Save or Struggle

[Pyske]

Since I'm sure no-one is sick of the old "save or die" topic yet, I thought I'd post my own house rule. Not yet playtested, but it may be in place from the start in my upcoming campaign.

Rules:

On any round when a character is affected by a spell or effect which would incapacitate them, the character my elect to struggle against the spell effect.

Struggle delays the effects of the spell by one round, at the following price: the character makes a save vs the same DC originally failed. If passed, the character may take a max of one partial action for the round. On failure, the PC may take no actions (including free actions), and loses Dex bonus. In either case (pass or fail), the spell effect is delayed, but the hero takes 1D2 ability damage per level of the effect resisted, to the stat governing the spell's save.

Spells may be dispelled normally while someone is struggling against their effect. This is an exception to the rule that instant spells may not be dispelled.

Example:

NPC casts Hold Person on PC, who fails her save and SR checks. PC is now paralyzed. Realizing the risk of coup-de-grace, PC elects to struggle. PC rolls a second save vs the original DC, but fails. She takes 4 Wisdom damage (3D2), may take no actions, and loses her Dex bonus to AC. However, she is not helpless and may not be coup-de-graced.

The following round, the PC continues to struggle, rolling well and beating the save DC (despite the -2 caused by Wisdom damage). She may take a partial action to attack NPC or to cast a spell. She takes another 5 Wisdom damage (3D2 again), but is neither helpless nor denied Dexterity bonus for the round. She threatens her reach area, and may speak or take other free actions. The Wisdom damage is accumulating, however, and she is unlikely to be able to struggle for much longer.

Objectives:

Keep the players involved in the game, even after failing a single save versus a save or XXX spell.

Avoid radically changing the viability and usefulness of save or die spells (while still nerfing them slightly)... they should still take someone "mostly" out of the battle.

Make the decision to struggle a tactical one with significant consequences. It should sometimes be wiser not to struggle, depending on situation and immediate risk.

Feedback:

Do you think the rules meet the objectives?

Can you think of any loopholes? Side-effects? If so, are there any fixes?

I expect that it will make Dispel Magic even more of a must-have, since there is now a brief window for dispelling those death spells...

. . . . . . . -- Eric

 

[the Jester]

Avoid radically changing the viability and usefulness of save or die spells (while still nerfing them slightly)... they should still take someone "mostly" out of the battle.

Make the decision to struggle a tactical one with significant consequences. It should sometimes be wiser not to struggle, depending on situation and immediate risk.

To be honest, I think this totally nerfs all save-or-incapacitated spells. And I don't see any reason to ever not struggle.

 

[Kalanyr]

Well there is the possibility of being ability damaged to a Con of 0, which means you can't be resurrected since you'd have to be alive to have restoration cast or to heal naturally but you can't be brought back to life to do so since you have 0 Con. But yeah there's no reason at all not to struggle at least one round barring a very low stat point total. I don't think nerfing save or be incapacitated or dies is a good idea, a high level meleer can easily deal enough damage in one round to no-save-and-die a caster, save and dies are basically the only answer casters have to such things (the direct damage spells are usually pathetic compared to Hit Points of said meleers).

 

[Pyske]

To be honest, I think this totally nerfs all save-or-incapacitated spells. And I don't see any reason to ever not struggle.

Reasons to not struggle:
+ The save DC is too high (i.e. fighter hit by will save), so struggling may not give much chance of gain.
+ The cost is too high: in addition to eventually suffering the spell effect, you are taking (fairly large amounts of) ability damage. That has a cost to repair, in healing time or additional spells.
+ The risk is too high. You may go from being helpless for rounds (Hold Person) to being comatose (0 Wis) and still be unable to act.
+ The timing isn't right. Each round you struggle give diminishing returns / chance of success. Bide your time for when it really matters (and the enemy is assuming you're still helpless).

Perhaps you considered all these, but I thought it worth listing them. If you still think you would never fail to struggle, how would you increase the costs of struggling?

. . . . . . . -- Eric

 

[Kalanyr]

This is my reasoning for why the cost isn't high enough:

Doesn't matter if the save DC is too high, the effects of struggling still beat being incapacitated or dead, and the save DC is the same either way.

The cost of healing ability damage is trivial compared to healing death or domination (in spell slots or healing time). Lesser restoration cures ability damage and its a 2nd level spell (IIRC).

The risk isn't to high, you just work out what the maximum damage is and stop struggling the round that crosses the danger threshhold

How can you bide your time ? You can't bide against death effects and other incapacitation spells that you can choose to fight against later is a spell that is completely useless, I mean if I cast Dominate on someone and it succeeds I don't expect him to struggle 5 rounds later, (or as soon as he's walked up to my foe to hit them) if I do I won't dominate him, I'll hit him with a death effect instead.