Troll Lord Games

This has probably come up before, so I apologize if it's a dead horse.
I've owned C&C for quite awhile, but haven't gotten many chances to play it. I was playing in a mid level (10th) one shot game last week which made me think that the scale of saving throw difficulties might be off at upper levels. I might be missing something, but it seems like it breaks down like this,
1) There doesn't seem to be many modifiers to "Save DC." Which means that they are just a flat 13/18.
2) This works fine at low levels since it comes out to slightly less than a 50% chance of making a primary save and almost no chance of making a secondary save.
3) At 10th level this is a problem as just from flat bonuses (not accounting for Class, race, or item bonuses) you would have roughly a +11 to saves (+10 LVL, +1 Ability Mod). This means that you will basically never fail a primary save and only fail secondary saves 30% of the time (again, before accounting for Class, Race and Item Mods). This seems too high for 10th level.
The specific event that caused me to feel this way was when the PC Monk with amazingly high stats tried to stun my Barbarian with roughly average stats. I simply couldn't fail the save (+10 LVL, +1 Mod, +4 from Barbarian= +15). Even if the save hadn't been primary, I'd succeed on a roll of 3+. I think that is too high considering he was equivalent level to me and had higher stats, I feel like I should have had, at best, a 50% chance of success.

I'm thinking that one easy way to fix this might be to go the 4E route of only adding half level to ability throws. Another possibility is to go the D&D Next route of just never having saves go up, but that would add complexity as I'd have to separate saves from other ability throws.
So, am I missing something, or is this something that really needs tweaking? I know C&C is meant to be rules light so these things are likely to happen occasionally, but I just feel like this would make it feel like rolls were too easy from 8th level on.

Your CK apparently didn't do a CL add, which would have been the level of the Monk. So it would have been 12/18 + the level of the Monk for you to save against.

This is something that a couple of my players have railed hard against when we were regularly playing, calling the Siege Engine a "broken rule". I don't know that I ever adequately explained it to them, but as a CK, it's very important to remember that it's not just a base roll (d20+ Character Level + Attribute Bonus > 12 or 18) all the time.

Any saves or opposed attribute checks (meaning person vs. person/monster.) have the HD of the creature (or level of the NPC) added to them, so a 10th level fighter with a +1 attribute bonus making a strength check against a 8th level fighter would be {d20 roll + 10 + 1 > 12 (strength being prime) + 8}. Immediately it goes from a "roll anything other than a 1" to "need to roll a 9 or more." Still a 50ish% chance, but more challenging. The CK can also add other situational modifiers if they apply, too, to make it more challenging.

More concerning to me were passive (not the actual term, I'm blanking on that) attribute checks, where, say, a character is attempting to do something like make a dex check to cross a narrow bridge to get over a windy chasm and has only the base challenge level to contend with. Say I assign a CL of 3 to that. A 9th level thief and ranger could skip across while whistling a merry tune, and I doubt I'd have much problem with that-- for a thief or ranger, surefootedness is part of the job description. But say a human wizard has chosen Dex as a prime. Getting across a shaky bridge isn't really a cross-class skill or anything, but does it make sense that he would skirt across with as much ease as the thief and ranger?

The way I handled it was to use 1/2 level rounded up for some passive checks, if it made sense. Now, for some players, this is hopelessly arbitary (so the "broken rule" conversations), but it seemed to me to be the best alternative.

Not sure if that helps!

One thing I have noticed Seskis use when havng us roll seige checks is to evaluate the situation to determine if experience is a factor in that specific situation. Like you step to the cliff face to gaze out upon the sunset and the ground suddenly breaks away. If you were take Argo's dex prime wizard you would be quick on your feet but nothing about being a wizard teaches you how to react and jump back from ground leaving under your feet so it would be a dex save without levels so it would maintain the same level of difficulty at level 10 as it would at level unless the wizard had increase his dex mod somehow through out the course of his adventures.

But definitely going to echo tree and that CLs are there to make sure the difficultly just doesn't disappear. They can also be used to prevent players from getting stupid lucky and doing some game breaking event.

Nyarlathotep5150 wrote: 1) There doesn't seem to be many modifiers to "Save DC." Which means that they are just a flat 13/18.

If you were 10th level and your GM wasn't using anything beyond 12/18, he wasn't doing it "right". He/she was not scaling the challenge add with the HD/level of the opponents.

Arduin wrote:

Nyarlathotep5150 wrote: 1) There doesn't seem to be many modifiers to "Save DC." Which means that they are just a flat 13/18.

If you were 10th level and your GM wasn't using anything beyond 12/18, he wasn't doing it "right". He/she was not scaling the challenge add with the HD/level of the opponents.

Actually, this one wasn't on him. I didn't remember the rule. The situation was, the CK was one of those guys that always wants to run games, but never bothers to learn the rules, so the game itself was completely arbitrary and inconsistent. I was the only person at the table that actually knew the rules (and, like I said, I haven't played them that much and usually not at higher levels). So this one, short fight between our two PC's was one of the only chances to impose the rules on the game (by kinda cutting the need for CK rulings out of it). But I didn't remember that rule.

Nyarlathotep5150 wrote: Actually, this one wasn't on him. I didn't remember the rule. The situation was, the CK was one of those guys that always wants to run games, but never bothers to learn the rules, so the game itself was completely arbitrary and inconsistent. I was the only person at the table that actually knew the rules (and, like I said, I haven't played them that much and usually not at higher levels). So this one, short fight between our two PC's was one of the only chances to impose the rules on the game (by kinda cutting the need for CK rulings out of it). But I didn't remember that rule.

No worries then. Every new game has a learning curve. Perhaps starting PCs at 1st level is a better idea. Just until all get a feel for the basics anyway.