why lower saves?

Why change the saves on cloaks of luck to reflex only? Player's saves were just too good?

I ran into a drow priestess who gave Holy Man (60+epic cleric) a Will saving throw DC 48 needed on a 9th level spell. That would be a score of, let's see: 10+9=19, 48-19= 29 modifier from stats and feats, clerics don't normally get spell focus feats to increase the DC's, so her Wisdom needed to get the DC up that far would be: (29*2)+10=68, or, just a tad under DOUBLE my cleric's magically-boosted wisdom. I COULD have made the save, rolling a 19 or better, but didn't that time. Hmmph. Don't bother with spells past D12 anymore, not worth it.

Test the "universal" save bonus and then test the reflex specific save bonus. Let me know what you find out.

Tested against fireball.

6 base reflex save
cloak with universal save +1
cloak with reflex save +1

I rolled a 6 without both cloaks, and a 7 with both cloaks. What's there to find out?

I eventually failed a petrification save whilst fighting Medusa, if the cloak had been universal I would have made it and been one less trip through the maze because I beat her down the next time I got to her lovely rock garden. I rolled an 18 fortitude instead of the 19 I needed the first time.

I'm wondering why the decrease from universal to reflex only? I'm thinking it's part of trying to balance the module, am I right?

Balance how? Making boosting the only save that already has bonuses which let you avoid half or ALL of the damage completely (and thus take only half on a failed save). IMHO reflex is already a favored save. And as usual Sarah fails to comment, being above such criticism and all.

Abriymoch wrote:

Balance how? Making boosting the only save that already has bonuses which let you avoid half or ALL of the damage completely (and thus take only half on a failed save). IMHO reflex is already a favored save.

My thought was that we mostly see the cloaks of luck used by lower-level players, at higher levels there's more options to choose from, and many sets contain cloaks. Removing Will from the cloaks will increase the chance of not saving against Sleep cast by goblin witches, losing Fortitude will decrease the chance of saving against an acid cloud from a bugbear shaman, etc. There's not many reflex saving throws needed in the lower dungeons, the orc spell casters toss around some fireballs but I can't think of anything else right now.

I wonder how close I am? I can't think of any other reason to nerf player's saves. At higher levels, it's difficult enough as it is to make the needed saves, without wearing a cloak of luck, sometimes wearing one can be the difference between a successful boss run and the death screen (again).

It's my experience that cloaks of "universal" save do not apply universally. They only apply to saves of universal type, as in no particular save type.

Does anyone have evidence that a cloak with "universal" saves stacks with specific saving throws, because I believe it does not stack. Only the highest saving throw would apply, and the "universal" save is not really universal in that it doesn't apply to all saving throw types.

I can assure you that they DO stack, and always have. A Universal save bonus will grant X bonus to every save you make, regardless of tis type, whereas a reflex save applies JUST to spells with reflex allowance. FOr instance, a universal save bonus would apply to a Defensive Roll avoidance check, but a reflex save DOES NOT, even though it's a "type" of reflex save.

Have you actually tested the save stacking?

Tested and retested under multiple circumstances for a few hours jsut now, and found the following:

Universal saves will stack will all other saves, including:
traps
spells
damage reduces (like defensive roll)
epic spells

The following was intriguing:
--Universal saves add a bonus to saves vs type "spell" but none of reflex, fortitude, or will individually add to the save DC for Greater Ruin.
--The Paladin's bonus to saves from charisma does not fall within the +20 save cap. No matter the bonus it applies
--The same is NOT true for Champions of Torm. Their bonus DOES fall under the +20 cap and will NOT increase them past +20, although they do stack.
--All of the save feats (including the level 1 only feats) all do not fall within the +20 cap, and will always apply.
--Once saves top 127, they bug, becoming negatives.

There's definitely some freaky stuff going on with saving throws. I think you discovered the same thing that caused me to change the cloaks to a reflex save bonus instead. Universal didn't appear truly universal. I'll do some more testing myself when time permits and see if I can make sense of it.

It looks like Abriymoch is ahead of me here, because I didn't realize
that there were so many other places a 'saving throw' would be used.
With Warchief's help testing, we confirmed that a universal save bonus
DOES apply to fortitude, reflex, or will saving throw from spells. I was verifying that universal saving throws did not apply ONLY to 'universal' saves, as if that was a special category apart from fort/reflex/will. It seems there's more to be done, though, but that testing is a little out of my league.

I don't want to waste the time testing the universal save bonus, so I'll take Abriymoch's word for it. All Cloaks of Luck are returned to universal save bonuses in the next update.