D&D 5E Is 5e still full of Save or Dies?

Madeiner · May 20, 2015

Hi there.

I'm in the process of switching from pathfinder over to 5e. I don't necessarily like 5e that much, but i can't stand how slow the combat has become in pathfinder at level 14.

That said, i usually run combat encounters that are very similar to MMORPG fights, so any spell or ability that completely removes one or more enemy from a fight is discouraged, or allows the fight to be tactically won and my players will not use it.

For reference, i use tactically won to indicate that a a combat encounter can continue with no risk of death or consequences for the PCs, probably not even consuming resources. Also, a tactically won fight that does not result in all enemies dead, it means it is pointless to continue the fight, so i just describe the victory.

I was under impression that they removed the Save or Die spells, but maybe i am mistaken.

Forcecage is a SoD spell with no save. If there's a single enemy and it doesnt have ranged attacks, or weak ranged attack, the encounter is tactically won with this single spell. If that happens, i'll just narrate how the PCs pepper the enemy with arrows as he helplessy awaits his death.

Banishment has the same issue. If the encounter has 6 creatures, so that the challenge is overcoming the action economy and balanced around trying to win outnumbered by using clever tactics to delay them, if you banish 3 of them instantly the encounter is tactically won. The PCs will stomp over 3 creatures that were designed to proved a challenge if there were 6 of them. For me, that encounter is tactically won aswell.

Contagion is also well known on forums. If you can stun an enemy for 3 rounds, the encounter is tactically over as well. Narrate how the PCs win.

Simulacrum seems to have the same issue for me. I read the forums and people talk about a simulacrum army. I don't really understand what's that supposed to me. Reading the spell, i know i'd never allow more than one simulacrum anyway, under any circumstances.
But still, even ONE simulacrum is a problem for me, because it doubles someone's power. If the encounter was carefully balanced for a party of four, having a fifth level 14 member will skew the balance, and guess what? I either design encounter for a party of five (for a net difference of 0 for this ability for which a PC has spent resources) OR i don't take it into account and guess what? An encounter designed for four people that actually has 5, is over as soon as it begins.

How do you guys
deal with that? I'm really curious.
Also, anywhere i can find a list of these kind of abilities so that i can ban/fix them for my playstyle?
Most of my fun in combat encounter is seeing how the PCs overcome the monsters, which are full of tricks and special abilities, by using wits and finding their one or two weaknesses.
If they don't even get to act twice, i get really bored from combat and i'll tend to skip it.

Rocksome · May 20, 2015

I don't have a problem with them because they're fun. I don't necessarily run every fight to try and break the PCs, I run combat encounters to let them show off their mad skills. Attrition is a much bigger issue in 5e than in previous editions, a series of small encounters where the PCs use their big guns helps reduce the swinginess of Save or Die fights, since the powers are always limited use. If you're running a "3 fights and a skill challenge" campaign then Save or Die spells will cause some problems. Don't forget also that in 5e low-level monsters can still represent a serious threat to PCs en masse. Our 10th level barbarian was nearly laid low by a large group of Dragon Claws and Dragon Wings in Rise of Tiamat just the other night. Save or Die spells are far less effective in these situations (Area of Effect Spells become better however) as they normally limit the number of targets and there is no single big bad to focus fire on.

I'm A Banana · May 20, 2015

So I'm playing a wild sorcerer who specializes in things that lead to action denial - things that stop an enemy from performing an action, effectively removing them from the fight. Some things to keep in mind:

First, one combat isn't the whole game. Even if the party dominates in one encounter, they should be having about six to eight encounters in their day to be challenged, and the farther away you are from that, the more powerful limited-use spells (such as high-level spells) will be. All the spells you speak of are high-level effects. These aren't things that casters can do in every fight.

Second, combats are not typically the party vs. one monster, or 4 monsters in a 10x10 room. An effect like forcecage isn't EVEN a save-or-die, it's no-save-and-you-are-trapped. But it only works on a closely clustered group or a single being. There should typically still be critters that can do things to the party. Contagion can lock down a creature...but only one creature.

Third, related, combats don't happen in a vacuum. A spell like forcecage might win you the occasional encounter, but what's your target doing when that hour is up?

High-level spells can have some limited save-or-suck properties and not break the game because the game isn't balanced on the idea that disabling one monster or handily winning one encounter is outside the realm of possibility for a party (especially at higher levels). Challenge is more than one fight.

...and those fights that are typically meant to be one-on-many challenges are Legendary, which....helps, especially if you have Legendary Resistance.

Madeiner · May 20, 2015

Kamikaze Midget said:
So I'm playing a wild sorcerer who specializes in things that lead to action denial - things that stop an enemy from performing an action, effectively removing them from the fight. Some things to keep in mind:

First, one combat isn't the whole game. Even if the party dominates in one encounter, they should be having about six to eight encounters in their day to be challenged, and the farther away you are from that, the more powerful limited-use spells (such as high-level spells) will be. All the spells you speak of are high-level effects. These aren't things that casters can do in every fight.

Thanks for your input

This is one thing that differs from my playstyle. And probably the source of my problems.
I've never in my life had 6 encounters in one day, except when running the very-rare dungeon adventure (happened like three times in 7 years)
I will have ONE single, very difficult and carefully balanced encounter requiring multiple layers of strategy and designed to shut down character abilities one by one and designed to be overcome by exploiting one of two specific weaknesses of the encounter, usually only after having to use resources on actually finding the vulnerability or exposing it.
Othen than that, i cram as many fights i need to consume players resources based on how many resources i want the characters to have at the boss fight, preferring hard fights to easy ones, in order to have less of them and go on with the story.

Random example: this boss monster can be stunned if you hit its back side at the same time of its right and left side, where it has glowing orbs protecting the weakness.
First, you must see the orbs. Then you must dispel their magic so that you can actually it hit. But, every time you dispel one of the orbs, more monsters are summoned. If you are trigger happy and dispel all three at once, you probably have way to many monsters that you can handle at a single time.
Once all 3 orbs are dispelled the enemy must be hit by 3 characters in 3 key positions.
After a couple turns of beatdown, the monster might regenerate the orbs but change some details.
After he's been defeated, it might rise as a skeleton monster, requiring a completely different set of tactics to beat.

So of course anything that would banish, imprison, prevent the monster from summoning, or anything in that light... must not be allowed.

Third, related, combats don't happen in a vacuum. A spell like forcecage might win you the occasional encounter, but what's your target doing when that hour is up?

Probably rotting away, because you can cast or shoot through at least one version of forcecage.

How would you solve this, providing that we all like this playstyle?

I'm A Banana · May 20, 2015

Madeiner said:
Thanks for your input
This is one thing that differs from my playstyle. And probably the source of my problems.
I've never in my life had 6 encounters in one day, except when running the very-rare dungeon adventure (happened like three times in 7 years)
I will have ONE single, very difficult and carefully balanced encounter requiring multiple layers of strategy and designed to shut down character abilities one by one and designed to be overcome by exploiting one of two specific weaknesses of the encounter, usually only after having to use resources on actually finding the vulnerability or exposing it.

That's....strategic. You can still do this in 5e, it'll just require some careful effort on your part to make it work (which it doesn't sound like you're really opposed to).

One thing you might do - take a look at encounters with phases or waves: once you handle the guard animal, it calls in reinforcements, and once you've dealt with reinforcements the major guard arrives, etc. You might need to give PC's more HP to muddle through this (since you're not really using HD anyway if it's only one encounter per day, just have them add their HD onto their total HP), but that's one way to fit 6-8 encounters into one.

In this way, forcecage and its ilk simply win one "phase" of the encounter (equivalent to one normal encounter). Go ahead, forcecage the goblin boss, the hobgoblin boss is still hot on its heels and coming around the corner as you do so.

Rather than one massive bucket of HP, think of it as one encounter with a lot of different pouches, and as you get through the pouches, your targets change. Being banished or forcecage'd or polymorphed might eat up a pouch, but it won't end the fight.

In a similar vein, you might look into legendary resistance, like what dragons have. Your casters will not enjoy saving-throw based spells as much with that in play on every friggin' encounter.

EzekielRaiden · May 20, 2015

In my experience, yes, a lot of combats will be ended by clever use of SoS/SoD spells. Admittedly, this was in the late playtest rather than the official game, but we had 3/4 combats ended by an only somewhat-optimized 8th level Wizard, and my Cleric wasn't far behind and I did nothing whatsoever to optimize for spellcasting (I was mostly support/defense focused). Even the "Legendary" Black Dragon was no more than a speedbump against a well-prepared Wizard even with Legendary Resistances or whatever they're called, though those of us who didn't have that much spell oomph weren't quite so fortunate.

There's also the key factor that led to SoD/SoS effects being so nasty in 3e: Saves that remain near-static, vs. DCs that grow with level. A caster can often make a (pretty good) educated guess about a monster's strong and weak saves, and thus hit them with a near-unbeatable DC (e.g. 12+proficiency vs. a +0 or -1 modifier might end up being, effectively, 1d20 vs. 18, or 15% chance of success). Players never get more than 2 good saves without a feat, and rarely more than 3 decent-to-good (that is, either prof+high stat, just prof, or just high stat).

With the lack of supplements to add buttloads of new spells, and the general cutting back on some of the problematic ones, some parts of the SoD/SoS thing are dealt with. A few spells--though not enough IMO--also include things like max HP limits so SOME amount of bashing is required before SoD/SoS effects can actually work. And then there are Legendary creatures with Legendary Resistance, which someone I know derisively called "Wizard HP"--it's a number of times that a powerful creature can simply auto-succeed on spell saves. I see both of these measures as treating the symptoms rather than the illness, but they DO have an effect.

TL;DR: It's not *as* bad as it was in 3e. But SoD/SoS is still there, and some of the underlying causes still apply.

Madeiner · May 20, 2015

EzekielRaiden said:
, but we had 3/4 combats ended by an only somewhat-optimized 8th level Wizard

A few spells--though not enough IMO (which?)-- also include things like HP limits

Worrisome. Any chance you remember what spells were problematic, or does anyone have a list somewhere? I dont want to read through 400 spells just to bug-hunt the problematic ones.

Legendary immunity is not a problem for me. Boss fights can be flat out immune to what i think should be immune to, just because i say so and because the encounter is balanced that way. Maybe a successfull SoD will impose disadvantage on their next attack.
So no, you are not slowing that boss monster which is designed to be ran as a high speed chase. Won't happen, infinite legendary immunity. This is accepted at my table.

The rest of the encounters however, i wouldn't want them all solved by a single spell.

EzekielRaiden · May 20, 2015

Well, the three big offenders were Hold Person, some cloud spell (I want to say Cloudkill but it might have been Stinking Cloud?), and Evard's Black Tentacles. EBT in particular was nasty--the dragon couldn't do a damn thing about it, and was forced to abandon some of its best defenses (its watery bed) as a result.

jodyjohnson · May 20, 2015

Almost always the problem spells are iconic story or narrative elements that get used as mechanical clubs within the game system.

I like the idea and narrative behind the spells, but they get used in ways contrary to their intended story origins.

The usual advice given to resolve this is: play another game. D&D has a long history of taking story elements and turning them into mechanical advantages.

My preference would have been to attach Damage expressions to every spell - and then the combat ending effects only work when the foe is reduced to 0hp - 'save or dies' get used because they are more efficient than smack until they die.

But my preference is narrative simulation rather than world simulation.

bganon · May 20, 2015

High level spells (and in general, high-level 1/day abilities) are encounter-changers. A paladin or battle master can pack limited-use abilities into one round almost as much as a caster. The abilities need to be taken into account when designing fights.

Forcecage: if your 13th-level party runs into a lone monster that fits into a 20' cube, with no magical movement and no threatening ranged attack, then Forcecage isn't the only problem it has. That's a creature that's easy to shut down in a million different ways. Forcecage is one of the best, but far from the only one.

Banishment: to use it against multiple creatures again requires a high-level slot, and it ends if the caster's concentration is broken. Often not too hard to arrange. The spell also requires a material component of "something distasteful to the target", which if strictly enforced can make the spell nearly worthless without scrying or something ahead of time.

Contagion: Slimy Doom is broken. Fix it and move on.

Simulacrum: is a dispellable illusion that takes 12 hours to cast. Again, this might be breakable but no reasonable DM would allow the shenanigans some people dream up. Just assume the party will have an extra NPC available and build encounters accordingly. Again, if effectively adding one (fragile) caster to the party breaks the encounter then there are probably a lot of other options the PCs could have used to shut it down.