Players, DMs and Save or Die

[lukelightning]

No, no, I really meant stabbing your allies. Really.

It's the ancient art of inaccupuncture. If you stab someone repeatedly you may eventually jab them in the right pressure point to alleviate their condition.

Similar to this is reverse Feng Shui. With regular feng shui you rearrange furniture to bring health to someone's body and wealth into their home. Reverse feng shui you use furniture to rearrange someone's body and then remove wealth from their home.

And don't even get me started on retrophrenology....

 

[Stormtower]

What made you stick this in the 4e forum, anyway?

RC

Probably in response to the 4e design changes which are rumored to strongly de-emphasize or remove SoD effects from the game... IOW to see if an ENWorld polling sample matched the data which led WotC to make that particular decision.

Though I'm a 4e skeptic, removing SoD from the canonical game seems a step in the right direction for game balancing, and those who like SoD can always houserule their favorite spells and effects back in.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

No, no, I really meant stabbing your allies. Really.

Cheers

Well, you know, some groups I've played in...

 

[WhatGravitas]

You know, exacerbate means "to make worse". I think you meant alleviate or ameliorate.

PC 1: Help me! I'm turning to stone
PC 2: *Stab*
PC 1: Argh!
PC 3: What did you do that for?
PC 2: Now he's not turning to stone anymore.

Given that Revivify is on a lower spell level than Stone to Flesh, this would, at least in 3E, a sensible idea, if time is pressing.

And as a DM, I dislike save-or-die. PCs randomly kill BBEGs, and if I don't use them, my BBEGs give up a great deal of power. Not good.

Cheers, LT.

 

[gizmo33]

There's probably a correlation between DMs/Players that are ok with PCs dying and SoD effects. I would expect anyone who doesn't like to kill PCs really doesn't like SoD. Personally I don't care either way, they'd be easy enough to houserule back in (so far as I can tell), but I think they are a mechanic that's somewhat at odds with the concept of hitpoints.

 

[Remathilis]

What made you stick this in the 4e forum, anyway?

RC

a) the original (referenced thread) is here.

b) the idea is to see if the potential 4e buying pool is in favor of such removal or not

 

[Patlin]

I don't like save or die spells as a DM because mostly random PC deaths are no fun.

 

[Raven Crowking]

a) the original (referenced thread) is here.

b) the idea is to see if the potential 4e buying pool is in favor of such removal or not

Fair enough.

Dr. Awkward, I think I've had some of the same players as you....

 

[Midknightsun]

As an oft-time DM, I hate SoD. I want my players to sweat it out, to struggle for their victories, not be one-spelled into oblivion before they realize what happened. Now, save or suck, I have no problem with. Short term status effects that take the character out of play don't bother me so much, and can actually contribute to building tension.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

You know, exacerbate means "to make worse". I think you meant alleviate or ameliorate.

PC 1: Help me! I'm turning to stone
PC 2: *Stab*
PC 1: Argh!
PC 3: What did you do that for?
PC 2: Now he's not turning to stone anymore.

No joke, I was part of a game (in my army times) where one of our fighters had been given a sword that could resurrect a person. The scene went something like this...

PC1: Help me, I'm running out of Hit Points!
PC2: *decapitate*
PC3 (me): What the hell did you do that for???
PC1: Now I can resurrect him.
PC3: