On Sun, 12 May 2013 11:29:49 -0400, Tetsubo <
tet...@comcast.net>
wrote:
>On 5/12/2013 6:45 AM, Harold Groot wrote:
>> Not failing to make a Saving Throw - but not getting a Save at all
>> even when you would normally have one. That's what I'm talking about.
>>
>> How many ways can you think (in 3.5) that a person can actually lose
>> the ability to try to make a Save?
> Does a target lose a save automatically while under some sort of
>control via spell or psionics?
Not automatically, as far as I'm aware. If a DOMINATED person is
ordered to deliberately forego his saving throw, OK, he'll
deliberately forego it. He had one, but gave it up.
I was thinking more along these lines: In BLADE BARRIER, if the spell
is created in a square where someone is standing, they would normally
get a Reflex Save. But unlike most spells with Reflex Saves, this
spell gives a specific mechanism. It says you can avoid the barrier,
ending up on the side of your choice. In other words, you have to
MOVE. So if you are COMPLETELY UNABLE TO MOVE (Paralyzed, under a HOLD
PERSON spell, etc.) you shouldn't get a saving throw at all. It's a
closer call if you are grappled (since you can wriggle around a bit),
but I'd say that if you can't move the grapple (i.e. moving both you
and your opponent by winning an opposed grapple roll) you also
wouldn't get a saving throw. Of course, if your opponent WANTS to
avoid the BLADE BARRIER this shouldn't be a problem - but if the
opponent would rather have you BOTH take the damage and wants to hold
you there, you have to move him involuntarily or you don't get the
Reflex Save.
Similarly, if you have been Petrified you become a non-sentient lump
of stone. You wouldn't get a Will Saving Throw against anything
dealing with the mind. (Of course, you also wouldn't be a legitimate
TARGET for most things dealing with the mind.) Trying to cast CHARM
PERSON on a lump of stone is futile. And a Reflex Save would be pretty
much out of the picture too. You can't TRY to avoid anything, nor
could you move if you were somehow made aware of the situation. (For
the latter case, maybe having someone cast STONE TELL on a Petrified
person would make the stone somewhat aware - a rock under STONE TELL
has to be aware of the questions being asked, and it also is aware
enough of its surroundings to be able to say what is behind it and so
on. But I don't think "your" mind would be there. Your Petrified body
would answer as any regular piece of rock would answer.
Of course, in 3.5E a SPEAK WITH DEAD doesn't contact the soul of the
departed. Instead, you speak to the remaining physical body that has
witnessed various things. It's basically SPEAK WITH CORPSE, doing the
same thing on flesh that STONE TELL does on rock. So maybe using STONE
TELL on a Petrified Person would give the same result. Maybe the lump
of stone could tell you about what it had witnessed back when it was
flesh. I'd think a regular metamorphic rock could tell you what it had
been witnessed before the transformation from, say, shale to slate.
But that's still going from one type of rock to another. For flesh
that had turned to stone, the answer is not so clear as to what the
final form could say about the earlier form had witnessed. But I
digress....
So - how many other ways might there be to lose a Saving Throw?