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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7485549" data-attributes="member: 4937">There in is the question.&nbsp; So look at it this way.&nbsp; One of the cheesiest moves available in D&amp;D is hitting a target with multiple save or die effects.&nbsp; It's pretty easy to show that any spell that forces a saving throw if it is spammed by low level casters at some point takes out any PC in the game.&nbsp; I think it was even Gygax that points out that 7 or 8 1st level casters per PC, can reliably 'charm' the entire party since no PC can reliably make 7 or 8 saving throws.&nbsp;&nbsp; So with something like 'Polymorph Other' into a jellyfish available as a 4th level spell and available on a wand, any monster intended to challenge a high level party has to be able to survive a hypothetical party of 6 M-U's or other spellcasters.&nbsp;&nbsp; The question becomes, &quot;How many attempts to kill a monster with a save effect should be necessary to balance an M-U with an equivalent level fighter hacking and slashing through the monsters hit points?&quot;, keeping in mind that probably to maintain balance it has to be slightly larger than the time required to win with a party of 6 equivalent fighters owing to the generally greater influence of M-U's on non-combat challenges (the ability to fly, remove obstacles, control NPCs, etc.).&nbsp; I actually made a first attempt at this by making a table of expected resistance for each sort of dragon.&nbsp; I think the number is a bit on the high side, but I haven't taken the next step of calculating how many save or die spells are required before a given dragon is expected to fail a save and lose the combat.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7485549, member: 4937"] There in is the question. So look at it this way. One of the cheesiest moves available in D&D is hitting a target with multiple save or die effects. It's pretty easy to show that any spell that forces a saving throw if it is spammed by low level casters at some point takes out any PC in the game. I think it was even Gygax that points out that 7 or 8 1st level casters per PC, can reliably 'charm' the entire party since no PC can reliably make 7 or 8 saving throws. So with something like 'Polymorph Other' into a jellyfish available as a 4th level spell and available on a wand, any monster intended to challenge a high level party has to be able to survive a hypothetical party of 6 M-U's or other spellcasters. The question becomes, "How many attempts to kill a monster with a save effect should be necessary to balance an M-U with an equivalent level fighter hacking and slashing through the monsters hit points?", keeping in mind that probably to maintain balance it has to be slightly larger than the time required to win with a party of 6 equivalent fighters owing to the generally greater influence of M-U's on non-combat challenges (the ability to fly, remove obstacles, control NPCs, etc.). I actually made a first attempt at this by making a table of expected resistance for each sort of dragon. I think the number is a bit on the high side, but I haven't taken the next step of calculating how many save or die spells are required before a given dragon is expected to fail a save and lose the combat. [/QUOTE]

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