New tidbit about spells and hit points.

[Aloïsius]

Disintegrate just does a bucket of d6s in 3.5. I've slammed many PCs with green rays of death and rolled awful damage. Just a chunk of them disintegrated, even on a failed save.

3.0 for the win.

Also, do not assume that any of the save or die attacks will return. If they're trying to move away from that, perhaps they're just being dropped entirely?

That's what I fear. Boring. If the only thing that wizards are able to do is more or less "fireball !", and that things like polymorph, sleep, hold person, slay living, dominate (...) disappear, I think we should better play D20 sci-fi : droids with turbo-laser are nearly as fun as damage dealing only spellcasters.

No, I think they won't strip D&D magic of its richness. They will find a solution for the so called "save or die" spells that don't involve destroying the archetypal mad wizard polymorphing his ennemy in frogs.


My solution would be to make those spells " per day" power, with only a few number of them available.

 

[Doug McCrae]

It will be a pity to lose cool spell names like 'Finger of Death'. But if it makes for a better game, I'm all for it.

 

[zoroaster100]

Maybe spells like Finger of Death will still work but only on mooks/minions or "bloodied" monsters. That way the player characters don't get taken down by a single failed save, but neither do special opponents, unless they've been softened up first.

 

[marune]

No, it looks too silly to be true, so I think powerfull spells should still be something else than finishing moves... Gaming is great, but this game is about story happening in fantasy settings. You can't remove the specificity of magic in the name of balance !

Killing NPCs with one spell is kewl, PCs dying with one spell is not... that's the problem D&D 4e has to solve.

 

[Aloïsius]

Maybe spells like Finger of Death will still work but only on mooks/minions or "bloodied" monsters. That way the player characters don't get taken down by a single failed save, but neither do special opponents, unless they've been softened up first.

It would be balanced and fun, I guess.... But will this be interesting ?

"the necromancer is weaving arcane forces and dark energ..."
"I roll 34 on my spellcraft check, what is he casting ?"
"huh, finger of death"
"haha ! I'm at 75% HP, BBEG. Looser !'

 

[Gargoyle]

Negative AC didn't make mathematical sense. Negative HP does - when you're above 0 HP, you're still functioning fine. When you're below 0 HP, you're not functioning. 0 is a logical break point for functioning/not functioning; 10, not so much.

And -10 is a logical breaking point for being alive or dead?

 

[Cadfan]

It would be balanced and fun, I guess.... But will this be interesting ?

"the necromancer is weaving arcane forces and dark energ..."
"I roll 34 on my spellcraft check, what is he casting ?"
"huh, finger of death"
"haha ! I'm at 75% HP, BBEG. Looser !'

I think we can safely conclude that, if we are right in assuming that finger of death will only work on enemies who are below 50% hit points, then it will have some other, unpleasant effect on those who are above 50%.

 

[hong]

It would be balanced and fun, I guess.... But will this be interesting ?

"the necromancer is weaving arcane forces and dark energ..."
"I roll 34 on my spellcraft check, what is he casting ?"
"huh, finger of death"
"haha ! I'm at 75% HP, BBEG. Looser !'

Psst. Power word kill already works like this.

 

[WarlockLord]

I like save or dies. I hope they stay as some of the 1/day abilities (i.e. not used, but very powerful when they are) , because blasting gets boring. Besides, when you run into save or dies, you're high enough level for a resurrection. And they're fun to use on BBEGs.

And no, I don't want to see save or dies that only work on blooded opponents. That's just like Power Word Kill, as hong notes above, and I HATE that mechanic.

Besides, I suspect that even if there are save or dies, most will be single target, thus getting rid of the 'I defeat the encounter with one spell!'

Also, something like a death ward could be up a talent tree.

 

[A'koss]

Personally, I'd rather see all the Save or Die effects stripped away.

While yes it can be fun for some players to take down the BBEBoss with a single strike it is not so fun for the DM who carefully set up the final epic battle over the last two months of playing. And it's not fun for the player who spent the last two months going through an adventure only to sit out the final epic battle because he failed his SoD in the opening round. So he goes off and scowls in front of the TV for the next hour as everyone else continues with the fun.