Casters, are the fort saves on most monsters too high?

[frankthedm]

Con damage and/or negative levels on a successful save? No offense, but are you high? You are talking about D&D, right? The game where things that bestow negative levels or do con drain are among the most deadly and feared encounters ever?

I am not high. The Reason why those are feared is because far too many players can’t handle the adversity of their stats and experience points treated as in game resources to be gained and lost. Losing 1/10th or less of ones life-force in resisting an effect that would have otherwise destroyed them utterly does not sound bad at all. Especially in comparison to what comparative level ray spells can do without benefit of save and with threat of crit.. But I did use the caveat of “Almost” because I knew such a clunky implementation could easily be problematic.

 

[Cadfan]

Fortitude is only one of the three possible saving throws a character has. If you are facing a monster with high fortitude, there's no reason not to look to your will save spells, or reflex save spells. Or even your no save spells.

I hate it when spellcaster players complain about this sort of thing. They have (with few exceptions) control over what saving throw their target makes. Almost every spellcaster in the game has the option of using spells that attack any of the three saving throws. This isn't like with rogues, where a target is either vulnerable to critical hits or it isn't, and where there is no alternative tactic available. There's tons of obvious and readily available alternative tactics easily accessible and to which basically every player has access.

 

[Felon]

I'd say that with so many foes like giants, monstrous humanoids, full BAB classes, magical beasts, dragons, and abberations having so many HD, a good Fortitude save(by virture of dice of class) and creatures like undead and golems being immune that the Fort spells are usually the most niche/least used.

Outsiders and dragons have great saving throws all around.

Animals, giants, magical beasts, plants, and vermin have good Fort saves.

Aberrations, fey, oozes, and monstrous humanoids have weak Fort saves. Note that, contrary to popular conception, the ooze type confers no innate immunity to death effects.

Undead and constructs not only have weak Fort saves, but no Con score either. True, they're immune to straight death effects, but they can be destroyed by anything that can destroy an object.

Of course, the question can be taken a number of ways. Is it asking if monsters' Fort saves too high relative to their other saves? I would say no, they're about the same.

Or is the question really not about their Fort saves being too high at all--is the real question "do save-or-die effects fail too often?" That's a different question altogether. I might agree that monsters have high Fort saves, but that doesn't mean I think save-or-die effects should succeed more often against monsters. Sorry, tough encounters shouldn't be short-changed by a player who thinks it'd be cute to try and one-shot my BBEG.

 

[Felon]

I'd almost say a negative level or 2 points con damage would be fair.

Negative levels are a real pain in the neck for a DM to keep track of on individual monsters. Con damage is easier, but still no picnic. Damage is good.

 

[Felon]

This brings up a design element that I hope to see changed in 4E (may it be a long time in coming ).

I'd like to see "save negates" stripped from the game entirely. Every spell should have some effect on a failed save, even if it's far less impressive than the spell would otherwise be. That way, there's no sense in having totally wasted a spell (or a round)

At the end of the day, if the spell's not doing damage or simply preventing the monster from acting altogether, it's just too much of a hassle to keep track of. Debuffs are a DM's headache.

 

[Particle_Man]

Incidentally, a similar argument can be used to show the ineffectiveness of the Assassin's Death Attack against most creatures, and the Assassin does not even have the option of switching to 5th-9th level will save or reflex save spells, barring UMD and a heck of a good staff/scroll.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

Based on my campaign experience, I'd say high Fort saves are fairly prevalent and (in my game at least) have trained the players to just not try Fort-Save type spells on tough looking foes unless they have no choice/other option available.

I do think the "at least it should do something" concept in terms of making a Fort save but still suffering a a bit is an idea that should carry forward to new spells for 3.5 and whatever comes after it.

J. Grenemyer

 

[pogre]

High Fortitude monsters give other PCs a chance to shine. Fighters and shooting rangers IMC tend to love to face giants. To me complaining about these monsters is akin to complaining about golems.

Edit: What I wrote above reads a bit more snarky than I intended. I too would like to see save or die spells disappear and some minor effect for a save would be OK.

 

[Felon]

I"m not real crazy about seeing "save-or-die" being mitigated with "save-and-be-debuffed" effects. Hear my thinking on the matter.

The principal reason it's accepted that a save-or-die spell should be pretty worthless is their potential to short-change a cool encounter with the casting of a single spell in the first round of combat. Here's how I see save-or-dies being used in a manner that most would find acceptable:

1) To eliminate a mook--a monster that doesn't pose a major threat to the party individually, so it's probably part of a pack attack. Not a boss. Of course, at higher levels, even a mook can have too many hit points to be dropped by a charging fighter, so a save-or-die can come in handy.
2) To take down any monster, even a boss, after a few rounds of combat. No DM wants a potentially cool encounter to end unceremoniously, but they don't want them to drag on forever and they often don't really want the party to lose. A well-timed SoD can win the day.

So, here are some options for adjusting save-or-die effects in future books:

• Doesn't affect creatures beyond a certain number of hit dice--This makes an effective mook-killer, but bosses will usually have enough hit dice to put them out of danger of being one-shotted, and hit dice isn't something that can be reduced on the spot. I suspect many wouldn't even mind a no-save effect if it was restricted to killing minions.
• Hurst first, kills later. The spell's immediate effect is to do some no-save damage or imposes some other effect (like slowing), and forces a save on a subsequent round to avoid death. This is a lousy mook-killer, but can nail tough monsters.
• Only kills weak or hurt monsters. Power word kill already works this way, and it could work for other spells as well. The target has to be softened up first, which means the spell is reserved a sort of coup de grace.

 

[Psion]

In my old high level group, my old mage got tons of use out of Horrid Wilting. It's evasion-proof.

If all you ever bash are big monsters, I can see how it would be a problem. But if you face off against smaller monster types of classed characters/creatures, the utility of such spells reveal themselves.