Players, DMs and Save or Die

[Raven Crowking]

The whole problem with the whole "Well, PC's should be prepared for facing save or die situations" is that it assumes that the PC's have perfect knowledge.

No. It assumes that it is possible to gain good intelligence on the basis of things like legends, rumours, asking around, talking to other nearby critters, Gather Information checks, and divination magic to follow up leads. It assumes that the DM isn't out to get you (and who wants to play with a DM who is out to get you?) and that it is the players, not the DM, who sets the agenda. It assumes that things like medusae and bodaks don't move into a neighbourhood without anyone noticing. It assumes that a bard is a worthwhile character choice, that can actually contribute to a party.

BTW, what happened to your .sig? I know that you can't select any give person as the winner, but "Anime has been found!" wasn't what you promised either. I have a hard time taking your anecdotes at face value when you don't seem to mind fudging in other places.

RC

EDIT: ThirdWizard, I assume a well-designed world where things like medusae and bodaks don't move into a neighbourhood without anyone noticing, and where it is therefore possible to know, ahead of time, that peering around the dark corners of one location is inherently more dangerous than peering around the dark corners of most locations.

Admittedly, both as player and as DM, I don't have a problem with occasionally having such an encounter be unexpected. Because it is possible to gain information does not mean that you always will do so.

EDIT to the EDIT: And also, as pointed out earlier, this is really no different than the potential of a lot of "appropriate" encounters, where a monster can potentially kill you with hit point damage before you can do anything.

RC

 

[Cadfan]

EDIT: ThirdWizard, I assume a well-designed world where things like medusae and bodaks and wizards and clerics don't move into a neighbourhood without anyone noticing, and where it is therefore possible to know, ahead of time, that peering around the dark corners of one location is inherently more dangerous than peering around the dark corners of most locations.

I fixed it for you.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I fixed it for you.

Sure.

3e set up an expectation that there are a lot of magic-types floating around in the world, and that they have access to whatever spells they want. 1e had neither as a default, and 2e only had spell access as a default.

When you change the default assumptions of the game, problems may well crawl out of the woodwork on the basis of those changes.

But, yes, in games that I run clerics and wizards who tend to memorize and use SoD spells (or who tend to turn folks into sheep and swine) tend to get noticed. When evil cults move into an area and begin kidnapping children for sacrifices, people tend to notice that something is going on.

And, again, it is quite possible that some NPC you meet doesn't have a SoD spell, but can still win initiative and drop you before you can act. Perhaps while banning all of these spells and monsters, we should ban higher-level-than-the-PCs characters as well.

RC

 

[Umbran]

If it wasn't so sad, it would be really funny.

Okay, folks, let's all sing it...

R E S P E C T, that's what my boards mean to me!

Do not be insulting, folks. That way lies madness and thread closures....

 

[lukelightning]

Save or die is pretty bad, but if you really want to be a cruel DM you implement save and die.

 

[Remathilis]

Nevermind, RC cleared himself up earlier.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I think we went over this before. Lets do it again.

Your in a group of 8th level PCs. You are ye-olde classic dungeon.

OK

you can the improbable displacer beast living two doors down for the mindflayer

So, the definition is that we are in the poorly designed ye-olde classic dungeon? The mind flayer doesn't know about the displacer beast or the bodak?

The decision that the players chose poorly in was picking the DM.

Again, I don't think that the ruleset is going to help you there.

 

[Remathilis]

The decision that the players chose poorly in was picking the DM.

I see. You're crediting a lot of old first edition modules (including some of Gary's work) as poor DMing?

Enlighten us, What IS the proper way of stocking a dungeon?

 

[Geron Raveneye]

One funny thing about those "standard assumptions" is that they don't tend towards this whole "very high magic" setting that somehow is painted in this thread (as well as those about magic shops and other weird things). Lets take a look at the lowest real [Death] effect I could find...Slay Living (which, incidentally, needs a touch attack before the subject has to make his save-or-die roll, at least in my 3.0 PHB. Hmmm..)

A 5th level spell needs a 9th level cleric to cast. You will find a 9th level cleric

- with a 17% probability in a Large Town with 2001 - 5000 inhabitants (Roll a 6 on 1d6+3 on the Highest Level Locals chart in the DMG).

- or higher with a 66% probability in a Small City with 5001 - 12,000 inhabitants (roll 3-6 on that chart), or two 9th+ level clerics with a 44% probability (roll 3-6 on that chart twice).

- or higher with a 100% probability in a Large City with 12,001 - 25,000 inhabitants (+9 community modifier means you will get at least 3 10th - 15th level clerics, none of which generates another 9th level cleric beneath him, though).

- or higher with a 100% probability in a Metropolis with 25,000+ inhabitants. The +12 on the community modifier means four clerics of 13th - 18th level, a 17% chance one of those creates two more 9th level clerics, a 3% chance that two of them generate two 9th level clerics each, and no chance at all that 3 or 4 of them generate two 9th level clerics each.

Now I agree that the numbers of each settlement type available depend on the setting in question, but this all doesn't really paint a picture to me that the world is crawling with clerics that can send a character to his death with a snap. From what I see of the deities, at lest 1/3rd of those clerics wouldn't have ANY good in-game excuse for actually preparing Death spells. So the "basic assumption" that there is random death carousing in D&D after the PCs hit 9th level is a bit stretched, from my point of view. Also, it somehow does show that being able to cast some death effect spell does signify the caster as something special and worthy of notice by other powers.

That leaves us with all the BBEG clerics and wizards who have to be high enough level to do all that killing on the spot. Sadly, there are no demographical numbers for those in the DMG, so any number would be pulled from thin air...but looking at the basic assumption of the default world make-up, I dare say it's not geared towards hundreds of 9th level baddies crawling out of the woodwork all of a sudden either just to "randomly save-or-die" the characters to death.

 

[Grog]

Of course, "the PCs should never have to face an encounter unless they want to" is my stance on a nest of goblins as well. Players choose what they do isn't just for "big challenges".

Obviously, we shouldn't have goblins in the game.

So your players always know every single creature they're going to face before going into an encounter? They never meet anything unknown or unexpected?

It's your game, of course, but I don't think that's how the vast majority of D&D games are played.