Epic Fight turns into Epic Farce

Yes, your one fighter has a low will save. You cleric on the other hand, as you openly admit, probably WON'T go down to that save or die spell. D&D IS a party game ;)

The example, however, declared "Everyone who doesn't get that 1/20 chance dies." Ironically, it very handily showed how save-or-die spells aren't that rediculous.

the example I gave before is possible and is one from our current 3.5 game but it was a single number off

We have a Gnome in the party fort save 4 so if she rolled a 1 that would be 5 so substitute 4 for 5 and its factually correct, My Monk on the otherhand has a save of 13 and if he rolls a 20 thats 33 (Even if I had everyone roll 10s my monk would survive and the vast majority of the party would die)

Call me a liar if you want but theres a levels difference between the two characters and the monk is 11th where you could reasonably expect to hit a DC or 19 maybe 20 for a save check.

I put the example into a simple pit trap to see if it made the same sense maybe changing the check from a skill to a save clouded the example a bit too much.

But my point is the same a trap like that would receive glares from players an effect from a monster is expected as fun, like craps, a trap specifically set up by a monster who is the room? fun or not?
 
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Yes, your one fighter has a low will save. You cleric on the other hand, as you openly admit, probably WON'T go down to that save or die spell. D&D IS a party game ;)

The example, however, declared "Everyone who doesn't get that 1/20 chance dies." Ironically, it very handily showed how save-or-die spells aren't that rediculous.
Did I? How so? Sure, the Cleric won't go down - but my Fighter is still dead! I am sitting at the table and watching a hour long combat go by. And losing a party member at the beginning is also a good way to get into a TPK - others might survive the Save or Die part, but now attrition and action economy works against them.

Or are you assuming that the Cleric can "fix" my situation? He might be able to do so if my Fighter did not die. Assuming there is a Cleric at all, and not a Druid, who has less resources available to counter such effects...


Is it possible that in 3e, the designers assumed that you would use spells and other resources at your disposal to get around your weaknesses? And this does not mean just taking iron will and a cloak of resistance. I mean - what do you spend your wealth on?

For example, Underdark has a set of armour which grants persistent mindblank. BOED has soulfire, which grants death ward. Heroes' feast (a 6th lv cleric spell) grants fear/poison immunity. Freedom of movement (available as a 4th lv cleric spell or a ring) makes you immune to grapple and paralysis. If you use tome of battle, any character can nab the diamond mind save boosts with feats (or a wizard can access it at a moment's notice with heroics), subbing in their concentration check in place of their normal save 1/encounter (so a wizard need worry less about failing his fort save, ditto for the fighter and his will save). If your wizard or rogue can enter necropolitan, all the better, with its laundry list of blanket immunities.
Aside from Heroes Feat and Freedom of Movement, most of what you describe is not core material. Of course, I am not limiting my games to core only, but before those sources were published, Save or Die or Save and Sit effects already existed. But you can bet that we bought any equipment and learned any spell that could help us against them.

Maybe 3e was more like a game of "rock, paper, scissors"...;)
Yes, it was.
And I think it felt "cheap". Oh, there is a spell, lets look if there is a spell that protects against it. It just doesn't feel very compelling or smart of me. Just tedious work at reading through spell lists... I remember the premature end of our Age of Worms campaign again.. A Dragon that was able to deal 2d6 (or was it more) Constitution _Drain_ with one of his attacks. After retreating, I looked through my spell lists and several rulebooks to see if my Radiant Servant of Pelor would have a way to fight that. He did not. I found spells that protected against ability damage or healed it, but I did not find a spell that I could cast _fast_ to deal with the drain. It was an "asymmetric" "rock, paper, scissors".
 

If sitting out and taking a breather are so attractive to you, why don't you just watch others post?
I do, a great deal of the time. (well, truth be told, I don't so much watch them sit there typing as I watch the results of said typing, but you get the idea...)
That, or admit that participating is more fun than not participating.
I see it more like being a play, where sometimes you (and maybe some others) are offstage while the other guys do their bit, and other times you're onstage and maybe even have the stage to yourself. The difference is that in a play there are the stars and the supporting roles, i.e. vast differences in total stage time, where in an RPG the stage time usually about evens out over the long-term (here defined as several adventures).

Not participating now and then is, bluntly put, part of the game.

Lanefan
 

I see it more like being a play, where sometimes you (and maybe some others) are offstage while the other guys do their bit, and other times you're onstage and maybe even have the stage to yourself. The difference is that in a play there are the stars and the supporting roles, i.e. vast differences in total stage time, where in an RPG the stage time usually about evens out over the long-term (here defined as several adventures).

Not participating now and then is, bluntly put, part of the game.
I have played RPGs in this sort of spirit, but am now finding myself more attracted to the "all participation, all of the time" approach.
 

And I think it felt "cheap". Oh, there is a spell, lets look if there is a spell that protects against it. It just doesn't feel very compelling or smart of me. Just tedious work at reading through spell lists... I remember the premature end of our Age of Worms campaign again.. A Dragon that was able to deal 2d6 (or was it more) Constitution _Drain_ with one of his attacks. After retreating, I looked through my spell lists and several rulebooks to see if my Radiant Servant of Pelor would have a way to fight that. He did not. I found spells that protected against ability damage or healed it, but I did not find a spell that I could cast _fast_ to deal with the drain. It was an "asymmetric" "rock, paper, scissors".

Ahh good old "rock, paper, scissors, nuclear bomb"

Like Ginnel said, if a dm dropped a bomb in the room and gave the players one round to get out of the room else everyone made a fort save or died, the players would not participate in that dms game for long.

Whats the difference between that and replacing bomb with bodak, unleashed on you by a big bad guy, because to be honest i'd stock my dungeon up with as many SoD effects as possible as a super intelligent bad guy.

I don't feel heroic high fantasy is represented by the adventures going into the bad guys lair and then being struck dead by one spell. If characters are killed its generally a very rare occurance.

The proliferance of monsters with SoD may have something to do with how hard it is to kill characters in other ways, which is why 4e has tried to make it possible to kill characters with "normal" damage.

With regards to saves in 3e, in all the games we've played over the 6 years we've had perhaps 10 cloaks of resistance over 50-60 characters. Games hardly ever stopped long enough IC for characters to make items and the loot tables stopped them from occuring regularly. Solution, an unspoken contract that meant SoD didn't get used, the DMs didn't use SoD effects, and boy is it narking to have your big fight for the session killed by one effect.
We didn't go to forum boards so didn't learn what items were needed to keep us alive, and thats if the dm allowed us to make them, that anyone could make them or that characters wanted them.
The effect Saves of 10th lvl characters were anywhere between 2 and 12

Sorry for the ramble, and i still think its important to be able to react to a situation not just being able to prempt it.
Reacting vs Prempting is equivalent to Skill vs Luck(or planning).
 

With regards to saves in 3e, in all the games we've played over the 6 years we've had perhaps 10 cloaks of resistance over 50-60 characters.

That might be another problem. I think the game also assumes that your PCs will find some way of accessing the basic stat-boosting gear, so cloaks of resistance are for most part, "expected and necessary", rather than "nice to have". So if you can't craft them and dungeons don't drop them, then you should have a way of commissioning one to be made for you, or purchasing one in a magemart (or whatever passes for it in your campaign).:p
 

I don't feel heroic high fantasy is represented by the adventures going into the bad guys lair and then being struck dead by one spell. If characters are killed its generally a very rare occurance.
Again, this is precisely the opposite of the way my group sees it.
It is heroic to go face death.
It is exactly unheroic to live because the campaign mechanics are built to stack the deck that way.

I can understand that not everyone wants the same game experience we do.
But you are defining a game that puts playing through the mini battle far far ahead of creating an engaging world model.

Failing a save against a bodak and not dying is the opposite of fun to me. It's like, ok, I'm alive. And that isn't a bodak. It is just a set of combat stats called a bodak but made to keep the battle going rather than do what a bodak does.

Of course, the very idea of a bad guy getting to simple pack a lair full of arbitrary SoD effects fits right in the "battle game over sensibility" approach as well.
 

And I think it felt "cheap". Oh, there is a spell, lets look if there is a spell that protects against it. It just doesn't feel very compelling or smart of me. Just tedious work at reading through spell lists... I remember the premature end of our Age of Worms campaign again.. A Dragon that was able to deal 2d6 (or was it more) Constitution _Drain_ with one of his attacks. After retreating, I looked through my spell lists and several rulebooks to see if my Radiant Servant of Pelor would have a way to fight that. He did not. I found spells that protected against ability damage or healed it, but I did not find a spell that I could cast _fast_ to deal with the drain. It was an "asymmetric" "rock, paper, scissors".
So if you have to get past a river of lava will it feel cheap to you that drinking it won't work?

Seriously, I think the presumption that absorb and counter the attack is the one alternative is terribly limited. (And very battle-gamey)
 

This seems to conflate game and metagame.

In the gameworld, it might make sense to say that the greatness of PC accomplishment depends upon risks run.

But in the real world I, the player, am not accomplishing anything great. I'm just having fun playing a game. And it makes no sense (to me at least) to say that the funness of my hobbytime depends upon running the risk of not getting to play.

It is quite possible to have RPG mechanics which allow ingame risk to the PCs without metagame risk to the players' fun. 4e is one example of this.

Actually it is how you look at it. If I, as a fighter, never had to deal with any risk because the great and powerful magi in the realm couldn't kill me with a single spell instantly, I wouldn't see any great risk in running right into their lair and swinging away at whatever minions were there. No big deal, and nothing really to brag about.

However, if the great and powerful magi of the realm could kill me with a word, I would see a great risk at just running in, and I would try to prepare by getting my own magi to help, or getting some sort of magic protection to help me, and so on, until I was ready, and upon defeating, I would want to brag as I did what so many others failed to do.

You can create it with a metagame attitude or not, that is your choice.

I don't see how the risk is there with 4e when there is no save or die spells. Nobody can kill me with a word, and if I am afflicted with something that may take permanent effect in a minute or so, then it seems to me that the gods are always going to be on my side to allow me more than enough time to take care of whatever 'high-powered' magi might be trying to kill me.

I think 4e is encouraging more of the metagame mindset by saying that the characters will always be safe because the player doesn't want to have a single moment of not being able to act.

-wally
 

You can create it with a metagame attitude or not, that is your choice.

I don't see how the risk is there with 4e when there is no save or die spells. Nobody can kill me with a word, and if I am afflicted with something that may take permanent effect in a minute or so, then it seems to me that the gods are always going to be on my side to allow me more than enough time to take care of whatever 'high-powered' magi might be trying to kill me.

I think 4e is encouraging more of the metagame mindset by saying that the characters will always be safe because the player doesn't want to have a single moment of not being able to act.
-wally

I'm not sure how often people are going to have to explain this but in 4e

you..are...not...safe

we clear on that, just because one dice roll doesn't mean my whole character has just gone down the drain doesn't mean its safe, just because my character can now heal to full health for the majority of time after a fight doesn't mean its safe.
Does it mean 4e is safer than 3e? not in my experience (but then DMs tended not to use save or die effects ever).

You can still die 3 bad saving throws before a heal you're dead, -50% of you're hits past 0 your dead.

If you want more challenging fights in 4e throw a level 5 encounter at the 1st level party each time and you get a good chance of them dying, but a good fight and the party will win.
Actually it is how you look at it. If I, as a fighter, never had to deal with any risk because the great and powerful magi in the realm couldn't kill me with a single spell instantly, I wouldn't see any great risk in running right into their lair and swinging away at whatever minions were there. No big deal, and nothing really to brag about.

Huh? what? so if a villain didn't have those properties he couldn't kill you, that seems to be what you're saying, surely thats a flaw with the system you are playing, where only save or die can kill you.

However, if the great and powerful magi of the realm could kill me with a word, I would see a great risk at just running in, and I would try to prepare by getting my own magi to help, or getting some sort of magic protection to help me, and so on, until I was ready, and upon defeating, I would want to brag as I did what so many others failed to do.
Fair enough I like the idea of getting magical protection but this could very well equate to in 4e a normal challenging wizard but with several higher level spells, the sucessful protection negates him using that and maybe stops him recharging other powers, powers which otherwise would have decimated your party making survival hmm 5-15% likely. Getting magical protection from Miracle Max at the local city would not entertain me, unless it was a sub quest of some importence, just buying it would be utterly pointless.
 

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