Players, DMs and Save or Die

[Hussar]

Why do people equate taking out SoD with removing all chances of death? That's ridiculous. Heck, 3e combat is pretty lethal, so lethal in fact that about half the deaths in my last campaign were from straight up combat damage. This is certainly a change for me from earlier editions where, once you got past about 4th level, the ONLY thing that killed PC's was SoD.

Let me ask this. What is the EL of a group of 5 monsters capable of killing any one 20th level PC 66% of the time?

 

[FireLance]

The good things people attribute to save-or-die rarely stem from save-or-die itself. They stem from the type of encounter in which save-or-die is typically found, and that type of encounter is almost always possible using non save-or-die mechanics.

This I agree with. In fact, I started a thread about it, but it didn't get a lot of responses.

Or look at a fight against a medusa. What makes that sort of fight cool is that the players have to do it with their eyes shut. Lets go the opposite way, and remove the save. Its not save-or-die now, its just-plain-die. What changes? Nothing, really. The point was that the medusa has a gaze attack that doesn't work on people who's eyes are closed. There's a million ways you could do that other than save-or-die.

I'd say that save or die is a step up from just plain die, though. With save or die, one or more PCs could decide to take calculated risks: trading off the chance that he will fail the saving throw against the opportunity to make a more accurate attack. Of course, as you pointed out, save or get temporarily taken out of the fight works just as well as save or die for this purpose.

If you want to set up a fight for your players that they have to think around instead of taking head on, why use save or die? Why not just add a big number to the party's average level, and use a monster of the resulting CR?

It's not just a matter of escalating the CR. Ideally, the monster should have an ability that proper preparation can negate, but will still be a reasonably tough challenge without. That way, the encounter rewards preparation without making it essential, and without making the fight a walkover if the party is prepared. But yes, you don't need save or die to do it.

Meanwhile, the negative effects of save-or-die are definitely related directly to it. It breaks the CR system by balancing ONLY against preventative spells, not against anything about the characters (DC does balance against saving throws, but considering that they scale together, it doesn't matter).

Again, ideally, the PCs should have strategic options (preparation of specific counters, for example), tactical options, (e.g. closing or averting eyes) in addition to the straightforward approach of simply making saving throws round after round. And again, you don't need save or die to do this.

We can do better.

That's the whole point of 4e, right?

 

[ruemere]

As a person, who always (or almost always) failed crucial save vs save-or-die effect in my 20+ year long career, I would like to say that I hate this type of mechanic with passion.

I'm a GM mostly, but still, taking a week to prepare a character, playing it for days or weeks (or months), only to die (and lose levels) each time a insta-death guy appears, is truly frustrating. I can stomach getting criticals twice as often as the next guy in the front line, but losing characters (or levels) on a regular basis, does make me irritated.

My preference would be either to implement delayed-death effects (giving time and chance to escape imminent doom... the rock in the first Indy Jones movies was fun because it kept rolling after the archeologist, not because it crushed the hero flat) or replace them with a heap of damage spread over several turns.

So, yes, you can kill someone with Finger of Death, it's just that on the first round your enemy gets stunned (with fear), paralyzed (2nd turn), blue on the face (equivalent to -8), even more blue on the face (-9) and then dead as a door nail.

Or, your enemy gets stunned (and takes some damage), paralyzed (and takes a lot of damage), repeat until damage allotment runs out or the enemy runs out of hitpoints.

Regards,
Ruemere

 

[Gentlegamer]

As a player, I'm thankful I'm allowed a saving throw to mitigate my failure to properly avoid the mortally threatening situation.

As a DM, I'm thankful that the rules spell out a mechanic to allow a player to avoid an effect that otherwise would rightfully kill him outright.

 

[WarlockLord]

So, because one group of players can't handle save-or-die, it should be taken out for everyone? It's pretty easy to take spells and say "These don't exist in my campaign."

In the legend of Perseus and the medusa, anyone who looked at the medusa died, instantly. Would the monster have been as scary if the Greeks changed the petrification process so it took 30 seconds? No.

If the dread wizard Zorganoth can kill anyone by pointing at them, it loses something if the length is artificially increased to make the players feel good about themselves. There are plenty of ways to deal with this WITHOUT death ward or spell turning: use a blacklight spell to blind him, have the rogue kill him in his sleep, counterspell*...a creative player could find many ways to do this. Charging the wizard with finger of death in open battle...foolish. And invisibility or other illusions can either conceal you or create other, fake worthless targets, which can be used to bypass or fool mooks as well. There are many things you can do without resorting to death ward.


* I realize that the regular version stinks, however, 3.5 allowed for some good counterspelling sorcs with Heighten Spell, Improved Counterspell, and Metamagic Specialist. Also, one can use dispel magic or the greater version. It works.

 

[Cadfan]

In the legend of Perseus and the medusa, anyone who looked at the medusa died, instantly. Would the monster have been as scary if the Greeks changed the petrification process so it took 30 seconds? No.

Would he be as scary if people who looked at him had a percentage chance of dying instantly, if the exact percentage varied based upon their career choice, and if everyone who met a medusa had a friend with a scroll that could un-die them if the percentage chance went poorly?

As for the rest, all of those things are available in the game as long as Zorganoth is a big scary wizard. Whether he's a big scary wizard with save or die spells is irrelevant. The ONLY thing the save or die stuff is relevant to is whether you use death ward.

 

[WarlockLord]

Would he be as scary if people who looked at him had a percentage chance of dying instantly, if the exact percentage varied based upon their career choice, and if everyone who met a medusa had a friend with a scroll that could un-die them if the percentage chance went poorly?

As for the rest, all of those things are available in the game as long as Zorganoth is a big scary wizard. Whether he's a big scary wizard with save or die spells is irrelevant. The ONLY thing the save or die stuff is relevant to is whether you use death ward.

Wow. First, the medusa is a she. Career choice? I could see that. A fighter who has trained all his life to toughen his body would probably be more resistant than a wizard who is eternally reading. As for the rezzing, that's more a problem of resurrection spells then death effects. I agree with you on that, resurrection should either:

A) Go
B) Require an orphean quest to the underworld
C) Require a sacrifice to the lord of the dead to take the place of the person to be resurrected.

As for Zorganoth, I'd like to say this about save-or-dies: They encourage creativity. Yes, you could use illusions to counter fireball, but the way spells are set up now, you can take the hit from a fireball and not really be affected. As for this, you have a percentile chance, based on your career choice, to take full damage. Perhaps, this, too, is too chancy and must go. Really, the main reason for damage and the nerf of holding spells was to enhance the feeling of script immunity for our heroes. Some people want this. Some do not. I am one of the people who do not, so why should I be penalized? If you don't want them, remove them from your game.

I would, prior to getting the large complaints from those who will explain to me how getting rid of save-or-dies would not end PC death. I daresay otherwise. Damage, it has been pointed out on these boards, can easily be fudged, and I daresay all the PC death haters have this occur often. While the threat of PC death is not the only threat they can worry about...it's usually the most reliable motivator. Yes, cinematic deaths and big fights are cool, but too many of them get drawn out and boring.

Plus, the faster the BBEG goes down, the less of the poorly scripted monologue you get to hear!

 

[hong]

In the legend of Perseus and the medusa, anyone who looked at the medusa died, instantly. Would the monster have been as scary if the Greeks changed the petrification process so it took 30 seconds? No.

Ebola takes roughly a week to kill you, and has about an 80% mortality rate. It seemed pretty scary at the time.

 

[Hussar]

So, because one group of players can't handle save-or-die, it should be taken out for everyone? It's pretty easy to take spells and say "These don't exist in my campaign."
*snip*

Considering the poll shows those that don't like save or die outnumber those that do by a margin of about 2:1, I'm thinking your rhetoric is perhaps slightly skewed.

 

[Lanefan]

Looking at the various posts about the CR system and how Bodaks don't work in it due to their save-or-die effect, I started wondering:

*Can* the CR system handle weak creatures that have one spectacular ability? I'm thinking even more extreme than the Bodak here...how about a little 2 HD housecat-size critter with AC 10 and absolutely nothing going for it except if it touches you at all you lose your entire memory (this includes all your learning i.e. experience i.e. experience points...)? How about the Medusa...low HD, poor at everything, but has save-or-petrify gaze - *and* save-or-regret-it poison if you're dumb enough to get close to it?

These sort of encounters are going to be (or should be) either absolute pushovers for the average party if they are lucky and-or smart, and deadly if they're unlucky or not smart. So how do you (or can you at all) assign a CR to it?

Lanefan