Desperately Needing Better Will Save Bonus

[kevin_video]

So our group has been completely and utterly defeated time and time again when it comes to Will saves because most of our group are fighter types. You've got a warblade, a ranger, a fighter/rogue, a fighter/sorcerer/eldritch knight, a sorcerer, and a favored soul. Add in the fact that two of the characters have legacy weapons that lower your Will save bonus, and most of us has average or low wisdom (the fighter/rogue has WIS 8), and we haven't got a prayer against DC 27 will saves. The worst had to be when we were fighting a legion of archer harpies. So many songs. And potions of deafness, as well as a ring of silence, does nothing against dispel and slashing dispel. Short of taking the feat Iron Will, which would kind of hinder us from getting other feats that we're striving to get, our options don't seem overly high.

We have cloaks/vests of resistance +2 and +3, but what else can we use that'd stack. Periapts of wisdom aren't that common, and most of us have amulets of natural armour +3. My character's probably the only one without anything in his neck slot. I've been looking and looking, and I found an ioun stone, but of course it's not a slotted item, so therefore it's double the price a cloak is.

Is there anything else that we could use that maybe has untyped bonuses, or stack well with one another? Maybe even items that can block enchantments, or protect against such incredibly high DCs?

The DM hasn't been able to find anything for us through his contacts, so I'm hoping someone on here help.

BTW, anyone thinking "It's okay, you don't have to worry about this too much because it won't happen that often" doesn't know my DM, or hasn't read my posts from a few months ago. All enemies that we face, somehow have at least one escape from us (usually teleport or dimension door), and they tell every single possible enemy that we will ever face in the future through some kind of message board memo. You know the type. They say "If you ever go up against these particular people, they're weak against will saves and enchantments, and make sure to use cold items against the red dragon. Also, don't let him flank you unless you want to die. BTW, the half elf and thrikeen almost never miss, and do insane damage. Take them out first."

[GawainBS]

Items that don't give resistance bonuses to saves? Check the custom item table in the DMG for pricing.
Also, that Warblade should have Moment of Perfect Mind, so at least one Will save should be an auto-pass.
As a higher lvl soluation, there is Mindblank.

[kevin_video]

Items that don't give resistance bonuses to saves? Check the custom item table in the DMG for pricing.
Also, that Warblade should have Moment of Perfect Mind, so at least one Will save should be an auto-pass.
As a higher lvl soluation, there is Mindblank.

Yeah he does have that. The dragon has one level of swordsage to get it as well, but because of his low Wisdom, he can't take any more levels than that. The problem is that that one Will save is barely a saving grace compared to the half dozen will saves he does in the first round.

[GawainBS]

Why do I have this feeling it's going to boil down to your DM being a dickhead?

[kevin_video]

Why do I have this feeling it's going to boil down to your DM being a dickhead?

Because history tends to repeat itself? But as he'd put it, it's not about him being a dick, but that all our enemies are just better informed about our weaknesses then we are of theirs.

[GawainBS]

Right... And enemies aren't played by him. 

[RobbyPants]

There's a feat in the PHB2 that can really help the fighter-types out (and even the other characters): Steadfast Determination.  It lets you use your Con mod for Will saves in place of Wis (which is good because any non-divine caster will put a higher priority on Con than Wis), and you don't auto-fail on a natural one.  So, this is liable to be a net +3 to +5 bonus for many characters; far better than Iron Will.  Do note if you have feats to burn, you could take both.

As Gawain already pointed out, that warblade should totally have Moment of Perfect Mind.  For that matter, anyone can take Martial Study and get it on a per-encounter basis.  Of course, if you don't have a good Concentration modifier, there's not much point to taking it, but even a maxed out cross-class skill progression beats a bad save progression.  It both starts higher and progresses half again faster.

Maxed cross-class skill: ranks = 2 + 1/2 level

Bad save: save = 0 + 1/3 level

[kevin_video]

There's a feat in the PHB2 that can really help the fighter-types out (and even the other characters): Steadfast Determination.

The problem with that feat is you need Endurance, and again we don't have the feats to burn. Also, my ranger doesn't get Endurance at 3rd, but rather Trackless Step. I'll bring it up though.

And both the fighter/rogue (swordsage 1) and the warblade have moment of the perfect mind. It's just a one-shot deal though, until their next turn. So it works fine once, but when you've got three or four will saves to make per round, you're kind of in trouble. Especially considering the lowest we've got in the party for will saves are two at +8, and one at +5. The highest is the favored soul at +17, and then me at +12. Even the sorcerer only has +11. And when we're talking DC 24 or 27, nothing short of a natural 20 is going to help the dragon.

[veekie]

Well, theres not a lot you COULD do if the enemies spammed Will Saves at the party all the time, barring the feats/acquiring immunities. What you can do is probably work out the common weaknesses of enemies with Will Save attacks, and devise ways to A) Not be targetable(e.g if they like to use targeted will save attacks, make a habit of getting an eversmoking bottle) B) Alpha Strike them, killing them before they can force a failed save through the Moment of Perfect Will C) Find ways to ignore or shake off said effects(Iron Heart Surge could do it, depending on the actual effect) D) Acquire 'helpers' which are not strictly under your command, but are known to act favorably towards you(e.g, making a habit of keeping Called angels around, but only charging them to 'act in your best interest'), especially effective if they have means to break said effects. E) Acquire overriding effects, such as getting pre-Dominated by a friendly, and basically force opposed control rolls if they wish to try that angle(though I hadn't known anyone beset badly enough to need this one)

[Frost Wolf]

Switch to a Unearthed Arcana Generic Warrior and pick will as your good save.

[Prime32]

The paladin's divine grace ability should give a nice boost if you have high Charisma.

Mettle might also help reduce the damage.

[kevin_video]

Well, theres not a lot you COULD do if the enemies spammed Will Saves at the party all the time, barring the feats/acquiring immunities. What you can do is probably work out the common weaknesses of enemies with Will Save attacks, and devise ways to A) Not be targetable(e.g if they like to use targeted will save attacks, make a habit of getting an eversmoking bottle) B) Alpha Strike them, killing them before they can force a failed save through the Moment of Perfect Will C) Find ways to ignore or shake off said effects(Iron Heart Surge could do it, depending on the actual effect) D) Acquire 'helpers' which are not strictly under your command, but are known to act favorably towards you(e.g, making a habit of keeping Called angels around, but only charging them to 'act in your best interest'), especially effective if they have means to break said effects. E) Acquire overriding effects, such as getting pre-Dominated by a friendly, and basically force opposed control rolls if they wish to try that angle(though I hadn't known anyone beset badly enough to need this one)

A) The will saves are never targeted, they're always a area effect (ie harpy wailing for 300 ft) so an eversmoking bottle doesn't work (I tried to use my supernatural obscuring cloud from being a water elemental, and it did jack against it.
B) We'd never be able to kill them before they can use their effects on us. They always have full health (and I do mean full -- 10d10 = 100) plus fast healing 5 and DR 15/something you don't have, and have Concentration at +19. Not to mention that they're group's always 2-3 times larger than ours. And if we're doing too much damage, Blasphemy.
D) The only helpers we have access to are bearded devils, and maybe a summon monster if I have it loaded.
E) The only person who could pre-dominate us is someone with +8 Will, and Lawful Evil.

Switch to a Unearthed Arcana Generic Warrior and pick will as your good save.

Tried that, he wouldn't allow it. He said that those are NPC classes only, and can only be taken if he doesn't all regular classes.

The paladin's divine grace ability should give a nice boost if you have high Charisma.

Mettle might also help reduce the damage.

The paladin class is only good if you're not a spell caster already. Sacrificing two levels isn't really worth it, and none of us have a really good Cha except the sorcerer, and he's already a paladin of freedom.

Isn't that class specific? Like a knight and hexblade?

[veekie]

Ouch, thats thorough, Bravely Run Away? They can hit you with the AoE, but after that, unless it's a domination, they don't exactly can follow up if theres a thick haze all over.
What sort of effects are these will savers causing?

[kevin_video]

Ouch, thats thorough, Bravely Run Away? They can hit you with the AoE, but after that, unless it's a domination, they don't exactly can follow up if theres a thick haze all over.
What sort of effects are these will savers causing?

Unfortunately we don't usually get to run away. The fights we have are missions, so eventually we have to take these guys on, and we don't get XP for running away. So either we take them down as fast as we can, with as few casualties as possible, or they dog us until we die. And yeah, he's very thorough. He's one of those DMs that laugh and giggle (as well as say "This is going to be AWESOME!") at the start of the session because he knows what's coming.

The effects are anything from confusion, to lowering attack and damage, to lowering AC, to lowering our saves, and at one point we even had an effect that charmed us to fight each other to death. Moment of the Perfect Mind was essential at the point. The warblade is also exalted, and has a feat that deals CHA damage to us if we fail our will save. I think the worst any we've has had done to us is Blasphemy, Crushing Despair, Split Ray - Enervation, Confusion, and finally Acid Fog.

[veekie]

Yeah, I think what you need is to mislead, hold back the Moment for something that's a finisher(confusion, charm), and just eat up the debuffs, I guess.

The alternative is basically wolf packing on a directionally challenged opponent, basically, you wreck line of sight with one of the mists, gang up on them one by one. The nastier effects are targeted, so that helps a lot.
Nobody's got Planar Ally/Binding with anything that'd be favorably inclined eh, hmm...

[kevin_video]

Nobody's got Planar Ally/Binding with anything that'd be favorably inclined eh, hmm...

Nope. We're pretty normal, save the two evil outsiders in our group, and only one of them can actually summon anything at a 50% miss chance (bearded devils).

[Frost Wolf]

 

Switch to a Unearthed Arcana Generic Warrior and pick will as your good save.

Tried that, he wouldn't allow it. He said that those are NPC classes only, and can only be taken if he doesn't all regular classes.

Umm... He's wrong on the first point. The UA generics are for players, not npcs.

Honestly though. He isn't leaving you many options here. Scry and fry or a summons overrun to soak the effects are the only things I can think of. Hired mooks maybe, or a golem but those get expensive. Invisibility over use but he'll start countering that right quick.

[kevin_video]

Invisibility over use but he'll start countering that right quick.

Three of us do that already, but it's countered with Revelation Crystals, true seeing, see invisibility, blind sense, blind sight, and ridiculously high spot and listen checks. Then there's area effect spells that always hit something.

[Frost Wolf]

What about a very fast uber charger build, but with a single wiz level for the Focused jaunter alt from UA? Surprise round super charge something, then just free action bamf away?


I would very much like to attempt playing in your game. I like hardball.

[GawainBS]

I would very much like to attempt playing in your game. I like hardball.

Trust me, you don't want to.