Discussion: Custom saving throws

[Yvesza]

Hello! I'm writing this post from the perspective of somebody who's rather frustrated looking at the scope of these changes but I'm going to do my best to stay objective on this matter.

The biggest part of this change is that persistent AoE spells now respect spellcraft, what that effectively does is make them act like all other spells.

A majority of spells now *cannot* in any meaningful way contest saves as they currently are, this kicks the legs out from beneath every caster that made an attempt to test saves.

To look at an example, I'll list my characters saves pre and post spellcraft and list some common spell DC's to show what the odds before and after this change are like for me to resist the spells.

For reference, they're a Sorcerer / Ranger and while they're geared well these numbers are well within reachable for a majority of players.

Fort: 34
Reflex: 29
Will: 31

All of my saves are 6 higher when I add spellcraft. (40/35/37)

4th Circle: Shadow grease (DC:35 Reflex)
25% to fail before, 5% after

6th Circle: Shadow web (DC:37 Reflex)
45% chance to fail before, 10% after

9th Circle: Storm of Vengeance (DC:39 Reflex)
50% to fail before, 20% after

5th Circle: Mind Fog (DC:36 Will)
25% chance to fail before, 5% after

6th Circle: Stonehold (DC:37 WIll)
30% to fail before, 5% after

Epic Spell: ESF Abj: Ward Protect (DC:41 Will)
50% to fail before, 20% after

4th Circle: Evard's (DC:35 Fort)
5% to fail before, 5% after

6th Circle: Kyristan's (DC:37 Fort)
15% to fail before, 5% after

The problem here should be immediately evident, *none* of these spells are now functionally going to be able to test my saves in any meaningful way. Prior to this change I had a reasonable chance of failing saves to some of these spells, with some spells like storm of vengeance being a scary coinflip which is respectable.

After this change I'll be effectively immune to every spell listed here, outside of epic ward and storm of vengeance which both have a one in five chance of working and these are the highest saves possible in their categories assuming a standard build (Outside of Iceberg, but that one is a special case)

The point I want to make is not that saves are bloated, we know this. The issue is that in the current climate this isn't adressing the problem, it's killing the only solution players have to the exceptionally high saves a majority of both players and NPC's have.

I understand if there's more to come, but we as the players can only see what we're given and right now this change is apocalyptic for the viability of any caster that doesn't just play as a hastebot with a summon.

[Svrtr]

I will play devil's advocate specifically on mind fog since from my understanding and own personal use, it was often taken specifically because it was will save for half debuff instead of no debuff, so even a successful save will hit them and work its jobover time.

But Ill admit I enjoy devil's advocate.

The numbers above do show the problem of DC spells, and especially when measured against mundanes who don't always have easy access to wards which counter these things or even have spellcraft as a class skill will just get shafted. Giving spells a secondary effect even on a successful save or changing how evasion works as well could be nice, but then the risk again for save or suck spells will become a matter of mundanes will just get shafted and in general casting 10 save or suck spells even if only for a secondary effect will stack up fast over time. This of course also for mundanes is still exacerbated by how everyone is shafted by mords but especially often mundanes that aren't 25/5 who don't have time nor resources to reapply sometimes vital buffs or because its a singular resource thats gone when used just gotta keep being second class, even more so if they can't get UMD.

As is, a secondary effect system that is balanced for both casters and mundanes seems rough, unless mundanes somehow get class features that specifically help them against spells. That or if the hypothetical debuff effects in this scenario were limited to being only the highest as well.


Like wise, I say this as someone who themselves has spellcraft, limiting saves from spellcraft is probably necessary, or making them hard ranks like tumble instead of soft ranks

Ill also forthrightly admit this comes from someone who when they plays casters plays div casters and finds the arcane spell slinger playstyle immensely unfun or unfulfilling, and finds playing against them the same way when you just struggle to fight back and the best counters to casters are other casters.

[AstralUniverse]

Most of the spells who ignore spellcraft were always very bad outside of the fact they ignore spellcraft or have some saveless affect. So I dont care about it personally and I say good ridden.

Whether or not casters are good now with that in mind is a different story. This isnt over yet.

Personally when I was playing a sorcerer I was beating people left and right with normal DC spells who respect spellcraft by default. Most people build to have high saves but in reality just havent reached that point yet (and might roll before they finish gearing and reach it). I was also beating people with saveless spells who, also, respect spellcraft by default. But then again.... I was playing in Cordor...

On top of that, when considering how awful it is to play a mundane character in 2022, I think we're on the right track for some positive changes across the board. Some DCs on some spells might need a little buff, but I dont think anything drastic is required.

With all that said. I think the feedback in the OP is very well in depth feedback that includes math and logic and I commend it, even if I dont quite agree with the overall picture.

[Hazard]

Most of the spells who ignore spellcraft were always very bad outside of the fact they ignore spellcraft or have some saveless affect. So I dont care about it personally and I say good ridden.

Whether or not casters are good now with that in mind is a different story. This isnt over yet.

Personally when I was playing a sorcerer I was beating people left and right with normal DC spells who respect spellcraft by default. Most people build to have high saves but in reality just havent reached that point yet (and might roll before they finish gearing and reach it). I was also beating people with saveless spells who, also, respect spellcraft by default. But then again.... I was playing in Cordor...

On top of that, when considering how awful it is to play a mundane character in 2022, I think we're on the right track for some positive changes across the board. Some DCs on some spells might need a little buff, but I dont think anything drastic is required.

With all that said. I think the feedback in the OP is very well in depth feedback that includes math and logic and I commend it, even if I dont quite agree with the overall picture.

Eh. I don't think your experience with clobbering lowbies is anything to base server pvp balance around.
Beating people "left and right" will happen with any build/class in any balance climate if you're doing it on lowbies in Cordor.
Leveling on Arelith is practically non-existant, everyone should be considered geared and 30 fresh off the boat because it's only going to take them a couple days (or weeks if very limited playtime).

[Tempedius]

So I will start by saying that I am not excited by these changes. Some spells that I enjoyed are now in a much worse place, and dc based casters who were already not in the greatest spot are now worse off. I do not think this is the end of casters, or that casters are dead but for now they are going to have a very easily solved spell book. I think those that can, should probably be shifting to direct damage effects as making a target's hp go to zero is never a bad plan. Those who can not have my sympathies. Over all, traditional casters find themselves in a slightly worse place.
If however, this update starts a wider conversation about saves which have been the meta for God knows how long, then that is great. Overall I would argue for lower saves in general as there are plenty of hard counters to a lot of spell effects. Most save or suck/die spells have a low level answer that can be wanded/potioned. This lead to these spells already being a gamble to employ heavily if they were used at all. Would this also open the door for save or die combos such as timestop+mords into wail being a much larger threat? Also certainly, which I still don't see as the worst thing in the world given how difficult it can be to remove protective effects from targets. The cloud combo, igms spam, and a few other options are still very good and probably more valuable tools now that we can't shadow grease people into oblivion.
But to avoid further tangent I will simply say that while this update hurts a little it is not as if the builds and options that were already suffering are much worse off. Damage effects have been king for a while now, and they will continue to be it seems. I'm sure there is a solution to the situation, and things can and should be tried. On the upside, effects that should have not allowed spell craft or other save bonuses hopefully won't. So there's a win for some stuff out there! I'm really looking forward to what comes next but this does lay the ground for some effects to over all get better. Like dirty fighting, lets all throw a headbutt.

[Morgy]

I really don't think DC spells needed a hit. Single target DC spells were already a bit of a joke, now AoE ones will be weakened too.

Not a fan I'm afraid!

[ReverentBlade]

I didn't know illusionary fireballs were such a problem. Those OP illusionists, just wrecking the game.

[Paint]

In a meta where high saves and div dips are increasingly common because you don't have to sacrifice nearly enough to achieve results, gutting an entire class of tools for casters, who already struggle with kill pressure against high HP-enemies, is fairly ruthless. So I'm really hoping there's going to be some change to some spells soon to address this.

[AstralUniverse]

lowbies

I never said lowbies. I said cordor. Cordor is known for a lower mechanical player skill on average because it's populated by new players more than other settlements on average, but it doesnt mean they were lowbies in level. Just to clarify.

[-XXX-]

DC spells became useless for PvP with the advent of runes. All this change really does is nerf PvE content at this point.
But yeah, I too am guessing that the team has something else brewing and this was only stage one.

[Yvesza]

DC spells became useless for PvP with the advent of runes. All this change really does is nerf PvE content at this point.
But yeah, I too am guessing that the team has something else brewing and this was only stage one.

Persistent AoE spells had a place, it was only really div sorcs and deep CoT that had 40+ flat saves before spellcraft prior to this. None of them were particularly overbearing save for SoV and Stonehold which both had the potential to nearly infinately stun someone that had weak saves and no mind protection.

The sad fact is that all of the spells that got hit were generally pretty fair given that you'd either have time to move away, protect yourself and enter and even when you *did* get caught by them, at most you'd lose a round or two with the exception of stonehold which was kinda wild when it caught someone unprepared.

[-XXX-]

I always assumed that persistent AoE DC spells ignoring Spellcraft was a result of some code limitation rather than intentional design.
In either case, this fixed something incredibly unintuitive that often caught players who didn't have profound understanding of spell mechanics by surprise.

The fact that those few spells that've been bypassing spellcraft up until now weren't considered to be incredibly overpowered only serves as a testament to how bloated the saves became on Arelith, but that's an entirely different topic altogether.

Anyway, the way I see it streamlining spells in this fashion opens up more design space for future balance tweaks (like, idk. lowering saves or buffing spell DCs all across the board without making sth. like SoV the ultimate weapon of "I win all PvPs" for example).

[Xerah]

That’s likely the result in developer laziness from 20+ year ago. As in, “who’s going to really know or care about this so why bother spending the time on that vs other things that need to be done for release” (or eve more likely they never knew). They certainly didn’t expect a persistent world ongoing for this amount of time that anyone would actually care about it.

[AstralUniverse]

I always assumed that persistent AoE DC spells ignoring Spellcraft was a result of some code limitation rather than intentional design.

This is a correct assumption and I think everyone is aware of it at this point. The opposing argument I'm seeing repeatedly here and in discord is that DC spells and casters in general in pvp allegedly have have little going for them and that the fix to spellcraft bypassing is the final nail in the coffin of casters in pvp. I think opening this can of worms is kinda worth it in the long run. spellcraft bypassing was always dumb.

[-XXX-]

Just because a bug doesn't break the game doesn't mean that it should be viewed as a feature.

What does this show us however, is that in the current saves meta spells could probably have 6 higher DC and nobody would bat an eyebrow.


Buffing the spell focus line of feats to add additional +2 DC for each instance might be a way of making spellcasters more viable without touching gear.

[AstralUniverse]

Buffing the spell focus line of feats to add additional +2 DC...

Came to my mind about an hour ago. I thought about +1 for each focus, but honestly it might be too much.

[Yvesza]

Buffing the spell focus line of feats to add additional +2 DC...

Came to my mind about an hour ago. I thought about +1 for each focus, but honestly it might be too much.

The issue is delicate, buffing all DC's makes save or dies far more appealing.

Outside of making save or dies similar to PW:K, I have no idea how you'd handle them when tweaking spell DC's.

[Paint]

I think some of the more egregious save or dies could probably just have their functionality changed to give debuffs or something. But see, I say this, but I know nothing about coding in NWN and how hard it is to change things that are already there.

I think I can agree that eventually, something like this had to happen. By standardizing spell DCs across the board, it's easier to balance the whole lot of them, but until it's fixed, it leaves some spellcasting archetypes in a fairly tenuous place as far as PVP goes. In PVE, I doubt the change will matter much, and might make some enemies who are fairly terrifying considerably less so.

[Subtext]

Buffing the spell focus line of feats to add additional +2 DC...

Came to my mind about an hour ago. I thought about +1 for each focus, but honestly it might be too much.

Could we not?

Not all of us are div whatevers with 40+ in every save and plenty mundanes are struggling as is with reaching acceptable saves.
(Yay, gearing and hard 5% are fun!)

If anything, tackle the save inflation on other chars because on that point I agree...casters investing in their DCs should have a realistic chance to succeed with them.

[AstralUniverse]

Could we not?

Not all of us are div whatevers with 40+ in every save and plenty mundanes are struggling as is with reaching acceptable saves.
(Yay, gearing and hard 5% are fun!)

If anything, tackle the save inflation on other chars because on that point I agree...casters investing in their DCs should have a realistic chance to succeed with them.

Sounds like mostly the same thing to me. +3 to DCs or -3 unisave to everyone is the same thing in vacuum. Also, if you read my post, note that I'm actually on your camp, I was doing fine on a mage, and dont feel like playing another div build so soon after my last one.

The issue is delicate, buffing all DC's makes save or dies far more appealing.

Outside of making save or dies similar to PW:K, I have no idea how you'd handle them when tweaking spell DC's.

Nit picking all the bad spells and boosting them probably takes more work than slapping some sort of -3 dc on all save vs death stuff but yeah I agree death spells shouldnt be stronger than they are.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

I think some of the more egregious save or dies could probably just have their functionality changed to give debuffs or something. But see, I say this, but I know nothing about coding in NWN and how hard it is to change things that are already there.

I think I can agree that eventually, something like this had to happen. By standardizing spell DCs across the board, it's easier to balance the whole lot of them, but until it's fixed, it leaves some spellcasting archetypes in a fairly tenuous place as far as PVP goes. In PVE, I doubt the change will matter much, and might make some enemies who are fairly terrifying considerably less so.

I'd like to see save-or-die spells rebalanced as well. It would be cool if they did reliable damage, and as a side effect, could have some sort of slow/daze/root/fear/poison/curse/etc that they would do as well. It might be interesting if more spells would reliably hit with these things, passing the save would mean the effect would only last 1 round. Most save spells are completely worthless because the DC is so low and the effect is so meaningless, why would anyone ever use the spell. Especially when it comes to higher level spells, where a lot of them don't offer enough bang for your buck when you could just prepare something that's guaranteed to do something useful. As well, most high level spells are giant AoE, when AoE is really dangerous for casters. It'd be nice for there to be more single target options.

I guess to itemize things I'd like to see more of:
- Save or die rebalanced into various other debuffs. Instantly killing something is so powerful it has to be kept in check, which makes it frustrating for both casters and victims both.

- More spells like Word of Faith, where a debuff is guaranteed to be applied. Passing the save just makes it last 1 round instead of much longer. For example, imagine a version of WoF without summon removal, where it reduces movement speed instead of blind (ONLY movement speed, not mechanical slow which is more punishing). It would be an interesting way for casters to be able to gain distance between themselves and melee targets. And has a counterplay of FOM. What I like about debuffs is they're more interactive than save-or-die.

- Review the DCs of trash debuff spells nobody uses. Like the poison or bestow curse spells. Or make it so they're guaranteed to do something for at least 1 round.

- Have fewer spells with saves vs damage. I have limited spell slots as it is, there's no reason why spells with already pathetic damage will have damage cut even more. Things like this is what makes casters so summon reliant.

- Up the damage for damaging debuff spells to make them more worthwhile. They don't need to do the same amount of damage as a regular damaging spell, but as it is, a lot of them sort of suck because the damage is bad and the DC for the debuff is low. So the spell just fails on all aspects, by trying to be too broad in what it does it ends up being too weak in each of these areas.

- A wider variety of single target spells. Have single target damage be boosted to AT LEAST the value of cantrips.

- More damage spells from different schools. I'm playing an illusionist cleric, I'd love to be able to cast illusionary damage spells that do psychic damage.

- More powerhouse single target spells so there's variety and strategic purpose to choosing them. Harm has so many drawbacks to it, I'd like alternatives that are weaker but could do more guaranteed damage, or aren't touch attacks. IGMS has drawbacks with AOE, give some alternatives in the 8th or 9th slot that function slightly differently.

The thing with a lot of spells is when trying to figure out what to use or what is "good," there's the typical idea of action economy. But on top of that is spell slot economy, there's also a limitation on how many spells a caster can know at a time. So combining both really incentivizes using a very limited selection of spells, spells that get the most done faster.

There's a LOT of spells out there where individually you could think up a niche reason to use them, but realistically, nobody uses them because they're too niche or outright bad, or there is an obvious best choice for most scenarios spell to use instead. Spell slot casters (like wizards or clerics) get a lot of choice in what to cast, but with so few casts per day available, that makes it so niche spells aren't going to be used. Likewise, with spell choice casters (like sorcerers), they get such a small spell selection that they're forced to take the best-in-slot spells, which seems to be a big issue with the class. Yeah they're the best missile turrets, but they're forced to be missile turrets. Which is a complaint I hear a lot about the class, the lack of diversity since it's too good at being a turret.

Lastly, something that came up in Discord is if debuffs are changed, there'd have to be a limit to debuffs that could be applied to someone, because it would be critically unfun to be essentially stunlocked by debuffs.

[Exordius]

This was a bad change by any measure sorry.

[Xerah]

This was a bad change by any measure sorry.

It’s actually a really good change, objectively speaking.

[Hazard]

This was a bad change by any measure sorry.

It’s actually a really good change, objectively speaking.

Oh, okay.

[Helsing]

Does mobs in PvE has high Spellcraft or not? If no then it means we ppls resist mobs spell better and they don't. So this change favor ppls more than monsters which is nice to me. I don't really care about PvP stuff as it only consists of 1% of game content.