Greater Malison Combo

Iglosnof

If you cast greater malison (reduces all saves by 4), followed by slow (reduces saves vs magic by 4 if successful), followed by glitterdust (reduces all saves by 4 if successful) and the target fails the two saves, will they have a -12 to saves for the next 4 rounds? Or did I misunderstand something

Jarrakul

I don't think Slow reduces saving throws, just attack rolls and armor class (and attack speed and move speed and cast speed). I'm also not sure blindness (inflicted by Glitterdust) inflicts save penalties either, but I'm reading conflicting things about that, so I'm not sure.

Regardless, if you're correct about them applying those penalties, there's no reason they wouldn't stack.

Tresset

Yeah, slow and blindness do not lower saves. Blindness lowers AC and Thac0 and slow just makes things slower. The 3rd level wizard spell Slow does lower AC and Thac0 in addition to slowing things, but typically being slowed does not change your AC or Thac0.

Chnapy

Indeed, looking at the slow spell (SPWI312)'s extended effects seem to indicate that it lowers only thac0 and AC (and inflicts the "slowed" state) but that it does not affect saving throws. The "Creatures save at -4 vs. Spell" line in the description instead indicates that the saving throw versus the Slow spell itself is made with a -4 malus.
I see no mention of saving throw penalty in the glitterdust spell desc so if it does reduce them it's probably a bug.

joluv

Slow and Glitterdust don't affect saving throws. Doom will stack with Greater Malison, though. Here's a character sheet from a Greater Malisoned, Slowed, and Glitterdusted Hobgoblin. The penalty is only 4.

abacus

Chant will also lower enemy saves by 1.

jackjack

This is another reason I love the oft-overlooked Spook spell, which reduces a target's saves by 1 point for every 2 levels of the caster and stacks with both Greater Malison and Doom.
Nope

Ammar

jackjack said:

This is another reason I love the oft-overlooked Spook spell, which reduces a target's saves by 1 point for every 2 levels of the caster and stacks with both Greater Malison and Doom.

Spook does not reduce saving throws. It just has a saving throw penalty similar to Slow.

jackjack

Hahaha yup. Same misread.