Granted Saves and Aftereffect

[Tenniel]

Say the following happens

1) a character is affected by a power that has an aftereffect, eg the Beholder's Death Beam (refer to diagram below)
2) an ally grants the player an extra save, eg a cleric ally uses Divine Aid or Sacred Flame
3) the character fails the save

I assume the aftereffect would kick in straight away. But contary to this is the text on PHB p 279

An aftereffect doesn’t begin until after you’ve rolled all your saving throws at the end of your turn. This means you can’t make a saving throw against an aftereffect at the end of the same turn when you saved against the initial effect.

I assume this wording just covers the general saves at the end of the turn and not the impact of granted saves that may occur on other characters' turns. I suppose the risk of getting the aftereffect is the price of the oppurtunity of shaking the effect off earlier.

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[James McMurray]

Aftereffects occur immediately.

What you're talking about (the death ray) isn't an aftereffect, it's a repercussion of a failed save. It still happens immediately, but they're too different things so it's important to keep them separate.

Edit: at least I think that's what you're referring to. I'm kinda confused by the inclusion of the diagram, since the beholder's death ray doesn't care about positioning.

 

[smdmcl]

We have been playing the extra saves as a bonus chance to resist the effect before the actual save at the end of your turn where, if you fail, the full effect takes place.

For example, if a wizard casts sleep on a group of hobgoblins, the hobgoblins racial ability to make an extra save occurrs as an immediate reaction. If they fail, nothing happens until the end of their next turn when they make their normal save and, if they fail, they fall asleep.

What I understand you to be saying is that after the hobgoblins fail their initial, racially granted, immediate reaction save they will fall asleep at the end of their next turn without the chance to make another save. I'm not sure that's the way it's supposed to work but I'm at work so I don't have my books to reference to prove the point one way or the other.

I'm not sure i would like this in play if it did work this way. It seems like it is severely limiting the functionality of abilities that grant additional saves. How would you adjudicate a round where a character was granted multiple extra saves before the end of their next turn?

 

[smdmcl]

Aftereffects occur immediately.

We don't play our game this way. It seems counter-intuitive that an effect would occur sooner because of an ability that is supposed to make you more resistant to after-effects. I'm definitely going to have to open up the PHB when I get home to confirm this.

If this is RAW then I may have found my first house-rule (well second if you count nerfed sunrods) in 4th edition because I don't like it one bit.

 

[James McMurray]

We don't play our game this way. It seems counter-intuitive that an effect would occur sooner because of an ability that is supposed to make you more resistant to after-effects.

What abilities are supposed to make you more resistant to aftereffects? All the ones I know just give a save. They say nothing about aftereffects (or repercussions).

 

[smdmcl]

What abilities are supposed to make you more resistant to aftereffects?

This is the one I used in my example above:
Hobgoblin Racial Power: Hobgoblin Resilience

You shake off an effect that would cripple a lesser warrior.
Encounter
Immediate Reaction Personal
Trigger: You suffer an effect that a save can end
Effect: You make a saving throw against the effect.

If you cast sleep on a group of hobgoblins they will have the same chance of falling asleep with or without this ability. The only effect that this power would grant a hobgoblin against a spell such as sleep is that they would either throw off the effect of the slowed condition sooner (and not fall asleep) or fall asleep sooner. The power does not make them any more resiliant to sleep.

Also, a cleric using a power or skill to grant a member of their party an additional save only to have them fail and succumb quicker seems wrong. That just does not seem to be be working right to me.

 

[666Sinner666]

The way I understand it is if a wizard casts sleep then those targeted fall asleep and at the end of their turn they are allowed to make a save against that affect. If they fail they stay asleep. If any of the targets have an ability that allows them to save before their turn and they save against it then they do not succumb to the affect and no save is required on their turn.

If a cleric or any other player uses a power that allows an ally to save before their turn then the same is true with the exception of any turns prior to that.

In the case of the beholder any failed saves trigger the affect of the death ray regardless of when the save is made as the power does not dictate that it only applies to saves made on the chracters turn.

If you want an offical answer just submitt to CS and see what they say.

P.S. I really dislike the Death Ray simply because I thought WOTC was going to do away with save or die spells but apparently they meant instantaneous save or die spells and not ones that required more than one save to kill someone. Seems a might hypocritical to me.

 

[Starglim]

Say the following happens

1) a character is affected by a power that has an aftereffect, eg the Beholder's Death Beam (refer to diagram below)
2) an ally grants the player an extra save, eg a cleric ally uses Divine Aid or Sacred Flame
3) the character fails the save

I assume the aftereffect would kick in straight away. But contary to this is the text on PHB p 279

An aftereffect doesn’t begin until after you’ve rolled all your saving throws at the end of your turn. This means you can’t make a saving throw against an aftereffect at the end of the same turn when you saved against the initial effect.

You could read it as "An aftereffect doesn’t begin until after you’ve rolled all your saving throws / at the end of your turn," assuming that the third clause is merely a reminder that the usual time to take saving throws is at the end of your turn and if you get saving throws before that, the aftereffect happens after you roll all saving throws you're currently entitled to.

If you go the other way, you have still failed one save and you'll suffer the aftereffect, just delayed to the end of your turn after making your saving throws. You still suffer the aftereffect even if you then succeed on a save at the end of your turn. This seems to me a difficult and almost pointless piece of bookkeeping, thus I'd favour the OP's interpretation that the aftereffect happens immediately.

 

[Tenniel]

kinda confused by the inclusion of the diagram, since the beholder's death ray doesn't care about positioning.

Yeah, but it sure evokes the excitement of the combat.

This is an interesting issue. Seems simple enough with the RAW, but counterintuitive. Not so counterinuitive when the granted save comes with a bonus as you can say that's the price you pay to get a bonus. I'm leaning towards (as a house rule) having granted saves as "freebie" saves, that is a failure does not lead to the next level of consequence (e.g. Sleep spell causing Slowed ---> Unconcious).

You'd feel a little guilty killing a character before his last turn by granting a save that failed.

 

[cmbarona]

Yeah, but it sure evokes the excitement of the combat.

This is an interesting issue. Seems simple enough with the RAW, but counterintuitive. Not so counterinuitive when the granted save comes with a bonus as you can say that's the price you pay to get a bonus. I'm leaning towards (as a house rule) having granted saves as "freebie" saves, that is a failure does not lead to the next level of consequence (e.g. Sleep spell causing Slowed ---> Unconcious).

You'd feel a little guilty killing a character before his last turn by granting a save that failed.

I mostly agree with you, but I should point out that it's not entirely accurate to say that the risk of an extra failed save is the price paid to get a bonus. Quite frankly, they already paid that price by purchasing the feat/power/item, not to mention action, that gave them the extra save in the first place, especially if there's a bonus attached to it.