Players, DMs and Save or Die

[Lonely Tylenol]

If your DM sets up an encounter which involves you randomly stumbling upon a bodak without warning, that's basically no different than an encounter which involves you randomly stumbling upon some monster which has an incredibly high attack bonus and does enough damage to kill your character in one blow. It's just called "having a killer DM," aka, in most cases, "having a bad DM."

Except that, as has been pointed out in the other SoD thread, a bodak is considered an appropriate encounter for four 8th level characters, but we can expect somewhere in the vicinity of 25% of the party to die. Using it doesn't mean you're a killer DM. This monster is dramatically different than all the other CR 8 monsters, and the reason it's different is its save-or-die gaze attack. If you happen to choose to use a bodak because you need a CR 8 monster for a planar-themed adventure, you're probably going to kill PCs, perhaps without realizing that it's going to be so deadly until it's too late.

If the bodak were a CR 15 critter, and were being put up against 8th level characters, you might have a point. However, judging by the official yardstick of monster strength, bodaks should be a mild challenge for those 8th level characters, not an auto-kill for at least one party member, on average.

I'm not saying that dungeons should be crawling with bodaks, but the option should be there. Otherwise? The same killer DMs will create dungeons crawling with Ancient Red Dragons whose breath attack does 30d6+30 damage. I swear. It'll happen. I'd do it. (Kidding.)

Again, what's the CR of an ancient red dragon? I'll bet you $50 it's not 8.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

That's a good summary of one reason I hate save-or-die. Its not a "slim" chance. Its not a "slim" chance by the wildest margin. Its an extremely high chance, if your campaign has you encounter certain incredibly rare creatures as "wizards" or "clerics" on an even semi-regular basis.

If run intelligently, a 3e enemy spellcaster after a certain level has about a 50% chance of killing your character each round.

The only way to avoid this is to run the spellcaster unintelligently. For no explicable reason, have the spellcaster not memorize the spells that give it the best chance of winning. And when the spellcaster DOES memorize those spells, have it cast them on the characters most likely to make their saves.

But a spellcaster who 1) memorizes save-or-die spells when they're available to him, and 2) casts them on the PCs likely to have the lowest saves versus them, is NOT a slim chance of a dead character.

Its about a 50/50 shot.

I don't want the game to be set up so that running bad guys in the most obvious, straightforward manner makes you a "killer DM." "Memorize the best spells and cast them against the most vulnerable targets" should be standard issue, not bad DM practice.

Precisely. The problem with support for SoD is that its supporters are always trying to hide behind these hedges. Hedges like "you should have prepared Death Ward," or, "they should be in the game, but if you use them, you're a killer DM." It gets ridiculous.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Right. In my group the question before the PCs would then be: How do we mitigate that.

By casting Death Ward and thereby removing SoD from the game, rendering the whole procedure (by both sides) moot.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

Is it always possible though to have death ward cast on the entire party though?
And if it is then is there any point in having spells in the game that will always be negated?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

If Save or Die absolutely has to stay in the game, here's what I do
(3rd Edition style)
Save or Die Effects only kill creatures if their level (PCs) or CR (monsters) is below the level (PC) or CR (monster) of the creature using the effect.
Otherwise, they deal 5 points of damage per CR/Level of the creature using the effect. Only if this damage is sufficient to kill the targeted creature, it actually dies.

The first Bodak you encounter would be deadly, but later, they are just nasty. (40 points of damage just by looking at them doesn't make them weak)

YOu might want to have a different effect than damage (Slow, Daze, Sicken, Nauseated) for non-deadly effects with similar catastrophic consequences as Save or Die.

Suddenly, the only time where Save or Die is relevant would then be if the PCs are actually engaging a creature more powerful then them, making it a lot more likely that the adventure "warned" them reasonably beforehand.

Still doesn't fix the other problems I have with Save or Die, but at least it eliminates all the low-level monsters and NPCs that can really wreck the game.

 

[KarinsDad]

However, I'm wondering how many people who support SoD effects are players, and how many are DMs. I'm running a hypothesis:

spoiler DMs will support save or die effects more often than players, since players are more often effected by it. /spoiler

So are you mostly player or DM, and do you support save or die or not?

As of 386 people voting, it came up 67.7% DMs dislike it, 66.7% players dislike it, and 62% DMs/players dislike it. So much for your hypothesis.

 

[Anthtriel]

I can see the argument: "Well, SoD sucks in random encounters, but it is fun to use it for BBEGs sometimes", similar to "Well, Flumphs/Red-Stripped-Spagetthi-Monsters are really not required most of the time, but it doesn't hurt to have them in the book".
Assuming that Flumphs can somehow ruin the game for newbie players.

Right. In my group the question before the PCs would then be: How do we mitigate that.

Alright. This playsituation: You are in a dungeon. You keep open a door. Inside, there is some kind of cult, with 20 people in black robes scattered in a 18 x 48 metres room. What do you do?

This is a standard situation, and you have no way whatsoever to prevent the enemies from casting a spell on you.
And if there is a special situation, and you can somehow stop all of them from casting a single spell on you, then there was no challenge whatsoever in the first place. You cannot do that kind of stuff all the time.

 

[Remathilis]

As of 386 people voting, it came up 67.7% DMs dislike it, 66.7% players dislike it, and 62% DMs/players dislike it. So much for your hypothesis.

Sometimes its ok to be wrong.

 

[Remathilis]

Is it always possible though to have death ward cast on the entire party though?
And if it is then is there any point in having spells in the game that will always be negated?

Sure there is:

* Have a 7th+ level cleric memorize it once for every member of the party (forgoing other useful spells like Panacea, Neutralize Poison, Divination, Divine Power, Dimensional Anchor Restoration...)
* Or have a cleric cast Mass death ward at 15th level.
* Or the party can chip in 21,000 gp for a wand of death ward (assuming it can be bought or made)
* Or 700 gp each for a scroll (again, assuming it can be bought or made)

A Persistent DMM cleric can have 24 hour death ward 24 hours, but everyone else is limited to 7-20 minutes at a clip.

 

[Remathilis]

Right. In my group the question before the PCs would then be: How do we mitigate that.

Easy. Stay home.