Players, DMs and Save or Die

[Lanefan]

Which is to say that save-or-die doesn't work as well in games that take a non-1st ed AD&D approach to play.

If 4e were to abolish them, then, it would be fully consistent with the general trend of published D&D, over the past 25 years, away from that playstyle.

Perhaps.

Some would see this as a good thing. I would not.

Lanefan

 

[pemerton]

Some would see this as a good thing. I would not.

I've got that impression over a number of threads! I still think that 4e is not being designed to support you play preferences, but I can see why you would hope that I'm wrong.

 

[FireLance]

But (if I've understood you right) in such a game the players don't get to choose not to have their PCs face the save-or-die attack, because they are required to face each encounter (including that encounter) in turn.

Yes.

If that is true, then for a rather widespread play-style the "player choice" defence of save-or-die does not work.

It's not a defence (but more on that later), it's a statement of how I handle save or die abilities as they are currently formulated. No doubt, there are players who enjoy the thrill of occasionally being no more than one of their opponents' actions away from death, and do not mind either raising the dead PC or creating a new one in the event of actual death. For such players, sitting down to play the game in the first place implicitly means choosing to encounter save or die effects (although not necessarily all the time).

Now, the people I game with aren't like that, so I don't use save or die traps or creatures and NPCs with save or die abilities as random or "mandatory" encounters in my games.

Agreed. But that does, to me, suggest that it is not the players' who are choosing whether or not their PCs will encounter a save-or-die threat.

Unless, of course, I (or someone else who shares my philosophy on save or die abilities) am DMing the adventure. Unless the players have made bad mistakes (and arguably, making bad mistakes is a player "choice"), the PCs should be able to either avoid save or die threats (if they choose to) or find a counter to them. Again, this is merely a statement of how I would handle save or die abilities, not a prescription of how they should be handled.

So (if I've understood you right) both in typical module play, and in Gygaxian dungeon crawl play, the players do not get to choose whether or not their PCs face save-or-die threats. If this is corrrect, then I don't understand the "player choice" defence of save-or-die.

As mentioned, "player choice" is not a defence of save or die abilities, it is only my way of using them based on the preferences of my current gaming group. I wouldn't miss them much if they are gone, any more than I would miss a specialized tool in a toolbox that I seldom, if ever, use. On the other hand, I wouldn't mind it much if they are included, even though I think some extra warnings and advice should be given for the benefit of inexperienced DMs.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Yes, but the anti- save or die folk have already stated their case. Irrefutable logic will probably not sway them. WotC could post that save or die is arbitrary and not fun and will not be in 4E, and it still probably will not sway them.

Irrefutable logic won't sway anybody here, mostly because what is perfectly logical to one is only a subjective point of view to another.

Most of them have probably not played in a game where the DM said "Your PC is dead." with no dice rolls.

Most of them have probably not played in a game where the DM had a party of powerful good NPCs ambush in a surprise round, shoot first and ask questions later (because of behind the scene events that the PCs were not even aware of in one case, and were aware of but had no control over in the other case) and kill a PC before his initiative came up in round one (twice by two different DMs, years apart).

There you go again, assuming stuff about people you simply don't know. That joke gets old quick.
There's plenty people here arguing in favour of save-or-die that started playing 20 years back and more. Do you really think that in versions where poison traps where save-or-die effects and where DM fiat was a lot stronger than it is today, those players have never lost a character to the whim of one single die roll, or a surprise ambush of goblins/drow/orcs in a dungeon?
Better stop assuming. It doesn't help.

These examples are really significantly no different than save or die (although I am sure people will claim otherwise).

The die roll aspect of save or die is a joke because random arbitrary meaningless and unfun (due to sitting out) death happens the moment the DM pulls the save or die gun into the game. He might as well just say "Your PC is dead." The actual odds do not matter. 1%, 5%, or 80%. A PC can die and in fact, the DM decides which PC the NPC aimed for.

So basically, there shouldn't be any surprise attacks by superior forces either? How about overwhelming natural forces then? Ever had a character fall overboard with his 50-pound armor and his shield? Ever wondered what else he could do except hold his breath and bet on whether it'll be overpressure or drowning that kills him first, and all because of a failed Balance check in a battle on a stormy sea? Fallen from a griffon without your wizard buddy close to cast Feather Fall or Fly on you?

MoogleEmpMog at least comes out directly and says that he would prefer his characters not to be affected by any kind of random death. How about you? How random is death allowed to be for your characters?

Death is death if the DM decides that death is going to occur. The moment he pulls in save or die, that's his decision because he has no control over the save, hence, he no longer has control over the death. At that point, it is not a challenge to be overcome like other game mechanics. It is a random potential event whose only two results are life or death.


Personally, I think save or die is the easy way for DMs to kill PCs because they cannot take out the time to think of appropriate challenges, but that's just my opinion and does not necessarily have any basis in actual fact.

Hence it's irrefutable. Logical? A clue...no. And you wouldn't believe how much control I can exert over the outcome of a saving throw as DM, and how much in-game potential influence I can give characters over their saving throws besides their own spells, if I want to.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

So (if I've understood you right) both in typical module play, and in Gygaxian dungeon crawl play, the players do not get to choose whether or not their PCs face save-or-die threats. If this is corrrect, then I don't understand the "player choice" defence of save-or-die.

The point in this context is probably that the players actually have to get a chance to be able to choose to face the save-or-die threat, or not. Which in turn means, of course, the DM having to give them opportunities to hear about that threat first, either by research, rumors, insider information (neutral monsters they encounter in a dungeon that trade info for food and gold), the journal found on the corpse of a dead adventurer, or a first-hand example of that threat witnessed before the confrontation (evil high-priest sacrifices a victim in front of the cult's idol by casting Destruction while the heroes are hidden behind pillars, waiting for a good moment to strike, for example). There's a good handful of measures that active players can pursue to gain that kind of information before they storm any given adventure, and another few for the DM to make the information available to them inbetween. It's a challenge for the players to prepare themselves before they face ANY threat, or suffer the consequences if they haven't.

 

[Raven Crowking]

"I choose not to face that bodak. Lets go on to the next room."

Again, perfectly logical response if you wake up with a bodak in your bed. Otherwise, I'm betting that you made decisions to get to the point where you met it.

What kind of game do you play in, where what creatures you meet are not based at all on your decisions?

RC

 

[hong]

Again, perfectly logical response if you wake up with a bodak in your bed. Otherwise, I'm betting that you made decisions to get to the point where you met it.

What kind of game do you play in, where what creatures you meet are not based at all on your decisions?

RC

A game where the point is to kill monsters, not run away from them?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

The point in this context is probably that the players actually have to get a chance to be able to choose to face the save-or-die threat, or not. Which in turn means, of course, the DM having to give them opportunities to hear about that threat first, either by research, rumors, insider information (neutral monsters they encounter in a dungeon that trade info for food and gold), the journal found on the corpse of a dead adventurer, or a first-hand example of that threat witnessed before the confrontation (evil high-priest sacrifices a victim in front of the cult's idol by casting Destruction while the heroes are hidden behind pillars, waiting for a good moment to strike, for example). There's a good handful of measures that active players can pursue to gain that kind of information before they storm any given adventure, and another few for the DM to make the information available to them inbetween. It's a challenge for the players to prepare themselves before they face ANY threat, or suffer the consequences if they haven't.

If the DM ensures that the players are warned appropriately through several plot hooks and parts of the adventure, I see no real problem if he just makes up a Save or Die (or just Die?) effect for this adventure and this particular villain/monster, even though the game as a default doesn't contain such affects. The players are forewarned, the characters are forewarned, so nobody could really complain.
I think beating/evading such a monster will be very memorable for the players.
And since you don't have this ability as a standard ability for certain monsters/levels, it doesn't risk wrecking the game at another time, or cheapening such effects (and Death) due to overabundance.

I might be wrong, but I think there are no spells in 3rd edition that allow you to free an ancient god from his prison. Still, there is a whole Adventure Path related to it.
There is also no spell that could let a major batch of imprisoned demons/devils of the Abyss into the Material Plane, yet there is a whole Adventure Path related to it.

Save or Die effects have a lower magnituate then demons infesting your home plane, but that might just indicate that such effects can be used as major plot points for lower level games.

 

[KarinsDad]

There you go again, assuming stuff about people you simply don't know. That joke gets old quick.
There's plenty people here arguing in favour of save-or-die that started playing 20 years back and more. Do you really think that in versions where poison traps where save-or-die effects and where DM fiat was a lot stronger than it is today, those players have never lost a character to the whim of one single die roll, or a surprise ambush of goblins/drow/orcs in a dungeon?
Better stop assuming. It doesn't help.

There you go assuming again. These were all 3E/3.5 campaigns.

So basically, there shouldn't be any surprise attacks by superior forces either? How about overwhelming natural forces then? Ever had a character fall overboard with his 50-pound armor and his shield? Ever wondered what else he could do except hold his breath and bet on whether it'll be overpressure or drowning that kills him first, and all because of a failed Balance check in a battle on a stormy sea? Fallen from a griffon without your wizard buddy close to cast Feather Fall or Fly on you?

I have no problem with surprise rounds by superior forces. I was hoping you could read between the lines, but I'll make it clearer.

When the DM says: "You are surprised. Two enemy Wizards target your PC on the surprise round. Not dead yet? Well, since the two enemy Wizards beat your initiative, they attack again. roll ... roll. You are dead now.", it's pretty obvious that your PC was the target. Now before you go jumping on the "the DM was attacking your PC, what do you expect?" bandwagon, that's not the point. The point is that when the DM has the NPCs do actions which are in the best interest of the NCPs, bad stuff can happen to kill a PC if the mechanics allow for multiple "cannon" attacks without PC response. I have no problem with PC death. I have a problem with game mechanics which can lead to a PC death without the PC having a single chance to respond.

Examples:

Save or Die

Surprise round attack followed by a round one win init attack (I'm not keen on this rule either, that's up to 4 spells from one opponent via Quicken before a PC can react)

the 3E version of Haste combined with Quickened spell (3 spells per round from the same creature lead to extremely broken synergies)

Hence it's irrefutable. Logical? A clue...no. And you wouldn't believe how much control I can exert over the outcome of a saving throw as DM, and how much in-game potential influence I can give characters over their saving throws besides their own spells, if I want to.

Of course as DM you can cheat and pull a rabbit out of your a$$. Where's the game challenge for the players in that? Oh yeah, there isn't any.

Might as well read a bedtime story to them.

 

[Raven Crowking]

There you go assuming again. These were all 3E/3.5 campaigns.

Pointing out that folks who've played 20 years or more, across a variety of editions (some with harsher SoD than this one) assumes nothing of your own experiences. It does, however, indicate that assumptions about the experiences of others might be less warranted than some might think.

I've had bad DMs. No ruleset can stop a DM who wants to kill your PC from killing your PC. The problem is the DM, not the ruleset.

Of course as DM you can cheat and prevent the characters from failing, too. Where's the game challenge for the players in that? Oh yeah, there isn't any.

Might as well read a bedtime story to them.

That line of "reasoning" has precious little to do with logic, and it cuts both ways.

RC