About blight druid, DC and saving rolls of the enemies

[imminence]

So, I tested the blight druid (as a mercenary) to see, if this miasma does anything good for me.

But it seems to be the same frustration I have in early to midgame with any spells, spell like abilities etc, which can be countered wit will, fortitude or reflex:
I works perhaps 1 or 2 times out of 10. Even a level 2 bandit could save from it.

I checked every dice the enemies had in about 10 fights: None was below 10. Because the DC of my druid's miasma is only 16 (10 + 0,5 druid level + WIS-modifier 4) it's easy to counter it.

The same with all spells like ray of enfeebelment, hold person etc. In 90 out of 100 "enemy suceeds..."

If I compare the enemies (permanently high) dice-rolls to mine....

Example: My highest level party is lvl 10. Linzi's world-knowledge is maxed. Nevertheless, she still spoils "hearty meal". The same with Octavia: When I don't save / reload I would probably open just a few of these numerous chests and disabling of traps fails without Linzi's assisstence (competence) in about 80%.

When I check the rolls I see often 1 or 2, hardly something above 10.

As I wrote somewhere else, I am aware that statistically this is totally ok, even if iI had 100 times in a row just 1.

But what do I care about statistics? IMO there is something wrong either with the DCs or the mob's saves or both.

[It'sNòtó.Óver]

Some NPCs work with a lot of items they probably shouldnt even be having.

[Morgian]

Magic has been nerfed heavily since AD&D 1st edition, and Pathfinder's magic is weak. Your foes will save more often than not, be immune, have spell resistance, concealment or high touch AC. Therefore pick spells which do something, even if the mobs save. If you insist on using spells that hold an enemy until he makes his save (check once per round) or something like that, your only option is to increase the DC of your spells. That means max on casting stat, spell focus, greater spell focus, and wearing items that increase the DC of your chosen school. Casting spells like Mindfog (exists only for enchantment) help, too.

Damage spells have the advantage of delivering at least 50%, no matter what (unless you use rays). In a computer game they are therefore the "best" spells - they remove enemies and they kinda always work. You can even increase the damage by feats, metamagic rods, and a class feature.

[imminence]

I know about the feats which increase spell DC etc.
So I can imagine, that later in the game - perhaps beyond lvl 10 - things will become better. But I can also imagine, that the enemies then have even more resistances, immunities and whatnot...

I have a problem to imagine, that a game is designed for late game joy with a stony frustrating way until things will finally work.

The same with the RNG, which seems to give advantages to the enemy and force players to become savescummers.

My newest experience:
A custom rogue who needs only 5 to beat a certain DC throws five times in a row below 5. But enemies almost never fail their saves. As I wrote in my op: Statistically ok, but a true buzzkill.

I wouldn't even mind, if there was not that totally inexplicable design-descision to make chests a win or lose thing. I can fumble with traps until I finally disarm them or they go off.
But a chest? One try and done.

Nothing against unlucky incidents like "the lock is now jammed",
but then they should us give the option to break the chest with the risk to destroy the contents.

Sometimes it's really hard to understand, what devs are thinking....

[dolby]

You are forgetting two things.
First, most spells are aoe so 1 or 2 out of 10 enemies will always get hit.

Second if any CC or debuff spells hits they are game changing... if 60% or more would hit the game would be to easy... As it is, on anything but unfair...
Ow and some spells still leave secondary effects or some do not even have saves...

But i do agree that more casters should have built in Dc increase or spell pen like sorcerers have.
Why only them get that luxury is beyond me but thats pathfinder, its weird sometimes...

[Morgian]

You have to limit how often you can try a lock or the lock becomes meaningless. Here it is every time you get another skill rank. If you come back next level you can try again. It is also allowed to have a second character with trickery ;)
They did not include breaking stuff with STR, but I think that this was due to having limits on what can be done on time and budget and what not. Including STR checks would open a whole can of worms, including the breakage of items (which is not in either).

[Shadenuat]

Speaking Blight Druid, since it's Fortitude, regular beefy monsters have it in tons so not very effective. It is not particularly effective Druid Kit at all I think - out of the box anyway.

[dolby]

Forgot something, miasma is a spell like ability so it doesn't get SR checks in this game i think...well at list some dont... anyway even if it does...
the 0.5 per lvl DC is fine as it scales with your lvl so at lvl 20 its effectively a lvl 10 spell and no caster has lvl 10 spells you know that right ?:)

[imminence]

Originally posted by dolby:

Forgot something, miasma is a spell like ability so it doesn't get SR checks in this game i think...well at list some dont... anyway even if it does...
the 0.5 per lvl DC is fine as it scales with your lvl so at lvl 20 its effectively a lvl 10 spell and no caster has lvl 10 spells you know that right ?:)

No SR but fortitude!
I saw in the log "....xxx was successful..." and then the numbers. Always over ten in addition to their anyhow high fortitude. Even a squishy rogue with level 2 resisted it! Did you ever see your rogue resisting something which requires a fortitude-save?

At level 20 might be... but as I wrote: I make that (mercenary-)druid at level 2 and want some advantages when she finally reaches level 5. But that's just my way to see things...

It's boring enough (as it was for me in every AD&D game) to bring these casters to a level on which they can finally cast more than some magic missiles...

[dolby]

Originally posted by imminence:

Originally posted by dolby:

Forgot something, miasma is a spell like ability so it doesn't get SR checks in this game i think...well at list some dont... anyway even if it does...
the 0.5 per lvl DC is fine as it scales with your lvl so at lvl 20 its effectively a lvl 10 spell and no caster has lvl 10 spells you know that right ?:)

No SR but fortitude!
I saw in the log "....xxx was successful..." and then the numbers. Always over ten in addition to their anyhow high fortitude. Even a squishy rogue with level 2 resisted it! Did you ever see your rogue resisting something which requires a fortitude-save?

At level 20 might be... but as I wrote: I make that (mercenary-)druid at level 2 and want some advantages when she finally reaches level 5. But that's just my way to see things...

It's boring enough (as it was for me in every AD&D game) to bring these casters to a level on which they can finally cast more than some magic missiles...

Well you can get that fortitude way down thats the beauty of casters... there are spells that lower saves loads of them in fact.
When you run with a druid cleric and a wizards thats when you can do some nice stuff like kill ♥♥♥♥ thats normal unkillable at your lvl....but yea casters are slow to pick up but when they do its great...at list its for me im bit of a caster fanboy...:)

[Sotanaht]

Originally posted by dolby:

Originally posted by imminence:

No SR but fortitude!
I saw in the log "....xxx was successful..." and then the numbers. Always over ten in addition to their anyhow high fortitude. Even a squishy rogue with level 2 resisted it! Did you ever see your rogue resisting something which requires a fortitude-save?

At level 20 might be... but as I wrote: I make that (mercenary-)druid at level 2 and want some advantages when she finally reaches level 5. But that's just my way to see things...

It's boring enough (as it was for me in every AD&D game) to bring these casters to a level on which they can finally cast more than some magic missiles...

Well you can get that fortitude way down thats the beauty of casters... there are spells that lower saves loads of them in fact.
When you run with a druid cleric and a wizards thats when you can do some nice stuff like kill ♥♥♥♥ thats normal unkillable at your lvl....but yea casters are slow to pick up but when they do its great...at list its for me im bit of a caster fanboy...:)

The problem is that most spells that lower saves, also have a save. It's kind of pointless to hit an enemy with -2 saves on success, when on the off chance you succeeded you could have simply won the roll with a spell that actually disabled the enemy completely instead. Enervate is good because it doesn't get a save, otherwise those spells are generally a waste of time and spell slots.

[dolby]

Originally posted by Sotanaht:

Originally posted by dolby:

Well you can get that fortitude way down thats the beauty of casters... there are spells that lower saves loads of them in fact.
When you run with a druid cleric and a wizards thats when you can do some nice stuff like kill ♥♥♥♥ thats normal unkillable at your lvl....but yea casters are slow to pick up but when they do its great...at list its for me im bit of a caster fanboy...:)

The problem is that most spells that lower saves, also have a save. It's kind of pointless to hit an enemy with -2 saves on success, when on the off chance you succeeded you could have simply won the roll with a spell that actually disabled the enemy completely instead. Enervate is good because it doesn't get a save, otherwise those spells are generally a waste of time and spell slots.

Well i dont agree at list they work for me and my parties on max difficulty...and i always run with 3 casters.... Enervate is a prime example same as Vision of madness couple that with others and next round all your spells will hit... and you can do what ever... IF you want me to list full combo of the spells it will take ages..

[nym_moondown]

Originally posted by Morgian:

You have to limit how often you can try a lock or the lock becomes meaningless. Here it is every time you get another skill rank. If you come back next level you can try again. It is also allowed to have a second character with trickery ;)
They did not include breaking stuff with STR, but I think that this was due to having limits on what can be done on time and budget and what not. Including STR checks would open a whole can of worms, including the breakage of items (which is not in either).

Still nosense. I can understand the problem, but still the solution is terrible, both from RP and playability point of view. They could at least give you the opportunity to lose some ingame time and have it open (as pnp rules allow to take 20 spending more time), or something like "try again but be fatigued then", or "try again but with a penalty).

[corisai]

Originally posted by imminence:

The same with Octavia: When I don't save / reload I would probably open just a few of these numerous chests and disabling of traps fails without Linzi's assisstence (competence) in about 80%.

Her Trickery should be around ~30 already (gloves + necklace + focus + maybe ring already too). No way she can ever failed.

Actually you will never fail Trickery since ~start of Act 2. Just specialize someone. Really speciallize and put every boosting item on him/her.

[imminence]

Originally posted by corisai:

Originally posted by imminence:

The same with Octavia: When I don't save / reload I would probably open just a few of these numerous chests and disabling of traps fails without Linzi's assisstence (competence) in about 80%.

Her Trickery should be around ~30 already (gloves + necklace + focus + maybe ring already too). No way she can ever failed.

Actually you will never fail Trickery since ~start of Act 2. Just specialize someone. Really speciallize and put every boosting item on him/her.

Not talking about act 2. With level 4 party I'm still about to take the Stag Lord's fortress.

But I know what you mean. In act 2 and later the rogue (be it a custom one or Octavia) still throws frequently numbers between 1 an 4 for DCs ~30 and fails.
Someone else wrote in another thread that there should be an item or a feat which would enable the rogue to throw at least 5 or even 10 to avoid savescumming.

As I wrote: Of course I can "fail" with very low throws - from time to time, but not like it is in the game, when they throw these low numbers up to ten times in a row, while the enemies seem to start with 10 and higher - almost always.

[Morthra]

Chains of Light or whatever it's called is amazing though because if the first save fails it becomes nearly impossible to make successful saves later due to the DEX penalty imposed by paralysis.