D&D 5E (2024) It Is 2025 And Save Or Suck Spells Still Suck (the fun out of the game)

[I'm A Banana]

This I agree with, but I think there is room for change without it suddenly being "not D&D."

Save or suck spells as afflictions would be a food way to go. Your initial save result determines where you start on the track. Follow up failures make it worse ultimatelyending in REAL BAD, while follow up successes lessen the effect until CURED.

Like Flesh to Stone. One of the things I'm fond of in 5e's sabateur design is that they do use a diversity of approaches.

But, really, the trouble here is that you want your encounters to have a certain kind of narrative punch that D&D is OK with encounters NOT having. Fundamentally, that is a misalignment in D&D's design intent and your play intent. You can tweak D&D until it suits you, but the basic design of the thing is not intrinsically better if you remove save or suck spells. Might as well remove surprise or stealth while you're at it, and maybe get rid of PC death and crits and...

 

[Reynard]

Like Flesh to Stone. One of the things I'm fond of in 5e's sabateur design is that they do use a diversity of approaches.

But, really, the trouble here is that you want your encounters to have a certain kind of narrative punch that D&D is OK with encounters NOT having. Fundamentally, that is a misalignment in D&D's design intent and your play intent. You can tweak D&D until it suits you, but the basic design of the thing is not intrinsically better if you remove save or suck spells. Might as well remove surprise or stealth while you're at it, and maybe get rid of PC death and crits and...

I don't need to "tweak D&D" to any particular extent. I just need to (and have) tweaked solo monster battles.

This particular case is one of playing D&D 2024 as close to RAW as possible and practical, to expose its strengths and weaknesses.

 

[Micah Sweet]

If only a version of D&D had been published that did all this!

Its still out there, just like the TSR editions.

 

[Seramus]

I find D&D far better at generating stories than generating fair and balanced encounters. Some of the most memorable moments in the game have been the result of great or terrible luck with the dice, and rarely does the party discuss how well balanced my encounters were 20 years later. There are some exceptions, like when a well balanced encounter leads to a tense situation that.... suddenly gets saved or lost by a great or terrible die roll. But that circles back to the die generating stories.

So, while it might have felt like an underwhelming experience from the perspective of a balanced encounter, it's very likely your players will remember it far longer and with a more amused light than the well balanced encounter you intended it to be.

On a personal level, I don't mind save or suck spells when they happen to my monsters. I've always got more monsters. But I do tend to feel uncomfortable about them when used against my players - specifically the ones that make my players miss their turns entirely. They came here to play the game, and not getting to play is the least fun way to play the game.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I find D&D far better at generating stories than generating fair and balanced encounters. Some of the most memorable moments in the game have been the result of great or terrible luck with the dice, and rarely does the party discuss how well balanced my encounters were 20 years later. There are some exceptions, like when a well balanced encounter leads to a tense situation that.... suddenly gets saved or lost by a great or terrible die roll. But that circles back to the die generating stories.

So, while it might have felt like an underwhelming experience from the perspective of a balanced encounter, it's very likely your players will remember it far longer and with a more amused light than the well balanced encounter you intended it to be.

On a personal level, I don't mind save or suck spells when they happen to my monsters. I've always got more monsters. But I do tend to feel uncomfortable about them when used against my players - specifically the ones that make my players miss their turns entirely. They came here to play the game, and not getting to play is the least fun way to play the game.

That's funny. I'm not really looking for D&D to generate stories or fair and balanced encounters. Just a decent base for fantasy worldbuilding and cool stuff for players to explore through their PCs.

 

[Shadowdweller00]

The removal and progressive nerfing of save-or-suck spells certainly sucks the fun out of the game. As does the whining of overgrown children who can't cope with adversity.

Powerful game effects like petrification, paralysis, old school energy drain, mental domination drive stories, create drama, and weave a sense of threat or tension in ways that no amount of mindless hacking or dancing around in combat can ever replicate.

 

[Sulicius]

Note that it can go the other way too. There's monsters out there, beyond the spellcasting ones, that can absolutely decimate a party of heroes, all based on "did you make your X save?". The Mind Flayer's Mind Blast comes to mind- the 2024 version has a 60' cone that demands a DC 15 Intelligence save, does 22 damage and leaves you stunned for 1 minute on a failed save. Yes, you get another shot to save each turn, but c'mon. How good are the Int saves of the average party? Maybe you have a Wizard, but you could just as easily have a Bard or Sorcerer.

This is wrong. Most incapacitating monster abilities have been reduced to one round.

 

[Sulicius]

It sucks as a DM to have an experience like this. You set up a boss fight, only for it to become anticlimactic as you fail an important save.

I really dislike how many spells can lock a DM out of playing with their own toys. Save or suck spells and abilities are the main problem in this. Many can take a powerful enemy out of the entire fight, turning the encounter into a cake walk.

Even a single round can make the difference, and especially when you are unlucky with your rolls, it can feel like a huge letdown.

Sure, players go through this as well, but they play their character for every encounter in the entire campaign. You usually get to use a cool monster you built up once.

That’s why they added Legendary Resistance. It is a blunt approach that just works. I have seen many cry out for changes to this mechanic, but I am happy with its simplicity and effectiveness.

This is also why there are no more contested checks. Grappling used to circumvent Legendary Resistance, using a single attack action and usually overwhelming odds to lock an enemy out of its movement. This could often make the fight too easy too fast, IMO. I am glad it is no longer as effective.

I have personally found the 2024 encounter building rules with the 2024 monsters to work exactly as advertised. High challenge will always knock a PC out. Being able to rely on the encounter math this way has been a real relief for me.

But it is not perfect. Solo monster encounters still won’t work. When I tested an ancient gold dragon against 3 lvl20 PC’s, it wasn’t close. Command is too strong, and banishment is still a pain. Magic items DO make a difference, and there is no guidance for it.

So if you want a BBEG to be more effective, give it additional LR and double its HP. Read the text of the 2024 encounter building rules. Do none of the descriptions have what your goal is for the encounter? Then break the math, break the rules.

Always expect 2024 characters to have their strongest ability available. The revision has moved away from attrition being something you can rely on, which at least makes it more honest than the 2014 rules.

I have had a lot of success with ignoring the math for certain situations where just killing the enemy is not the goal. Just make a situation that makes sense with the fiction. Sometimes that’s 3 goblins who think they can rob tier 4 characters, sometimes it is a ship full of vampire conquistadors fighting a dinosaur god. Accept that every fight can be a curb stomp or an unexpected PC death, and make sure that you can keep the campaign going in an interesting way as a result of that. Can the enemy flee and come back with a vengeance? Awesome! Now the players have a more personal vendetta too! Did two PC’s die? Make sure you describe their souls entering the afterlife, so you can have a cool scene where a god reveals secrets of the world to the players.

In the end, if the dice are against you, even Tiamat can lose to a halfling burglar. It is up to you to make that story as interesting as her swallowing them whole on turn 1.

 

[Reynard]

As does the whining of overgrown children who can't cope with adversity.

Nothing promotes reasonable discussion quite like name calling.

 

[Horwath]

The removal and progressive nerfing of save-or-suck spells certainly sucks the fun out of the game. As does the whining of overgrown children who can't cope with adversity.

Powerful game effects like petrification, paralysis, old school energy drain, mental domination drive stories, create drama, and weave a sense of threat or tension in ways that no amount of mindless hacking or dancing around in combat can ever replicate.

yeah, nothing is more fun that fail a single save on 1st round of combat, be out for 1 minute or 1 day(effect is the same) and go on your PC to play Starcraft or whatever while everyone else play the session...