Poor will saves pummeling the opposition

[Someone]

Yes, PHB II has a couple feats that can boost your Will saves to the stratosphere, and giants have enough HD to be able to choose one or two of them and stil have room for the ones they'll need to deal a ton of damage (which is just Power attack)

 

[phindar]

Monstrous Humanoids have pretty good will saves for one. Protection from Good (Evil, Law, Chaos, whatever the party is) protects from mental control, and as a 1 min per level, 1st level spell, even a guy with one level in a casting class can protect somebody for ten rounds. Or its a cheap potion. Rage gives a +2 to Will saves, and barbarian is a good class for humanoids and giants. Iron Will was mentioned, and that's one I've taken with almost every character I've played... I hate failing Will Saves. Sandstorm has a feat called Scorpion's Resolve, gives +4 bonus against Mind-Affecting.

While undead, constructs, oozes and vermin are also good go-to guys against a party of will savers, I think you're right to try not to totally invalidate the characters tactics. Its about making it challenging and fun.

 

[Darklone]

Isn't confusion and the rest against one single opponent only?

Ah, only lesser confusion. Well, same game.

Have more opponents of a bit lower levels and spread them. Only pile them on a PC if the spellcaster would have to target his buddy as well.

 

[Bagpuss]

Don't any of your Humanoids have Wizard or Cleric levels (thus better Will saves) if they do hit the party with Fortitude and/or Reflex saves and play them at their own game.

 

[Infiniti2000]

Due to my campaign setting and the area they are currently in, the vast majority of encounters will be humanoids and giants.

So, your players tailored their characters to your campaign setting and this is upsetting you? You either need to change your campaign setting or modify/disallow character combos that don't jive with it.

 

[nittanytbone]

When I ran a conversion of B2, I had a similar problem. The party's will save spells (Color Spray, Command, etc) played havoc with the humanoid riff-raff that populates the caves of chaos.

However, I had set up one orc tribe as a bunch of religious fanatics. They all had the iron will feat and their leader was a favored soul that knew Pro from Good. The party was in for a rough surprise when they came across that bunch! Iron Will really helped when I started rolling lots of saves.

Another tribe had leaders with barbarian levels; the +2 to saves while raging helped to preserve the leadership quite a bit too.

 

[MongooseFamiliar]

Evil monstrous monks? Nice saves there.

 

[frankthedm]

Make sure to warn your players if you plan to change how their abilites have been working.

They have already been warned. The spell is right there in thier PHB. In all liklyhood they already know but chose to cheat by not saying anything.

 

[Nifft]

They have already been warned. The spell is right there in thier PHB. In all liklyhood they already know but chose to cheat by not saying anything.

Now, now. "Do not attribute to malice..." and all that.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Gerion of Mercadia]

Monstrous Humanoids have pretty good will saves for one. Protection from Good (Evil, Law, Chaos, whatever the party is) protects from mental control, and as a 1 min per level, 1st level spell, even a guy with one level in a casting class can protect somebody for ten rounds. Or its a cheap potion.

Economic defence vs mind control magic there is. Also note that once the spell is cast on a friend, the mental control is suspended for the duration of the protection spell, even if control was already established.