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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chris_Nightwing" data-source="post: 3772509" data-attributes="member: 882">IMO monsters, spells and effects that produce a save-or-die situation for the PCs aren't scary. Not in the horror, action or adventure sense. They're a real pain, that your tough as titanium nails dwarf might roll a 1 and that's it, no chance to do anything about it. Situations where something bad happens and the PCs start to worry - so, say, someone is paralysed, or starts rapidly losing HP, or is left vulnerable, gives them a scary situation. Do they try to protect/dispel/save that PC, or should they concentrate on the source of the problem. The former could jeopardise another PC whilst the source attacks again, the latter is a risk that might eliminate the danger. Those sort of fights are great fun, because if the source has AC a billion or unlimited HP, whereas the PC can be cured trivially, then the players can only blame themselves if they do the stupid thing.So I don't really want save-or-die, I want save-or-OMG-We'd-Better-Do-Something. I don't want to gamble with my character's life, giving them a 5% chance of death every tought fight, I want to gamble with my character's life by making tough combat decisions and resource use. I want some say in whether I did enough to avoid my death. Not to mention that Christmas Tree Syndrome is heavily influenced by trying to find ways to avoid those 5% chances, through immunities and contingencies and such.Oh and I'll add that you shouldn't have to know the spell list inside out to set up all the contingencies against possible attacks/deaths. It's a fantasy game and as much as possible should be done so that the players can think 'Hm, how might the BBEG try to stop us.. traps, sure, poisoned lures, yup, but teleporting in a fully buffed party of assassins with nothing but save-or-die spells queued up, that's just unfair!' Because it is unfair - I hate that the minute you hit 9th level, suddenly everything in the world is dimensionally locked, nowhere can be scryed and every night you go to sleep you need to ward yourself a million ways to prevent assassination.</blockquote>

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