Questions about saving throws and feedback
monico
Member Posts: 571
So, I was doing some testing in LoB difficulty, with a lvl1 sorcerer casting Charm Person (+3 bonus for the target making the save) on different people around Candlekeep.
My point was to do a quick check if the LoB saving throw implementation has been corrected. I don't think it has, since Shank & Carbos repeatedly failed their saves.
My issue is that, while I can't look at the engine itself, I was using the onscreen Saving Throws feedback, and saw some rolls between 24 and 27 from Imoen and Jondalar (the only ones actually managing to resist my spell sometimes, apart from Firebead who's immune to it for some reason)
Also, normally if you don't get any feedback, it means that the target has failed their save, but sometimes I did not get any feedback whatsoever but the target was not charmed. Why ?
So, what is exactly shown ?
It obviously cannot be the roll, since saving throws are rolled on a 20 dice. Maybe it's the roll + modifiers ? But then what modifiers ? the spell modifier is only +3, and they don't have any gear or special trait that would augment it.
So how and why 25 or 26 ?
Oh and Imoen is supposed to have her saving throw vs. spell at 15 at that point in the game, is it "feedbacked" as a +5 on the d20 roll ? Would explain how she can go up to 28.
So, my theory is that the feedback is : the roll + bonus/malus from spell + (20-target's related saving throw).
In my case, when Imy rolled a 28, it could be that she rolled a natural 20 + 3 (charm person) + 5 (from her lvl1 thief class ST vs Spell).
My question is thus:
- how to reliably make use of the feedback from target's saving throw ? Since I don't know the actual roll and the target's base saving throw, I have no way of calculating what my chances are for my spell to actually hit.
I would prefer a feedback like the thac0 rolls : base roll + modifiers = hit or no-hit.
- I know that LoB was incorrectly implemented (+5 ST instead of -5), can anyone confirm it is still the case ?
My point was to do a quick check if the LoB saving throw implementation has been corrected. I don't think it has, since Shank & Carbos repeatedly failed their saves.
My issue is that, while I can't look at the engine itself, I was using the onscreen Saving Throws feedback, and saw some rolls between 24 and 27 from Imoen and Jondalar (the only ones actually managing to resist my spell sometimes, apart from Firebead who's immune to it for some reason)
Also, normally if you don't get any feedback, it means that the target has failed their save, but sometimes I did not get any feedback whatsoever but the target was not charmed. Why ?
So, what is exactly shown ?
It obviously cannot be the roll, since saving throws are rolled on a 20 dice. Maybe it's the roll + modifiers ? But then what modifiers ? the spell modifier is only +3, and they don't have any gear or special trait that would augment it.
So how and why 25 or 26 ?
Oh and Imoen is supposed to have her saving throw vs. spell at 15 at that point in the game, is it "feedbacked" as a +5 on the d20 roll ? Would explain how she can go up to 28.
So, my theory is that the feedback is : the roll + bonus/malus from spell + (20-target's related saving throw).
In my case, when Imy rolled a 28, it could be that she rolled a natural 20 + 3 (charm person) + 5 (from her lvl1 thief class ST vs Spell).
My question is thus:
- how to reliably make use of the feedback from target's saving throw ? Since I don't know the actual roll and the target's base saving throw, I have no way of calculating what my chances are for my spell to actually hit.
I would prefer a feedback like the thac0 rolls : base roll + modifiers = hit or no-hit.
- I know that LoB was incorrectly implemented (+5 ST instead of -5), can anyone confirm it is still the case ?
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Comments
as you said if imoen have a save vs spell of 15, that means, when she makes a save, she has to roll a 15 ( on a d20 die ) and if she rolls 15 or higher, then she passes, if not, then she fails
how the engine works is you will only see saving throws if the enemy passes, it will not show a failed save, instead the effect should be going off
now IF imoen is rolling a 28, then i want to say your hypothesis is correct in that a) the +5 to all saves enemies get in LoB are being added in on the die roll and b) the other +3 is from the spell itself hence imoen is hitting "28" because she is actually rolling a natural 20, so in theory that would mean the lowest result she could possibly get would be a 9 ( from rolling a 1 ) but you wouldn't know that unless her save vs spell was 9 or lower because as i said; the game will not show feedback on a failed save
now, the thing about firebeard is he is an elf and since patch...... don't recall, perhaps 2.x or so, beamdog have properly implemented elves and half-elves charm and sleep resistances
so when you cast charm and sleep spells on elves there is a 90% chance that it will fail, and if you use it on a half-elf then there is a 30% chance it will fail ( this makes kivan very strong against sirines )
so with that being said, you have to watch out for shank because he is a half-elf which gives him a 30% chance to automatically resist charm effects
now with shank and carbos, their save vs spell are both 17, so even with the +5 bonus from LoB and the +3 bonus they get from charm person, that would "effectively" make their save vs spell 9, which would mean they would have to roll a 9 or higher to pass, which means they still have a 40% chance to fail their save against that spell
so it is possible that they could be failing multiple times in a row, they would just have to be very unlucky is all
The game engine means that saving throws of 20 or more are automatically failed, irrespective of the saving throw actually rolled. In the standard game that's of very limited importance, but it is significant in LoB because the bug adding 5 to the base saving throw means many weaker enemies will automatically fail their saving throws. The ability to reliably charm, blind etc most of the enemies you face as a starting character does make the early stages of LoB significantly easier than should be the case.
so even if you saving throw starts at 20, you still can't pass with a 20? you automatically fail regardless?
Indeed, it makes the small fries easier to charm, blind, etc., but I don't think that it helps for long. Not that many enemies have 15+ base saving throws.