.5 high saves and low saves with the same stat bonus at 1st level is 2. (Low save is +0, High Save is +2)
The difference between 3.5 high saves and low saves with the same stat bonus at 20th level is 6. (Low save is +6, High Save is +12)

stoutstien

2021-10-20, 06:57 PM

the good news is it only starts really breaking down at high CR. The vast majority of DCs are 11-18 which can be hard but at least not impossible.

PhoenixPhyre

2021-10-20, 08:04 PM

Against effects with constant DC, high level characters are either the same or better. Not worse.

Against effects with varying DCs, proficient characters are better (all else being equal). Not worse.

At no time do you scale backward unless you scale the DCs in a way the system doesn't assume. And no, comparing CR == level fights is not the system's assumption. Not at all.

The trick people are doing is comparing low level characters against low DCs and high level characters against high DCs and then claiming you got worse. Which isn't the case.

Let's look at a different "DC". Armor. If the monster gets better at hitting (ie higher to hit bonus), you didn't get worse at dodging it. Armor doesn't really scale with level (only very weakly, and not directly as a function of level). Nor should it--that's the essence of bounded accuracy.

In fact, bounded accuracy means that having proficiency is a bonus, not an expectation. That's literally the most basic part. Not that the numbers themselves are in some range, but that the defense target numbers aren't assumed to scale with level, or assumed to scale only very weakly. Giving everyone proficiency/partial-proficiency means breaking that in fundamental ways and dramatically reducing the number of monsters that actually pose a threat. Which is exactly the opposite of the design.

Edit: not only that, but the system assumes you will fail saves. And do so relatively frequently. That's why there are so few save or dies (and almost no single-save such effects on monsters, and the few that exist have much lower DCs than you'd assume). And why so many things allow repeated saves. Failure is normal. Because hitting is fun for both players and DMs.

Eldariel

2021-10-21, 12:33 AM

Edit: not only that, but the system assumes you will fail saves. And do so relatively frequently. That's why there are so few save or dies (and almost no single-save such effects on monsters, and the few that exist have much lower DCs than you'd assume). And why so many things allow repeated saves. Failure is normal. Because hitting is fun for both players and DMs.

Like I showed, this wouldn't change with half proficiency to off-saves. Indeed, a lowly CR 1/4 Acolyte would still be nailing level 20 PCs with relative frequency. It would just let them roll in most cases even against powerful enemies, which feels better than not getting to roll, even if the roll is almost guaranteed failure anyways. That 1 fight in 20 will feel all the better when you do succeed, but you won't succeed often enough to make the default case anything but failure.

Monster Manuel

2021-10-21, 08:40 AM

Does a houserule that introduces a critical success/failure mechanic for Saves fix this issue? A Nat20 always succeeds, a Nat1 always fails? That way, even if you have a miserable -1 save at level 20, you always have a CHANCE to roll that 20, and, alternately, that Demon Lord may always roll a nat1 on its save against your spell.

You get that 1-in-20 shot at the DC 21 save that we seem to be looking for, without having to be clever about granting an incremental bonus to nonproficient saves.

From an "is it fun" perspective, I think rolling a nat20 is always exciting for a player, and having that result reflected mechanically is always a good thing.

Frogreaver

2021-10-21, 08:57 AM

PhoenixPhyre

2021-10-21, 10:30 AM

Like I showed, this wouldn't change with half proficiency to off-saves. Indeed, a lowly CR 1/4 Acolyte would still be nailing level 20 PCs with relative frequency. It would just let them roll in most cases even against powerful enemies, which feels better than not getting to roll, even if the roll is almost guaranteed failure anyways. That 1 fight in 20 will feel all the better when you do succeed, but you won't succeed often enough to make the default case anything but failure.

Powerful enemies (those few with save DCs over 20) should require preparation. Fighting them "naked" (ie no bless, no paladin, no investment in key saves, no save-boosting items, no nothing) should be nearly impossible. Because those should be epic fights, not Tuesday.

Seriously, almost all those are Wisdom saves (or are saves against taking damage, which are kinda moot). Who dumps Wis? If you're worried about it and put a 10 into WIS, spend one of your ASIs on (horrors) defenses. Either Resilient (WIS) or just flat increasing your Wisdom. All it takes is a single ASI unless your starting WIS was negative. And don't do that. Or use any of the plethora of ways to boost saves. An uncommon Cloak of Protection does the trick to get you back on the die for the vast majority. The game doesn't require you to spend all your resources boosting damage, you know.

Boosting saves is way easier than boosting DCs. So if you boost saves naturally, then it becomes very easy for those little guys to not pose a significant threat anymore. To anyone.

Oh, and the total number of enemies with save DCs above 20 is...small. Last I counted it was about 50, and most of those were Dex saves (save for half damage, no effect other than damage). The rest were (dominantly) Wisdom saves.

Unoriginal

2021-10-21, 10:33 AM

Does a houserule that introduces a critical success/failure mechanic for Saves fix this issue? A Nat20 always succeeds, a Nat1 always fails?

Adding more crit success/failure mechanics is not something I think is good for the game.

From an "is it fun" perspective, I think rolling a nat20 is always exciting for a player, and having that result reflected mechanically is always a good thing.

I disagree strongly on that front.

Powerful enemies (those few with save DCs over 20) should require preparation. Fighting them "naked" (ie no bless, no paladin, no investment in key saves, no save-boosting items, no nothing) should be nearly impossible. Because those should be epic fights, not Tuesday.

Seriously, almost all those are Wisdom saves (or are saves against taking damage, which are kinda moot). Who dumps Wis? If you're worried about it and put a 10 into WIS, spend one of your ASIs on (horrors) defenses. Either Resilient (WIS) or just flat increasing your Wisdom. All it takes is a single ASI unless your starting WIS was negative. And don't do that. Or use any of the plethora of ways to boost saves. An uncommon Cloak of Protection does the trick to get you back on the die for the vast majority. The game doesn't require you to spend all your resources boosting damage, you know.

Honestly, I find it hilarious that there are so many people willing to argue that the Monk is weak and should feel bad until they're out of breath, but then threads like this happen and people argue that one of the things that make the Monk powerful should be for everyone or else everyone is too weak.

Sigreid

2021-10-21, 10:37 AM

As I read up thread, the fact that even the majority of the save or suck spells give repeated saving throws to break it after an initial fail, what this sets up is taking away the caster's chance to have impact in another way than throwing another fireball.

Eldariel

2021-10-21, 11:03 AM

Honestly, I find it hilarious that there are so many people willing to argue that the Monk is weak and should feel bad until they're out of breath, but then threads like this happen and people argue that one of the things that make the Monk powerful should be for everyone or else everyone is too weak.

Monk save boost comes on level 14 so it's pretty tangential to their strength or the lack thereof.

Powerful enemies (those few with save DCs over 20) should require preparation. Fighting them "naked" (ie no bless, no paladin, no investment in key saves, no save-boosting items, no nothing) should be nearly impossible. Because those should be epic fights, not Tuesday.

Key word, nearly impossible. Not actually impossible. Those boosts should make it manageable, not easy. And, lo and behold, something like half prof bonus to saves wouldn't make it easy. They'd just mean you get to roll dice instead of being impossible. Guess what, your Fighter/Rogue/Barbarian/Ranger party doesn't have access to Paladins or Blesses or magic items or anything of the sort. Prep's great if you've got it available, but the weaker classes in the game don't and those are obviously the ones hit worst by stuff like this. Those are party boosts you might not be at the luxury of having, especially if you don't want to play one of the threeish classes that get those yourself. Are you telling me it's okay for the party to just straight-up crumble in front of such an encounter, especially in a featless game? I thought every party was supposed to be playable in this edition.

With some save boosts, those guys might on a lucky day actually have a shot at winning one of those epic fights. Most of the time they'd still die ignobly but one day they'd at least have the chance to get lucky and win. I don't get what's wrong about Fighters and Barbarians and company having a slight shot at making saves vs. tough enemies on high levels. With some boost they might actually not be dog to fail every save ever! Hell, the Barbarian may even get to close in to melee range! How terrible would it be for the game for the weaker classes to get a slight chance to play on very high levels?

It seems strange to argue that all challenge of saves would be removed with this change. That's not at all the case! Without prep you'd still be counting fishes very quickly and even with prep you'd still be losing more often than not and you'd still want that Res: Wis ASAP and you'd still be forced to invest in Wis even though your character concept has nothing to do with being wise - why should intelligence or charisma really be an option anyways, am I right? Paladin and Peace Cleric are basically the only two exceptions and not every party should be required to have a Paladin or Bull**** Broken Cleric. Those should be outliers where the previously difficult saves become more manageable, instead of the baseline the game is built around.

As I read up thread, the fact that even the majority of the save or suck spells give repeated saving throws to break it after an initial fail, what this sets up is taking away the caster's chance to have impact in another way than throwing another fireball.

...what. Where are you getting this from? If a CR 1/4 Acolyte still has a 40% chance of affecting each level 20 enemy, of which they can target 3, with Bane, how is it better to just throw a Fireball? Buffing saves doesn't mean people automake them. It just means people are ever so slightly more likely to make them; they'll still fail almost half the time against Goblin-level enemies on level 20. Isn't that enough?

Okay, tell you what, tell me what level of failure chance you think a level 20 character should have vs.:
CR 1/4 enemy targeting a weak save?
CR 1/4 enemy targeting a strong save?
CR 10 enemy targeting a weak save?
CR 10 enemy targeting a strong save?
CR 25 enemy targeting a weak save?
CR 25 enemy targeting a strong save?

Unoriginal

2021-10-21, 11:06 AM

Monk save boost comes on level 14 so it's pretty tangential to their strength or the lack thereof.

By that logic, the abilities and associated save DC of any monster which you aren't expected to fight before lvl 14 are just as tangential.

Furthermore, the saves of any PC of lvl 14 or more are also just as tangential.

Eldariel

2021-10-21, 11:11 AM

By that logic, the abilities and save DC of any monster which you aren't expected to fight before lvl 14 are just as tangential.

That's not the logic used here, you're using a different logic. The logic says that a Monk being great at saves past level 14 doesn't make up for them sucking at saves up until level 14, which is one (of the many) reasons they are often considered weak. Sure, they're great at saves on level 14 - that doesn't help the other classes on that level nor does it help Monks on most of the levels (2/3rd of the game).

Two different points:
1) Monk is weak because of their low level abilities and because on high levels they still don't measure up to top classes. They start off weak and grow to become average. Not very exciting.

2) High level gameplay for classes without any save abilities kinda sucks because they don't even get to roll for some saves.

#2 doesn't concern Monks. It seems kind of pointless to bring them up here. They will still be way better at saves than all other non-Paladin/Bless classes even if other classes get half-proficiencies (+3 and easy access to rerolls better from level 14 onwards to be precise). And you can buff them if you feel this steals their thunder. Hell, you should probably buff them whether you feel that way or not. Don't let poor design of one class condemn others; that's not a way to build a solid system.

Unoriginal

2021-10-21, 11:20 AM

That's not the logic used here, you're using a different logic. The logic says that a Monk being great at saves past level 14 doesn't make up for them sucking at saves up until level 14, which is one (of the many) reasons they are often considered weak. Sure, they're great at saves on level 14 - that doesn't help the other classes on that level nor does it help Monks on most of the levels (2/3rd of the game).

Two different points:
1) Monk is weak because of their low level abilities and because on high levels they still don't measure up to top classes. They start off weak and grow to become average. Not very exciting.

2) High level gameplay for classes without any save abilities kinda sucks because they don't even get to roll for some saves.

#2 doesn't concern Monks. It seems kind of pointless to bring them up here. They will still be way better at saves than all other non-Paladin/Bless classes even if other classes get half-proficiencies (+3 and easy access to rerolls better from level 14 onwards to be precise).

So just to make sure I understand what you mean with 2), you are saying that all high-level characters except Paladins, Monks and those who can have Bless active are unable to overcome high-CR enemies who can target the saves they're not proficient, and will still be disproportionally threatened even by low-CR enemies who can target said saves, correct?

Eldariel

2021-10-21, 11:24 AM

So just to make sure I understand what you mean with 2), you are saying that all high-level characters except Paladins, Monks and those who can have Bless active are unable to overcome high-CR enemies who can target the saves they're not proficient, and will still be disproportionally threatened even by low-CR enemies who can target said saves, correct?

I'm not saying they're unable to overcome high CR enemies, I'm saying they're unlikely (and in many cases, straight-up unable) to make saves vs. high level enemies hitting a save that isn't their strength. What's the impact of failing a save varies (on the effect and the character).

Obviously spellcasters are pretty nonplussed by something like frightful presence or whatever since it doesn't really matter with regards to what they can do and ranged martials still have options if at disadvantage but as ever, especially melee martials suffer pretty significantly in their ability to contribute. Which is of course a running theme in the game, don't play melee martials, but this just reinforces it unnecessarily. In my ideal game, melee martials would be equal to everyone else even on high levels even if they aren't able to cast spells and they wouldn't have to depend on casters for save buffs to have a shot at making them, but that's not 5e. Still, some things can be done to make 5e less hostile to the archetype and this is one of those.

PhoenixPhyre

2021-10-21, 12:01 PM

Key word, nearly impossible. Not actually impossible. Those boosts should make it manageable, not easy. And, lo and behold, something like half prof bonus to saves wouldn't make it easy. They'd just mean you get to roll dice instead of being impossible. Guess what, your Fighter/Rogue/Barbarian/Ranger party doesn't have access to Paladins or Blesses or magic items or anything of the sort. Prep's great if you've got it available, but the weaker classes in the game don't and those are obviously the ones hit worst by stuff like this. Those are party boosts you might not be at the luxury of having, especially if you don't want to play one of the threeish classes that get those yourself. Are you telling me it's okay for the party to just straight-up crumble in front of such an encounter, especially in a featless game? I thought every party was supposed to be playable in this edition.

With some save boosts, those guys might on a lucky day actually have a shot at winning one of those epic fights. Most of the time they'd still die ignobly but one day they'd at least have the chance to get lucky and win. I don't get what's wrong about Fighters and Barbarians and company having a slight shot at making saves vs. tough enemies on high levels. With some boost they might actually not be dog to fail every save ever! Hell, the Barbarian may even get to close in to melee range! How terrible would it be for the game for the weaker classes to get a slight chance to play on very high levels?

It seems strange to argue that all challenge of saves would be removed with this change. That's not at all the case! Without prep you'd still be counting fishes very quickly and even with prep you'd still be losing more often than not and you'd still want that Res: Wis ASAP and you'd still be forced to invest in Wis even though your character concept has nothing to do with being wise - why should intelligence or charisma really be an option anyways, am I right? Paladin and Peace Cleric are basically the only two exceptions and not every party should be required to have a Paladin or Bull**** Broken Cleric. Those should be outliers where the previously difficult saves become more manageable, instead of the baseline the game is built around.

They get ASIs. Tons and tons of ASIs. Which means they can get back "on the d20" fairly easily. They just have to not spend every bit of everything on offense. Heck, one ASI to get Resilient (WIS) is enough--the only other high-DC saves are DEX saves which a) most of those are proficient in anyway and b) only do damage (and half on a success). Not only that, you can get simple items fairly easily, and I'd say that any DM who
a) has such a party
b) doesn't make items available (not required, available)
c) throws the party against creatures like that
is being antagonistic. That's even specifically counseled against in the DMG.

And the investment in WIS isn't all that much--a single 12 is fine. If half-proficiency is enough, then for the vast

And for that matter, those fights are super rare by design. Like...once per game that goes to level 20 rare. The vast majority of them are CR 20+; the others only have DEX saves at that peak. And 99.999% of them are either Ancient (or the hard half of Adult Dragons) whose disabling effects (the fear) are lower DCs or are named, unique monsters (ie demon lords, archdukes, etc).

Eldariel

2021-10-21, 12:07 PM

stoutstien

2021-10-21, 12:24 PM

They get ASIs. Tons and tons of ASIs. Which means they can get back "on the d20" fairly easily. They just have to not spend every bit of everything on offense. Heck, one ASI to get Resilient (WIS) is enough--the only other high-DC saves are DEX saves which a) most of those are proficient in anyway and b) only do damage (and half on a success). Not only that, you can get simple items fairly easily, and I'd say that any DM who
a) has such a party
b) doesn't make items available (not required, available)
c) throws the party against creatures like that
is being antagonistic. That's even specifically counseled against in the DMG.

And the investment in WIS isn't all that much--a single 12 is fine. If half-proficiency is enough, then for the vast

And for that matter, those fights are super rare by design. Like...once per game that goes to level 20 rare. The vast majority of them are CR 20+; the others only have DEX saves at that peak. And 99.999% of them are either Ancient (or the hard half of Adult Dragons) whose disabling effects (the fear) are lower DCs or are named, unique monsters (ie demon lords, archdukes, etc).

I think the issue stems more from the for people to use a lot of single targeting encounters which means using higher CRs because honestly it's pretty easy to just overwhelm most single targets even if they have both legendary and lair actions. So instead of having 3-4 encounters and then an adult dragon with a few mooks running amok they just toss an ancient dragon at the party and call it good. Even of the exp budget, or whatever way they are mapping out an adventuring day, are similar they overall feel and finish of those two days are polar opposites.

Chaos Jackal

2021-10-21, 12:28 PM

I was forming a post as I was reading through this thread, but then I realized that Eldariel more or less covered most points I wanted to make...

Suffice to say, I agree with them. It does sting that some monster from the days you were dressed in rags can affect you as easily when you're in riches. It does feel annoying if you autofail a save when you're a lv20 guy or gal with huge experience in all kinds of fights throughout your adventuring career.

Not just mechanically, mind you; the seasoned commander of a thousand battles or the brutal barbarian of the wildlands, veterans of who knows how many battles, who have seen all manner of monstrosity and cruelty, still cower automatically at the sight of a dragon? Why? How? Sure, it's a very big, very scary dragon, but they're not just any randoms who picked up weapons, they're among the greatest warriors in the land. Why are they always trembling in fear?

I'd like to focus a bit more on who gets affected the worst too. Generally, the most devastating effects, or the ones harder to remove or escape from, have mental saves. At the same time, the thing affected from most conditions, special effects and whatever other misfortune might befall a character are attacks, and worse yet melee attacks. Someone who's restrained can still fire arrows, someone who's poisoned or feared can still cast spells, but someone who has a sword or an axe can just take out his phone and wait for the fight to end if he has no means of making the save. And the classes affected the most are the ones with the fewest tools to make the save. Not only is their main schtick the easiest to shut down, their mental stats are tertiary at best and they can't afford to raise them without potentially gimping their main schtick severely. And they can most certainly not cover them all. Resilient: Wisdom tends to become a given, but you can only take Resilient once, and while Int or Cha saves are rare they're typically just as if not more merciless; fail and you're either in big trouble or just royally screwed. Meanwhile, a wizard or a warlock already have proficiency in Wisdom, a cleric can bless, a paladin has their aura, and there are spells like intellect fortress for other classes, in addition to being able to mitigate the often more manageable effects of physical saves with things from absorb elements to dimension door.

Is the game unplayable or nonfunctional with completely non-scaling saves? Certainly not, but neither is it with a small scaling like half proficiency. Making the save on an 18 is still damn hard, and it feels better than always and forever failing it. Being affected by some lowly monster that got the better of you is still feasible, but at least it won't get the better of you as easily regardless of whether you're still in the local village militia or have survived and won interplanar conflicts.

PhoenixPhyre

2021-10-21, 12:49 PM

Okay, play the same game without feats.

Then you have tons of ASIs to boost the underlying stats. Seriously. It takes what, 1? 2 ASIs to cap your main stat? Fighters and rogues (especially) have buckets more ASIs by the time you're facing those threats. And again, in a party without any form of buffing magic, throwing them at such fights without magic items is specifically warned against in the DMG. In fact, the DMG says "be wary of using enemies that primarily target your party's weakest saves".

And seriously, there are a grand total of 35 such monsters. Most of whom only have DC > 20 for Dexterity saves that only do damage. Something that particular party is well-equipped to handle. You're likely (if you're actually playing by the guidelines) see one of those either 0 or 1 times in an entire 1-20 campaign. A significant issue this is absolutely not.

Eldariel

2021-10-21, 01:17 PM

Then you have tons of ASIs to boost the underlying stats. Seriously. It takes what, 1? 2 ASIs to cap your main stat? Fighters and rogues (especially) have buckets more ASIs by the time you're facing those threats. And again, in a party without any form of buffing magic, throwing them at such fights without magic items is specifically warned against in the DMG. In fact, the DMG says "be wary of using enemies that primarily target your party's weakest saves".

And seriously, there are a grand total of 35 such monsters. Most of whom only have DC > 20 for Dexterity saves that only do damage. Something that particular party is well-equipped to handle. You're likely (if you're actually playing by the guidelines) see one of those either 0 or 1 times in an entire 1-20 campaign. A significant issue this is absolutely not.

A game that restricts what monsters I can use is a flawed one. My story shouldn't have to change to accommodate a party made up of particular classes: that should be an option, not a necessity. That does nothing to dwfend the status quo: on the contrary, that whole passage just proves that this issue should be addressed by the rules.

And if a character is completely worthless in the final, climactic fight, that's pretty impactful (and ****ty to the player) as is feeling that the opponent suddenly obviously begins fighting like an idiot (walks next to the frightened Barbarian to let them attack or whatever) to give you a chance.

And that +1 Wis doesn't accomplish much. +3 does, maybe, but that's +3 not in Dex or Con or Int or Cha; it shouldn't have to be obligatory (and it still doesn't address getting hit in other saves; e.g. Nagpa has a DC 21 Cha save and any epic caster has plenty of both). Barb gets 5 ASIs total of which 2 is your Str and you have a class feature pushing you to buff Con and Dex.

RickAsWritten

2021-10-21, 01:37 PM

What about something along the lines of "When you increase any ability score to 20, you may choose one ability score that you are not proficient in saving throws. You may add half your proficiency score (rounded down) to saving throws using the chosen ability."

PhoenixPhyre

2021-10-21, 01:49 PM

A game that restricts what monsters I can use is a flawed one. My story shouldn't have to change to accommodate a party made up of particular classes: that should be an option, not a necessity. That does nothing to dwfend the status quo: on the contrary, that whole passage just proves that this issue should be addressed by the rules.

And if a character is completely worthless in the final, climactic fight, that's pretty impactful (and ****ty to the player) as is feeling that the opponent suddenly obviously begins fighting like an idiot (walks next to the frightened Barbarian to let them attack or whatever) to give you a chance.

And that +1 Wis doesn't accomplish much. +3 does, maybe, but that's +3 not in Dex or Con or Int or Cha; it shouldn't have to be obligatory (and it still doesn't address getting hit in other saves; e.g. Nagpa has a DC 21 Cha save and any epic caster has plenty of both). Barb gets 5 ASIs total of which 2 is your Str and you have a class feature pushing you to buff Con and Dex.

Your solution restricts what monsters you can use even more, and globally. If everyone has at minimum a +2 to all saves, then the entire swath of the low end is just useless at anything that requires saves. That's a lot more monsters than anything else.
And to repeat--the ones with high saves? There are very very very very very very very very very very very very few that target anything other than Dex or Wis. Like...one. Two. Unless you go out of your way to build a spellcaster who targets those saves. Don't do that--that's adversarial DMing. Because really? The number of non-dex/wis/con saves out there is small. And most of those fear/other disabling effects? Don't have that high of DC. The dragons with a DC 21 breath save have a DC 19 fear save. And that pattern's across the board. Saves against disabling effects are lower than those with just damage effects.

So you're looking at
a) a party with no casters that can cast any kind of buff spell (fairly rare occurrence) or even a way to remove conditions (because lesser restoration works)
b) in a high-challenge game, at very high level (where most games don't even get)
c) without any kind of magic items (even though a cloak of resistance is Uncommon)
d) where you're using particularly-designed monsters that specifically target the weak saves. Which is both meta-gaming and specifically advised against.
e) where everyone has fairly low WIS (despite perception being rather important and WIS saves being one of the major ones).

That's...an edge case. A really really cherry-picked edge case.

Ancient (silver, red, gold) dragons: DC 21-24 (gold only) WIS save against fear. Breath is DC 24.
Ancient Silver: DC 24 CON save against paralysis.
Fraz-Urb'luu: DC 23 WIS. Phantasmal killer (legendary action only, fear), confusion only
Graz'zt: DC 23 WIS, dominate person/crown of madness
Demogorgon: DC 23 INT. Feeblemind. DC 23 WIS (fear).
Molydeus: DC 22 WIS. Imprisonment
Hutijin: DC 22 Wis (fear, suggestion)
Titivilius: DC 21 INT (feeblemind), DC 21 WIS (confusion)
Bael: DC 22 WIS or fear...for one turn. DC 21 WIS (dominate monster)
Pit Fiend: DC 21 WIS (fear, immune on success), DC 21 WIS (hold monster), DC 21 CON (poisoned)
Nightwalker: DC 21 WIS (fear + damage + paralysis). Recharge ability
Moloch: DC 21 WIS (fear effect)
Geryon: DC 23 WIS (targeted one-turn fear effect)

So basically...you've got
* named unique monsters (demon lords and dukes)
* pit fiends
* nightwalkers
* ancient red dragons (because really, how often do you fight ancient silvers or golds?)

And most of those are removable with a single lesser restoration or aren't super disabling (fear is bad, but not "out of combat") or are low enough that even getting a +1 puts you back on the die. And getting a +1 can be done in lots of different ways.

greenstone

2021-10-21, 03:00 PM

One of the minor things that bugs me about 5e is that characters don't improve at all in saves with which they aren't proficient.
I don't think that's true.

The 20th level character has had 20 levels of ASIs to improve the attribute behind the saving throw. They also have access to spells and blessings and auras and other features that improve saves. SOme classes get proficiency in all saves by level 20. The 20th level character hopefuly has magic items, scrolls, potions, amulets etc that can help with saves.

Just because the number on the character sheet hasn;t changed, it doesn't mean the save hasn't improved.

Eldariel

2021-10-21, 03:02 PM

Your solution restricts what monsters you can use even more, and globally. If everyone has at minimum a +2 to all saves, then the entire swath of the low end is just useless at anything that requires saves. That's a lot more monsters than anything else.
And to repeat--the ones with high saves? There are very very very very very very very very very very very very few that target anything other than Dex or Wis. Like...one. Two. Unless you go out of your way to build a spellcaster who targets those saves. Don't do that--that's adversarial DMing. Because really? The number of non-dex/wis/con saves out there is small. And most of those fear/other disabling effects? Don't have that high of DC. The dragons with a DC 21 breath save have a DC 19 fear save. And that pattern's across the board. Saves against disabling effects are lower than those with just damage effects.

So you're looking at
a) a party with no casters that can cast any kind of buff spell (fairly rare occurrence) or even a way to remove conditions (because lesser restoration works)
b) in a high-challenge game, at very high level (where most games don't even get)
c) without any kind of magic items (even though a cloak of resistance is Uncommon)
d) where you're using particularly-designed monsters that specifically target the weak saves. Which is both meta-gaming and specifically advised against.
e) where everyone has fairly low WIS (despite perception being rather important and WIS saves being one of the major ones).

That's...an edge case. A really really cherry-picked edge case.

Ancient (silver, red, gold) dragons: DC 21-24 (gold only) WIS save against fear. Breath is DC 24.
Ancient Silver: DC 24 CON save against paralysis.
Fraz-Urb'luu: DC 23 WIS. Phantasmal killer (legendary action only, fear), confusion only
Graz'zt: DC 23 WIS, dominate person/crown of madness
Demogorgon: DC 23 INT. Feeblemind. DC 23 WIS (fear).
Molydeus: DC 22 WIS. Imprisonment
Hutijin: DC 22 Wis (fear, suggestion)
Titivilius: DC 21 INT (feeblemind), DC 21 WIS (confusion)
Bael: DC 22 WIS or fear...for one turn. DC 21 WIS (dominate monster)
Pit Fiend: DC 21 WIS (fear, immune on success), DC 21 WIS (hold monster), DC 21 CON (poisoned)
Nightwalker: DC 21 WIS (fear + damage + paralysis). Recharge ability
Moloch: DC 21 WIS (fear effect)
Geryon: DC 23 WIS (targeted one-turn fear effect)

So basically...you've got
* named unique monsters (demon lords and dukes)
* pit fiends
* nightwalkers
* ancient red dragons (because really, how often do you fight ancient silvers or golds?)

And most of those are removable with a single lesser restoration or aren't super disabling (fear is bad, but not "out of combat") or are low enough that even getting a +1 puts you back on the die. And getting a +1 can be done in lots of different ways.

Please respond to this before we continue:

Okay, tell you what, tell me what level of failure chance you think a level 20 character should have vs.:
CR 1/4 enemy targeting a weak save?
CR 1/4 enemy targeting a strong save?
CR 10 enemy targeting a weak save?
CR 10 enemy targeting a strong save?
CR 25 enemy targeting a weak save?
CR 25 enemy targeting a strong save?

PhoenixPhyre

2021-10-21, 03:07 PM

Please respond to this before we continue:

Okay, tell you what, tell me what level of failure chance you think a level 20 character should have vs.:
CR 1/4 enemy targeting a weak save?
CR 1/4 enemy targeting a strong save?
CR 10 enemy targeting a weak save?
CR 10 enemy targeting a strong save?
CR 25 enemy targeting a weak save?
CR 25 enemy targeting a strong save?

Whatever the monster designer decides they should. Anything between 0% and 95%. For any of those values. And you can't set it for all cases--it will and should depend on investment. If someone decides "I want to beef up my offense, so I'm going to tank my defenses" they should get hit way more than someone who took a more defensive approach. You put 8 into WIS and didn't pick up anything to boost your saves (of which there are tons of options)? That's your problem. Not the system's.

So there is no unique number or even range of numbers beyond 0-95% that can be applied. Sure, hitting a weak save should be easier than hitting a strong save, but that's about it.

Basically, I just don't think that it matters all that much. And have seen where monsters that can't land their abilities become trivialized way before that should (by the normal patterns) happen. And I don't want to impose global solutions to problems that, as far as I can tell, are restricted to a handful of monsters at very high CRs against cherry-picked parties. Especially when those global "solutions" break the parts of the game that get played way more.

Eldariel

2021-10-21, 03:15 PM

Basically, I just don't think that it matters all that much. And have seen where monsters that can't land their abilities become trivialized way before that should (by the normal patterns) happen. And I don't want to impose global solutions to problems that, as far as I can tell, are restricted to a handful of monsters at very high CRs against cherry-picked parties. Especially when those global "solutions" break the parts of the game that get played way more.

This same thing again. What does this mean? How does +1 to weak saves on tier 2 break...well anything? How does acolyte chance of landibg a spell targeting weak save dropping by 5pp break the game? This whole argument feels absurd: for most of the game, the change is small and arguing that it breaks anything at all requires some substantial argumentation.

All these examples where trivialisation happened probably involved proficient saves; I have a hard time believing adding half-proficiency would result in that a meaningful amount of the time, especially in the levels you mentioned where it amounts to +1 vast majority of the time.

Chronos

2021-10-21, 03:58 PM

Quoth PhoenixPhyre:

Edit: not only that, but the system assumes you will fail saves. And do so relatively frequently. That's why there are so few save or dies (and almost no single-save such effects on monsters, and the few that exist have much lower DCs than you'd assume). And why so many things allow repeated saves. Failure is normal. Because hitting is fun for both players and DMs.
Right, so it has things like getting to roll a new save every round, or having to fail three saves in a row before something kills you, or the like.

But those things don't matter at all if you have zero chance of making the save, and matter almost not at all if you only have a 5% or 10% chance. There are some spells that, if you cast them at a high-level martial, will guarantee that they're completely out of the action for the entire fight, or nearly so.

Quoth Chaos Jackal:

I'd like to focus a bit more on who gets affected the worst too. Generally, the most devastating effects, or the ones harder to remove or escape from, have mental saves. At the same time, the thing affected from most conditions, special effects and whatever other misfortune might befall a character are attacks, and worse yet melee attacks. Someone who's restrained can still fire arrows, someone who's poisoned or feared can still cast spells, but someone who has a sword or an axe can just take out his phone and wait for the fight to end if he has no means of making the save. And the classes affected the most are the ones with the fewest tools to make the save. Not only is their main schtick the easiest to shut down, their mental stats are tertiary at best and they can't afford to raise them without potentially gimping their main schtick severely. And they can most certainly not cover them all. Resilient: Wisdom tends to become a given, but you can only take Resilient once, and while Int or Cha saves are rare they're typically just as if not more merciless; fail and you're either in big trouble or just royally screwed. Meanwhile, a wizard or a warlock already have proficiency in Wisdom, a cleric can bless, a paladin has their aura, and there are spells like intellect fortress for other classes, in addition to being able to mitigate the often more manageable effects of physical saves with things from absorb elements to dimension door.
Also don't forget the other side of the coin. There aren't very many effects targeting Int, Cha, or Str, true... but it's easy for a caster to choose those few spells. And most enemies don't get Resilient, or ASIs to tertiary stats, or Rings of Protection, or Bless, or the like. Which means that, against any given enemy, a caster has a choice of seven different defenses to target, and so will almost always be able to choose a weak one. Meanwhile, martials mostly only get to target one specific defense, and so if an enemy has high AC, they just have to accept that. The spellcaster, if they choose well, will have a larger chance to instantly nullify an enemy than the martial will to whittle away a sliver of their HP.

Psyren

2021-10-21, 04:05 PM

Whatever the monster designer decides they should. Anything between 0% and 95%. For any of those values.

Having a baseline for that by CR IS good design. That way, monsters can deviate from that curve based on their theme and the role you want them to play, and if a monster is strong against {insert saves} for their CR, you can weaken them in other ways. That way a party of that level can be challenged but still defeat them, even if that particular save isn't adequately covered.

Tanarii

2021-10-21, 05:17 PM

But those things don't matter at all if you have zero chance of making the save, and matter almost not at all if you only have a 5% or 10% chance. There are some spells that, if you cast them at a high-level martial, will guarantee that they're completely out of the action for the entire fight, or nearly so.

Do you run a lot of PvP? Or NPC casters built as PCs?

PhoenixPhyre

2021-10-21, 05:21 PM

Having a baseline for that by CR IS good design. That way, monsters can deviate from that curve based on their theme and the role you want them to play, and if a monster is strong against {insert saves} for their CR, you can weaken them in other ways. That way a party of that level can be challenged but still defeat them, even if that particular save isn't adequately covered.

And there is such a baseline...with enormous deviation. And people complain about it already.

The case being discussed (unable to pass the save against something that disables you, with no options to improve that) is such a tiny edge case that global adjustments are like using a nuke to hit a fly.

Do you run a lot of PvP? Or NPC casters built as PCs?

Exactly. And that counts as "tailoring the enemies against the PCs" and is something warned explicitly against (ie "watch out for targeting weak saves") in the DMG. So basically, for this to be a problem, you have to do it all wrong, intentionally.

SpikeFightwicky

2021-10-21, 05:32 PM

Just a few thoughts:

A- The CR system is entirely bound to the DPS of a creature. PhoenixPhyre mentioned that this is baked into the system that it assumes saves will be failed when calculating challenge. Currently, a creature that can cast 3 fireballs in a row at a DC of 15 has a specific challenge, and its average damage for 3 rounds of combat assumes 3 failed saves (so this monster has dp3r of 84). If all characters got iteratively improved saves, then that throws off all CR calculations for any monster that has DC as its basis for challenge. (Also, the system would likely self-regulate by upping the average DC a monster of any given challenge would have if it assumed all players got incremental save bonuses - at CR 1, 9 and 17 the impact a creature's save DC will have on CR is reduced... that's basically how 5e challenge works - a creature's dp3r is determined by assuming every attack hits and every spell DC is failed.)

B- Would this system be universal between players and creatures/NPCs? This would make every monster incrementally better at making saves if non-proficient saves were linked to proficiency bonus (proficiency bonus is one of the few parallels between creatures/NPCs and PCs, so I figure a non-proficient save bonus would be mimicked on the NPC/creature side).

Personally I feel as though a higher level player will have "some" way of improving weak saves, even if they're non-casters (if I were a fighter who failed every wisdom save from levels 1-10, my first reaction would be "I need to beef up my wisdom save" and not "DM, I need you to allow all my non-proficient saves to increase based on proficiency bonus because I suck at wisdom saves).

PhoenixPhyre

2021-10-21, 06:19 PM

Personally I feel as though a higher level player will have "some" way of improving weak saves, even if they're non-casters (if I were a fighter who failed every wisdom save from levels 1-10, my first reaction would be "I need to beef up my wisdom save" and not "DM, I need you to allow all my non-proficient saves to increase based on proficiency bonus because I suck at wisdom saves).

Exactly. The number of ways to boost your saves is quite large. And the amount needed is not large (+1 or +2 in most cases, less if you don't dump WIS). If you decide you're a glass cannon who puts all their resources into attacking more, then you also need to accept the consequences of being made of glass.

As a note for barbarians--the Berserker subclass gets to ignore charms and fear while raging well before they're in danger of missing every fear/charm save. That, right there, means they're safe from the extreme majority of the "DC > 21 disabling effects" out there. And most of the rest...don't affect barbarians much (ie feeblemind). But oh, if you choose that, you won't be optimal!

Dork_Forge

2021-10-21, 10:59 PM

A 5% chance is a 5% chance. There "is a chance" but it isn't much. Though if you dislike it, just give this as a categorical buff on Tier 2 instead.

I don't want to, and won't give a general save buff period. It's unnecessary and not for me or the tables I run.

As for 5% chance, you're moving the goalposts, this is either to make it possible for anyone and 'keep it on the die' or it's to give them a reasonable chance of success.

I don't agree with either.

DC 21 is a select group of monsters, they should be scary. Their effects shouldn't be passable by just anyone that gets lucky without investment.

There's plenty of ways in the game for characters to boost saves, spells, abilities, and items.

And whilst you can, and looking by the thread have already, choose niche parties that highlight weaknesses and remove the possibility of items to help them. That isn't the standard, nor is it the advice of the DMG.

And frankly, if a group of PCs die because they had glaring weaknesses that not one of them took steps to mitigate, so what? It's a game, death is a possibility in that game and if you focus on damage and doing cool looking things then you run a very high-risk reward scenario.

Why? Why is it okay for save-or-X from the same enemy to remain equally dangerous 1-20 but damage to become significantly less of a threat? Why does one type of defense scale but the other not? Why should characters be by default poor at majority of the saves? Isn't it enough to have one or two big weaknesses? Why do they need 4?

I'm not sure what kind of games you play in that damage becomes significantly less of a threat, that's not my experience playing, or running mid-higher levels. But as for an answer:

Because being good at pretty much everything is largely boring and not what the system assumes.

Because having lower-level monsters still pose some form of threat is interesting and keeps encounters fun.

The edition isn't, and wasn't ever, fight CR=level exclusively, and by buffing the lower monsters out you're messing with encounter dynamics.

Here's something pretty simple: this isn't actually a problem, the game doesn't stop working at high tiers because of high DCs. It encourages teamwork and investing in something other than killing things the fastest way possible.

Some people seem to prefer the notion that adventurers are exceptional across the board and that even things that have no investment, things that are even dumped should be automatically improved. This can, and likely for some that play this way, will encourage dumping to power build, as the tradeoffs are significantly reduced. The players that used to feel special they got X save defense will now not feel as special as that bonus is whittled down compared to average joe.

This doesn't benefit the game, it actively works against the game's design, it just benefits players that want to feel more special and powerful because the number on their character sheet has gone up and the raft of other benefits isn't enough. That's certainly a style of play, a much more superhero one IMO, but I'm sure plenty of folks would enjoy that. That doesn't make 5E that kind of game, and that doesn't mean that it should be that kind of game either. Weaknesses are exciting, they make you think about how to tackle problems in the best way. They make your heart beat faster when they're challenged and make everyone at the table cheer when you succeed despite the odds.

Pex

2021-10-21, 11:20 PM

Have a paladin within 10 feet (level 6 and up) or 30 feet (level 18 and up).

For one of them, get resilient feat; it adds proficiency.

Bardic Inspiration!

:smallsmile:

Early on in a campaign it is good not to march in "Fireball Formation" so that not everyone in the party gets hit with an area of effect attack. However, at some point an individual failing a saving throw of Something is worse than everyone taking some damage so at that point you want to walk in what I call "Hug The Paladin Formation". Non-proficient saves is also why the Bless spell remains relevant at high level. Combining it with the Paladin Aura has been the MVP in many a battle of a high level game I'm in. The cool part is my Paladin can afford to be the one to concentrate on Bless so that the Cleric can do other things.

However, this is also where Bounded Accuracy helps. Sure the BBEGs will have high saves, but not everything has DC 18+. Low level monsters as minions are still a thing. They'll have DCs in the range of 10-13, relatively easy to make when not proficient by yourself and made easier with buffs. The non-proficient saves looks bad on paper, but in practice I have found it's not crippling. Still, I'm not fond of it and would like an official improvement.

Eldariel

2021-10-22, 01:42 AM

Exactly. And that counts as "tailoring the enemies against the PCs"

How does picking a random story-relevant NPC statblock with random spell loadout and having it fight against PCs when it makes sense based on their and the PCs' goals and actions count as tailoring enemies? Basically any settings has plenty of extremely powerful NPC mages. Why should a DM not be allowed to use them based on a system issue? Why should such a system issue not be considered problematic? I think this particular clause is being extrapolated way too far. Also, even if it applied, it's still poor design for the game to not be able to handle a massive subset of options when used against certain PCs. Why do you consider avoiding certain types of stories and enemies entirely preferable to just addressing the issue?

Because being good at pretty much everything is largely boring and not what the system assumes.

Having a +3 save on level 20 doesn't make you good at it. It doesn't even make you decent. It means you're still failing a good bunch of saves vs. CR 1/4 enemies. Where does this idea of "gaining a minor buff to superweak saves making you good at it" come from? It makes no sense.

Because having lower-level monsters still pose some form of threat is interesting and keeps encounters fun.

And this wouldn't change that at all. Honestly, I don't get where these comments are coming from. Your weakness would still be a weakness. Instead of being a "you don't get to roll"-weakness, it would simply be a "You get a slight 1/10-level chance to succeed". Won't make your minions irrelevant. Won't make this character magically good at those saves. It just makes the character just good enough to get a die roll vs. the tougher enemies instead of being the same as on level 1, and it makes them ever so slightly more likely to succeed on a save vs. minions (but half bonus is basically never enough to make weak saves autosucceed even against the weakest of enemies; only things that can do that are extremely high base stat, Paladin Aura and some spells - and I'm personally okay with a 20 Dex Fighter 20 autosucceeding on DC9 Ref-saves).

EDIT: The reason this is different from AC is that AC attacks basically always have a secondary defense: HP. Saves? Only in a few cases. Many saves are debilitating, and equally relevant on level 1 and 20. This means that the defense against e.g. Bane or Faerie Fire or Entangle or Hold Person or Polymorph or Banishment or whatever doesn't scale at all over 20 levels even though the defense against attacks scales every level. This is the fundamental disconnect and why there needs to be some level of scaling on even bad saves.

Kane0

2021-10-22, 05:02 AM

PhoenixPhyre

2021-10-22, 03:00 PM

How does picking a random story-relevant NPC statblock with random spell loadout and having it fight against PCs when it makes sense based on their and the PCs' goals and actions count as tailoring enemies? Basically any settings has plenty of extremely powerful NPC mages. Why should a DM not be allowed to use them based on a system issue? Why should such a system issue not be considered problematic? I think this particular clause is being extrapolated way too far. Also, even if it applied, it's still poor design for the game to not be able to handle a massive subset of options when used against certain PCs. Why do you consider avoiding certain types of stories and enemies entirely preferable to just addressing the issue?

There are exactly zero NPC statblocks with DCs above 20. There are a tiny (I listed them exhaustively before) number of debilitating saves at 21+ total, and the ultra-vast majority of those are 21 even. The archmage (highest power stat block for a humanoid NPC caster) has a DC of 17. The lich (CR 21) has a spell save DC of 20 (not higher).

And remember, for this to be a problem you need all of
a) a party without any access to any buffing or condition removal spells
b) in a game without feats
c) and without defensive magic items (some of which are Uncommon)
d) who have dumped Wisdom.
e) and (in the case of the barbarian) hasn't chosen the Berserker subclass.

That's...niche. Super niche. Or indicates heavy tailoring of the NPCs against the party.

And mostly the fault of the players themselves--they knew that they had weaknesses. And did nothing to shore them up. The game doesn't expect you to have a 20 in your primary stat ever. So you've got tons of ASIs (especially in a no-feat game) to shore up your defenses.

Edit: and the spell-casters who have such high DCs on their spells? Are vulnerable to breaking concentration. So if the barbarian is feared, the ranger puts an arrow into the boss. Problem solved. That's called...teamwork.

Eldariel

2021-10-22, 03:06 PM

There are exactly zero NPC statblocks with DCs above 20. There are a tiny (I listed them exhaustively before) number of debilitating saves at 21+ total, and the ultra-vast majority of those are 21 even. The archmage (highest power stat block for a humanoid NPC caster) has a DC of 17. The lich (CR 21) has a spell save DC of 20 (not higher).

And remember, for this to be a problem you need all of
a) a party without any access to any buffing or condition removal spells
b) in a game without feats
c) and without defensive magic items (some of which are Uncommon)
d) who have dumped Wisdom.
e) and (in the case of the barbarian) hasn't chosen the Berserker subclass.

That's...niche. Super niche. Or indicates heavy tailoring of the NPCs against the party.

And mostly the fault of the players themselves--they knew that they had weaknesses. And did nothing to shore them up. The game doesn't expect you to have a 20 in your primary stat ever. So you've got tons of ASIs (especially in a no-feat game) to shore up your defenses.

Edit: and the spell-casters who have such high DCs on their spells? Are vulnerable to breaking concentration. So if the barbarian is feared, the ranger puts an arrow into the boss. Problem solved. That's called...teamwork.

Please correct me if I'm wrong: the way I read it, it seems to me like your reply boils down to:
- Players should just get good
- NPC statblocks don't have save DCs that high
- Such a game wouldn't occur that frequently?

Chronos

2021-10-22, 03:32 PM

Quoth PhoenixPhyre:

There are exactly zero NPC statblocks with DCs above 20.

Quoth Waterdeep: Dragon Heist:
Larael is a 19th-level spellcaster. Her spellcasting ability is Intelligence (spell save DC 21, +13 to hit with spell attacks).

Quoth Waterdeep: Dragon Heist:
Manshoon is an 18th-level spellcaster. His spellcasting ability is Intelligence (spell save DC 21, +15 to hit with spell attacks).
Challenge ratings 17 and 13, respectively.

Dork_Forge

2021-10-22, 03:41 PM

Challenge ratings 17 and 13, respectively.

For what it's worth, this is due to the item they share, not their inherent casting ability.

PhoenixPhyre

2021-10-22, 04:12 PM

Please correct me if I'm wrong: the way I read it, it seems to me like your reply boils down to:
- Players should just get good
- NPC statblocks don't have save DCs that high
- Such a game wouldn't occur that frequently?

I'm saying that making massive change (and yes, giving everyone the equivalent of an uncommon to Very Rare++ item or a scaling number of point-buy points is a massive change) to solve a situation that requires incredibly edge-case scenarios to trigger and might affect a single fight of a campaign and which can be solved by the players taking care for their own defenses is generally a bad idea.

Basically, what you're saying is "no one needs to worry about their defenses, you should be able to tank those stats and use those points elsewhere, because if the system calls you on that choice it's the system's fault". Which is a good way to encourage people to do nothing but make glass canons and complain that the system doesn't cater to them. Making a glass canon (and yes, dumping WIS is absolutely a form of doing that) should have costs. You chose to be vulnerable to those things, now pay the costs. Breaking the game much earlier so that you can avoid paying the consequences of your choices at extremely high levels and in rare situations is, well, not something I support.

Challenge ratings 17 and 13, respectively.

For what it's worth, this is due to the item they share, not their inherent casting ability.

I was looking at the "core monster books", because those are the ones I own. But as @Dork_Forge says, that seems to be because of magic items. Specifically legendary or artifact items, IIRC. Which makes those named, unique NPCs rather the opposite of "pulling a random NPC out of the book".

Eldariel

2021-10-23, 04:08 AM

I'm saying that making massive change (and yes, giving everyone the equivalent of an uncommon to Very Rare++ item or a scaling number of point-buy points is a massive change) to solve a situation that requires incredibly edge-case scenarios to trigger and might affect a single fight of a campaign and which can be solved by the players taking care for their own defenses is generally a bad idea.

This is assuming that the status quo is balanced. It's really not, as we notice when we consider different parties and notice how some have no trouble with this while others have plenty.

Basically, what you're saying is "no one needs to worry about their defenses, you should be able to tank those stats and use those points elsewhere, because if the system calls you on that choice it's the system's fault". Which is a good way to encourage people to do nothing but make glass canons and complain that the system doesn't cater to them. Making a glass canon (and yes, dumping WIS is absolutely a form of doing that) should have costs. You chose to be vulnerable to those things, now pay the costs. Breaking the game much earlier so that you can avoid paying the consequences of your choices at extremely high levels and in rare situations is, well, not something I support..

Like I said earlier, they'd still be failing their saves vast majority of the time and still be inclined to invest: this wouldn't save glass cannons, but it would give weaker classes a slightly lower chance of being. I believe you're completely overreacting to its implications.

If we look at this neutrally, it does a couple of things:
1) Make characters less likely to randomly die to a save they have no chance against. That Mind Flayer fight? Still rough but at least people have a slight chance of not all getting stunlocked and repeat saves may be useful so it's not just one Mindblast followed by a mop-up on non-Wizard/Artificer/Rogue characters.
2) Make character defenses vs. CC-effects scale ever so slightly (as it stands, while character durability vs. HP attacks basically grows 20 times higher over 1-20 without class features, character durability vs. save-or-X doesn't change at all unless they're proficient or investing character customization resources).
3) Makes character abilities like Indomitable not useless against bad save targeting attacks.

What this doesn't do:
1) Make all characters good at all saves.
2) Leave characters without weakness.
3) Make characters less inclined to invest in defense.

In other words, every high level Fighter and Barbarian will still have a feat tax of Res: Wis if playing with feats. That's not good design: feats are supposed to be character customization, not patching up a flawed chassis. Still, this would make the cost of building suboptimally (e.g. a new player) slightly lesser, and it would make high level Fighters, Rangers, Rogues, and Barbarians slightly less ****ed when faced with e.g. Cha or Int saves (which do exist and could exist more of especially if you tailor spell lists).

Not that they wouldn't still fail vast majority of the time; a simple Intellect Devourer would still have a great shot at taking down a level 20 PC without good Int, way higher than any CR 2 monster should have. But at least the save would succeed over 50% of the time.

You seem to be treating this as a black box "We can't know the consequences!"-kind of deal. It's really not: the consequences are clear. Higher level characters are slightly less helpless against certain saves but they're still going to fail most of them unless they have specific magic items or their class said saves irrelevant. Highs don't save but lows are slightly less low. They're still low though. -3 is a lot especially since nobody can afford a high stat in all stats so everyone will still have a weak save or two (unless they're specifically Paladins or Monks or Peace Clerics). It just goes from "rolling and rerolling is a waste of time" to "rolling and rerolling has a very slight chance of success but you will still fail vast majority of the time".

If you make the scaling into 0/1/2/2/3/3 with proficiency (so from Tier 2 you get ½ prof rounded down on previously non-proficient saves), the difference is +2 for the whole game except on tier 3 where it becomes +3. Which is fine: in bounded accuracy, a fixed difference is already massive. It doesn't need to get worse for it to be brutal. To put it into perspective, that's the difference between wielding and not wielding a shield. Which I think everyone agrees is pretty significant, so much so that casters are well-inclined to pick up shield proficiency.

Chronos

2021-10-23, 06:53 AM

PhoenixPhyre

2021-10-23, 09:36 AM

OK, yes, Larael Silverhands and Manshoon both have those high DCs as a result of wearing Robes of the Archmagi. And? They still have the high numbers. I don't see how the source of the numbers matters at all.

Because named, unique NPCs with legendary magic items aren't exactly "random NPCs"? That's my point. You have to go out of your way to run into the scenario.

Eldariel

2021-10-23, 10:22 AM

Because named, unique NPCs with legendary magic items aren't exactly "random NPCs"? That's my point. You have to go out of your way to run into the scenario.

Or run a module.

gloryblaze

2021-10-23, 11:07 AM

Or run a module.

If you’re running Dragon Heist and your level 1 to 5 PCs end up fighting Laeral Silverhand or Manshoon, something has gone wrong :P

IIRC the final boss of the Winter version of Dragon Heist is a special simulacrum of Manshoon with only 5th-level and lower spells and no robe of the archmagi, not big papa himself with the robe and 9th-level spells

Dork_Forge

2021-10-23, 11:12 AM

OK, yes, Larael Silverhands and Manshoon both have those high DCs as a result of wearing Robes of the Archmagi. And? They still have the high numbers. I don't see how the source of the numbers matters at all.

It matters from a monster design standpoint and in a campaign setting it gives the players opportunities to try and separate them from the sources of their items.

But realistically those NPCs are not meant to be fought whatsoever, they're in a Tier 1/early Tier 2 campaign.

Chronos

2021-10-24, 07:10 AM

Well, no, a level 5 party shouldn't be trying to fight either of those NPCs, and if they do, the statblock is just a fancy way of saying "rocks fall everyone dies". But they still exist in the game, and adventurers who started off in Waterdeep before moving on elsewhere just might go back to Waterdeep and take care of other business many levels later.

And yes, of course they're named, unique NPCs. Everyone the PCs encounter should be named and unique. Even when you're using a generic statblock like archmage or whatever, it should never be just "an archmage". It should always be something like "Forzath the Insane Archmage, who is attempting to open a portal to merge the material plane with the Elemental Plane of Nacho Dip", or whatever.

ProsecutorGodot

2021-10-24, 09:19 AM

It matters from a monster design standpoint and in a campaign setting it gives the players opportunities to try and separate them from the sources of their items.

But realistically those NPCs are not meant to be fought whatsoever, they're in a Tier 1/early Tier 2 campaign.
It doesn't seem like they want the players to have a robe either, the big bad archmage Halaster only features a Robe of Eyes rather than a robe of the archmage. You'd think he'd have at least a handful of them considering how many archmage have come through, died or become a follower of him.

Needless to say these outliers. These are huge names and killing them is a campaign ending feat.

loki_ragnarock

2021-10-24, 09:21 AM

It doesn't seem like they want the players to have a robe either, the big bad archmage Halaster only features a Robe of Eyes rather than a robe of the archmage. You'd think he'd have at least a handful of them considering how many archmage have come through, died or become a follower of him.

Needless to say these outliers. These are huge names and killing them is a campaign ending feat.

Congratulations! You've defeated one of the premiere characters in Realm's fiction!

Your reward is way less XP than is warranted for the challenge or the achievement.

ProsecutorGodot

2021-10-24, 09:33 AM

Congratulations! You've defeated one of the premiere characters in Realm's fiction!

Your reward is way less XP than is warranted for the challenge or the achievement.

There's plenty more XP on the way if that's your worry, you've just pissed off at least a few of the largest factions in the setting and plenty of people will be out for justice/revenge.

XO is hardly the reward here anyway.

loki_ragnarock

2021-10-24, 09:47 AM

There's plenty more XP on the way if that's your worry, you've just pissed off at least a few of the largest factions in the setting and plenty of people will be out for justice/revenge.

XO is hardly the reward here anyway.

Oh, for sure.

I just suspect they downtuned the XP to give even less incentive to pulling it off.

SpikeFightwicky

2021-10-25, 03:05 PM

[snip]To put it into perspective, that's the difference between wielding and not wielding a shield. Which I think everyone agrees is pretty significant, so much so that casters are well-inclined to pick up shield proficiency.

This is where you lost me... I'll quote what you said earlier with a small change:

"In other words, every high level caster will still have a feat tax of Lightly Armored into Moderately armored if playing with feats or multiclassing. That's not good design: feats and multiclassing are supposed to be character customization, not patching up a flawed chassis."

That being said... the simpler solution is to just not use enemies that target the "problem" saves?

Or run a module.

You mean "Run a specific module and attach the PCs with NPCs that they aren't meant to fight"? Can you name another module which has enemies the players actually fight where they will lost due to the party failing "save or suck" effects?

Chronos

2021-10-25, 03:44 PM

Dork_Forge

2021-10-25, 04:00 PM

So, let's say that you have a campaign that starts off with Dragon Heist, but then goes more sandboxy from there, with the players choosing their own path. And eventually, they get to high level, and say, "Y'know, we never did defeat the real Manshoon, he's still out there somewhere, and he's dangerous. Now that we're powerful enough, we'd better go hunt him down". And the DM checks his books, and yes indeed, there are stats for Manshoon right there. So then the party finds him, and he targets someone's weak save, and they have no chance of making it, neither initially nor on the saves at the ends of their turns to end the effect, and get taken entirely out of the big fight without being able to do anything about it.

That isn't a thing that should happen.

Besides this being a massively edge case, why not?

Why shouldn't an adventurer get taken out like that if they're going against a major world character without any means of covering their weakness?

And as an extension of that... why is there no protection for that character? You're talking about presumably a high Tier 3, maybe Tier 4 game, yet there's not a single class ability, spell or item?

And to be perfectly honest, what is the actual concern here? What spell is raising a red flag? What stat being dumped is problematic? What spell is taking a character out of an entire combat without breaking his concentration being a viable option?

You know what worries me about Manshoon? Getting Fireballed then PWK'd. And saves are pretty much irrelevant for that.

Jakinbandw

2021-10-25, 04:03 PM

Whatever the monster designer decides they should. Anything between 0% and 95%. For any of those values. And you can't set it for all cases--it will and should depend on investment. If someone decides "I want to beef up my offense, so I'm going to tank my defenses" they should get hit way more than someone who took a more defensive approach. You put 8 into WIS and didn't pick up anything to boost your saves (of which there are tons of options)? That's your problem. Not the system's.

So there is no unique number or even range of numbers beyond 0-95% that can be applied. Sure, hitting a weak save should be easier than hitting a strong save, but that's about it.

Basically, I just don't think that it matters all that much. And have seen where monsters that can't land their abilities become trivialized way before that should (by the normal patterns) happen. And I don't want to impose global solutions to problems that, as far as I can tell, are restricted to a handful of monsters at very high CRs against cherry-picked parties. Especially when those global "solutions" break the parts of the game that get played way more.

If you don't care, why are you arguing? If the numbers mean nothing to you, then why would changing them bother you? Why argue so hard against something you claim not to care about?

Amnestic

2021-10-25, 04:12 PM

So then the party finds him, and he targets someone's weak save, and they have no chance of making it, neither initially nor on the saves at the ends of their turns to end the effect, and get taken entirely out of the big fight without being able to do anything about it.

That isn't a thing that should happen.

They had a chance to do something about it though. There are numerous ways to boost up a weak save, and by the time your party feels comfortable fighting Manshoon (I'm guessing minimum level 9-10? Maybe even higher if they're concerned about PW:K) there are numerous solutions. Some are class specific (paladin aura, artificer flash of genius, bard bardic inspiration), some are spells (bless), some are items (cloak of protection/stone of good luck are uncommon, waterdeep should have a few) and some are just not letting him cast a spell in the first place by counterspelling, throwing up a Silence, etc.

Do you get mad about a dragon dealing a bunch of fire damage with its breath and then flying away if you didn't prepare a countermeasure? Parties putting in a modicum of effort to prepare for notable 'boss' monsters is like...very reasonable, and Manshoon as a spellcaster with 9th level spells should be no exception.

Dork_Forge

2021-10-25, 04:19 PM

They had a chance to do something about it though. There are numerous ways to boost up a weak save, and by the time your party feels comfortable fighting Manshoon (I'm guessing minimum level 9-10? Maybe even higher if they're concerned about PW:K) there are numerous solutions. Some are class specific (paladin aura, artificer flash of genius, bard bardic inspiration), some are spells (bless), some are items (cloak of protection/stone of good luck are uncommon, waterdeep should have a few) and some are just not letting him cast a spell in the first place by counterspelling, throwing up a Silence, etc.

Do you get mad about a dragon dealing a bunch of fire damage with its breath and then flying away if you didn't prepare a countermeasure? Parties putting in a modicum of effort to prepare for notable 'boss' monsters is like...very reasonable, and Manshoon as a spellcaster with 9th level spells should be no exception.

And let's be real here, the thing that makes him an exception to the general DCs is going to be very awesome loot for the players unless the DM does something about it.

Why should legendary rewards not require preparation and risk?

Chronos

2021-10-25, 05:35 PM

ProsecutorGodot

2021-10-25, 06:13 PM

And again, a reminder that it goes both ways. If your enemies aren't built like PCs, then the party's spellcasters can trivialize many enemies, by targeting their weak saves.

When spellcasters, on either side of the table, can trivialize enemies on the other side, with no or almost no chance of failure, that's bad game design.

I'd be surprised to see a party spellcaster trivializing an entire adventuring day. If they can trivialize an encounter or two throughout sessions I'm not going to complain that much.

I feel like you're generalizing the exceptions here, my experience hasn't shown a spellcaster regularly causing issue on either end. In the four years and dozens of campaigns I'm comfortable saying the incidents from a DC being higher than a party or even single character could handle would be counted on one hand.

Things can be difficult, sometimes disproportionally so, but I've never encountered something impossible that was so debilitating a player couldn't overcome it assuming they had even the smallest accounting for that weakness.

Eldariel

2021-10-26, 01:17 PM

This is where you lost me... I'll quote what you said earlier with a small change:

"In other words, every high level caster will still have a feat tax of Lightly Armored into Moderately armored if playing with feats or multiclassing. That's not good design: feats and multiclassing are supposed to be character customization, not patching up a flawed chassis."

That being said... the simpler solution is to just not use enemies that target the "problem" saves?

Sorry, I missed this. It boils down to this: Why should DM not use certain monsters for a system issue? Why should DM be restricted by party failings/system failings, when said failings are dirt cheap to account for? DM also has to avoid homebrewing monsters and so on. It just seems like a pointless waste. Instead tell me, what damage is caused by changing this? It seems to me like there's none thus far (at least nothing of substance; most of the complaints have been of thetype where the impact of the change seems to be quite exaggerated, claiming that characters no longer have poor saves or that low CR saves get automade on high levels or whatever).

And yes, if casters can get shields for one feat, it's often worth it (e.g. Bards and Warlocks) though attacks are usually easier to guard against via positioning than saves (save-or-Xs are often ranged and AOE, while attacks are melee; and said classes are generally in melee and have few options for avoiding effects while casters tend to have the luxury to position outside enemy range which also makes the comparison not exactly one-to-one). Two feats is twice the cost though; it's no longer equally straight-forward.

SpikeFightwicky

2021-10-30, 03:47 PM

Sorry, I missed this. It boils down to this: Why should DM not use certain monsters for a system issue? Why should DM be restricted by party failings/system failings, when said failings are dirt cheap to account for? DM also has to avoid homebrewing monsters and so on. It just seems like a pointless waste. Instead tell me, what damage is caused by changing this? It seems to me like there's none thus far (at least nothing of substance; most of the complaints have been of thetype where the impact of the change seems to be quite exaggerated, claiming that characters no longer have poor saves or that low CR saves get automade on high levels or whatever).

And yes, if casters can get shields for one feat, it's often worth it (e.g. Bards and Warlocks) though attacks are usually easier to guard against via positioning than saves (save-or-Xs are often ranged and AOE, while attacks are melee; and said classes are generally in melee and have few options for avoiding effects while casters tend to have the luxury to position outside enemy range which also makes the comparison not exactly one-to-one). Two feats is twice the cost though; it's no longer equally straight-forward.

Also sorry, was not able to answer until now. My main issue with this solution is that the entirety of 5e is balanced around keeping bonuses smaller and more manageable. Adding a flat bonus to everything's saving throws just makes things all the easier. Also, this buff should be mainly to help the martials. Spellcasters will likely not have to make any saves vs those spells. Except for feeblemind, I think all the "problematic" spells have a 60ft. range, so all of the can be counterspelled. The number of creatures/NPCs in the book with their own counterspell are pretty uncommon. Also, any party with a paladin will already have better saves anyways. A bard can inspire to assist the next "end of turn" save. Dispel magic cancels almost all the trouble effects, and every spellcaster (except some rangers subclasses) has access to it. Getting even a high DC spell to stick to a PC for more than one turn is very difficult even if there's no flat +1 to +3 bonus. Hell,

I'm curious - in your games are there no spellcasters and do you only play vanilla with no magic items, no feats and no multiclass allowed? Or... does it involve many solo battles after a party splits up? If yes, and your players tend not to play spellcasters, then I can definitely see an argument for allowing a "half proficiency to save" bonus. In my experience, a "save or suck" spell or effect has never lasted longer than a round. Also, I mentioned in an earlier post, creatures/NPCs calculate saving throw bonuses the same way players do. If every monster suddenly had +1 to +3 to their saves, would you be ok with that? In all honesty, I'd be more comfortable giving magic items that increase save DCs for the players if all monsters had those same flat saving throw increases.

All that being said, I 100% would agree with allowing barbarians and fighters (probably rangers too) to have access to a class ability that gives them "Jack of All Trades" for non-proficient saves. Make it a high enough level ability to avoid multiclass dipping and call it "Grit" or something. To me, spellcasters, support classes or feats already make these "I'm going to quit the game because I failed a hold person save" effects of very limited use. Also, isn't it easier to just reduce save DCs across the board? Make it "6+proficiency+relevant stat" and bam, you fixed the issue and require less bonus tracking on the player's side (5e's philosophy seems to be reducing any static bonuses as much as possible anyways). In any case, saying the DM shouldn't have to homebrew a solution to a monster, then suggesting a homebrew solution that has a much wider effect on the game sounds counter intuitive. I hope I don't sound too argumentative, I'm just trying to see, given my own experience playing D&D 5e thus far, how giving everything an increasing save bonus solves any problems I've encountered. I've never had a player throw a fit because they failed a save they're not proficient in.

Tanarii

2021-10-30, 05:27 PM

I'm curious - in your games are there no spellcasters and do you only play vanilla with no magic items, no feats and no multiclass allowed?Chiming in to say as someone who ran a no feats no multiclass campaign, I thought weak saves were fine. That's only for Tier 1 & 2 with some rare Tier 3 content, but that means +2 to +4 difference for the two strong saves vs others.

All that being said, I 100% would agree with allowing barbarians and fighters (probably rangers too) to have access to a class ability that gives them "Jack of All Trades" for non-proficient saves. Make it a high enough level ability to avoid multiclass dipping and call it "Grit" or something.Yeah, that'd be awesome. Before WoTC & 3e Fighters and their subclasses had outstanding saves, especially at high level. That was one of the issues that contributed to the 3e perception of linear fighters vs quadratic Wizards. Pretty sure that's what Indomitable was trying to hark back to, but if so they missed the mark.

Pex

2021-10-30, 10:20 PM

Chiming in to say as someone who ran a no feats no multiclass campaign, I thought weak saves were fine. That's only for Tier 1 & 2 with some rare Tier 3 content, but that means +2 to +4 difference for the two strong saves vs others.

Having played a game with feats and multiclassing that's been my experience too. Monster DCs are low enough you can still make the saving throw. Obviously not often, but enough times you don't feel gimped. When we hit Tier 4 that was when the trouble started. We'd face the occasional monster where I couldn't make the save even on a Natural 20 let alone need to roll Natural 18. It was a tad annoying. It was other characters' strong save, so they were fine. The reverse happened to where I was fine and others were The Suck that round. The game provides buffs and remedies to afflictions for when you reach that level. Raise Dead and Resurrection if necessary. In my opinion it's only a problem if you always need Raise Dead or Resurrection, but I wouldn't be blaming the game itself for that.

The only problem at low level is the Intellect Devour because almost everyone dumps IN.

Tanarii

2021-10-31, 01:35 AM

When we hit Tier 4 that was when the trouble started.
Fair enough. Tier 4 wasn't as thoroughly playtested, and historically that's where D&D breaks down the worst. When I hear horror stories about Tier 4 at this point it's hard for me to get worked up about it, but I can see that it'd be annoying for folks that enjoy it.

Save defenses going off the die for standard saves seems like something that shouldn't happen within bounded accuracy. For either PCs or monsters. But definitely for PCs. Of course, given the analysis previously presented, it seems like there aren't many creatures where that can happen, and they're mostly named demons/devils or the like.

Eldariel

2021-10-31, 03:53 AM

Also sorry, was not able to answer until now. My main issue with this solution is that the entirety of 5e is balanced around keeping bonuses smaller and more manageable. Adding a flat bonus to everything's saving throws just makes things all the easier. Also, this buff should be mainly to help the martials. Spellcasters will likely not have to make any saves vs those spells. Except for feeblemind, I think all the "problematic" spells have a 60ft. range, so all of the can be counterspelled. The number of creatures/NPCs in the book with their own counterspell are pretty uncommon. Also, any party with a paladin will already have better saves anyways. A bard can inspire to assist the next "end of turn" save. Dispel magic cancels almost all the trouble effects, and every spellcaster (except some rangers subclasses) has access to it. Getting even a high DC spell to stick to a PC for more than one turn is very difficult even if there's no flat +1 to +3 bonus.

Yeah, of course casters are largely fine though there are a number of creatures with e.g. psionic Plane Shift which is uncounterable and irrevocably ****s over most characters. It'd be nice to get a fighting chance there. Those are rare enemies (or high level NPC spellcasters) though so they aren't that common nor that problematic, but I'd more want leeway to throw whatever saves and effects at the PCs with the expectation that some might occasionally make their saves.

I'm curious - in your games are there no spellcasters and do you only play vanilla with no magic items, no feats and no multiclass allowed? Or... does it involve many solo battles after a party splits up? If yes, and your players tend not to play spellcasters, then I can definitely see an argument for allowing a "half proficiency to save" bonus. In my experience, a "save or suck" spell or effect has never lasted longer than a round. Also, I mentioned in an earlier post, creatures/NPCs calculate saving throw bonuses the same way players do. If every monster suddenly had +1 to +3 to their saves, would you be ok with that? In all honesty, I'd be more comfortable giving magic items that increase save DCs for the players if all monsters had those same flat saving throw increases.

On the contrary, I practically only DM for casters. Currently I'm DMing 3 games which have:
1. Abjurer MDwarf, SHalfling Gloomstalker, Vuman Lore Bard, Vuman Battlemaster 5/War Cleric

2. SHalfling "Wolf" Druid [homebrew Moon Druid variant that only transforms into increasingly powerful Wolf-forms and summons Wolves], Black Dragonborn Lore Bard, Half-Elf Fiend Warlock [buffed], Red Dragonborn [buffed] Conquest Paladin

3. Forest Gnome Moon Druid, Vuman Illusionist, Tiefling Evoker, MDwarf War Wizard

The third game just had a Dragonborn Sorcerer and an unknown race Barbarian join but as their characters aren't finished yet, I'm not listing them here (they played last session with pregens). One of the reasons is specifically the save issue; my games obviously feature a lot of spellcaster enemies (alongside random stuff like clockwork bunny bombs, angelwing razor rocks, etc.), as the players enjoy a highly wondrous, magical world and fighting enemies with tricks they can't necessarily expect (I also use more spellcasting variants of fiends, dragons, fey, etc. generally pilfering from Pathfinder 1e or 3.5e, whichever has the more interesting creature).

They fail saves. A lot. They also make a lot of saves but just last session saw the capybara-wildshaped Moon Druid fail a save vs. Hideous Laughter [after making two] three rolls in a row and get ripped to shreds by Witches (who also managed to level 2 Sleep three of the other 5 PCs buying them enough time for this) - they fought a group of 7 to be precise. Of course, that's a proficient save and a high Wis character; perhaps more of the point that anyone can fail those saves vs. even fairly modest enemies (said Witches had save DC of 12).

I use the rule listed: every PC gets half proficiency to saves from level 5 on. So far I haven't had a problem with it. It's turned some fails into successes (at least 1), yes, but it's not like the PCs aren't failing and getting screwed over (though they're dying rarely enough; only game #2 has had more than 1 fatality over the last year).

As for monsters, well, I present this as an ability PCs get on level 5. I don't think it should apply to all NPCs or monsters but NPCs or monsters comparable to level 5+ PC should probably get something similar. It would actually somewhat address how easy it is to CC high CR monsters with low level spells and the fact that Tiamat's Int-saves are actually really mediocre for a CR30 for a creature with 26 Int (indeed, with 10 Dex and 26 Int, [B]her Dex-saves are still better). So I think it would be a reasonable change to the system.

All that being said, I 100% would agree with allowing barbarians and fighters (probably rangers too) to have access to a class ability that gives them "Jack of All Trades" for non-proficient saves. Make it a high enough level ability to avoid multiclass dipping and call it "Grit" or something. To me, spellcasters, support classes or feats already make these "I'm going to quit the game because I failed a hold person save" effects of very limited use. Also, isn't it easier to just reduce save DCs across the board? Make it "6+proficiency+relevant stat" and bam, you fixed the issue and require less bonus tracking on the player's side (5e's philosophy seems to be reducing any static bonuses as much as possible anyways). In any case, saying the DM shouldn't have to homebrew a solution to a monster, then suggesting a homebrew solution that has a much wider effect on the game sounds counter intuitive. I hope I don't sound too argumentative, I'm just trying to see, given my own experience playing D&D 5e thus far, how giving everything an increasing save bonus solves any problems I've encountered. I've never had a player throw a fit because they failed a save they're not proficient in.

Reducing saves across the board wouldn't address the fact that a 10 Dex Strogue would have better Dex saves than a 20 Dex Fighter on Tier 4, and it would equally apply this change to low levels, where no proficiency isn't that big of a deal. That just feels wrong. It also means that no matter how much you invest in your stats, if you don't have proficiency, you might just not even get to roll (and you'll be a dog to succeed) - highest Dex save DC is 27 IIRC. I agree that Fighters and Barbarians are hit the worst and should definitely get this but I feel like it's a simple, consistent thing across the system and then give Fighters and Barbarians something on top of that (Indomitable could just become Legendary Resistance for instance and Barbarian could get those Berserker immunities in Rage as a par de course and then few more as they level).

Again, the main foundation of bounded accuracy is that there's a scaling in magnitude: e.g. AC doesn't scale but HP does meaning those hits you take become less relevant even if their probability doesn't change. Similarly, your hit rate doesn't scale much but your number of attacks/damage you deal does. That doesn't apply to saves since there's no scaling in your paralysis or stunning or whatever resistance. Unless you want to homebrew an entire system of effect magnitude, the easiest way to address that is to simply give the saves a slight scaling so that it feels like the characters are progressing even if the progression is slow.

As for reducing DCs, that seems ill-advised for much the reasons people have argued here except it'd apply on low and high levels:
1) It would mean that even mid level monsters would actually reach low enough DCs that high level proficient characters wouldn't have to roll (currently you cap out at +11 without class features, temporary effects or magic items, which means DC12 autosucceeds; with this change, that would be DC 14)

2) It wouldn't address the issue (or an issue at least I perceive) where a superdexterous guy can have worse Dex-saves than an average Joe-level Dex guy because average Joe has training in Dex-saves. You'd think that every PC would, over their careers, get some training in all their saves (since the expectation is that everyone is making some and proficiency just represents focused training as class activities). It sits much better for me for the superdexterous Fighter to have +8 and the gets-tangled-in-his-own-hands Rogue to have +6 than the Fighter to actually be worse of the two.

Incidentally, this is why I dislike magic items as a solution too: they buff all your saves generally meaning not only are you more likely to make your bad saves, you're eventually (with sufficient buffs to not make your bad saves miserable) almost guaranteed to make your good saves. Unless you make custom magic items to this end specifically, but that just feels contrived. Overall, I have yet to see a downside to this rule and I'm quite convinced it should've been written this way in PHB and should be written this way in PHB 5.5.