D&D 5E Is it fair to cast save-or-suck spells on the players?

[hastur_nz]

...in short; the players were complaining about being hit by these spells that they often had no realistic ability to escape from quickly. We might fairly say that their complaints were touching on the way 5e saving throws are allocated. I countered by observing that these are player spells, and that I'm loath to nerf them since that starts us on a route of nerfing all player abilities; but the player in question responded that what was fair to use on an NPC is not necessarily fair to use on a PC, because it might mean a player gets to do nothing. This is... true, but the consequence is that NPCs never use very common PC tactics like stun-lock or banishment.

Crikey, its not easy being a DM in a high level game, and your players want you to play with one hand tied behind your back? I mean, I dont advise an arms race between dm and players, but this is sounding silly... all the decent players I know, not only expect me to play by the same rules as they do, in fact they demand it.

 

[Fanaelialae]

You'd have to take that up with Chris Perkins, to be honest

PERKIIIIIIINS!

 

[MarkB]

Are you implying entire generations were not having fun in the 70's, 80's, 90's and the 2000's?

Speaking from experience, yeah, frequently. Any time a player has to sit around for an hour unable to contribute to the game is likely to be an unfun time for them.

When players tell their DMs "throw everything you've got at us, we can take it" they're generally talking about challenging their characters' capacity to withstand peril, not their own capacity to withstand boredom.

 

[Sadras]

Speaking from experience, yeah, frequently. Any time a player has to sit around for an hour unable to contribute to the game is likely to be an unfun time for them.

And despite this frequent risk of 'unfun time' players kept playing the game.

I'm not judging anyone's preferred system/mechanic for what fun is or is not. I take issue when the 'design-failure' gauntlet is thrown down by players when things arent going their way. I guarantee you that none of this would have been an issue had the saving throws been made or had the spells been counterspelled. We would not have heard the words 'design-failure'

When you have had access to the spell list and it has worked perfectly for you for your fun, when the same spells (from the same spell list) are being directed at you, you'd best save or suck-it-up!

 

[JonnyP71]

Since when did it become 'unfair' for a player to be deprived of combat turns?

Since when did 'playing the game' just mean 'taking turns in combat'?

In my day Ghouls paralyzed you for half an hour or more, and if you dropped below 0hp your character was out of action for a whole week - if you were lucky and the DM was using the optional 'die at -10hp' rule! And we still enjoyed it and came back for more. They failed a few saves? And they are crying because it meant their PC didn't get to swing a sword for a little while? Well excuse me while I break out some kleenex as my tears are welling up for them...

This pervading sense of player entitlement is worrisome, they should be thankful that the DM let their PC live....

 

[Warmaster Horus]

Welcome to high level play. There's nothing 'unfair' about that at all. Rushing into combat against that level of opposition is fundamentally dangerous. There's no design flaw because, guess what, the PCs can use these abilities, too, if they have access to them. Prepare and plan better.

Complaints like this make me wonder if such players complain about how broken Monopoly is when they land on Boardwalk with a hotel on it. It's part of the game.

 

[FrogReaver]

Welcome to high level play. There's nothing 'unfair' about that at all. Rushing into combat against that level of opposition is fundamentally dangerous. There's no design flaw because, guess what, the PCs can use these abilities, too, if they have access to them. Prepare and plan better.

Complaints like this make me wonder if such players complain about how broken Monopoly is when they land on Boardwalk with a hotel on it. It's part of the game.

A game doesn't have to be symmetrical to be fair nor is symmetry needed for fun! In fact s&I'd lacks symmetry. I can't play an ancient red dragon for example. So saying an enemy should get the same abilities as players is crazy when players can't get half the abilities that enemies get..

 

[Warmaster Horus]

A game doesn't have to be symmetrical to be fair nor is symmetry needed for fun! In fact s&I'd lacks symmetry. I can't play an ancient red dragon for example. So saying an enemy should get the same abilities as players is crazy when players can't get half the abilities that enemies get..

Shapechange handles a lot of that desire. Also most enemies don't have access to PC special abilities. In the case I cited it was all about the spells, which yes, players can conceivably have access to in the game.

 

[jasper]

OP summary my players "waaaa! the npcs are fighting as smart as us! waaaa!"
my response.
RULE 0.5 SOMETIMES THE MONSTERS WILL USE THE SAME SPELLS ON YOU. AKA the monsters want to win too.
edit to add
This is just not high level play. In season 4 I had people fail a horror/ madness roll, then gripe their pc was out of combat for a WHOLE MINUTE. Combat last 3 rounds and very few pcs took damage.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

So, that's the situation. One player in particular was quite upset by these spells, and declared them to be 'design failures' for meaning that player characters would be put out of the game, leaving the players nothing to do. This was specifically worse than hit point loss, he stated; I believe the argument was that hit point loss could be responded to by, e.g. healing or resurrection magic, whereas the Prismatic Spray in particular had no chance of being undone in combat. I had numerous counter-arguments, which I won't get into here; what I'm interested in is hearing the thoughts of others. Do you agree with the players?

He's wrong. Prismatic Spray can be countered by Counterspell or Indomitable or Lucky or proactively by Anti-magic Field (as he indeed attempted). It can even be "Undone" by a Gate spell from another PC, or by the targeted PC Plane Shifting + Teleporting back into combat, or by everyone else Plane Shifting out temporarily to rejoin the targeted PC. (BTW, you could get the same banishing effect from Banishment, as well as Prismatic Spray.)

Furthermore, his design goal is incoherent. Putting a player "out of the game" for a few minutes of game time isn't a design failure in the first place, and if it were it could still happen with HP loss anyway--there's no guarantee anyone will resurrect you anyway. (Revifify has a short range, and your Revivify caster may be busy with other things during combat. Furthermore, consider PCs who are e.g. swallowed by the Tarrasque.)

He's just wrong.

However, if it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly. If you're going to squish the PCs like bugs, it shouldn't take multiple game sessions to do so. (Although who knows, this may be his own fault for taking up too much time with "numerous" arguments and counter-arguments.) I could buy the argument that it's a bit of a design oops on the DM's part that the combat lasted longer than one game session, putting the player's (or players'?) desire to attend the next session at risk, since he might very well spend the whole time sitting around spectating if the combat runs even longer. I doubt you intended for the inevitable loss on the players' part to take more than one session--from the previous thread I thought they were going to lose quite quickly, at the rate of about 1-2 PCs per round (depending on whether Vlaakith was done with AMF or not).