Kelleris said:
That's the thing. A certain kind of spellcaster can already do the most damage, the kind that doesn't rely on save or- spells. Look at Caira, for example. Facing NPCs with saves in the range that I've mentioned would not greatly affect her power one way or the other, because she pretty much bypasses the save mechanic anyway. Buff casters, sneak-attack casters, and summoner casters are all viable at this level. The master illusionist, the necromancer, and the artillery cannon really aren't, or their options are so restricted as to make them both predictable and boring. Lowering our saves en masse would mean that we can add the latter to our list of potential foes without being (any more) overwhelmed by the former sort of casters.
A single 30th level mage can easily toss out 4 meteor swarms a round and even making saves that is still 48d6 damage. Toss in a slightly more viscious build and you can have that empowered to 72d6 (That for reference is 252 points of damage on average)
I am comparing saves against the wrong things? I am explicitly comparing them to the save DCs of spells and spell-like abilities, which make up easily half of the save-requiring effects in the game. Looking at the ELH, the same range is pretty good for most monster abilities, except for those that are just off the charts anyway. That seems to me to be exactly the right thing to compare them to.
You were comparing them to the "average" 30th level caster, of which there is no such thing. I could use the existing rules to make something whose save is beyond any of us.
Our relative saves are all that matter as far as being well- or ill-equipped for challenges goes. I'll say it again: I have no interest in really weakening anyone's character. Lowering numbers that are, after all, completely abstract, is not really a weakening of you character in this particular context.
Abstract, yes, meaningless, no. If the numbers were meaningless we should be playing first level characters.
Yes, I perhaps it could (though I have my doubts). However, there are two things that make saves worth worrying about more than simply being really, really good at what you're supposed to be really, really good at. First, saves are ubiquitous. If I lowered my skill checks and nobody else did, I'm just worse at what I do. Lowering saves instead puts a range of interesting challenges within feasible terms, and doing it all at once means that we are all just as good overall, since we have a DM and not an unintelligent program running the game. Second, there is the conflict of saves with another aspect of characters, their save DCs. Save bonuses are a heck of a lot cheaper than DC bonuses, so unless we self-regulate saves become extremely high and eventually meaningless after a point. For example, my skills can be matched by someone who puts as much work into finding people as I do into not being seen. Sigrun's constructs can be matched by someone who puts as much work into creating an opposing army of constructs as he does. However, if we all cheese out on our saves, someone who puts just as much work into his or her save DCs will just be hoping we roll a 1. There's a fundamental disparity in ease-of-acquisition that isn't there in your other examples.
I am not competing with the other characters DCs, I am not competing with other players skill checks either, If I were, I would be calling to high heaven about how Arion is built. And yes there is a disparity between characters, the answer can be found in building other characters up rather than taking our selves down.
Yes, and that's why I propose we all do it as a group instead of one person doing it and relinquishing an advantage, There is no advantage-relinquishing going on here whatsoever, in fact, and that's exactly my point. Rahveon and Solarion will still be the guys with really good saves, I will still have a gaping hole for a Will save, and so forth. The only difference is that everyone will be 5 points (say) lower, and a d20 will matter again. All of this is not to say that there's no such thing as having too much of an advantage, which there certainly is and which I'm not prepared to accuse anyone of.
If there is no change in the difference between the saves, there is no difference. DCs can be as high or as low as the GM wants.
So just drop the morale bonus from greater heroism. Instead of making it an item of greater heroism, have it be an item that grants the same bonuses granted by greater heroism except the saving throw bonuses, and then subtract out the cost of a +4 morale bonus to all saves (32,000 by the guidelines). Simple as pie, and the same goes for other effects as well. You can hardly complain that doing so is arbitrarily making up a new item for a specific effect, in the light of our character sheets' equipment lists.
Not possible, they aren't bought that way. It is a continuous spell. The competence bonus and the Luck bonus maybe (as they are bought that way) but, short of getting rid of it or placing a "limitation" on it, they you can't really do that.
Yeah, and there's probably 8 times as many that do care about saves. And I want to reiterate the crucial distinction here: there is a difference between high saves and saves that only involve a d20 as a formality. The former is a legitimate character advanatge, and the latter is a breakdown of the game system that should be addressed.
It is only a "breakdown" of the system if you are comparing yourself to the rest of the group, which I have repeatedly said is a mistake.
Exactly my point. The difference is that Isida isn't just arbitrarily picking numbers for us to save against, she's implicitly playing by (mostly) the same rules as us. If we lower our saves as I've suggested, those rules let us have more fun because they let Isida challenge us in a greater variety of ways. Isn't that what the game is about, really? Surely it's not about collecting the highest possible abstract numbers on our character sheets. If she was arbitrarily picking numbers, then you should just be glad that we can transfer that gold to something more interesting, something with more character than "+X bonus to X", and we're better off than before, having not wasted gold en masse on something that Isida's just going to judge relatively or arbitrarily anyway.
You weren't listening to my point, the system is more than capable of throwing things at us that will challenge our saves, if you don't think so, then you haven't been playing the high end, at all.
Except of course for his massive hp, his immunity to death and negative energy effects, his constant true seeing, his 9 levels of spell turning 3/day, his immunity to mind-affecting abilities and divinations, his immunity to environmental effects, and the fact that he'll still have the best saves in the group (Solarion excepted). If I didn't know better, I would almost think you would rather be playing rock-paper-scissors instead of D&D, with all those unbeatable immunities.
You obviously haven't been playing high level games...
There is SO much that you need to prepare for, so much that you can not prepare for. Just off the top of my head, here are a few examples of what we could be facing: (epic)Psedonatural Bone Ooze, Elite Half-Fiend Great Wyrm Red Dragon, Asmodeus(!), A Paragon Tarrasque (or an Epic Pseudo Natural Tarrasque would be fun), Tiamat (!) (though she is only CR 25, I think you would have to throw in her cohorts), a 10th level Soul Eater Pit Fiend with a 30th level sorceror and a shade rogue and a 20th level Firegiant cleric.
If you think combat at epic level can be devolved into rock/paper/scissors or that Rahveon is protected from magic, then you need to reassess what we are going to be facing. The epic combats that I have been involved in are huge, fun and most of all immensely complicated.
If you think our saves are too high, look at the ruin swarm (CR23)
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
