D&D 5E Help parsing 3rd party spell

[James Gasik]

In my current group, a lot of 3rd party content from Kobold Press is allowed, though recently, my heavy-spellcaster party has been coming to me with some truly strange spells from books such as Deep Magic volumes I + II, and last session, one from the Tome of Heroes.

I've run into my fair share of bizarre KP spells, which suffer from poor editing or the designer apparently not thinking to close loopholes or even consider edge cases, but this one truly takes the cake- as near as I can tell, it will completely remove death and dying from the game (instead of making it merely a brief interlude in many cases).

Here's the offender.

So here's the scenario- the PC's were up against a powerful zombie red dragon, animated by the soul of a long-dead archmage due a chain of mishaps, starting with a failed attempt at lichdom.

One party member had hit the zombie with a powerful debuff with a concentration requirement. In order to remove it, the zombie focused it's attacks on them. It had three attacks, it's bite and two claws.

The bite and claw would have knocked the character unconscious, but the Cleric cast the above spell. This allowed the character to maintain concentration after succeeding at a trio of Con saves. Not sure what to do, the dragon hit again, causing two automatically failed death saves to be delivered (as the spell doesn't say anything about this).

But due to the wording of the spell, the character had until the end of their next turn to make their third and final death save, and the dragon wouldn't have another chance to attack until after that point (there was some contention about whether the death save was delayed until the end of the character's next turn OR if they simply had protection from having to make death saves at all until the end of their next turn, and wouldn't have to make one until the start of the turn after their next turn. Not that it ended up mattering).

Given that death from massive damage is already very difficult to do after the first few levels (many powerful 5e enemies rely on multiple attacks to deal damage, instead of one huge attack), doubling the threshold pretty much makes it impossible.

The character was able to heal themselves on their next turn, ending the spell with no ill effect.

So my question is twofold- how does this spell work (basically wanting to know if I read it right) and am I right in thinking it basically makes a character immortal unless they are faced by many foes? And as a distant third, is this spell out of bounds and in need of a major rewrite or ban?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Less disruptive than silvery barbs, IMO.

They're still rolling death saving throws. The intent is that they're essentially dead already, but refusing to lie down for a few more turns (when they finally either stabilize or fail their death saves).

The cleric having this spell and casting it in battle means they weren't using other spells, which is them giving up other options. The answer -- to the extent that I see there needs to be an answer -- is to have your PCs face a variety of challenges so that making the choice to have never surrender on hand means they're giving up spells that could help them through other challenges.

I would probably have the spell expire after X hours, just so you don't have the silly scenario of the cleric casting it on the entire party, one after another, while they're in town for an extended period.

 

[MarkB]

Basically all the spell does is keep the character conscious and allow them to act normally on their turns. In this instance, the major difference it made was the character being able (through a lot of luck) to maintain concentration on a spell. If the dragon had rendered the character unconscious, it still couldn't have killed them any faster, they'd just have been unable to maintain concentration and act on their turn.

Where the spell's description is contradictory is that its duration is listed as instantaneous, and yet its description has it imposing a lasting effect, and ending if the target regains hit points. The duration should be finite, either one round or concentration (up to 1 minute).

 

[James Gasik]

Yes, the lack of a real duration is strange. I suppose the spell isn't as bad as I thought, it just showed up at an opportune time. I simply felt that it kind of steps on death ward, since you can cast it as needed instead of guessing who might need an "exemption from dying" clause.

I certainly don't want to murder the PC's outright, but this was a moment where I suddenly felt the possibility of PC death was taken out back and beat to death with a rock.

 

[MarkB]

Yes, the lack of a real duration is strange. I suppose the spell isn't as bad as I thought, it just showed up at an opportune time. I simply felt that it kind of steps on death ward, since you can cast it as needed instead of guessing who might need an "exemption from dying" clause.

That's certainly true. For being lower level than death ward it's significantly more powerful in at least one respect, which is that it seems to protect against multiple attacks. In your scenario death ward would have kicked in on the dragon's second hit and then ended, after which its third hit would have rendered the PC unconscious and dying.

 

[Distracted DM]

You can ask questions of KP on their reddit and discord- I'm curious what answer you'd get.

 

[billd91]

So my question is twofold- how does this spell work (basically wanting to know if I read it right) and am I right in thinking it basically makes a character immortal unless they are faced by many foes? And as a distant third, is this spell out of bounds and in need of a major rewrite or ban?

I think it treads a bit on death ward, and that may be unwelcome, but it doesn't make the target immortal since any time they get hit while the spell is in effect will still inflict a failed death save on them (2 if it's a crit). It basically keeps the target from being unconscious and thus able to act normally while at 0 hit points. So while it may substantially increase the PC's ability to survive by enabling them to get away, heal themselves, making it harder to hit them and getting an easy death save or two, it's by no means insurmountable.

 

[Quickleaf]

In my current group, a lot of 3rd party content from Kobold Press is allowed, though recently, my heavy-spellcaster party has been coming to me with some truly strange spells from books such as Deep Magic volumes I + II, and last session, one from the Tome of Heroes.

I've run into my fair share of bizarre KP spells, which suffer from poor editing or the designer apparently not thinking to close loopholes or even consider edge cases, but this one truly takes the cake- as near as I can tell, it will completely remove death and dying from the game (instead of making it merely a brief interlude in many cases).

Here's the offender.

View attachment 382568
So here's the scenario- the PC's were up against a powerful zombie red dragon, animated by the soul of a long-dead archmage due a chain of mishaps, starting with a failed attempt at lichdom.

One party member had hit the zombie with a powerful debuff with a concentration requirement. In order to remove it, the zombie focused it's attacks on them. It had three attacks, it's bite and two claws.

The bite and claw would have knocked the character unconscious, but the Cleric cast the above spell. This allowed the character to maintain concentration after succeeding at a trio of Con saves. Not sure what to do, the dragon hit again, causing two automatically failed death saves to be delivered (as the spell doesn't say anything about this).

But due to the wording of the spell, the character had until the end of their next turn to make their third and final death save, and the dragon wouldn't have another chance to attack until after that point (there was some contention about whether the death save was delayed until the end of the character's next turn OR if they simply had protection from having to make death saves at all until the end of their next turn, and wouldn't have to make one until the start of the turn after their next turn. Not that it ended up mattering).

Given that death from massive damage is already very difficult to do after the first few levels (many powerful 5e enemies rely on multiple attacks to deal damage, instead of one huge attack), doubling the threshold pretty much makes it impossible.

The character was able to heal themselves on their next turn, ending the spell with no ill effect.

So my question is twofold- how does this spell work (basically wanting to know if I read it right) and am I right in thinking it basically makes a character immortal unless they are faced by many foes? And as a distant third, is this spell out of bounds and in need of a major rewrite or ban?

Being "still in the fight" while making Death Saves is extremely dangerous.

In your case, the spell turned out in the players' favor. However, it could have gone a much more lethal direction!

While the PC benefiting from "Never Surrender" doesn't suffer the Unconscious condition – which causes melee attacks made against it to be auto criticals (which count as 2 failed death saves) – the PC still suffers an auto death save when sustaining ANY damage

Damage at 0 Hit Points. If you take any damage while you have 0 hit points, you suffer a death saving throw failure. If the damage is from a critical hit, you suffer two failures instead. If the damage equals or exceeds your hit point maximum, you suffer instant death.

Good attack rolls on a claw/claw/bite, a couple of veterans (or other multiattacking monsters), a lucky crit and damaging terrain, the magic missile spell – all of those will KILL the character sustained by "Never Surrender."

It's a huge gamble.

 

[sus323]

Hey there. So my read of this is that it does not make the character immortal. As Quickleaf noted, any damage becomes a failed death save. This just lets you keep going while at the point of death.

As far as when they make the death save, the spell says they don't make them until the end of their next turn. So, in effect, that would mean the start of the turn after that.

For example...

Round 1 - character drops to 0
Round 2 - character acts normally without needing to make death saves
Round 3 - character makes a death save with disadvantage.

This example doesn't account for "failing" death saves due to damage.

I doubt the spell is intended to make you immune from failing death saves due to taking damage (especially since you aren't "rolling" death saves in that instance)

 

[MarkB]

Hey there. So my read of this is that it does not make the character immortal. As Quickleaf noted, any damage becomes a failed death save. This just lets you keep going while at the point of death.

As far as when they make the death save, the spell says they don't make them until the end of their next turn. So, in effect, that would mean the start of the turn after that.

For example...

Round 1 - character drops to 0
Round 2 - character acts normally without needing to make death saves
Round 3 - character makes a death save with disadvantage.

The character's next turn is the turn they next take after dropping to 0 hp. So, if they're dropped to 0 in round 1 and then their turn comes up later in round 1, they make their disadvantage death save at the end of that turn.

All the spell description is spelling out is that it happens at the end of their next turn, so they still get to act normally on that turn, and then make the save.