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General Tabletop Discussion
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What's your opinion on "Save or Die" effects?
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7592908" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>I think the general rule is this:</p><p></p><p>Save or Anything should be extraordinarily rare in any case where the Anything represents something the party can't recover from. So, 'save or turn to stone' should be an extraordinarily unusual problem to face prior to 'stone to flesh' being available as a curative. 'Save or die' should be an extraordinarily rare problem to face prior to resurrection and the like being available. </p><p></p><p>One possible fix for this is to make 'save or die' turn into, "Save or be dying". That is to say, instead of saying that "save or die" leaves you dead, say that it leaves you at negative hit points such that if someone else isn't around to save your bacon quickly, you will probably die.</p><p></p><p>You could also replace "save or die" with "save or take a bunch of damage which may well kill you on the spot". This is something like the same thing, but gives you some granularity the absolutely your dead path doesn't.</p><p></p><p>My biggest problem with removing "save or die" is that thematically, it's often right. As such, I find it better to just telegraph the danger to give the party time to get ready for it than I do trying to remove them entirely and replacing them with fairer but less thematic mechanics - like having the gaze of a medusa slowly turn the gnome into stone rather than having it happen all at once. One may be more gameamble, but it in no way captures the ideas of the fictional inspiration or any of the fiction based on it.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7592908, member: 4937"] I think the general rule is this: Save or Anything should be extraordinarily rare in any case where the Anything represents something the party can't recover from. So, 'save or turn to stone' should be an extraordinarily unusual problem to face prior to 'stone to flesh' being available as a curative. 'Save or die' should be an extraordinarily rare problem to face prior to resurrection and the like being available. One possible fix for this is to make 'save or die' turn into, "Save or be dying". That is to say, instead of saying that "save or die" leaves you dead, say that it leaves you at negative hit points such that if someone else isn't around to save your bacon quickly, you will probably die. You could also replace "save or die" with "save or take a bunch of damage which may well kill you on the spot". This is something like the same thing, but gives you some granularity the absolutely your dead path doesn't. My biggest problem with removing "save or die" is that thematically, it's often right. As such, I find it better to just telegraph the danger to give the party time to get ready for it than I do trying to remove them entirely and replacing them with fairer but less thematic mechanics - like having the gaze of a medusa slowly turn the gnome into stone rather than having it happen all at once. One may be more gameamble, but it in no way captures the ideas of the fictional inspiration or any of the fiction based on it. [/QUOTE]
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What's your opinion on "Save or Die" effects?
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