D&D 4E Running player commentary on PCat's 4E Campaign - Heroic tier (finished)

[Alomir]

A half-way house might be to give an increasing bonus to the save, of (say) +1 each turn after the first. A string of bad luck could still keep you under, but at least the chance of throwing the condition off would be increasing each round.

I've tried to work out something like that before, but I'm afraid that there would be a bookkeeping nightmare if someone had multiple effects active. (Although I'm not sure if I've seen a suggestion yet that doesn't add a lot of bookkeeping).

Of course, then you have the difficulty of keeping enemy creatures under a condition for any length of time...

Is this really practical? (I ask from ignorance, not disbelief.) At our current levels, certainly not - I'd be very worried if we had to count on an effect (that couldn't be refreshed) staying active. Heck, I'd be worried if we had to count on it being active *for one round*. (But, I digress.) Or, are we just missing the right classes/powers to make this more workable?

 

[Plane Sailing]

Is this really practical? (I ask from ignorance, not disbelief.) At our current levels, certainly not - I'd be very worried if we had to count on an effect (that couldn't be refreshed) staying active. Heck, I'd be worried if we had to count on it being active *for one round*. (But, I digress.) Or, are we just missing the right classes/powers to make this more workable?

Not really a practical issue IMX to date (running and playing in heroic level campaign).

There haven't been many 'save ends' effects thrown by the PCs other than ongoing damage, and that tends to be thrown off after 1-2 rounds tops anyway.

At paragon and epic tier there are probably a lot more 'save ends' stuff being thrown around, I don't know.

I was curious about ongoing damage, and a couple of minutes with excel demonstrated that ongoing damage 5 is likely to end up doing 10 damage on average. ongoing 10 is likely to end up doing 20 and so forth.

Thus a very simplistic but statistically sound approach for things with no save bonus is to say they all last exactly 2 rounds... Too deterministic though?

 

[Joshua Randall]

I am really struggling with one area, though - saving throws.

I think it is somewhat incumbent on the players to ensure they have enough ways to grant additional saves that when a PC is hit with a 'save ends' effect, it doesn't (usually) become crippling.

(Of course, no matter how many saves you roll, you can fail them all. That's just bad luck.)

The cleric is the king of handing out saves with an at-will that does so -- and if your group lacks a cleric, you won't have this, obviously. The paladin has an encounter power that grants a save (+Cha mod bonus). The warlord can also grant saves (Utility 2 power).

At higher levels paladins, and I think also clerics and warlords, can grant the entire group a save: check out Turn the Tide for example.

I think if the group lacks a PC who can give other PCs additional saves, then it becomes part of the DM's responsibility not to hit the party with too many "save ends" effects.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Is this really practical? (I ask from ignorance, not disbelief.)

It is possible to lock someone down completely with a 'save ends' effect -- meaning the target cannot possibly succeed on the save -- if you are an orb wizard and you stack enough abilities / powers / feats / items that grant penalties. Details are on the wizards.com CharOpt board in any of several threads relating to this phenomenon.

From a normal perspective, I would agree with your assessment that you can't reliably depend on 'save ends' effects being, well, effective. Thus you look for powers that:

* are so good when the 'save ends' kicks in that the 45% chance of the target failing the save is worth taking
* have some kind of effect even when the save is made (e.g. the initial slow effect of the wizard's Sleep power)
* you would've been willing to use even without the 'save ends' aspect

 

[Alomir]

I was curious about ongoing damage, and a couple of minutes with excel demonstrated that ongoing damage 5 is likely to end up doing 10 damage on average. ongoing 10 is likely to end up doing 20 and so forth.

Thus a very simplistic but statistically sound approach for things with no save bonus is to say they all last exactly 2 rounds... Too deterministic though?

That makes sense, as working it out statistically shows that an effect with no bonuses will be applied 20/11=1.818 times on average.

Interestingly, if we add a cumulative +1 mod to saving throws after the first attempt, that only drops to 1.718 - only a tenth of a round difference. I wonder how much the variance drops... Also, the Human Perseverance feat drops it from 20/11 to 20/12 (=1.667).

Declaring a 2-round duration does sound too deterministic; I'm not sure how bonuses would get factored in, and it's fun to have a *little* variability.

On another note - all my griping about saving throws aside, I *am* having a blast with 4e. Just wanted to make sure that was clear...

 

[Piratecat]

On another note - all my griping about saving throws aside, I *am* having a blast with 4e. Just wanted to make sure that was clear...

What? I had your character marked for sudden and hideous death tonight. Now I have to go change my plans. Hmmph.

Oh well. There's still the paladin.

 

[Aravis]

What? I had your character marked for sudden and hideous death tonight. Now I have to go change my plans. Hmmph.

Oh well. There's still the paladin.

Yeah, don't forget the Paladin...oh, wait...no, forget the Paladin...

Aravis

 

[Alomir]

Yeah, don't forget the Paladin...oh, wait...no, forget the Paladin...

Aravis

I think he should focus his wrath on the cleric... or the warlord... heck, even the warlock would be fine.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I think he should focus his wrath on the cleric... or the warlord... heck, even the warlock would be fine.

I heard that the party was originally slated to have both a cleric and a paladin, but they were taken out by a pre-emptive strike, followed by a ritual to cloud everyones minds.

(has he told you about that yet? Oops!)

 

[Blood Jester]

Perhaps earlier would have been better Of course, there were several rolls where +4 would not have been enough...

However, I'd happily dump the whole mechanic for something more deterministic. Not *completely* deterministic, mind you - but some help here would smooth things out in play, and make many powers more attractive (ones that *should* be more attractive, IMO). Interesting point (from Plane Sailing), though, about using something like a 1d4 for number of rounds - completely removing the saving throw mechanic wouldn't work, as too much of the game interacts with it. Maybe a hard cap at, say, three rounds? Eh, that's not ideal, certainly.

Here is an idea that scales and should be simple.
Make a hard cap at "Number of rounds = power level + 1"