Rofel Wodring
Explorer
Yeah, but there are a lot of creatures, even at high level, that have a poor chance of actually making that save. A Balor is CR 19 but only has a +5 intelligence saving throw. Against a wizard's very likely saving throw DC of 19 (or even higher) it's not hard to get multiple rounds of pain out of that spell. Marilith? +4. Dragon Turtle? +0. The Ancient Chromatic Dragons? Anywhere from +0 to +5. They do have Legendary Save, but it's likely that they won't blow a Legendary Save on those effects unless you're the only magic user in the group.
Non-spellcasting monsters have uniformly weak Intelligence saving throws. And even the spellcasting ones rarely having it as an insurmountable save; you have a 50/50 chance of affecting an Androsphinx with an Int save. Out of all creatures in the basic book of CR 15 or higher, only the Kraken (???), Lich, and Solar have a better than 50/50 chance of succeeding against an Intelligence save. Which is why I think Phantasmal Force was rated too low even with Treantmonk's disdain of 'all or nothing' spells.
Compare that to, say, Constitution. I think there's only one monster in the MM > CR 15 that has less than +8.
That aside, I think Wizards really dropped the ball when assigning saving throw proficiencies. There's nothing suggested in the PHB or DMG that Constitution or Wisdom should be such hopeless saving throws to target. I think it's completely ridiculous and unfair that if you're going to be fighting mainly minibosses and boss monsters at high level you should pretty much completely ignore spells that target those two saves.
Non-spellcasting monsters have uniformly weak Intelligence saving throws. And even the spellcasting ones rarely having it as an insurmountable save; you have a 50/50 chance of affecting an Androsphinx with an Int save. Out of all creatures in the basic book of CR 15 or higher, only the Kraken (???), Lich, and Solar have a better than 50/50 chance of succeeding against an Intelligence save. Which is why I think Phantasmal Force was rated too low even with Treantmonk's disdain of 'all or nothing' spells.
Compare that to, say, Constitution. I think there's only one monster in the MM > CR 15 that has less than +8.
That aside, I think Wizards really dropped the ball when assigning saving throw proficiencies. There's nothing suggested in the PHB or DMG that Constitution or Wisdom should be such hopeless saving throws to target. I think it's completely ridiculous and unfair that if you're going to be fighting mainly minibosses and boss monsters at high level you should pretty much completely ignore spells that target those two saves.
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