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<blockquote data-quote="Sepulchrave II" data-source="post: 3146559" data-attributes="member: 4303">I'm looking particularly at the more powerful monsters, Ag 50-90. Many of these seem terribly high. I'm not sure exactly where the cut-off would be; the formula you suggest actually looks quite workable.The MM (p.300) suggests that a monster's good save bonus should ideally be equal to (CR x 1.5) and its bad save equal to its CR. Obviously, these numbers are unsustainable into epic levels. Good save bonus = CR is probably OK for a target at epic levels when designing monsters; maybe a little too high, if anything.I think an optimized character with AMC can probably force a save with a DC of (Character Level +10) averaged across his career with Heightened spells in a focussed school. Given the disparity in the saving throws of epic monsters who don't have 'all good' saves, I suspect a non-optimized character (whose DCs = his level), or an optimized metamagic specialist employing half of his AMCs on Empowers, Maximizes and Quickens can trump a creature's weak save as often as not.Thing is, I don't want to get fixated on saving throws when determining CR - however important, they're only part of the picture. But the CR of many creatures in the ELH also affects SR - e.g. abominations are SR = CR+12: this means that SR will always be meaningful to a party with an average level equal to the monster's CR. The reason that it becomes irrelevant in Ag is that this relationship is no longer maintained.Edit: for a long time I railed against the idea of CR determining SR, rather than SR informing CR. It seemd counter-intuitive, and too 'meta.' In practice, it works really well.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Sepulchrave II, post: 3146559, member: 4303"] I'm looking particularly at the more powerful monsters, Ag 50-90. Many of these seem terribly high. I'm not sure exactly where the cut-off would be; the formula you suggest actually looks quite workable. The MM (p.300) suggests that a monster's good save bonus should ideally be equal to (CR x 1.5) and its bad save equal to its CR. Obviously, these numbers are unsustainable into epic levels. Good save bonus = CR is probably OK for a target at epic levels when designing monsters; maybe a little too high, if anything. I think an optimized character with AMC can probably force a save with a DC of (Character Level +10) averaged across his career with Heightened spells in a focussed school. Given the disparity in the saving throws of epic monsters who don't have 'all good' saves, I suspect a non-optimized character (whose DCs = his level), or an optimized metamagic specialist employing half of his AMCs on Empowers, Maximizes and Quickens can trump a creature's weak save as often as not. Thing is, I don't want to get fixated on saving throws when determining CR - however important, they're only part of the picture. But the CR of many creatures in the ELH also affects SR - e.g. abominations are SR = CR+12: this means that SR will always be meaningful to a party with an average level equal to the monster's CR. The reason that it becomes irrelevant in Ag is that this relationship is no longer maintained. Edit: for a long time I railed against the idea of CR determining SR, rather than SR informing CR. It seemd counter-intuitive, and too 'meta.' In practice, it works really well. [/QUOTE]

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