Ranger Beast Master: errata will add new features to your animal companion!

[Pauln6]

And what, you're going to ready an action to dive behind cover when you expect the dragon is going to breathe on you? If you're going to spend the whole time cowering in the background, instead of up in the dragon's face, then you might as well not show up. Remember that your Dex modifier is -1, so you're not doing anything with a bow.
It's not feasible to add new party members, as preparation. You can certainly choose for your existing divine spellcaster to cast this spell, rather than something else, but it takes their action and concentration.
As above, but in terms of action economy, the divine spellcaster in your party is probably going to cast Bless instead of Resistance.
Which is actually the point of this whole tangent. Without a paladin's aura, high-end saves become entirely unmake-able without preparation. With a paladin's aura, sufficient preparation can make saving throws make-able, though not reliably.
Just because an item is Uncommon, does not mean it's for sale, or easily find-able. You might have time to go on a quest for one of these, if the DM is feeling amenable, but more than that is unlikely. This isn't third edition.
Like I said, you don't get to recruit party members in preparation for a fight. You could very well choose to have your wizard caste Haste on the fighter, though.

Summing up the feasible precautions you can take (-1 +2.5 +1 +Advantage) gets your final roll at +2.5, with Advantage. The fighter gets two tries to hit DC 21, rolling d20+d4. Even if you can convince the dragon to fight you in terrain that's full of three-quarters cover, and it somehow can't negotiate a clear firing line to get around that, a +5 bonus doesn't shift you into probable territory. You're still doing a lot of work, eating up actions and concentration for half of the party, in order to get less than an even chance of preventing 45 damage.

Valid points on both sides for an occasional issue. You don't often come across saves that high, they will only be difficult saves for certain group members, they often have an inconveniencing effect or an effect that is temporary, or just hp loss. Some group members may have magic to remove effects, limit effects, or boost saves. Some classes have class features that can do the same.

While I agree, natural 20 should save, I think the rest of the issues are largely intentional.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Valid points on both sides for an occasional issue. You don't often come across saves that high, they will only be difficult saves for certain group members, they often have an inconveniencing effect or an effect that is temporary, or just hp loss. Some group members may have magic to remove effects, limit effects, or boost saves. Some classes have class features that can do the same.

While I agree, natural 20 should save, I think the rest of the issues are largely intentional.

auto success on a 20 should definitely be in the DMG as a variant rule. I definitely don't want it as the core rule.

Great points, though. At that level, the few such DCs that exist aren't going to gank a PC or otherwise take them out of the fight, they're rare, and player characters have all manner of ways to mitigate enemy effects.

Also, who says you can't recruit people as part of prep? What, hirelings don't exist? I know you didn't make that point, but it is just weird to me. Also, when you're that high level, you can scour a continent for someone who has a given item in a matter of a couple days. Multiple classes have ways of moving the entire party to any other point in the world, multiple times a day.

Hell, by that level, you can easily have some save boosting items in a vault for when they're more useful or needed than other items.

 

[CapnZapp]

I disagree. The tools are there to change the odds from an impossible save into a probable one, dependant of course on how impossible the save is. Impossible saves are relevant to running away as running away lets you then prepare using the tools I am referring to.

Here are some tools (this is not an exhaustive list):
<snip>

You can't be serious. Who in their right mind thinks it a good idea to spend precious resources just to turn an impossible save into a save you can make, let alone a probable one?

Nobody.

Saying you can spend resources to turn your +0 bonus into a +4 bonus, so you can make that DC 23 roll (if you roll 19 or better)...

Talk about missing the point.

Also: You starting out your reply with an implication I am making an unreasonable argument is probably not a good foot to start off with. I mean, there is no reason to turn the aggression dial to 11 on your first reply, is there?

If it has eluded you then let me be clear: impossible saves are bad design and should never have slipped thru QA. Unreasonable? How about indefensible?

The only question here is why you keep denying this, defending the indefensible.

Had you said something along the lines of "no big deal, only affects few games, not worth fixing" that would be one thing. That would acknowledge the basic point. "yes, it's ugly, but remember WotC had other things on their mind". Had you said this, there would not have been a discussion.

But you do not seem to even comprehend the basic inelegance here.

What I meant was, the specific thing we are arguing about is good. It’s good that some characters literally cannot make the save, while other characters can, and still others have a solid chance.

No it's not. It's horrendous.

What argument do you have, other than to repeatedly state your conlcusion as if it were self evident objective truth?

You still argue as if I'm saying no saves should be hard, which remains patently false. Just as long as the save is not impossible, I'm good. I'm even good with having a 8 sending you over the edge, that -1 modifier making the save no longer possible. I said so, in fact.

But characters will always have +0 modifiers. The game should thus naively not break DC 20 for saves. Or, more reasonably, it can, but then also ensure tier IV characters saves rise at the minimum pace needed.

Or, more generally, state you can use your proficiency bonus in place of your ability bonus (just one suggestion; am open other other solutions). Do note that this hardly helps when you add bonuses. If your bonus is +1 and the Paladin gives you +5, that is still only equal to the +6 you get from proficiency. It's not that anyone is saying the bonuses get to be on top of the minimum save from proficiency. So this does not make fights easier. All it does is remove a stain on the game's design.

There isn't an argument in your list that depends on the save being literally impossible. Fights being "tough, assymetrical, and harder to strategize"? Still eminently possible even if saves are makeable.

I think that seals the deal. You try one more ridiculous argument than the next. I asked you to stop making this out to be a choice between two extremes (impossible or easy saves) and you didn't. You've decided you don't want to see the obvious. We're done.

 

[CapnZapp]

text

I wouldn't bother, Saelorn. It's obvious there are people that treat the rules as holy writ.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

You can't be serious. Who in their right mind thinks it a good idea to spend precious resources just to turn an impossible save into a save you can make, let alone a probable one?

Nobody.

Saying you can spend resources to turn your +0 bonus into a +4 bonus, so you can make that DC 23 roll (if you roll 19 or better)...

Talk about missing the point.


If it has eluded you then let me be clear: impossible saves are bad design and should never have slipped thru QA. Unreasonable? How about indefensible?

The only question here is why you keep denying this, defending the indefensible.

Had you said something along the lines of "no big deal, only affects few games, not worth fixing" that would be one thing. That would acknowledge the basic point. "yes, it's ugly, but remember WotC had other things on their mind". Had you said this, there would not have been a discussion.

But you do not seem to even comprehend the basic inelegance here.


No it's not. It's horrendous.


You still argue as if I'm saying no saves should be hard, which remains patently false. Just as long as the save is not impossible, I'm good. I'm even good with having a 8 sending you over the edge, that -1 modifier making the save no longer possible. I said so, in fact.

But characters will always have +0 modifiers. The game should thus naively not break DC 20 for saves. Or, more reasonably, it can, but then also ensure tier IV characters saves rise at the minimum pace needed.

Or, more generally, state you can use your proficiency bonus in place of your ability bonus (just one suggestion; am open other other solutions). Do note that this hardly helps when you add bonuses. If your bonus is +1 and the Paladin gives you +5, that is still only equal to the +6 you get from proficiency. It's not that anyone is saying the bonuses get to be on top of the minimum save from proficiency. So this does not make fights easier. All it does is remove a stain on the game's design.

There isn't an argument in your list that depends on the save being literally impossible. Fights being "tough, assymetrical, and harder to strategize"? Still eminently possible even if saves are makeable.

I think that seals the deal. You try one more ridiculous argument than the next. I asked you to stop making this out to be a choice between two extremes (impossible or easy saves) and you didn't. You've decided you don't want to see the obvious. We're done.

You're completely miss-characterizing my arguments.

I haven't once indicated that your position is that "hard saves are bad". Not once, ever. I even explicitly clarified the first time you misunderstood my point. That is either a lazy failure to read my posts, or a lie.

I also never said that any given singular rule is necessary for any of the design goals listed. I argued that this particular thing we're arguing about accomplishes those things, and further that the "horrendous" irregularity you keep insisting is a terrible mistake rather than a thing you just subjectively don't like, is a good way to accomplish those goals.

You are still just repeating your claims, rather than defending them, by the way. We also all, every one of us, know the numbers involved. You aren't giving new info when you repeat them. Again. The numbers also aren't the point.

The point is whether the state of epic save DCs is good or bad, in that there exist epic save DCs which a person with no Ability Score bonus in the relevant score cannot succeed on without magical assistance of some kind. I contend that it's good, you contend that it is bad. Nowhere have I claimed that your argument is anything else other than that. In the one place wherein you seem to have read me as implying it, I clarified already.

Your insistence on painting this as somehow an objetive subject about which the people who disagree with you are factually wrong, and your dishonest insistence on trying to paint me as arguing in bad faith, as well as the melodramatics about people "taking the rules as holy writ", and design that you don't like being "horrendous", are unbecoming and obnoxious, and completely beneath you.

I don't have a perfect memory, to be sure, but I don't remember seeing this sort of behavior from you before.

 

[Pauln6]

I think the problem is that letting everyone be proficient in every save messes with bounded accuracy in that low level monsters abilities will become irrelevant. If you never have epic DCs then fighting ancient dragons and deities can become business as usual.

Maybe the issue is assuming a mythical status for level 20 beyond that originally intended? Epic boons might be a method of achieving what you are looking for.

The other issue is that while nobody likes failing saves, we've all failed them hundreds of times. In 1e it was save or die. I think I prefer the 5e version regardless of any perceived flaws.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I think the problem is that letting everyone be proficient in every save messes with bounded accuracy in that low level monsters abilities will become irrelevant. If you never have epic DCs then fighting ancient dragons and deities can become business as usual.

I don't consider it a problem, if a high-level party is almost immune to a banshee's wail. It's kind of a balance issue already, that non-HP abilities are equally effective across levels. A banshee shouldn't have an identical chance to kill someone who is level 5 or level 20, any more than a level 5 monk should have an equal chance of stunning someone who is level 5 or level 20 (which they do). Character level is supposed to mean something.

If you want to deal level-appropriate damage with a Fireball, you have to up-cast it into a higher level slot. If you want to deal a level-appropriate paralysis effect with Hold Person, then it's still just level 2.

 

[Pauln6]

I don't consider it a problem, if a high-level party is almost immune to a banshee's wail. It's kind of a balance issue already, that non-HP abilities are equally effective across levels. A banshee shouldn't have an identical chance to kill someone who is level 5 or level 20, any more than a level 5 monk should have an equal chance of stunning someone who is level 5 or level 20 (which they do). Character level is supposed to mean something.

If you want to deal level-appropriate damage with a Fireball, you have to up-cast it into a higher level slot. If you want to deal a level-appropriate paralysis effect with Hold Person, then it's still just level 2.

I dunno, I think the point in bounded accuracy is that maybe she should. The reduction in opportunity to kill PCs comes from taking her down that bit faster.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I dunno, I think the point in bounded accuracy is that maybe she should. The reduction in opportunity to kill PCs comes from taking her down that bit faster.

I suspect that, against a party of four level 13 characters, a group of four banshees would hit substantially harder than their CR would suggest. If you had four such encounters in a day, as the XP guidelines suggest, there's a fairly high chance of TPK.

I mean, I already know that a level 5 monk can punch way above its level, when it comes to disabling bosses; and the most common reason why they don't is because it feels too cheap.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I dunno, I think the point in bounded accuracy is that maybe she should. The reduction in opportunity to kill PCs comes from taking her down that bit faster.

Agreed. Of course the banshee should be able to hit the level 20 character with her wail. She should remain a threat throughout the game. The wail is a force beyond mortal ken, and should stay that way. I love that in 5e the fantasy stormtroopers don't stop being a threat at level 10.