Chapter 2: Bloodline Saving Throws

[spehar]

I thought I'd bring up a concern I have and see what everyone thinks; the difficulty of making a saving throw for bloodline abilities. Is the current DC system ok? To high? To low? Should there be a cap based on your template? What do you think?

Mike Spehar

[Gavin Cetaine]

IMO The DC's for blood powers ARE high, with the potential to greatly exceed the saves of ordinary spell casters. But, players also pay a high price in ECL's if they want to play characters with huge bloodlines for a few powers that are usually usable only once per day. If you use, the point buy system (highly recommended that you do) then every point spent in bloodline costs your 'normal' stats, where it hurts you a lot more often. It's all about trade offs.

To use an example from our game: Travis can have the Duke use 'Suggestion' once per day at DC 24ish as a ECL 12 character. My bard however can cast it up to 6 times with a DC 15 (7 times at DC 17 if I can ever get the 1000 xp I need to level) as an 8th level bard ECL 9 character. Yes Travis can turn an encouter with a well timed casting, but I can keep throwing them until somebody fails a save. Remember that most of our characters were established characters that went through conversion into BR3. Most campaigns that start using the new rules will be better at showing how well things balance.

At this point, I do not feel that the blood power DC's are completely over-pumped. But I haven't seen all the powers used in a game yet. And our characters are high level for the BR setting.

[Ariadne]

I think, the saving throws are O.K. They ARE high if you have a high bloodline score, low if you have a week. The problem is, that such a blood ability like "divine aura" only works for unblooded characters (a blooded needn't to role a save). That makes a blood ability somewhat unusable (in a diplomacy action for example [where you might need your ability] you primary commune with blooded scions/ regents: Problem). So lowering the save would let unblooded character make their save too very simple and then you can forget your ability completely... Leave the saves, they're good...