My last campaign was run under 3.5E rules and ended just about 2 years ago now.
It was full of death & destruction, and I pulled out all the stops as a DM to try to defeat the players. However, my group was also very large and had a PC cleric and a PC psion that both regularly would whip out "Revivify" in the middle of a combat to save a fallen comrade. They also had an NPC ally cleric/paladin that was pretty handy in a pinch as well.
If I ran an evil lich, I made sure the lich would cast the best necromantic spells available - Finger of Death, Wail of the Banshee, Horrid Wilting, etc. Not to mention several from the Spell Compendium like Avasculate and Mass Avasculate. I mean, going back to 1E days, Finger of Death has been the "signature" spell of the lich, no?
If you run a lich without those big "save or die" spells, aren't you nerfing the lich's capability?
Most of the campaign, though, the players were going against clerics of the evil god of slavery & tyranny, so were constantly subjected to "save or suck" effects like Domination (a lot deadlier prior to 4E) and the various Charm spells. However, when they got up against the toughest clerics, spells like Implosion, Destruction, Harm, Mass Harm, were also tossed at the PCs.
One of the memorable combats was when the party's dwarf fighter shockingly failed his Fort save and got hit with Implosion, dying instantly. The party cleric then sacked 5,000XP for the "extra special" version of Miracle and was able to bring him back fully restored with a Standard action instead of the normal 10 minute casting time needed for True Resurrection, turning the tide of the penultimate combat of the campaign.
Similarly, when the party's goliath barbarian got hit with a Maze spell by an evil mage, she was zapped into the maze, needing a natural 20 to get out because her INT was 10... and, in the first round there, she rolled that natural 20. Would have sucked to have her out of combat for 2-3-4 rounds or more. That occasion got a lot of celebration at the table.
However, there were certainly occasions when the players shut down a powerful encounter with a single spell as well (or the aforementioned party dwarf going crazy on a balor, landing 5 hits in one flurry of attacks, including 2 or 3 crits and nearly killing it in one round)
I definitely think Save or Die has a place in the game.
So, I was initially against the idea of thresholds when I started this thread.
However, now, I do like the idea of some sort of hit point threshold to prevent it from being abused against parties that can't handle that level of danger being thrown at them. My group, as I said, had 4 high level casters in a sorcerer, cleric, psion and paladin/cleric... not to mention a human fighter, a dwarf fighter, a goliath barbarian, an elf paladin of freedom and a human rogue/spellthief. So, they could handle just about anything from the various monster manuals.
It was full of death & destruction, and I pulled out all the stops as a DM to try to defeat the players. However, my group was also very large and had a PC cleric and a PC psion that both regularly would whip out "Revivify" in the middle of a combat to save a fallen comrade. They also had an NPC ally cleric/paladin that was pretty handy in a pinch as well.
If I ran an evil lich, I made sure the lich would cast the best necromantic spells available - Finger of Death, Wail of the Banshee, Horrid Wilting, etc. Not to mention several from the Spell Compendium like Avasculate and Mass Avasculate. I mean, going back to 1E days, Finger of Death has been the "signature" spell of the lich, no?
If you run a lich without those big "save or die" spells, aren't you nerfing the lich's capability?
Most of the campaign, though, the players were going against clerics of the evil god of slavery & tyranny, so were constantly subjected to "save or suck" effects like Domination (a lot deadlier prior to 4E) and the various Charm spells. However, when they got up against the toughest clerics, spells like Implosion, Destruction, Harm, Mass Harm, were also tossed at the PCs.
One of the memorable combats was when the party's dwarf fighter shockingly failed his Fort save and got hit with Implosion, dying instantly. The party cleric then sacked 5,000XP for the "extra special" version of Miracle and was able to bring him back fully restored with a Standard action instead of the normal 10 minute casting time needed for True Resurrection, turning the tide of the penultimate combat of the campaign.
Similarly, when the party's goliath barbarian got hit with a Maze spell by an evil mage, she was zapped into the maze, needing a natural 20 to get out because her INT was 10... and, in the first round there, she rolled that natural 20. Would have sucked to have her out of combat for 2-3-4 rounds or more. That occasion got a lot of celebration at the table.
However, there were certainly occasions when the players shut down a powerful encounter with a single spell as well (or the aforementioned party dwarf going crazy on a balor, landing 5 hits in one flurry of attacks, including 2 or 3 crits and nearly killing it in one round)
I definitely think Save or Die has a place in the game.
So, I was initially against the idea of thresholds when I started this thread.
However, now, I do like the idea of some sort of hit point threshold to prevent it from being abused against parties that can't handle that level of danger being thrown at them. My group, as I said, had 4 high level casters in a sorcerer, cleric, psion and paladin/cleric... not to mention a human fighter, a dwarf fighter, a goliath barbarian, an elf paladin of freedom and a human rogue/spellthief. So, they could handle just about anything from the various monster manuals.
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