Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="TuDogz" data-source="post: 1113190" data-attributes="member: 9889">A couple of problems with save or die are these.  1) Players suffer the effects of any rule/spell more often than any given NPC.If I am a lich or any wizard or particularly any sorcerer with knowledge of save or die spells I am going to use them regularly.  It is not logical to have save or die magic in a campaign and not use it.  Therefore players are going to run up against lots of save or die magic and then not save and die with high frequency unless you make your casters into fools who don't use their powerful mojo until they feel like creating a "dramatic moment".  Now you have to make raise dead effects readily available or players are constantly starting new characters.  At this point you have lost the fear of death because it is too prevalent and neither special nor dramatic.  Not much more than a financial setback.  "Okay we subtract 12,000 off the top for True Ressurrections...   again...   that makes everyone's cut 13,142 GP each."2) Give it to the NPCs any eventually you have to give it to the PCs.And how fun is it to DM for or with (from other player's perspective) a PC sorcerer that tosses off ten death effects every combat.  Any player with that kind of effect will use it regularly unless they specifically temper it's use for metagame reasons.As to the original question of what I want from combat.  Presuming a combat against an equally powerful opponent.  I would like it to be reasonably quick and I want it to turn on tactics, strategy and player teamwork.  I want the player's to feel at risk and concern over death.  I want them to need the option of running away when the dice roll poorly.  I don't want some poor sap to get hit with finger of death in round one another in round two and then have to pull my punches to keep from having a TPK while the two dead guys hang out with their thumbs in their bungs for 5 hours.</blockquote>

Verification