Non-proficient saves

[PhoenixPhyre]

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]

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]

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!

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]

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]

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?

As a quick hack, half prof works fine. It will give you what you want most of the time during standard play, and only become a problem in the case of specific outliers.

[PhoenixPhyre]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

[PhoenixPhyre]

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]

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]

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

Spoiler: Dragon Heist Spoiler

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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]

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]

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]

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.

Spoiler: Dungeon of the Mad Mage spoilers

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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]

Spoiler: Dungeon of the Mad Mage spoilers

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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]

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]

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]

[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]

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.

[Dork_Forge]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

[ProsecutorGodot]

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]

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.