Fortitude and Size

[whatisitgoodfor]

With the new intended errata from the Sage that there should be a size modifier to Reflex Saves, a thought occured to me.

Should creatures recive a bonus to their Fortitude save proportional to their size? I think the Size modifiers used for Grappling would be of about the right amount.

I was thinking about how hard it should be to poison a Dragon as compared to a human. In order to get an appreciable effect on the Dragon, you would have to get a lot more of the poision into the animals system, simply to get the toxin concentration high enough to affect the animal's metabolism.

However, in the case of say a Gnome, the amount of poison needed to achieve the same toxin concentration is much smaller.

Any thoughts?

 

[Crothian]

I don't think its a bad idea. It does make sense and it would be easy to impliment. Using the grabbling bonuses will make many large things practicalluy immune to anything that requires a fort save. Most powerful creatures are large or bigger, so it'll make those high level fort save spells almost useless.

 

[whatisitgoodfor]

On a related note, my DM has recently removed Coup-De-Grace from the game. He felt it was simply too powerful.

I think he was just getting mad about us killing dragons way too easily.

It was the night after our level 10 Dragon killer Ranger managed to sneak up on three different sleeping dragons and CDG them with his +2 Thundering Scythe and Monte's FECS (Even dragons have trouble making a DC 100 fortitude save.) that the DM decided that CDG was too powerful.

I was thinking that maybe this would be a suitable compromise.

 

[CRGreathouse]

Here's the "Sage Response" you refered to:

Hey, guys, I just got an e-mail response from the Sage about this. I sent him this after first reading this topic. His responses in bold.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Sage:

It is currently being debated on the ENWorld message boards why a dragon recieves good reflex save progression. Some are arguing that dragons, being enormous creatures, should have a poor Ref save progression, or at least some sort of penalty to Ref saves based on size (similar to the Size AC penalty).

Others say that dragons, being creatures of awesome might, should get the good saves. Reasons include a "sixth sense" to avoid danger, covering itself with its wings, and having its scales provide Cover to it. Also, it has been suggested that it was from a game mechanics point-of-view that this was done, making dragons the toughest creatures in the game.

Could you please clarify this, and if Dragons don't have good Ref saves, why was it not included in the MM errata.

Dragons recieve good Reflex saves because we wanted them to be the most challenging encounter possible.

However, there should be a penalty for size. Use the AC charts for the correct values. This applies to all creatures, not just dragons. Change all the saves listed in the MM to reflect this correction. It affects PC's as well (check the PH errata; it was updated yesterday).

I can't believe that R&D missed this one; I'll let them know immediately.
-------------------------------------------------------

Well, that should settle the debate.

It was posted on April Fool's Day. If you still think it's legit, check out the facts of the letter yourself:
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/er/er20010525b

 

[The Sigil]

With all due respect...

It was the night after our level 10 Dragon killer Ranger managed to sneak up on three different sleeping dragons and CDG them with his +2 Thundering Scythe and Monte's FECS (Even dragons have trouble making a DC 100 fortitude save.) that the DM decided that CDG was too powerful.

With all due respect, there is no way in he** you should be able to sneak up on *one* sleeping dragon, let alone *three*. Rather than quote all the reasons, let me refer you to AEG's DRAGONS and mention just a couple.

1.) Massive use of ALARM spells throughout dragon's cave.
2.) Dragon in an area inaccessible save with enough magic (e.g., fly, water breathing, etc) and with anti-magic field around entrance (dragon can pass through, others can't)
3.) Magic items such as amulet of non-detection, ring of invisibility, etc., to make it nigh-unto-impossible to locate said dragon in the first place.
4.) Lots of minions on watch (undead, constructs, half-dragons, familiars, or even "standard creatures") whose first duty is to ring gong/blow horn/flee to warn dragon, etc.
5.) Contingency spell set to fire off devastating magical effect when a creature approaches dragon (e.g., fireball for red, cone of cold for white, lightning bolt for blue, etc.) - blast zaps intruders AND wakes dragon.

Your DM is suffering from his own lack of playing a dragon as intelligently as possible. Dragons don't live to be thousands of years old by allowing stupid humans to attack them in their sleep...

Okay, I'll end my rant now.

--The Sigil

 

[Lord Pendragon]

I think it's a bad idea. Sure, with an animal or mineral poison a dragon will be harder to poison than a human than a gnome. But the Fort Save is used for a heck of a lot of stuff besides poison saves.

For instance, I see no reason why a dragon should be able to shrug off the Contagion spell any better due to its size. It's hardiness is already reflected in a good fort progression, size is immaterial to magic. Likewise other spells that require a fort save.

On a game-balance note, giving a size mod to fort saves also throws the balance of the races out of whack, making it less advantageous to create a gnome or halfling character. It makes polymorph and wildshape even better than they are, allowing those PCs to shapechange into a troll and not only get a better fort save from con, but an even better save simply due to size.

All in all, I'd say the system works as is. It's already practically impossible for the dragon to fail its save vs. poison. It doesn't need any more help.

 

[whatisitgoodfor]

Ok, I didn't want to have to do this, but here goes.

With regards to having massive Alarm spells going, how is he supposed to do this? A CR 10 Black dragon only has a caster level of 3. This gives him a total of 6 level 1 spells per day and none higher. Is it simply presumed that the Dragon goes ahead and wastes all of his spells per day on casting Alarm? He doesn't hold any spells back in case something actually does attack?

As to being unable to reach the dragon's lair, with enough time, and an intelligent enough player, any location can be reached.

About having magic items, the dragon is too low a level to make them, too greedy to buy them, and poor a caster to identify them. The odds are greatly against a low HD Dragon actively using magic items like those.

Contingency would also be a trick the dragon would love to use, if it weren't for that whole 3rd level caster part.

Finally, the dragon's underlings and cohort. Checking the leadership chart, the Dragon will have a level 9 cohort, 50 level 1's, 5 level 2's, 3 level 3's, 2 level 4's, and a level 5.

Of course, since the dragon doesn't want to attract too much attention, he dismisses all the level 1's and is left with the others.

How hard should it be for a level 10 Ranger with a +50 or so to hide and move silent to sneak past those NPC's?


And you still believe that the DM was playing the Dragon in a pitiful manner?


Regardless, that was not the point of the thread, and I would prefer if you would keep your BADD bigoted opinions away from my thread .

 

[hong]

And you still believe that the DM was playing the Dragon in a pitiful manner?

The question is perhaps: does your party habitually sneak up on sleeping enemies and kill them; and if not, why do dragons seem to be the exceptions to the rule?

 

[Geoff Watson]

Even if the Ranger killed the first dragon (how the hell did he get +50 to move slient anyway?), the others would hear the noise from the attack on the first one.

Or is the DM making too easy by having dragons asleep all the time? Wouldn't they wake up when someone got within hearing or blindsight range?

Geoff.

 

[CRGreathouse]

how the hell did he get +50 to move slient anyway?

Well, let's assume the ranger has boots of elvenkind and 13 ranks. Since there are no synergy bonuses to Move Silently, the remaining +27 must come fromt he ranger's 64 Dex.