D&D 5E (2024) It Is 2025 And Save Or Suck Spells Still Suck (the fun out of the game)

[evilbob]

I like this discussion and I'm happy to be a part of it!

Getting tripped up over the exact wording of Suggestion isn't important: it's clear from the description that one legitimate usage is removing an enemy from a combat. Targeting that concentration check, counterspell, and LRs are really your only counters.

Like many others mentioned, I still remember a combat against mind flayers from 15 yrs ago where the PCs were stunlocked repeatedly and how boring it was. "Never again." Turn denial just isn't fun.

Doom points / LRs are a great bandaid, but it does just feel like another gamey layer. "Gotta burn through those 5 LRs then we nuke it" becomes the plan, which isn't really narratively satisfying, as others have mentioned. I've also noticed how many 2024 monsters have "advantage on saves vs spells" which seems like another bandaid. Casters end up becoming auto-win or useless, neither of which are fun.

Along those lines, 2014 monks are the most powerful class I've seen in play. Even my never-min-max player quickly figured out his job was to stunlock the most dangerous opponents (multiple) each battle. The lack of stun immunity made many "deadly" encounters trivial. Even LRs aren't enough: monks can attack like 5 times in a row, boom there's your LRs gone in round 1.

Something else to underline: 2024 PCs are far more powerful than 2014s. This is pretty well established, but it still caught me off guard by how MUCH. Using 2024 PCs to finish the Tiamat campaign nearly nuked a god in 3 rounds. They just do so much martial damage now - it's nuts. And save or win effects were harder to land in the olden (3.5) days - that's just not true any more. Save or win used to be like a 1/3 chance, now it's 2/3 or better. And you can target multiple enemies at time. Hold Monster used to be so unreliable you'd never take it: now you always would.

Finally: save or suck spells do suck. They are too much of a risk/reward: if you miss, your turn was completely wasted. If you hit, you win. I like the PF2 suggestion of "levels of effect" but also dear god that's so much bookkeeping. 4e actually did a good job like others mentioned - and was roundly rejected.

We already have the super gamey HP whittling metagame, maybe save or suck should do damage on a fail, and make monster saves higher? I don't know. There's probably not a simple fix: someone would have thought of it. Reworking magic is AN answer but it's also the hardest and we tried that already and people rejected it. I'm thinking the 2024 MM should have raised monster saves by like +2 across the board, in addition to the big HP bump.

 

[billd91]

Doom points / LRs are a great bandaid, but it does just feel like another gamey layer. "Gotta burn through those 5 LRs then we nuke it" becomes the plan, which isn't really narratively satisfying, as others have mentioned. I've also noticed how many 2024 monsters have "advantage on saves vs spells" which seems like another bandaid. Casters end up becoming auto-win or useless, neither of which are fun.

Finally: save or suck spells do suck. They are too much of a risk/reward: if you miss, your turn was completely wasted. If you hit, you win.

Kinda harkens back to AD&D days, actually. Save or die/suck spells were encounter enders then too, but higher level enemies had better saves and magic resistance. So while the spells were pretty effective at low levels, as the casters got to higher and higher levels, these spells got harder to land. High risk of a wasted turn/high reward of winning the encounter.

Along those lines, 2014 monks are the most powerful class I've seen in play. Even my never-min-max player quickly figured out his job was to stunlock the most dangerous opponents (multiple) each battle. The lack of stun immunity made many "deadly" encounters trivial. Even LRs aren't enough: monks can attack like 5 times in a row, boom there's your LRs gone in round 1.

Monks running around stunning everything relatively easily is definitely an issue. I'm really hoping limiting it to once/round helps in 2024 because in 2014 it was really powerful.

We already have the super gamey HP whittling metagame, maybe save or suck should do damage on a fail, and make monster saves higher? I don't know. There's probably not a simple fix: someone would have thought of it. Reworking magic is AN answer but it's also the hardest and we tried that already and people rejected it. I'm thinking the 2024 MM should have raised monster saves by like +2 across the board, in addition to the big HP bump.

From where I'm sitting, I'm OK with legendary resistances because they end up working like a second hit point track - one governed by significant encounter changing powers whether stuns, holds, banishments, or whatever. The PCs have to soften the target up a bit to land one of these effects. The main limitation on LRs being even more useful in encounter design is tying them just to legendary creatures in the rules. I'm much more willing to spread them around to anything boss monster/solo enough that they'll benefit from them in a typical (at my table) 6 PCs to 1 or 2 monsters situation.

On the subject of reworking magic, particularly in the 4e mode: Steampunkette covered it fairly well upthread (post 119). Nerf major magical effects too much and it really does kind of rip you out of the inspirational fantasy genre - far more than giving targets a save or requiring the caster to concentrate. And that kind of sucks.

 

[Reynard]

From where I'm sitting, I'm OK with legendary resistances because they end up working like a second hit point track - one governed by significant encounter changing powers whether stuns, holds, banishments, or whatever. The PCs have to soften the target up a bit to land one of these effects. The main limitation on LRs being even more useful in encounter design is tying them just to legendary creatures in the rules. I'm much more willing to spread them around to anything boss monster/solo enough that they'll benefit from them in a typical (at my table) 6 PCs to 1 or 2 monsters situation.

That is interesting: what if the Gm gets "Doom Points" based on encounter numbers disparity? That is, the ratio of PCs to monsters (as the encounter is designed) equals the number of Doom points/LRs the GM starts the encounter with. So if it is 4 PCs against a boss monster and its lieutenant, then the GM gets 2 Doom Points.

 

[evilbob]

Kinda harkens back to AD&D days, actually. Save or die/suck spells were encounter enders then too, but higher level enemies had better saves and magic resistance. So while the spells were pretty effective at low levels, as the casters got to higher and higher levels, these spells got harder to land. High risk of a wasted turn/high reward of winning the encounter.

The more I think about it, the more I think this is the difference. @Zardnaar has written a lot on the over-effectiveness of level 1 spells at high level. It feels related: the reward is too great for the risk in higher tier. Upcast THL being better than Cone of Cold just feels weird.

Maybe the 5.5 MM needed to give +2 to monster saves for tier 2, +4 for tier 3, and +6 for tier 4.

Honesty ACs could probably go up about the same amount, given all the bonuses and near-constant advantage you can get at higher tiers. I know "magic items aren't assumed" but also... I think you can assume a little.

 

[NotAYakk]

In my monster building system (inspired by 4e), Elite(N) monsters get N times the HP, (N+1)/2 times the damage (as Elite actions (aka legendary)), and Elite resistances that can either trade HP for an auto-save or make effects go away early.

A level X monster has a HP budget of Y and, an attack damage budget of X, and by default 2 attacks (Merging those attacks into 1 or splitting them when making a monster is a-ok; there are 2 attacks as a standard budget).

(You "buy" per-encounter damage, like dragon's breath, by spending attack damage, and can trade HP for attack damage or vice versa; HP*Damage is the constant. Base stats/AC/Saves scale with level, but can also be purchased.)

A level X elite N monster has N*Y HP, still deals X damage "x2 attacks" on its turn, but gets (N-1) elite actions that each do X damage, and has N-1 elite resists that cost Y/2 HP to use (getting an auto-save), or for spells that have "save at end/start of turn or when take damage" you can get an extra roll of such saves (including on elite actions) and lose an elite resist if you win the roll.

So the dragon can choose to soak the hold monster spell, and can use an elite action and risk an elite resist to roll to save at the end of the first enemy's turn. This encourages you to actually accept the spell, because it saves Y/2 HP.

(Using up all of your elite resists on auto-saves almost halves your total HP).

Example (exact numbers made up):

A basic level 10 monster has 250 HP and 20 damage per attack and 2 attacks.
A basic boss level 10 elite 3 monster has 750 HP, 2 elite resists, 20 damage per attack (x2), 2 elite attacks at 20 damage each.

A glass cannon level 10 monster has 125 HP, 15 damage per attack and 4 attacks, and a per-encounter 60 damage AOE.
A tank level 10 monster has 375 HP, and 1 attack for 30 damage.

The level 10 non-elites are all "worth" a single PC of the same level. A level 10 Elite 3 is "worth" 3 PCs of that level.

To calculate HP, a level 10 monster has (Same level PC DPR) * (Same level PC accuracy) * 3 HP, and deals (Same level PC HP or Soak) / (Monster ATK vs same level PC AC accuracy) / 3 damage, where the PC HP and Soak are modelled based on your exact game edition/ruleset. It means in a 1:1 fight a level X PC and level X monster have a 3 round battle before one drops.

The model is based on a PC "without bells and whistles"; so the PC wins fights by using bells and whistles, which tends to be satisfying. Like, fighters without fighting styles and action surge and second wind or subclasses, paladins who only smite with half of their spells (per day) and not on crits, etc. Complex classes you just assume "don't suck" and use a simpler class as the monster baseline.

You can just use "one level X monster for every level X PC", then tweak numbers/levels as needed; to do a more complex tradeoff, there is a way to turn this into an XP system, but that math is more annoying.

The core of this, of course, that LR are no longer "this did nothing", but you need to land more than one save-or-suck to defeat a monster. Monsters are rewarded (in HP) by having the spell work for a short time (using rerolls instead of immunity): Having a monster be stunned or held for 1 PC's action is more fullfilling than it doing nothing besides strip a LR.

 

[Distracted DM]

The more I think about it, the more I think this is the difference. @Zardnaar has written a lot on the over-effectiveness of level 1 spells at high level. It feels related: the reward is too great for the risk in higher tier. Upcast THL being better than Cone of Cold just feels weird.

Maybe the 5.5 MM needed to give +2 to monster saves for tier 2, +4 for tier 3, and +6 for tier 4.

Honesty ACs could probably go up about the same amount, given all the bonuses and near-constant advantage you can get at higher tiers. I know "magic items aren't assumed" but also... I think you can assume a little.

To make lower level spells less effective I can think of two options off the top of my head: get rid of upcasting (doesn't really effect evergreen stuff like Shield), or make low-level spells less effective against higher-CR baddies. How to do the latter? Bonuses to saves/AC against low-level stuff? Level 2 Suggestion vs. a CR10 giant? Maybe the giant gets a bonus of some sort. It could be that you group them by tiers- level 1+2 spells tier1, level 3-5 spells tier2, etc.
I'll tell you one thing: 5e's magic resistance giving advantage does pretty much nothing when targeting the monster's weak saves (Int/Wis/Cha in most cases). Great, they have two dice to try to roll a 19 or 20 on :'D
So advantage wouldn't be an answer. Perhaps giving them proficiency on the save, or expertise.. something like that.

This topic probably deserves its own thread. But how to handle cantrips? Cantrips outstrip low-level damage spells quickly enough with how 5e handles them; low-level slots become only good for utility spells- cantrips scale well, and are unlimited.

 

[NotAYakk]

To make lower level spells less effective I can think of two options off the top of my head: get rid of upcasting (doesn't really effect evergreen stuff like Shield), or make low-level spells less effective against higher-CR baddies. How to do the latter? Bonuses to saves/AC against low-level stuff? Level 2 Suggestion vs. a CR10 giant? Maybe the giant gets a bonus of some sort. It could be that you group them by tiers- level 1+2 spells tier1, level 3-5 spells tier2, etc.
I'll tell you one thing: 5e's magic resistance giving advantage does pretty much nothing when targeting the monster's weak saves (Int/Wis/Cha in most cases). Great, they have two dice to try to roll a 19 or 20 on :'D
So advantage wouldn't be an answer. Perhaps giving them proficiency on the save, or expertise.. something like that.

This topic probably deserves its own thread. But how to handle cantrips? Cantrips outstrip low-level damage spells quickly enough with how 5e handles them; low-level slots become only good for utility spells- cantrips scale well, and are unlimited.

The introduction of +DC items for non-warlocks was an error methinks.

That 19-20 save being a 16-20 save is a big difference; with advantage, it is 19% vs 44% save chance.
PC save DCs start at 13. By level 20 with 22 in your stat and a +3 DC item they are DC 23.

Suppose low level monsters have an average save of +1(+/-2); this means a spell lands 55% of the time if you pick a random save. If you pick a weak save it lands 65%+ of the time.

A CR 20 monster needs an average save of +11 to match his. This means proficiency in every save, and an average attribute bonus of +5.

PC save DCs go up +1/4 from proficiency, +1/6 from items and +1/6 from attributes, summing to between +1/2 and +2/3 per level.

Attack attributes go up like +1 every 2 levels (so +1 mod every 4 levels). Other attributes go up at say half this rate (+1 every 4). So monsters get about +7/8 to their total saves per level (call it +1 per level) from attributes, so +1/6 average save per level.

Imagine if every 2 CR a monster got a save proficiency; one at CR 2, one at CR 4, all the way to CR 12.

Then at CR 14 it started getting expertise in saves; one at 14, 16, all the way up to CR 20. Then it stops.

In addition, its main attack attribute was 13 + CR/2, and its average secondary attribute was 10+CR/4.

At CR 0: P 13 S 10 average saves are +0.2.
At CR 1: P 13.5 S 10.25 average saves are +0.4.
At CR 5: P 15.5 S 11.25 averages saves are +1.0 from attributes and +1 from prof; total +2.0
At CR 10: P 18 S 12.5 average saves are +1.6 from attributes and +3.3 from prof; total +4.9
At CR 15: P 20.5 S 13.75 average saves are +2.4 from attributes and +5.8 from prof; total +8.2
At CR 20: P 23 S 15 average saves are +3.2 from attributes and +10 from prof; total +13.2
At CR 25: P 25.5 S 16.25 average saves are +3.9 from attributes and +13.3 from prof; total +16.9
At CR 30: P 28 S 17.5 average saves are +4.6 from attributes and +15 from prof; total +19.6

PC end:
Level 1: 16 attribute +2 prof +0 item, 13 DC (monsters need a 12.6, so 42% save)
Level 5: 18 attribute +3 prof +0 item, 15 DC (monsters need a 13, so 40% save)
Level 10: 20 attribute +4 prof +1 item, 18 DC (monsters need a 13.1, so 40% save)
Level 15: 20 attribute +5 prof +2 item, 20 DC (monsters need a 11.8, so 46% save)
Level 20: 22 attribute +6 prof +3 item, 23 DC (monsters need a 9.8, so 49% save)
20* vs 25: (monsters need a 7.1, so 70% save)
20** vs 30: (monsters need a 4.4, so 83% save)

(where 20* is 20 with another +1, and 20** has two +1s, better than my model).

Wow, that is a lot to throw at it to deal with save DCs; a good save every 2 levels barely does it.

 

[Stalker0]

Finally: save or suck spells do suck. They are too much of a risk/reward: if you miss, your turn was completely wasted. If you hit, you win. I like the PF2 suggestion of "levels of effect" but also dear god that's so much bookkeeping.

Having thought about it more, I think the A5e legendary resistance mechanic is the right approach here.


Effectively LRs work the same in A5e as 5e but the monster is normally weakened after a use of LR. And so what this does is create a "lesser spell effect" without a lot of bookkeeping. We don't have to have a lesser effect for every spell in the game. Legendary monsters come with their own "lesser effect" built in. Bosses aren't hosed out of the gate, casters are still accomplishing something, its easy to track and record.....everyone wins.

 

[Distracted DM]

Finally: save or suck spells do suck. They are too much of a risk/reward: if you miss, your turn was completely wasted. If you hit, you win. I like the PF2 suggestion of "levels of effect" but also dear god that's so much bookkeeping. 4e actually did a good job like others mentioned - and was roundly rejected.

I think PF2'e degrees of success/failure isn't "too much" when it comes to Save or Suck spells. Just personal opinion ofc but I think it was a good answer.

 

[nevin]

Call it what you want, but I have never seen a table benefit from spot nerfing or revenge fudging.

bad guys continuing the story based on events and actions that the players caused or created is not spot nerfing or revenge fudging. Now if you meant to limit the statement to DM's just punishing players for winning fine, but saying the baddies and other NPC's shouldn't come back and react appropriately due to past events that's silly. I'm not sure which you meant with that post.