Calculating save DCs with advanced monsters.

[takyris]

Hey all, sorry if this gets asked all the time.

If I want to challenge a higher-level party, I need to get monsters with more difficult save DCs. So, in that vein, a few questions:

Note: I taking as a given that most monster abilities are based with DCs as (10+1/2HD+Con/Cha) for the most part, Con for physical effects, Cha for mental effects.

1) If I advance the hit dice of a creature, do I advance the save DC as well? Does the Basilisk Queen, who has double the hit dice of a normal basilisk, have a more powerful gaze? My instinct is to say Yes.

2) If I give a creature class levels, do those hit dice apply toward upping the save DC? For example, if a medusa takes levels in rogue, does her gaze attack get more powerful? My instinct is to say No.

3) Anyone have feats from Savage Species or other accepted places that increase save DCs? If not, my impulse is to make a feat that parallels Spell Focus and lets the creature bump up the DC on one of its abilities bt +2.

Thanks!
-Tacky

 

[Caliban]

Hey all, sorry if this gets asked all the time.

If I want to challenge a higher-level party, I need to get monsters with more difficult save DCs. So, in that vein, a few questions:

Note: I taking as a given that most monster abilities are based with DCs as (10+1/2HD+Con/Cha) for the most part, Con for physical effects, Cha for mental effects.

1) If I advance the hit dice of a creature, do I advance the save DC as well? Does the Basilisk Queen, who has double the hit dice of a normal basilisk, have a more powerful gaze? My instinct is to say Yes.

Yup, using the formula you listed above. It also increases if you raise the charisma stat.

2) If I give a creature class levels, do those hit dice apply toward upping the save DC? For example, if a medusa takes levels in rogue, does her gaze attack get more powerful? My instinct is to say No.

I would tend to agree as well. Treat an innate ability as a "class ability" of their "monster class", and it's DC would increase as their "monster class" levels increase (by gaining extra HD).

There are some abilities that may work of their class level rather than monster HD, or work off the total character level (most notably abilities gained through feats such as stunning fist), but they should be specified as such.

3) Anyone have feats from Savage Species or other accepted places that increase save DCs? If not, my impulse is to make a feat that parallels Spell Focus and lets the creature bump up the DC on one of its abilities bt +2.

Thanks!
-Tacky

Savage Species has an "Ability Focus" feat that increases the DC of a special ability by +2.

 

[dcollins]

I'll generally agree with Caliban on all counts. Certainly DCs should rise from advanced monster HD, and the Special Ability +2 DC feats have been replicated in numerous sources. Also, benefits from a class level should not be compounded by also improving prior monster/racial abilities.

Here's the one published example I could find, quite similar to the original poster's case: a Succubus Rogue 6 from Monte Cook's Demon God's Fane (p. 21). Her energy drain special ability has not been improved via the 6 class levels, and it's still at save DC 18.

 

[takyris]

Sweet! Thanks for the help.

When the party cleric fires up True Seeing and finds himself ten feet from a horde of Improved Invisible Silenced Advanced Basilisks with Ability Focus: Petrification Gaze, I will tell them that it was all your idea.

-Tacky

PS: I know that the gaze won't work unless they can be seen. The point is to get rid of the See Invisible people first.