What's your opinion on "Save or Die" effects?

I use save or suck and save or die. I have specific foes within the story to be faced. Such as a medusa who was using her abilities to back up the "biggest" orc so he could lead all the tribes. The players had to remove the orc and bring the medusa alive to a third party alive. Mission accomplished and the coalition broke up due to infighting.

There is also giving to the players what they give to their opponents. The thieves that want to one shot sneak attack the rival guild members can expect the rival guild to be trying the same to them if they do not take care.

When going at the final fiend, everything goes. Three of my players have decided that they want to go after two dragons in order to kill them and steal their eggs. Mom and dad Puffenstuff will show no mercy.

Bawylie said:

Save or “Dying” comes up frequently at my table (any time you take damage in excess of your constitution score).

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Oh, wow! That’s pretty cool, is that in addition to or instead of the normal rule where you die without entering the “Dying” state when you take damage equal to your current hit points + your max hit points in one shot?

I think in 5e sace or die does not fit to the way saving throws work. A single save will not really favour those that are only a few points better than the average person.
Lets be honest, with good stats and a matching saving throw you might be 5 points better.
So that saving throw mechanic is usually used as a duration mechanic. The better your save the easier to get out of bad effects.
In a perfect 5e every spell should always apply a minor effect (like a save for half damage spell). Probably the effect will end automatically at the beginning or end of your next turn. If you didn't save, you need to make an extra save. If you succed, you are free. If you fail it gets worse. After 3 failed saves its over.
That is nearly how turn to stone, the spell works. From a PC point of view it is probably a disappointing spell, it might need a few tweaks but that is how I would change the medusas in your level.
As far as I know, medusas don't really work together usually. Maybe their transformation was willingly, or a slightly weaker curse. Make stone gaze work as turn to stone and it might be ok for your players.

Fauchard1520 said:

Speaking as a DM, I find that I'm a bit torn on the subject of save-or-die effects.

You see, I've been running my guys through a medusa cult, and the risk of oops-I'm-a-rock has added a solid sense of danger to the proceedings. Like I said though, it's an entire medusa-themed level, meaning that I'm running the risk of going overboard, becoming annoying rather than challenging.

So help me out here. How often do you use save-or-die effects in your games? And if you do use 'em, how easy should it be to bounce back with a resurrection (or in my case a de-stoning potion)?

Comic for illustrative purposes.

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I use them when appropriate. But only when appropriate.

(And only after my players know that I’m generally unlikely to fudge in their favor,)

Fauchard1520 said:

Speaking as a DM, I find that I'm a bit torn on the subject of save-or-die effects.

You see, I've been running my guys through a medusa cult, and the risk of oops-I'm-a-rock has added a solid sense of danger to the proceedings. Like I said though, it's an entire medusa-themed level, meaning that I'm running the risk of going overboard, becoming annoying rather than challenging.

So help me out here. How often do you use save-or-die effects in your games? And if you do use 'em, how easy should it be to bounce back with a resurrection (or in my case a de-stoning potion)?

Comic for illustrative purposes.

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To your comic:
There are rot grubs in 5e. Rot grub swarms actually. And it is nearly save or die. Look at the kobolt inventor.

I love "save or die" effects, but I use them sparingly, and only for high level parties. It's a great way to put some fear into the players when they are about to face a big bad, provided you first foreshadow it. Just last sunday my players discovered that the statues at the bottom of a lake were actually petrified dwarves, caused by an octopus-beholder (or eyetupus as they called it), and that made them very anxious. They then proceeded to spend the entire session preparing for that battle, so all in all I think it was effective.

Now I play 3.5 mind you, so there are a number of counter measures against some save-or-die effects, with Deathward being the most commonly used. Plus there are all manner of ways in which the players can boost their saving throw bonusses.

I too am torn. Let me try to untear myself. First, I'll note that 5E, which has very few true Save or Dies left, took the general approach to fixing Save or Dies of changing most of them into "Save or take an amount of damage which will very likely kill you". It's a solution of sorts (I think maybe it feels less bad to be told "you take 55 damage" even if you're at 15 hp than to be told "you're dead") but it's not much of a solution.

I think that the higher the party's level is and the more party members there are, the more appropriate Save or Die effects are. The fewer party members and the lower their level, the more likely Save or Die effects are to ruin a game. I think could actually make a table, if this forum supports tables. Eh, I'll make a fable (fake table) instead.

I'm concerning myself only with the impact of Save or Die effects on PCs. If a big bad or a boss fight fails a save on a save or lose or a save or die early in the fight, that is one of the rare times I will fudge it (in 3.5), although this is purely academic as my dice luck when DMing is phenomenally, frighteningly awesome and obviously boss monsters are gonna have pretty good save bonuses. Thankfully, in 5E there's Legendary Resistance, so even if true Save or Dies were still a thing (which again they MOSTLY aren't in 5E), there'd be a good solution to their impact on boss fights.

So, PCs, then. Level is only relevant in my calculations here in terms of ease of access to death reversal magic.

Total Party Levels Save or Die effects....
30> ...are completely inappropriate and disruptive to the game...
31-49 ...should probably be used sparingly...
50-60 ...add challenge and depth to both combat and adventuring...
>60 ...should really be used to keep things interesting.

Obviously, that's just my opinion, and no, there isn't any kind rigorous statistics work going on behind those numbers, just going by gut.

The last thing I'd add is that I think Save or Dies should have hard counters, such as death ward in 3.X, or that amulet (can't remember what it was called, also in 3.5) that kept you from getting polymorphed or petrified. PCs should totally have the option to use item slots or spell slots on making sure they don't get OHKO'd by a specific effect.

Trivial Question: do you count save or statue as a save or die?

FINAL DISCLAIMER: I do not know the 5E Monster Manual super well. There could be more save or dies there that I might not be thinking of. I was thinking primarily of the spells in the PHB when I made the statements above that 5E had mostly removed all true Save or Dies.

I didn't mind SoD too much when characters are easy to roll up, at least from a balance PoV. However, I was always dismayed at how old D&D had rather instantaneous effects for things like poison. Seems to me like that should take a while.

My more abstract game-design gripe about them is that they often bypass the HP-mechanic, which was supposed to be the rather singular measure of combat power in this edition. I really like the way Sleep works in 5e and I think that more spells and effects could have been folded into a similar mechanic.

So, for me, medusas would have a bonus Petrifying Visage action which can also be triggered as a reaction. It should do a whopping big amount of petrification damage with an Int or Wis save. Creatures reduced to 0 HP by the attack are turned to stone. Making a save against Petrifying Visage makes a creature immune to further attacks with the ability while the creature is still in visual contact with the medusa.

ParanoydStyle said:

I'm concerning myself only with the impact of Save or Die effects on PCs. If a big bad or a boss fight fails a save on a save or lose or a save or die early in the fight, that is one of the rare times I will fudge it (in 3.5)

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That's a shame. Allowing players to one-shot your big bad is pretty important in my opinion. Sometimes even a boss can get unlucky on his crucial roll, and that can make for a very memorable moment. Like the time when my players successfully used a destroy-undead ability on my big bad ghost pirate captain. He was gone in an instant, much to the joy of my players. It is probably a moment they'll never forget, as an almost impossible battle suddenly swung in their favor due to their quick thinking.

And that is another thing I should probably stress: You should always be consistent in your rules. There are various mechanics that put the players at a big disadvantage, but which can also affect the bad guys just the same. I like the idea that everything basically obeys the same combat rules, even if some monsters have their own resistances. But cast a Banishment on an extra-planar creature no matter how tough, and you have a good chance of sending it back where it came from. Save-or-die is not a problem if it works both ways.

Save or suck is more fun.