Crappy Undead Fort saves

[ciaran00]

Anyone use any House Rules related to this? Do you let them use a Wis bonus or something similar? Curious as to your thoughts...

I don't like the idea of my Death Knight getting powdered after a crappy save. Yeah, yeah, I know I can buy him items, but I was wondering if anyone else had some ideas.

ciaran

 

[Spatzimaus]

Undead and Constructs have a lousy Fort save, but it's to make up for the fact that they're outright immune to most things requiring a Fort save. Anything with a Fort save that can't explictly damage an inanimate object (poisons, diseases, a house-ruled Harm) can't hurt them at all.

It's like giving a creature a lousy Will save but making it immune to Mind-Influencing Effects.

 

[ciaran00]

It's like making Achilles and then giving him an Achilles' Heel. I for one wouldn't want a lot of those vulnerabilities when something like a Disintegrate will easily have me even at high, high levels.

I would like to add that every suggestion for tackling undead on RPG forums comes with a disintegrate suggestion.

ciaran

 

[Chacal]

You can say intelligent undead use CHA (wilpower) instead of CON for saves, skills,


Chacal

 

[ruleslawyer]

It's like making Achilles and then giving him an Achilles' Heel. I for one wouldn't want a lot of those vulnerabilities when something like a Disintegrate will easily have me even at high, high levels.

I would like to add that every suggestion for tackling undead on RPG forums comes with a disintegrate suggestion.

And what's wrong with the idea of an Achilles' heel? Undead are immune to a slew of effects and attacks; why should their few weaknesses be shored up by default? If you find that disintegrate is being used as a no-brainer attack by undead, give your undead a ring of spell storing or armor of proof against transmutation. Changing the Fort save would be like giving wizards more hit points to protect themselves in melee.

 

[ciaran00]

And what's wrong with the idea of an Achilles' heel?

Well, a player wouldn't normally want this on his character sheet as part of his character's weakness, esp. if the solution (for dispatching him) was a common one.

Undead are immune to a slew of effects and attacks; why should their few weaknesses be shored up by default? If you find that disintegrate is being used as a no-brainer attack by undead, give your undead a ring of spell storing or armor of proof against transmutation.

My point is, all their immunities are worth jack with a single exploit. Also, how is DM-B.S.'ing immunity to disintegrate options different from jacking up their Fort saves?

Changing the Fort save would be like giving wizards more hit points to protect themselves in melee.

If even a high level wizard could be killed in a single blow (by any mediocre fighter) even at epic levels, then I'd agree with you.

Although I guess I see your point: if NPC wizards are expected to protect themselves in ways that prevent them from getting caught in combat and being killed, intelligent undead could be expected to improve their Fort saves as much as they can. Why not? I'd do it; you'd do it...

Does anyone think that it's B.S. if someone did that? Asking from a fairness POV...

ciaran

 

[mmu1]

My point is, all their immunities are worth jack with a single exploit. Also, how is DM-B.S.'ing immunity to disintegrate options different from jacking up their Fort saves?

a) It's not "B.S.'ing", it's careful NPC design.

b) Giving an enemy items that make him tougher instead of just jacking up his abilities without changing CR is a lot more fair to the players, should they defeat him.

And there's a whole slew of ways for defending against this sort of thing, in addition to the ones already mentioned. They can try to disguise the fact that they're undead, they can boost their touch ACs, they can use displacement for a very high miss chance, Spell Resistance becomes an option, so does Spell Turning...

 

[mmadsen]

I think this is a symptom of everyone having higher than "average" scores in the game. Removing a bonus/penalty that centers on +/- 0 shouldn't affect anything -- but most characters have a Con bonus.

 

[ciaran00]

a) It's not "B.S.'ing", it's careful NPC design.

b) Giving an enemy items that make him tougher instead of just jacking up his abilities without changing CR is a lot more fair to the players, should they defeat him.

This is how ENWorld helps me be a better DM Thanks for your replies!

ciaran

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

A couple of levels of Fighter work out nicely for boosting an undead creature's Fortitude save, though they still miss out on the Con bonus.