Author Topic: Prioritizing Saves  (Read 4133 times)

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lans

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Prioritizing Saves
« on: February 28, 2011, 03:46:04 PM »
I wanted to prioritize saves and this is what I have
Least to Most
Reflex
Will
Fortitude

If you dump reflex what hurts you?
Area Effects that largely do damage, or lock you down such as Web
How common are these? The former are fairly common, the latter not so much as most of the BC spells lack a save.
Can you protect yourself without a save?
Energy Resistances, and a lot of hp for the former. Teleportation and Freedom of Movement for the latter.
Do these alternitave defenses also protect you vs other things?
Yes, the Energy resistances and HP help vs Rays, and attacks. The Teleportation and FoM protect vs nonsave battlefield control.

If you Dump Will what hurts you?
Mind effecting abilities, some damage spells, teleportation
How common are these?
Mind effecting abilities are common, the damage is less so, teleportation is pretty rare.
Are their other ways to protect yourself?
Yes, protection from X and various other easily accessible immunities, high hp for the damage spells. Teleportation is lacking, but its not a kill and is rare a hell.
Do these protections help with other things?
Protection from X hedges summons, high hp helps vs common attack methods.

If you dump fortitude what hurts you?
Save or dies, save or be turned to stone, save or be paralyzed/stunned/dazed/etc, direct damage,
How common are these?
Common as hell.
Are their other ways to protect yourself?
You can get immunities to some of these, but getting all of them is difficult.
Do these other ways of protecting you cover other things?
Various immunities also covers Will a little. How ever most of the Will effects are Mind affecting, which is easily covered.

Did I miss anything here?
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Catty Nebulart

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Re: Prioritizing Saves
« Reply #1 on: February 28, 2011, 08:11:07 PM »
There are a lot of save or dies and damage spells that target a will save and that are not mind affecting, mostly divine ones (see Harm, Holy Smite, Blasphemy), and a lot of the effects that deal with creature types that are usually not PC's have a will save (Dismissal, Heal, Undead to Dead).

The order is really reflex, nothing, nothing, nothing, Will and Fortitude. With the order between will and fortitude depending on other things too, such as undead are generally better of with a higher will save than a higher fort save.
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wotmaniac

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Re: Prioritizing Saves
« Reply #2 on: February 28, 2011, 09:32:33 PM »
The order is really reflex, nothing, nothing, nothing, Will and Fortitude. With the order between will and fortitude depending on other things too, such as undead are generally better of with a higher will save than a higher fort save.
good catch.
now, that raises the question: what is best to be immunized against? (more of a revision of the original question rather than a new question)

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Novabomb

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Re: Prioritizing Saves
« Reply #3 on: March 01, 2011, 12:56:29 AM »
Will saves.

Fail a ref save= take more damage
Fail a fort save = die
Fail a will save= screw your party (Worse than death)
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veekie

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Re: Prioritizing Saves
« Reply #4 on: March 01, 2011, 01:01:24 AM »
FoM stopping practically all Ref based save or screwed effects is a good bet I think. Leaving you free to dump ref.
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JaronK

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Re: Prioritizing Saves
« Reply #5 on: March 01, 2011, 01:08:45 AM »
Reflex saves are usually the least painful to fail, though if your DM has lots of traps played by normal CR that might not be the case (have you SEEN some of the low level traps?  They're one shot TKOs that are almost impossible to dodge).  But they're also decently easy to immunize against... there's some boots in Dungeonscape, for example, that let you take a 5' step every time you'd normally make a reflex save, and if that gets you to safety you don't have to make the save at all.  Great for dodging traps and AoEs, and if there's some cover to get behind it might help a lot even from single target effects (remember with enough cover you get Improved Evasion free!).

Fort saves have save or dies... hard not to hate those.  But at the same time, most of the actual kill effects are death effects, so if you can get immunity to that you're mostly okay.  Poison can be annoying if it hits you, but few monsters actually have that and that's even easier to become immune to.  Of course, simply being a Necropolitan (dare I say it!) makes you immune to virtually all of the serious nasty fort save stuff (except disintegrate).  Fort saves are often easier to optimize in general as you wanted Con no matter what your build was.  Also, don't forget there's a low level Diamond Mind maneuver that can virtually guarantee you one successful fort save per encounter... and it's available via a 3k ring.  

Will save has stuff like Dominate Monster that not only screws you, it screws everyone else too.  LOTS of will stuff will take you out of the fight completely or worse, which can lead to a TPK... and remember, no one's going to resurrect you if the whole party dies.  A lot of it is Mind Effecting, but not all of it.  And since many classes would like to dump Wis, it's harder to raise than Fort or Reflex.  Again, being Necropolitan would help here to deal with all the Mind Effecting stuff (unless you're high enough level to just cast Mind Blank).  Another silly way to deal with it is to have a party member rebuke Ghostly Visages and give them to the rest of the party, thus giving everyone undead like immunity without forcing them to actually be undead.  But you have to find a way to get those first (I consider it my duty when playing a Dread Necromancer).  And don't forget Moment of Perfect Mind... a 3k ring (the same as before) grants you one passed Will save per encounter, which may be all you need depending on how fast your party kills things.

So in general, I'd prioritize Reflex last, Fort next, and Will first, but I'd work on death effect immunity and mind effecting immunity as fast as possible regardless.

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lans

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Re: Prioritizing Saves
« Reply #6 on: March 01, 2011, 09:57:39 AM »
I think Fortitude is a little more important than Will due to how easy it is to get protection from compulsion/charm effects.

You drop those from the list of what can screw you over, and whats left? Glitterdust, Harm? Some fringe abilities like Holy Smite? Glitterdust leaves you blind, your not even out of the fight. Holy Smite does a bit of damage and blinds you for 1 round. Not a huge concern for a party in my book. Harm is the only ability that is  a huge concern, and that can be covered by HP gains.
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Kaelik

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Re: Prioritizing Saves
« Reply #7 on: March 01, 2011, 04:52:39 PM »
Or the can cast greater rebuke, and you`ll be dead. Or they can cast  shadow x and you`ll be dazed or stunned.

lans

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Re: Prioritizing Saves
« Reply #8 on: March 01, 2011, 05:22:09 PM »
Who are you replying to?
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Kaelik

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Re: Prioritizing Saves
« Reply #9 on: March 01, 2011, 11:05:47 PM »
Who are you replying to?

You. Those are will save or lose all actions/your life that are not protected by the standard Mindblanks/circles.

lans

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Re: Prioritizing Saves
« Reply #10 on: March 01, 2011, 11:31:12 PM »
On that front I have no idea what you're referencing with the Shadow X line and Greater Rebuke.

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Re: Prioritizing Saves
« Reply #11 on: March 02, 2011, 12:15:22 AM »
I think its...
Least Important to most important: Ref, Will, Fort.
 The funny think is about that... some small part of me thinks about how my character dies when he fails a fort. All the water is removed from my body then animates as a small elemental, or, my eyeballs turn to tiny mouths and eat thier way inside my head, turned to stone then shattered. Disentegrate, gust of wind.
  Mechanically, though..
I
Quote
think Fortitude is a little more important than Will due to how easy it is to get protection from compulsion/charm effects.
The things that make you lose your actions outside of that dont' fuck over the party outside of you not getting actions, right? So yeah fort seems most important over all.
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Kaelik

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Re: Prioritizing Saves
« Reply #12 on: March 02, 2011, 12:25:52 AM »
On that front I have no idea what you're referencing with the Shadow X line and Greater Rebuke.

Rebuke is a will save or die spell. Shadow X could be lots of things, Shadow Entanglement is a will save or daze, Illusory Feast or Well (which I thought where shadow X and Y) are will vs stun and... I don't even know, but you get no actions.

Hence, failing will saves kills you.

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Re: Prioritizing Saves
« Reply #13 on: March 02, 2011, 12:30:54 AM »
so, would it be safe to assume that high CON + steadfast determination can never be a bad idea? :)

[spoiler]
If you stop ignoring 289 pages telling what the intent is to stretch "more power" in your own god complexion of your interpretation trumps all to cover ability adjustments from aging then I will ignore a quarter page of rules that exist within a sidebar.
I think in this case the grammar is less important than whether the Str and Dex bonus provided to your created undead scales.

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Kaelik

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Re: Prioritizing Saves
« Reply #14 on: March 02, 2011, 12:53:09 AM »
so, would it be safe to assume that high CON + steadfast determination can never be a bad idea? :)

Depends on the ability score set up of your class, and the feat starvedness of it.

Frankly, if you are an Int based, Wisdom based, or Cha based caster, aka "A class worth playing." You are better with Keen Intellect, nothing, or Force of Personality.

JaronK

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Re: Prioritizing Saves
« Reply #15 on: March 02, 2011, 05:34:30 AM »
so, would it be safe to assume that high CON + steadfast determination can never be a bad idea? :)

Well, no con usually comes with immunities to the vast majority of things that make Fort saves important.  And I don't like spending a lot of feats on defense... I'd rather spend my feats on stuff that lets me do whatever it is that I want to do.  So, if you have extra feats to spend and a high con anyway, it's not a bad idea... but for many builds, I'd say it is a bad plan.

I think a Ring of the Diamond Mind is one of the best items you can get if you've already got a high concentration skill (because you're a caster, usually).  3kgp to auto pass one will save per encounter?  Heck yeah.  If you take a second such ring, you can auto pass a fort save once per encounter too.  It's so cheap that adding it on to an existing ring (4500gp) is totally worth it.  And honestly, if you're rolling more than one seriously nasty save effect per encounter, you're in serious trouble anyway.

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Re: Prioritizing Saves
« Reply #16 on: March 02, 2011, 05:37:49 AM »
Also note that theres a small but significant difference between Save And Removed From Fight, and Save And Enjoy A Slow And Expensive Recovery.
The former is survivable if your party manages to clean house without you.
The mind transcends the body.
It's also a little cold because of that.
Please get it a blanket.

I wish I could read your mind,
I can barely read mine.

"Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. At 2:15, it begins rolling up characters."

[spoiler]
"Just what do you think the moon up in the sky is? Everyone sees that big, round shiny thing and thinks there must be something round up there, right? That's just silly. The truth is much more awesome than that. You can almost never see the real Moon, and its appearance is death to humans. You can only see the Moon when it's reflected in things. And the things it reflects in, like water or glass, can all be broken, right? Since the moon you see in the sky is just being reflected in the heavens, if you tear open the heavens it's easy to break it~"
-Ibuki Suika, on overkill

To sumbolaion diakoneto moi, basilisk ouranionon.
Epigenentheto, apoleia keraune hos timeis pteirei.
Hekatonkatis kai khiliakis astrapsato.
Khiliarkhou Astrape!
[/spoiler]

There is no higher price than 'free'.

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Kaelik

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Re: Prioritizing Saves
« Reply #17 on: March 02, 2011, 09:39:35 AM »
Also note that theres a small but significant difference between Save And Removed From Fight, and Save And Enjoy A Slow And Expensive Recovery.
The former is survivable if your party manages to clean house without you.

Rebuke still kills, and that was just off the top of my head. Sure it's later than Finger of Death (the killing one) and so are all the other Will save or dies except Plane Shift, but, they still kill you dead.

lans

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Re: Prioritizing Saves
« Reply #18 on: March 02, 2011, 10:13:29 AM »
Where is rebuke from?
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ninjarabbit

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Re: Prioritizing Saves
« Reply #19 on: March 02, 2011, 10:27:55 AM »
I'd say that immunities are more important than saves, especially when you're fighting foes that don't share your immunities.

Even with saves there's always at least a 5% of failing (unless you have steadfast determination, certain domains, or something similar) and sooner or later you will roll a 1.