The Doomed condition. Pretty amazing for narrative. But also really useful for keeping the gameplay interesting as a concept.
Power Word Kill instantly kills anyone under 100hp. It's pretty cool when you blast the BBEG's Lieutenant and he falls like a soufflé near a jackhammer. But when a player gets struck by a Save or Die spell it kind of sucks. They're just done playing unless someone has a buncha diamonds (Or one big one) on hand. But consider if you will the Doomed Condition being applied. Now the character is -going- to die, barring massive magical intervention. Throw them some hit points from cure spells and now they're able to fight... but their insides are so pulped by the spell that there's no way they'll survive, even if they manage to win the fight.
Or a character who gets completely wrecked in a fight who gets back up and, knowing that he's already dead, sacrifices himself nobly for the party to escape!
It gives your players a chance to go out on their own terms, rather than a single bad roll ending things in an anticlimactic manner.
Save or Doomed. It'll be standard in SotSA, and I will freely encourage it as an option in the revision of the Adventurer's Guide, with request for neither credit nor payment.
Power Word Kill instantly kills anyone under 100hp. It's pretty cool when you blast the BBEG's Lieutenant and he falls like a soufflé near a jackhammer. But when a player gets struck by a Save or Die spell it kind of sucks. They're just done playing unless someone has a buncha diamonds (Or one big one) on hand. But consider if you will the Doomed Condition being applied. Now the character is -going- to die, barring massive magical intervention. Throw them some hit points from cure spells and now they're able to fight... but their insides are so pulped by the spell that there's no way they'll survive, even if they manage to win the fight.
Or a character who gets completely wrecked in a fight who gets back up and, knowing that he's already dead, sacrifices himself nobly for the party to escape!
It gives your players a chance to go out on their own terms, rather than a single bad roll ending things in an anticlimactic manner.
Save or Doomed. It'll be standard in SotSA, and I will freely encourage it as an option in the revision of the Adventurer's Guide, with request for neither credit nor payment.
