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L&L 3/05 - Save or Die!
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<blockquote data-quote="Dragonblade" data-source="post: 5840997" data-attributes="member: 2804"><p>The problem with save or die is it brings a lot of baggage with it. It assumes that you want a level of lethality and threat that may not jive with your particular playstyle and necessitates easy resurrection.</p><p></p><p>I like death to be rare and dramatic. Not something that can occur in the first round of combat with a poor toss of the dice. I also don't like Raise Dead magic. I want death to be rare but meaningful and dramatic. Once you're dead, thats it. No coming back.</p><p></p><p>Save or die doesn't fit with my playstyle at all and honestly, I don't want it. </p><p></p><p>That said, if they did implement something like Mearls is suggesting, I am tentatively receptive, but I almost think that instead of HP threshold, you should use an alternative tracking system.</p><p></p><p>For example, how about you create an affliction track that works sort of like HP. Whenever a save or die effect comes into play, it does affliction damage instead. Whenever that affliction damage reaches a certain threshold, bad things happen to you. Like turning to stone.</p><p></p><p>The idea is based on the way that HERO system handles transformation effects. Essentially, HP represents a buffer between health and death. Abilities that bypass that buffer are too powerful, so you essentially have those abilities do "damage" but its not traditional damage. It accumulates affliction damage that has no effect on you until it would have done enough damage to kill you. In other words, the medusa might have a 10d6 gaze. Whenever you look at her, you take gaze damage. By itself that damage has no effect, but as soon as it totals your max HP, you turn to stone.</p><p></p><p>It doesn't have to work like that, but thats the general idea. You could use a 4e or M&M 3e inspired tiered save system instead. Or I could also live with some kind of Fate point mechanic, where every PC has a certain number of Fate points and any time they fail a save or die effect, they can spend a Fate point to counter it.</p><p></p><p>But my acceptance of such a system depends entirely on how many Fate points PCs get and how easy they are to recover. I can live with a tiered save or die approach, but otherwise, I would prefer save or die to be a completely optional module. I have no interest in old school save or die mechanics as they were.</p><p></p><p>I think the breakpoint with this issue is that some people want cold save or die effects even if it means you can be ambushed and dead before you even get an initiative roll, and I absolutely do not.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Dragonblade, post: 5840997, member: 2804"] The problem with save or die is it brings a lot of baggage with it. It assumes that you want a level of lethality and threat that may not jive with your particular playstyle and necessitates easy resurrection. I like death to be rare and dramatic. Not something that can occur in the first round of combat with a poor toss of the dice. I also don't like Raise Dead magic. I want death to be rare but meaningful and dramatic. Once you're dead, thats it. No coming back. Save or die doesn't fit with my playstyle at all and honestly, I don't want it. That said, if they did implement something like Mearls is suggesting, I am tentatively receptive, but I almost think that instead of HP threshold, you should use an alternative tracking system. For example, how about you create an affliction track that works sort of like HP. Whenever a save or die effect comes into play, it does affliction damage instead. Whenever that affliction damage reaches a certain threshold, bad things happen to you. Like turning to stone. The idea is based on the way that HERO system handles transformation effects. Essentially, HP represents a buffer between health and death. Abilities that bypass that buffer are too powerful, so you essentially have those abilities do "damage" but its not traditional damage. It accumulates affliction damage that has no effect on you until it would have done enough damage to kill you. In other words, the medusa might have a 10d6 gaze. Whenever you look at her, you take gaze damage. By itself that damage has no effect, but as soon as it totals your max HP, you turn to stone. It doesn't have to work like that, but thats the general idea. You could use a 4e or M&M 3e inspired tiered save system instead. Or I could also live with some kind of Fate point mechanic, where every PC has a certain number of Fate points and any time they fail a save or die effect, they can spend a Fate point to counter it. But my acceptance of such a system depends entirely on how many Fate points PCs get and how easy they are to recover. I can live with a tiered save or die approach, but otherwise, I would prefer save or die to be a completely optional module. I have no interest in old school save or die mechanics as they were. I think the breakpoint with this issue is that some people want cold save or die effects even if it means you can be ambushed and dead before you even get an initiative roll, and I absolutely do not. [/QUOTE]
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L&L 3/05 - Save or Die!
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