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<blockquote data-quote="Mustrum_Ridcully" data-source="post: 3822820" data-attributes="member: 710">Yes, that is true. But the question is - how many activities could the PCs or BBEG perform to affect the outcome of this die roll? How many of them are reasonable within the context of the situation? Death Ward is a good protection against death spells, except for the fact that its duration is pretty short. If you know only the BBEG will have a Death effect, you can suspect that before you get near to the throne room or his arcane study room, you probably don't need it. But if there could be a Bodak behind every corner (but most likely there won't be one), your only protection becomes extremely unreliable, and there is little you can to do avoid this.Now, Bodak is probably a bad example, it's probably just a badly designed monster. But in a higher level game, not only the BBEG might be able to cast a death effect - some of his allied mages and apprentice might also be able to do it (maybe just because he gave them a scroll of the spell). At some point, gathering intelligence and taking precautions reach level of work that you lose the enjoyment of the game. It's just becoming tedious.And what is happening if the BBEG is smart and decides to no longer wait for the PCs, and instead takes the Initiative and attacks them when they are unprepared? That should certainly be a hard encounter, but it should still stay fair. A magical effect that has the potential to kill every party member in one swoop doesn't sound fair. Not even one that has a fair chance to kill half of the party...</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Mustrum_Ridcully, post: 3822820, member: 710"] Yes, that is true. But the question is - how many activities could the PCs or BBEG perform to affect the outcome of this die roll? How many of them are reasonable within the context of the situation? Death Ward is a good protection against death spells, except for the fact that its duration is pretty short. If you know only the BBEG will have a Death effect, you can suspect that before you get near to the throne room or his arcane study room, you probably don't need it. But if there could be a Bodak behind every corner (but most likely there won't be one), your only protection becomes extremely unreliable, and there is little you can to do avoid this. Now, Bodak is probably a bad example, it's probably just a badly designed monster. But in a higher level game, not only the BBEG might be able to cast a death effect - some of his allied mages and apprentice might also be able to do it (maybe just because he gave them a scroll of the spell). At some point, gathering intelligence and taking precautions reach level of work that you lose the enjoyment of the game. It's just becoming tedious. And what is happening if the BBEG is smart and decides to no longer wait for the PCs, and instead takes the Initiative and attacks them when they are unprepared? That should certainly be a hard encounter, but it should still stay fair. A magical effect that has the potential to kill every party member in one swoop doesn't sound fair. Not even one that has a fair chance to kill half of the party... [/QUOTE]

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