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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Felon" data-source="post: 930679" data-attributes="member: 8158">No, it's not rocket science, but in determining probabilies, there is some basic math involved, not just simple, subjective descriptors like "too hard", "hard", "average", "easy", and "too easy". In D20, characters have somewhere between a 5-95% chance of success at a saving throw. How small does the chance of failure have to become for a character before it qualifies as easy? Straight-up, just give me a percentile divisible by 5.If you agree with my figures--that the best GoodWill in the group has a 50/50 chance of succeeding, and most of the other characters significantly less--then it is not reasonable to call that easy. You cannot call something easy until the likelyhood of success exceeds the likelyhood of failure by a significant margin. If you don't agree with my figures, then where are they wrong? What don't they take into account? Do you think most PC's take Iron Will? Am I wrong for not factoring that in? Is there some common magic item besides a cloak of resistance that I should be factoring in? Do you think better cloaks should be common at that level? Keep in mind that only passive Will save bonuses should apply. Bonuses that have to be activated--like those from a prayer spell or barbarian rage--aren't likely to come into effect before the players get nailed by that 60ft. continual range. What's in dispute is what kind of Will saving throw a typical character that's facing an Eaten One will have, and if it's high enough to consider a DC 16 save to be "too easy". If you say a 70% chance of success constitutes a "too easy" save, then you should demonstrate how that hypothetical typical character will have a 70% chance of making that DC 16 save. My math (which isn't perfect by any means) shows that the character would need a +9 total Will save bonus. Now, assuming that the typical character that fights an Eaten One is 5th-level (which its CR indicates), then I definitely can't take what you're saying on face value. If you insist on saying I'm wrong, then I have to ask you to back that up by demonstrating how the typical character's going to have a +9 by 5th level. If he's a GoodWill, then his character level only gives him a +4, and if he's a BadWill he only gets a paltry +1. Assuming we've got an equal mix of both GoodWills and BadWills (let's say one wizard, one cleric, one figther, and one rogue), then two +4's and two +1's averages out to +2.5, which rounds down to +2. So it looks like the average 5th-level guy needs to cough up another +7 in Will save bonuses. Now, I granted that an average 5th-level character has a +1 from a cloak of resistance, so now you only need to account for +6 in extra bonuses. Where are they coming from? 5th-level characters don't have really great magic items or a lot of feats, and Wisdom is a secondary ability score at best for a wizard, fighter, and rogue. I tend to doubt that you can pony up another +6 in bonuses. In fact, I daresay that I think most 5th-level characters would be fortunate to have +6 in total Will save bonuses. Foregoing that, you can try to define "too easy" as a lower chance of success than 70%. Otherwise you should concede that a 16 DC Will save is a demonstrably difficult challenge for 5th-level characters.  I think it is safe to say that a task which you fail at half the time isn't easy for you. Moreover, if you are the best qualified person in the group to be undertaking that task which you are failing at half the time, then everyone else in the group is definitely not going to have an easy time. In fact, they are probably going to fail many times before they succeed (which is not a luxury that you have with the aura). This is why I asked you to define "too easy". It sounds like you define "too easy" as "most of the characters don't fail", which probably doesn't click with most people's definition of "too easy", which is "everyone succeeds almost automatically". If the DC is low enough that only one out of those four characters is likely to fail the save, is that "too easy"? Considering that hopelessness is pretty debilitating for the entire battle, and its effects cannot be removed by any spell at a 5th-level characters disposal (that I can think of), I don't think so. So there's another question for you: how many characters have to be sidelined by the aura in order for it to be effective? If you say "all but one", then you don't really don't mean a 16 is too easyl what you really mean is it's not over-the-top enough to be an insanely outrageous smackdown attack. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Most players don't feel challenged by warming a bench every other round. As it stands, the Eaten One is not a challenging monster, it's an annoyance. It's only good use is to free up some players to go make a run to Popeye's and pick up a Family Pack with two sides of red beans and rice. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /></blockquote>

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