Discussion: Custom saving throws

[-XXX-]

And then how much Discipline are you left with? How many 'prime' stats can your build have with all this unisave? 2 at best? I will once more reiterate that while saves in vacuum are *possibly* very high, in reality, they just arent (unless you enter hard 5s and full masterwork runed gear territory).

No, you're wrong there:

You can upgrade the gear I listed using greater runes to something like:
+1 stat, +1 stat, +1 UNI, +2 discipline
^that still isn't hard 5% enchantment masterwork runic endgame gear territory, but comes really close to what an optimized melee build gear might look like. With gear like that one can get to 75 Disc and 37 saves.

Hard 5% masterwork runic stuff would then look like this:
+1 stat, +1 stat, +1 stat, +1 UNI, +2 Discipline paired with +1 Stat, +1 Stat +2 UNI jewelry. Yes, it's expensive, but more common than people would think.
TBH gear like this seems fairly excessive and redundant to me for a build like a cookie-cutter weapon master for example.

[AstralUniverse]

You can upgrade the gear I listed using greater runes to something like:
+1 stat, +1 stat, +1 UNI, +2 discipline

You say I'm wrong but then you go on to prove my point for me? I just said that it means you're left with a 2 stat character (that likely still has about 30-32 on their lowest save even with capped saves, unless they got Will+Reflex as prime saves).

[-XXX-]

And what builds do actually need to max more than two primary stats?

Div builds - who do not need +1 UNI on their gear because they get to add their CHA modifier to their saves.
Non-STR builds (i.e. spellcasters and dexers) - who are compelled to add +1 STR in addition to the +2 disc on all their gear because knockdown exists.

Most STR builds get by just fine with +1 STR/+1 CON/+1 UNI/+2 Disc gear that's still relatively cheap and easy to get.


But the actual point here is that getting saves high enough to counter lvl 9 spells with gear is much easier than countering IKD - because merely gearing for that won't quite cut it now, will it?

[AstralUniverse]

1 cha gear is basically half unisave. it does increase the upper limit of your cap to high 30s or even low 40s, but... again... hard 5s and masterwork runes. If you're gearing cha INSTEAD of unisave, you come out lower in saves than a 2-stat character gearing unisave (or at best, roughly the same because you also have at least +3 base cha mod before gear)

So what builds? pretty much all div builds except those with cot levels or cha based, and then we have weapon masters, rangers, hexblades, swashbuckler, fighter and I could go on but I really feel like you already know all of this.

[-XXX-]

If you're gearing cha INSTEAD of unisave, you come out lower in saves than a 2-stat character gearing unisave (or at best, roughly the same because you also have at least +3 base cha mod before gear)

Yes, and you aren't really going to need more than that. There's simply very little practical reason for a character to get their saves above 37.

So what builds? pretty much all div builds except those with cot levels or cha based, and then we have weapon masters, rangers, hexblades, swashbuckler, fighter and I could go on but I really feel like you already know all of this.

Now I am genuinely curious: what third stat does your generic full plate wearing cookie-cutter weapon master really need to max out other than STR and CON?

Yes, there are many melee builds and most of them are going to want* hard 5% masterwork runic gear to fully flesh out their kit eventually**.
But as shown above, 5% runic gear really is not necessary for them reach max AB/AC, dps, hp, saves and discipline (i.e. the primary beatstick gimmick).

In other words; most melee builds can get saves on par with spell DCs from cheaper suboptimal gear without much tradeoff. I hope that's finally enough to dispel the urban legend that melee builds need to pour millions of gold coins into their gear in order to function - they really don't. There's optimal and there's good enough to reasonably compete with optimal***

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*as opposed to "need"

**And even getting a 5% masterwork runic gear set is still perfectly doable even without an entire faction to back one up - it's just extremely tiresome/difficult to keep consistently pulling off when one's frequently rolling their characters or splitting their playtime between multiple toons.

***not having +1 WIS and +2 sail on a swashbuckler's gear is hardly going to make much of a difference in a PvP skirmish.

[Zavandar]

Most "good" builds can absolutely get to the 37 threshold of saves. Gearing uni is often superfluous because fort is generally high due to con stacking (and even higher depending on base class). Admittedly, I do factor PfA into my saves but that is an hours/lvl spell that even mundanes can easily maintain. Even rogues can get respectable effective will saves if they take slippery mind, which makes 33 about the same as 37 vs dc 39 spells. I achieve this without sacrificing discipline, too.

In general, I won't play a build that can't reach these thresholds. Fortunately, due to runes and maybe one or two 5% pieces, that is not a small pool.

[Cagus]

This was a bad change by any measure sorry.

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

Oh, okay.

This is actually good change... but to completely different environment.
In this and without substitute... not so much.

The spell list and mechanics are generally problematic and outdated, because they were made for (more or less) singleplayer/coop game 20 years ago.

If you want to make it well suited for online game with PvP competition, you would have to make a lot of changes. Actually, I would prefer to change the spells already in the game instead of just adding new ones.
But of course this is also problematic for spontaneous casters, which needs then to refurbish their spellbook.

So the point would be big change in one sweep, with month or more testing in PGCC. I see partial changes in many stages as bad approach, because for example now, I am not sure if I want to remade my spellbook or even character, or make a new one, if I know another changes are coming, which again I need to reflect in my build.


And also because this descriptor-based change, there should be rigorously added descriptors to the current spells. We don't have a list of spells sorted by descriptors AFAIK, so see means to go through them, but as I remember, there is a lot of spells without a descriptor and so.
I would actually prefer this to be based on school than descriptor.

And about the saves... Well, from the moment I came here, I thought this particular mechanics, where you can put uni save on every item you can be wearing is bad design. And with these changes especially, I would much more likely prefer this removed and let the dweomercrafting be about the subtypes (as in the "versus death") and in the higher numbers (up to 3 maybe). This would even crafting made more interesting and complicated, because as now, it is just put uni save stat stat someskills bye. At least for most players.

I am also not fan of static 35DC gate. If the meta changes, this number would have to be changed also and I believe it would take long time, before reflected.

And for the actual spells. There should be more 'types' of spells. Why not to have group of spells in lower circles, which (lore-wise via indirect effect) intentionally ignore spellcraft?
If not subtype based saves implemented on greater scale, then death spells are almost always better then just disables (not incorporating death ward et sim. into this), therefore maybe one save or die spell, single target, something like vanilla finger of death.
Disables in combination with debuffs, viable even on lower circles should be butter and bread of a battlecasters. Some spells without damage but sure effect (e.g. the more STR the target has, the more slowed he is, no save, but counterable by FoM), some with saves but some mediocre damage, and some purely damage without any other effect. But as I said, which would mean completely redo the system, which I don't expect, as it is like... a year of work and then one release.
But I am afraid we will just get many small releases, which will cripple the current characters (or at least make the players touched disgruntled).

This is a critique of work done, but approach.

[Yvesza]

To set an example of what a "low" save would look like currently, I'll use a rogue/fighter as a baseline

26 rogue/4 fighter gives us a base will save of 10 by level 30
Rogue gives us +5 base will save, Fighter gives us +1 will save and epic levels give us another +5 but our base wisdom will be 8 so it drops by 1

Base save: 10
Owls wisdom: +2 (12)
Unisaves: +8 (20)
Prot Alignment: +4 (24)
Spellcraft: +7 (31)

This is close to the maximum that a rogue can acheive to their will saves, the biggest outlier is that rogues can acheive a +7 to all of their saves versus spells now through getting their spellcraft to 35. This gives us a 40% chance of failing a save to a level 9 spell. Their total saves would look like this (assuming a stat spread of 8/38/26/12/14/8, human rogue/fighter)

Fortitude: 41
Reflex: 50
Will: 31

These saves are pretty excellent and clearly show that rogues are entirely capable of getting will saves to a reasonable level, in fact -anyone- can get their worst saves to 30. This is only for saves that include spellcraft, but now that it's functionally *all* spells that doesn't really matter.

The save softcap of 35 is to prevent 'bad' saves from being lowered but I genuinely think things are far too harsh as they are.

Please consider lowering the save 'soft cap' to 29.

Currently a majority of casters have a primary casting stat of 38, which means that a table of their spell DC's would look like this.

The assumption is that the caster has SF, GSF and ESF in their chosen school.

Level 1 (11 + 14 + 6): 31 (10% chance to fail)
Level 2 (12 + 14 + 6): 32 (15% chance to fail)
Level 3 (13 + 14 + 6): 33 (20% chance to fail)
Level 4 (14 + 14 + 6): 34 (25% chance to fail)
Level 5 (15 + 14 + 6): 35 (30% chance to fail)
Level 6 (16 + 14 + 6): 36 (35% chance to fail)
Level 7 (17 + 14 + 6): 37 (40% chance to fail)
Level 8 (18 + 14 + 6): 38 (45% chance to fail)
Level 9 (19 + 14 + 6): 39 (50% chance to fail)

Without the ESF all of these odds drop significantly, requiring level 7 spells to have more than a 5% chance to succeed at spells.

This leaves characters who have heavily invested into their chosen schools with reasonable odds of landing spells on their targets, they can tangibly work towards very reasonable odds of success given that all spells have significant counterplay involved (Clarity potions, Mind blanks, Death Wards, NEP, etc).

However, this will still cease to mean all too much given the current state of the rest of the update.

- Successful saving throws against spells cast by player characters now apply temporary penalties to saving throws with the same descriptor

This is still far too narrow to be reasonable for casters, this assumes that you cast the same spell repeatedly at the victim.
Could we please consider changing this to just be broader with Fort / Reflex / Will? Currently the system overwhelmingly favours using save vs death spells for this reason among many.

- This penalty stacks over multiple casts and lasts for 3 rounds. Successful saving throws against spells with the same descriptor refresh the duration.
- The amount depends on the spell's innate level:
- 2 for spells of innate levels 7 and above, and
- 1 for spells of innate levels 4 to 6.
- Weaker spells do not increase the penalty, but also refresh its duration.

A three round duration is really, really short, upping this to 5 or 6 rounds gives casters an opportunity to try to kite without being bowled over and killed.

- Greater Restoration and the -pray command clear the current penalty.

I'm still of the opinion that greater restoration clearing save penalties is a little bit too much, but -pray remains very fair for a number of reasons that should be apparent.

- Saving throws against persistent areas of effect and spells cast via items do not increase or extend the penalty.

Divine casters -need- persistent AoE effects, their primary forms of crowd control are both persistent AoE effects. (Storm of Vengeance and Stonehold), both of these have significant counterplay in the form of mind protection / FoM. This is a part of the change that I think really shouldn't be glossed over, persistent AoE effects still require spell slots to cast and are largely avoidable. With all of the counterplay to these spells I don't understand why a caster shouldn't be rewarded, or a character punished for standing inside of these effects.

[AstralUniverse]

Most "good" builds can absolutely get to the 37 threshold of saves.

I am genuinely curious how you get 37 will save on a rogue or a fighter or class with Will as a low save that has about 10-13 base will save at lvl 30 and therefore capped at 30-33. Like.. you gotta be starting to gear wisdom on fighters with masterworks and hard 5s at some point or idk how.

Fortitude: 41
Reflex: 50
Will: 31

I am seeing 31 will save here. This also applies to many many other builds. Pretty much any class with a low save, will have at least one save at low 30s when fully capped and be exploited by a caster in pvp who has DCs at the high 30s or low 40s.

Please consider lowering the save 'soft cap' to 29.

That's not happening lol.

[Yvesza]

I am seeing 31 will save here. This also applies to many many other builds. Pretty much any class with a low save, will have at least one save at low 30s when fully capped and be exploited by a caster in pvp who has DCs at the high 30s or low 40s.

No casters are pushing over DC:40 really, save for shadow mages who'll get to DC:41 with level 9 spells, or DC:42 with 40 base casting stat (Less than half of casters I'd imagine). They also have to pay quite heavily for it and have their spells mitigated by mind blank or clarity.

[AstralUniverse]

I am seeing 31 will save here. This also applies to many many other builds. Pretty much any class with a low save, will have at least one save at low 30s when fully capped and be exploited by a caster in pvp who has DCs at the high 30s or low 40s.

No casters are pushing over DC:40 really, save for shadow mages who'll get to DC:41 with level 9 spells, or DC:42 with 40 base casting stat (Less than half of casters I'd imagine). They also have to pay quite heavily for it and have their spells mitigated by mind blank or clarity.

Well, that's basically what I said. high 30s for the most part, and sometimes even low 40s. I did say that did I? And if shadow mages pay so heavily for their +2 dc then it should be at least somewhat rewarding. I really dont see a problem here.

[Yvesza]

Please consider lowering the save 'soft cap' to 29.

That's not happening lol.

I'd love to know why you think a 50/50 chance of success on level 9 spells for a character so heavily invested into casting would be unreasonable, math provided too as I've been so nice to include in my posts. It'd help to really clear up why you think a cap of 29 is laughable.

[AstralUniverse]

Please consider lowering the save 'soft cap' to 29.

That's not happening lol.

I'd love to know why you think a 50/50 chance of success on level 9 spells for a character so heavily invested into casting would be unreasonable, math provided too as I've been so nice to include in my posts. It'd help to really clear up why you think a cap of 29 is laughable.

having 50% to one-shot someone twice a round is undeniably broken op. Cheers.

[Yvesza]

to one-shot someone twice a round is undeniably broken op. Cheers.

Okay! Can you tell me which spells are one shotting people, or are you forgetting about clarity, mind blank, NEP and death ward? They're all very easy things to obtain, three of them come as potions, death ward can be put onto a wand and mind blank sadly does need to be put onto a scroll. I'm sure you're very well aware of that and have an exhaustive list of spells that ignore all of these.

[AstralUniverse]

Okay! Can you tell me which spells are one shotting people, or are you forgetting about clarity, mind blank, NEP and death ward? They're all very easy things to obtain, three of them come as potions, death ward can be put onto a wand and mind blank sadly does need to be put onto a scroll. I'm sure you're very well aware of that and have an exhaustive list of spells that ignore all of these.

Like.. you dont have these things running as a mundane character at random. Deathward, maybe, but NEP? Freedom? they are short on wands. Quite expensive. Realistically, you dont have them running on a mundane character when a spontaneous pvp sparks at random somehow. same goes for owl's wisdom for that extra +2 hard will save frankly.

And if you DO in fact dump thousand over thousands of coin over this every time you rest, always being 100% prepared for pvp at all times, then sure. Have the win. You've rightfully earned it imo. you can still get breached off a lot of these wards and you're still not guaranteed to win, just have really good odds against casters in that specific scenario after dumping absurd amounts of gold just for the chance a spontaneous pvp sparks.

[Yvesza]

Okay! Can you tell me which spells are one shotting people, or are you forgetting about clarity, mind blank, NEP and death ward? They're all very easy things to obtain, three of them come as potions, death ward can be put onto a wand and mind blank sadly does need to be put onto a scroll. I'm sure you're very well aware of that and have an exhaustive list of spells that ignore all of these.

Like.. you dont have these things running as a mundane character at random. Deathward, maybe, but NEP? Freedom? they are short on wands. Quite expensive. Realistically, you dont have them running on a mundane character when a spontaneous pvp sparks at random somehow. same goes for owl's wisdom for that extra +2 hard will save frankly.

And if you DO in fact dump thousand over thousands of coin over this every time you rest, always being 100% prepared for pvp at all times, then sure. Have the win. You've rightfully earned it imo. (and you're still not guaranteed to win, just have really good odds against casters).

You use these when you get into PvP, all of them. I don't know how much PvP you actually get into, but these are all extremely common in all venues of PvP. They're also not short duration at all, NEP and freedom both last 10-15 minutes each, if you're caught out with spontaneous PvP and die because you didn't have wards that's... Sort of how it goes? Running away is an option when you're outmatched.

[AstralUniverse]

So you spend a lot of time standing and clicking wands when pvp breaks in and that puts you at disadvantage. You might just die before you finish warding.

Consider this.

Time stop > mord > death spell x3, nuking you while you're still warding.

"Running away is an option" is where you should really let go of this argument.

[Yvesza]

So you spend a lot of time standing and clicking wands when pvp breaks in and that puts you at disadvantage. You might just die before you finish warding.

Consider this.

Time stop > mord > death spell x3, nuking you while you're still warding.

Death ward from a wand is instant, faster than a spell. It's also unbreachable so on average you'd need to be hit by *three* dispells to remove it. It also lasts for an exceptionally long time, I believe it's over an hour and might be more.

What you've alluded to is shotgun PvP, it's what barbarians do and now it's all casters have left. They're forced to do everything they can in the shortest window possible, because the excessively constrictive nature of the update gives no alternatives.

This is the entire point I've been trying to make and I'm glad you've come around to seeing it. No one wants to be using death spells repeatedly, it's not fun for anyone but when the system clearly indicates that this is what it wants from you and alternatives simply do not work, what else are casters supposed to do?

[AstralUniverse]

No it's quite the other way around. If you get to lower people's save to 29 THEN it becomes a true death spells meta. anyway I think I have said my piece and have no more to day. Thank you for remaining civil Yvesza.

[-XXX-]

I wouldn't say it really matters, the scenario where the saves get lowered all the way to 29 seems kinda unrealistic.

The strongest version of the debuff happens 2 at a time, so it'd assume chaining 5x lvl 7+ spell to get there after the mandatory haste and disjunction*
Pulling that off would be quite a stretch even with a time stop opener - we're talking about an uninterrupted 8 spell chain here.


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* death ward has no visuals - there's no way of knowing whether the target is warded or not

[Yvesza]

No it's quite the other way around. If you get to lower people's save to 29 THEN it becomes a true death spells meta. anyway I think I have said my piece and have no more to day. Thank you for remaining civil Yvesza.

To close on this, lets go back to the rogues saves I listed earlier.

Fortitude: 41
Reflex: 50
Will: 31

Wail of the banshee (Fort save vs death)
Weird (Will vs Fear, Fort save vs death)
Implosion (Fort save vs death)
Power word: Kill (Fort sav vs death)

We can see immediately that the rogue is in no danger of immediate death outside of rolling a 1, as all of the save vs death spells are versus fort. If we did want to reduce their saves to 29 from 41 we'd need to cast *six* 9th level spells, that's eighteen seconds of standing in place to cast spells of level 7-9 and it'd also be six of our eight level nine spells.

For the sake of a realistic example, we'll assume the following.
A wizard attacks a rogue, they cast disjunction and timestop to remove the rogues death ward. They then repeatedly cast wail of the banshee on the rogue at DC:39

Spell 1: Disjunction (Dispells death ward)
Spell 2: Timestop
Spell 3: WoB @ 95% chance to live (41 -> 39)
Spell 4: WoB @ 90.25% chance to live (39 -> 37)
Spell 5: WoB @ 81.22% chance to live (37 -> 35)
Spell 6: WoB @ 64.98% chance to live (35 -> 35)
Spell 7: WoB @ 51.98% chance to live (35 -> 35)

Assuming your target does nothing to stop you, they have a 52%~ chance that after you use *seven* level 9 spells they'll still be alive. If we drop the save cap from 35 to 29, our unfortunate rogue will survive 27.29% of the time. This is once more, using every single level 9 spell avaliable to a level 30 specialist wizard/ranger

This is of course, death spells. No one wants death spells, death spells are the least fun thing but also, the only spells that will be reliable.

Why is that?

Because a death spell kills people, yes. This sounds stupid, but it's a very important fact when comparing our death spell to a level 9 spell such as mass hold monster. You can use -all- of your level 9 spell slots in the current system for a 51.98% chance of paralyzing somebody, only for them to -pray free. Now what? Well, you can use your level 8 spell slots but... Well, the odds of success drop dramatically. This also assumes the victim does not use clarity potions, freedom of movement, mind blank or death ward. All of these will effectively immunize them to your magic until you breach or dispel them. Which also uses your very limited spell slots.

In this next example our rogue doesn't die to wail of the banshee, so the wizard switches to using Nybor's Wrathful Castigation. What do these odds look like?

Spell 1: NWC @ 95% chance to live (41 -> 39)
Spell 2: NWC @ 90.25% chance to live (39 -> 37)
Spell 3: NWC @ 85.73% chance to live (37 -> 35)
Spell 4: NWC @ 72.87% chance to live (35 -> 35)
Spell 5: NWC @ 61.94% chance to live (35 -> 35)
Spell 6: NWC @ 52.65% chance to live (35 -> 35)

And we're out of spell slots, unless you can fit in a 7th castigation which not all wizards can. Most of them have a casting stat of 38 which leaves them with 6 slots, only getting a 7th if they happen to be a specialist. This also assumes they do not prepare any casts of premonition, greater sanctuary or clenched fist (Which the last might need another topic of it's own)

Once more if we drop the save soft cap from 35 to 29 we get a survival rate of only 40.8%, which still feels unreasonably low given that this is eighteen seconds of having a wizard cast death spells at you uninterrupted. In the same period of time a martial can do an average damage of between 1,050 and 1,500 damage on average depending if they're a WM or not. (Quick maths, might be slightly off)

Now is the part that is particularly terrifying, if at any point the rogue uses -pray or greater restoration to clear their save penalty or they run at the wizard to stab them... Their fort save resets to 41 and the minor progress the wizard has made is reset to nothing. All at the cost of 15 of their highest spell slots.

Cautiously I'd suggest changing the save reduction to be -3 / -2 / -1 (7-9, 4-6, 1-3), for the sake of curiosity I wanted to take a look to see how this would turn out so I'll repeat the above but with this change.

Spell 1: Disjunction (Dispells death ward)
Spell 2: Timestop
Spell 3: WoB @ 95% chance to live (41 -> 38)
Spell 4: WoB @ 90.25% chance to live (38 -> 35)
Spell 5: WoB @ 72.2% chance to live (35 -> 35)
Spell 6: WoB @ 57.76% chance to live (35 -> 35)
Spell 7: WoB @ 46.2% chance to live (35 -> 35)

Now the rogue is less likely to survive than they are to die. The coin flip slightly favours the wizard. Again, assuming a save cap of 29.

Spell 1: Disjunction (Dispells death ward)
Spell 2: Timestop
Spell 3: WoB @ 95% chance to live (41 -> 38)
Spell 4: WoB @ 90.25% chance to live (38 -> 35)
Spell 5: WoB @ 72.2% chance to live (35 -> 32)
Spell 6: WoB @ 46.936% chance to live (32 -> 29)
Spell 7: WoB @ 23.46% chance to live (29 -> 29)

These numbers seem way more reasonable for what effectively is nearly a wizards entire arsenal of spells, but again... No one wants death spells to be this functional. Control spells are far healthier as they have significant counterplay inherent to them, not only can allies potentially clear their effects with wands of FoM and clarity, you can also -pray free and pre-emptively protect yourself with a large number of very easily accessed things.

If my math is off at all I'd love to know, but this was all done for the sake of highlighting how incredibly stacked the currently presented system is against casters and hopefully all of what I've been posting here can be used as a frame of reference.

[TurningLeaf]

Now is the part that is particularly terrifying, if at any point the rogue uses -pray or greater restoration to clear their save penalty or they run at the wizard to stab them... Their fort save resets to 41 and the minor progress the wizard has made is reset to nothing. All at the cost of 15 of their highest spell slots.

I mean, for a fight against a melee rogue, all this analysis should really tell you is that you approached the fight wrong. If the task is to defeat a melee rogue with a mage, is the above really your best solution? Doubtful.

[Yvesza]

I mean, for a fight against a melee rogue, all this analysis should really tell you is that you approached the fight wrong. If the task is to defeat a melee rogue with a mage, is the above really your best solution? Doubtful.

Is it the best way? No, but it should be clearly evident that here's a problem when you can use 15 spell slots of 8th and 9th level to accolplish two unfavourable coinflips. It's not an issue of needing to try something else, it's an issue of the update crippling casters. The math should make it blindingly evident.

This is also, I should add... The perfect situation. The rogue does nothing to stop the caster. They have unrestricted casting for nearly a full minute and they may very well just simply live. Imagine now if the rogue actually reacts? What then? The caster has nothing, they just have to fish for 1's and hope for the best.

[Scylon]

One of the things these changes allow for is weighted saves, and I do hope the devs go this direction.

What I mean is, racking up wail of the banshee and dropping wild attempting to get a one shot should be treated from a save point of view more harshly then me spamming meteor. EG a save VS death bar will be higher then save vs reflex.

Also this change allows for a meteor save vs fire AND reflex on one cast can be a thing. As they have started chopping up saves a bit more you can, as i said weight the saves for say your uni saves of reflex now have to beat a spell DC of 45 for example as it is vs anything with a reflex. However there could be gear/feats that adds +3 or 4 vs fire saves so your uni save might fail, but your fire save will pass.

So you could for example have gear that has uni saves, sure, covers you for everything, but you run the risk of someone with a DC 50 stacked on their fire spells beating you unless you geared up for fire DC gear. In turn they might have to switch to ice or lightning spells. You could even take this further by having casters use gear/feats that improve spell DC types. However something that is a save vs death/stun or something wouldn't be able to get DC's that high to prevent players just stacking stuff that will ruin other peoples fun and tank all skill from PvP and PvE.

[TurningLeaf]

I mean, for a fight against a melee rogue, all this analysis should really tell you is that you approached the fight wrong. If the task is to defeat a melee rogue with a mage, is the above really your best solution? Doubtful.

Is it the best way? No, but it should be clearly evident that here's a problem when you can use 15 spell slots of 8th and 9th level to accolplish two unfavourable coinflips. It's not an issue of needing to try something else, it's an issue of the update crippling casters. The math should make it blindingly evident.

This is also, I should add... The perfect situation. The rogue does nothing to stop the caster. They have unrestricted casting for nearly a full minute and they may very well just simply live. Imagine now if the rogue actually reacts? What then? The caster has nothing, they just have to fish for 1's and hope for the best.

But if you're max and they're max why should you get to win the fight using a bad strategy? You agree the tactic isn't good but then argue it's a problem the mage doesn't have a good chance to win using this tactic. Hmm.