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Is 5e still full of Save or Dies?
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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 6621234" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>In my experience, yes, a lot of combats will be ended by clever use of SoS/SoD spells. Admittedly, this was in the late playtest rather than the official game, but we had 3/4 combats ended by an only somewhat-optimized 8th level Wizard, and my Cleric wasn't far behind and I did nothing whatsoever to optimize for spellcasting (I was mostly support/defense focused). Even the "Legendary" Black Dragon was no more than a speedbump against a well-prepared Wizard even <em>with</em> Legendary Resistances or whatever they're called, though those of us who didn't have that much spell oomph weren't quite so fortunate.</p><p></p><p>There's also the key factor that led to SoD/SoS effects being so nasty in 3e: Saves that remain near-static, vs. DCs that grow with level. A caster can often make a (pretty good) educated guess about a monster's strong and weak saves, and thus hit them with a near-unbeatable DC (e.g. 12+proficiency vs. a +0 or -1 modifier might end up being, effectively, 1d20 vs. 18, or 15% chance of success). Players never get more than 2 <em>good</em> saves without a feat, and rarely more than 3 decent-to-good (that is, either prof+high stat, just prof, or just high stat).</p><p></p><p>With the lack of supplements to add buttloads of new spells, and the general cutting back on <em>some</em> of the problematic ones, some parts of the SoD/SoS thing are dealt with. A few spells--though not enough IMO--also include things like max HP limits so SOME amount of bashing is required before SoD/SoS effects can actually work. And then there are Legendary creatures with Legendary Resistance, which someone I know derisively called "Wizard HP"--it's a number of times that a powerful creature can simply auto-succeed on spell saves. I see both of these measures as treating the symptoms rather than the illness, but they DO have an effect.</p><p></p><p>TL;DR: It's not *as* bad as it was in 3e. But SoD/SoS is still there, and some of the underlying causes still apply.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 6621234, member: 6790260"] In my experience, yes, a lot of combats will be ended by clever use of SoS/SoD spells. Admittedly, this was in the late playtest rather than the official game, but we had 3/4 combats ended by an only somewhat-optimized 8th level Wizard, and my Cleric wasn't far behind and I did nothing whatsoever to optimize for spellcasting (I was mostly support/defense focused). Even the "Legendary" Black Dragon was no more than a speedbump against a well-prepared Wizard even [I]with[/I] Legendary Resistances or whatever they're called, though those of us who didn't have that much spell oomph weren't quite so fortunate. There's also the key factor that led to SoD/SoS effects being so nasty in 3e: Saves that remain near-static, vs. DCs that grow with level. A caster can often make a (pretty good) educated guess about a monster's strong and weak saves, and thus hit them with a near-unbeatable DC (e.g. 12+proficiency vs. a +0 or -1 modifier might end up being, effectively, 1d20 vs. 18, or 15% chance of success). Players never get more than 2 [I]good[/I] saves without a feat, and rarely more than 3 decent-to-good (that is, either prof+high stat, just prof, or just high stat). With the lack of supplements to add buttloads of new spells, and the general cutting back on [I]some[/I] of the problematic ones, some parts of the SoD/SoS thing are dealt with. A few spells--though not enough IMO--also include things like max HP limits so SOME amount of bashing is required before SoD/SoS effects can actually work. And then there are Legendary creatures with Legendary Resistance, which someone I know derisively called "Wizard HP"--it's a number of times that a powerful creature can simply auto-succeed on spell saves. I see both of these measures as treating the symptoms rather than the illness, but they DO have an effect. TL;DR: It's not *as* bad as it was in 3e. But SoD/SoS is still there, and some of the underlying causes still apply. [/QUOTE]
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