D&D 5E Is 5e still full of Save or Dies?

[cmad1977]

I rather like SoD type spells. I feel like they add a terrifying lethality to magic in the game. Unfortunately that lethality is sometimes used against my carefully crafted bad guy and he is destroyed by a clever hero before he even gets a chance to monologue. But that just keeps me on my toes and sends the adventure in a new direction.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Simulacrum seems to have the same issue for me. I read the forums and people talk about a simulacrum army. I don't really understand what's that supposed to me. Reading the spell, i know i'd never allow more than one simulacrum anyway, under any circumstances.
But still, even ONE simulacrum is a problem for me, because it doubles someone's power. If the encounter was carefully balanced for a party of four, having a fifth level 14 member will skew the balance, and guess what? I either design encounter for a party of five (for a net difference of 0 for this ability for which a PC has spent resources) OR i don't take it into account and guess what? An encounter designed for four people that actually has 5, is over as soon as it begins.

How do you guys deal with that? I'm really curious.

I deal with it by not even pretending to balance encounters for the party. (I never know which PCs are going to be in use on a given night anyway.) Whether it's a single CR 5 Roper in a cave, or a gigantic double-strength CR 20 Roc from an air world, or a citadel full of 40 Neogis and 48 Umber Hulks[1], there are as many monsters as there are.

[1] My simplistic rules: if you bust in and surprise them, you get to fight 1 Neogi + Umber Hulk pair at a time. Every time someone sounds the alarm, the die size of the next encounter group doubles. So if the first neogi gets away or sounds the alarm somehow, the next group will be 1d2 Neogis and 1d2 Umber Hulks, and after two alarms it would be 1d4 and 1d4 as they get increasingly nervous about the attack and clump together. The players know this in advance and it prevents me having to keep track of enemy movement throughout the whole citadel, which is boring.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Well, the three big offenders were Hold Person, some cloud spell (I want to say Cloudkill but it might have been Stinking Cloud?), and Evard's Black Tentacles. EBT in particular was nasty--the dragon couldn't do a damn thing about it, and was forced to abandon some of its best defenses (its watery bed) as a result.

It's watery bed was only 20'? You'd think it would want a larger cave, simply for the comfort factor. If it's a medium-large cavern of 50' radius, that would still be enough to let it stay underwater while avoiding the tentacles.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

Seems like so many spells have a Duration/Concentration/SaveEveryTurn mechanic going on. So as a wizard not only does your spell have a pretty limited duration (say an average of 1 minute), but you also have to concentrate on it (so no more concentration spells and don't get hurt!) and the target gets a new save every turn.

Given this, the occasional SoD event seems pretty trivial compared to previous versions.

 

[Erik42]

I'm coming from AD&D to 5E, so I can't compare to 3, 3.5, PF, 4... But compared to 1E there are very few save or die rolls, whether it is spells, poison, etc. And the save every round mechanic is annoying as hell. If you get turned to stone by a basilisk, it shouldn't wear off ten seconds later. Sheesh, I mean, come on. 5E seems to make it very hard for anything too terribly bad to happen to PCs. 8 hours of sleep will pretty much heal any wound, no matter how grievous. There are no real penalties for being knocked unconscious either - get a hit point and just jump back into the fray.

 

[famousringo]

I feel like any encounter that you're worried will be shut down by a well-prepared caster can be made more challenging by simply adding a goblin hedge wizard or somesuch who knows Counterspell to the encounter. It's like an extra on-demand saving throw (possibly several saving throws) for your encounter, even against spells like Forcecage.

I'm sure players will be thrilled to know they've thrown away an expensive material component to neutralize a grubby little humanoid's third level slot.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

How would you solve this, providing that we all like this playstyle?

You are going to have difficulties, because 5E isn't really designed for that style. Balance is supposed to take place over the course of 4-12 encounters in a day, which is why it's not game-breaking for a Wizard to neutralize one or two of those at the expense of a high-level spell slot.

The DMG includes guidelines for changing the effective length of the combat day. Instead of telling you how to balance characters against only having one encounter in a day, though, it suggests you re-define the conditions under which the party recovers resources. For example, you could use something like a milestone method, where the party gains the benefit of a short rest after every two encounters (even if they're a week apart), and the benefit of a long rest after four encounters. Or you could say that a long rest can only be completed once per week, and requires you to be in town, so the characters need to manage their resources by taking that into consideration.

For as long as you insist on having only one or two encounters before a long rest reset, you're going to have issues.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I feel like any encounter that you're worried will be shut down by a well-prepared caster can be made more challenging by simply adding a goblin hedge wizard or somesuch who knows Counterspell to the encounter. It's like an extra on-demand saving throw (possibly several saving throws) for your encounter, even against spells like Forcecage.

I'm sure players will be thrilled to know they've thrown away an expensive material component to neutralize a grubby little humanoid's third level slot.

Forcecage doesn't consume the material component in 5E.

 

[famousringo]

Forcecage doesn't consume the material component in 5E.

I stand corrected. I was thinking money (along with spell slots) was supposed to be the check on the power of an unsavable win spell.

Just reinforces my argument for enemies with Counterspell, IMO.

 

[Paraxis]

Monsters also have save or die effects.

Solar bow attack, Beholder death ray, Death Tyrant death ray, Demilich energy drain, Clay Golem slam attack, Mummy Rot, Will-o-Wisp consume life, and others.