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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Man in the Funny Hat" data-source="post: 4938182" data-attributes="member: 32740">whoa.  Thread resurrection.  Oh well.Save-or-die is a problem that designers, in their continued ignorance, have always left for DM's to solve. To a VERY limited extent save-or-die is okay. There ARE some things in a game world which should be able kill characters definitively, and without hesitation while still allowing PC's SOME chance of survival. The problem is that DM's need to be KEENLY aware of when and why they want to introduce such things into the game because it is then up to the DM to ensure that sufficient warnings and chances for avoidance or alternate solutions are given to the PC's. Save-or-die is acceptable - but only when players CAN anticipate the danger level actually being faced, AND have opportunity to avoid it or alleviate the danger. Save-or-die is most eggregious when it occurs suddenly, without a sign of the actual danger and then the ONLY possible means of success is a SINGLE lucky die roll which players are then specifically in no position to even adjust circumstantially. PC's SHOULD die if they blunder unprepared into situations of certain death, ignoring danger signs and warnings. And PC's and NPC's do NOT play by the same rules here. It's not generally a problem if PC's can whip out a few save-or-die effects on the bad guys. Kill all you want - I'll just make more. But players should have a reasonable expectation (especially as their characters gain levels) of being able to ensure their characters survival beyond a single, arbitrary die roll. Making alterations to how "deaths door" is handled can be one solution, but the only proper solution is a studious process of finding those save-or-die effects and fixing them one by one. The fixes for each also need not be, indeed should not be universal. Some should be fixed by changing death effects to hit point damage, some to ability damage, some single/instant effects changed to ones that need to be sustained for a time or repeated to achieve full effect, some just dropped summarily, some provided with warning signs, others with onset time for their effects, and so on and so forth. In summary, they must be carefully written out of the game. There is no magic-bullet solution for them.</blockquote>

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