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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Runestar" data-source="post: 4400081" data-attributes="member: 72317">I would argue that protection from evil does not work against a harpy (though that is secondary to the discussion at hand). The spell you have in mind is probably silence, since the harpy song is a sonic effect.Won't it boil down to the same thing? Cleric casts silence (or casts it from a scroll), entire party squeezes inside, then find a way to slay the harpy, chase it away or bypass it. At the end of the day, it is still resources expended, just that the majority is spent on defensive buffs allowing you to resist the harpy's song, rather than actually defeating them (because note that the harpies can still fly, and possibly wield ranged weaponry). Even if you had cast invisibility on everyone to sneak past them, it would still be resources expended. After all, the game just assumes you spend ~25% of your resources on a equal EL encounter, it does not come out and say how those resources must be allocated, or expended in what manner. If you face a pit fiend, for instance, 20% of your resources could be spent on buffs (eg: heroes' feast, mindblank, energy resistance, scrolls of dismissal etc), and the remainder taking the form of actual damage taken during the fight. That the battle ended up being easier compared to if you had not pre-buffed still would not change the fact that either way, party resources still were used up.Well, my response would be that rolling a natural 1 on your save is a metagame concept. In-game, your character won't know that he will fail a particular save only on a natural 1. When he does fail his will save against said spell, his reaction should be more along the lines of "darn, I let down my guard for just 1 moment, and this happens" or "I just wasn't strong enough", rather than "crap, I must have rolled a 1. Just my luck".He wouldn't know why he failed the save, just that he did, and this would influence his future responses accordingly.<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />I would say they are fine when used in moderation. Obviously, I don't go around throwing encounters consisting of like, 4 bodaks at the party and go telling them to make 4 fort saves each round, at every turn. But the issue I have with simply hp damage is that it can get too predictable after some time. The fighter with 100+ hp knows that he can weather 2-3 fireballs with ease. There is just little/no tension left in the fight. They don't mind taking damage because they know how readily it can be healed/undone. Each fight just boils down to a battle of attrition. It gets .... I dunno the word...mechanical? after a while.I find that once in a while, save-or-suck effects are useful for shaking things up and reminding players that they are ultimately still mortal, despite their stats. Like that ghost medusa constantly using hit and run in and out of walls to force the party to make 4 saves each round or be subjected to a myraid of penalties...Boy, that sure had the party crapping in their pants.Ah...good memories... Granted, it helps that no one plays a fighter anymore (the warblade replaced him in our games long ago), so making saves aren't all that hard. And to your question, my answer is "Yes, we are fine with it, so long as it is used in moderation (how much will vary on the players, but my point is that it has its place, and can actually enhance your gaming experience if used appropriately. So I wouldn't write them out completely."<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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