Save or die spells/effects

[thedungeondelver]

Who said: "Death makes life worth living."?

I tend to agree. Yet I'm looking forward to what people have to offer as alternatives how to make low level spells like the good old lovable Sleep spell interesting again.

May I make a suggestion? Sleep is generally only useful against low hit-die creatures, yes? And given that it now has a saving throw (Fortitude based I believe), make sure that while some mooks who made their saves are of course leaping in to melee, some others are staying behind, waking up their comrades. A simple change of monster tactics is really all that's required to make sleep not become the "fireball for first level magic-users[/b]."

I did this (and have done this) in my D&D campaign, and have had tribal spellcasters use dispel magic to ameliorate its effects in my AD&D campaign.

 

[Fishbone]

Sleep is no good anymore in 3.5, Color Spray is the new hotness.
The first time you stun something for multiple rounds with that puppy is intensely satisfying. Plus, at the low levels you're fighting a bunch of scrub creatures that really have little hope of passing a DC 13-15 will save. It is still a nice way to punish Magical Beasts who like to grapple, too. Color Spray is your daddy.

 

[shilsen]

This also kind of relates back to the loopy notion of a "save game" feature in D&D: it discourages smart play and leaves players slowing the game to a halt as they try one stupid thing after the next (instead of really thinking about how to get around a particular encounter) because, hey, there's no penalty for trying pointless, ridiculous things. A character won't die in an encounter against a beholder, for example, if there's no death ray involved. Or disintigration.

That's only true if death is the only repercussion in the game. I run a heavily player/PC-driven game with almost no possibility for resurrection magic, as well as running NPCs way more effectively than their CR says they should, so I took death out of the equation. PCs can use action pts to survive killing blows/effects at -9 hp (stable). Without that, I'd have had 25 deaths in 50 sessions.

But that hardly makes combat in our game unexciting or means people try stupid stuff and don't care. That's because there are significant repercussions for defeat beyond death. PCs can be captured, lose valuable equipment, lose important items connected to the plots they're involved in, have enemies learn valuable secrets about them, fail in achieving some particular aim that is predicated on their success, etc. In many ways, death would actually be much easier on them, in comparison to being beaten and surviving. And, of course, there's the whole question of player ego, since nobody likes his PC to have his ass handed to him.

In short, it's very easy to have tension in the game even without save-or-die spells, or death for that matter. The reason that people want death to be present is so that PC actions have dire consequences. As long as you ensure such consequences still exist in the game, the presence or absence of death becomes irrelevant.

 

[Lanefan]

The only thing that could persuade me, I think, to support a reduction in save-or-die effects would be a general reduction in high-level PC hit point totals, to make damage a more significant threat.

As for save-or-stop effects e.g. paralyze, hold, sleep: to me those are not automatically save-or-die because the opponent still has to kill you. It is quite rare, given the number of times my PCs fall victim to save-or-stops, to have anyone actually die this way in my game. Most often; the opponent dies, the stop effect wears off, and all is well....

Lanefan

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

In the HERO system, 'Save or Die' is handled by the Transform (Major) power. Each dice of Transform (Major) costs the same as a dice of Killing Attack. To succeed, you have to get a total equal to the opponent's BODY. In other words, it takes as much effort to transform/instant death someone as it does to kill them with damage.

Despite this, it 'feels' very different. It targets a different defense (Power instead of either Energy or Physical; most characters have much more of the latter types) but doesn't stack with damage done by other characters. Of course, it can do more than just kill the target.

And ye gods, is it refreshing!

 

[Ghendar]

I'd like to see a new mechanic where a failed save has some negative effect, then you roll another save to see if you're really hosed.

You mean like level drain?

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

That's only true if death is the only repercussion in the game. I run a heavily player/PC-driven game with almost no possibility for resurrection magic, as well as running NPCs way more effectively than their CR says they should, so I took death out of the equation. PCs can use action pts to survive killing blows/effects at -9 hp (stable). Without that, I'd have had 25 deaths in 50 sessions.

But that hardly makes combat in our game unexciting or means people try stupid stuff and don't care. That's because there are significant repercussions for defeat beyond death. PCs can be captured, lose valuable equipment, lose important items connected to the plots they're involved in, have enemies learn valuable secrets about them, fail in achieving some particular aim that is predicated on their success, etc. In many ways, death would actually be much easier on them, in comparison to being beaten and surviving. And, of course, there's the whole question of player ego, since nobody likes his PC to have his ass handed to him.

In short, it's very easy to have tension in the game even without save-or-die spells, or death for that matter. The reason that people want death to be present is so that PC actions have dire consequences. As long as you ensure such consequences still exist in the game, the presence or absence of death becomes irrelevant.

QFT2

There's more to risk than the risk of death, and removing/reducing the risk of death allows you to make death, when it does occur (usually to NPCs), mean vastly more.

 

[Victim]

The only thing that could persuade me, I think, to support a reduction in save-or-die effects would be a general reduction in high-level PC hit point totals, to make damage a more significant threat.
Lanefan

Seeing as how characters can pretty reasonably dish out more than a hundred damage (single target) in a round at higher levels, I think the problem is too much damage, not too little. Character durability versus damage actually seems to drop off after mid levels.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

I tend to agree. Yet I'm looking forward to what people have to offer as alternatives how to make low level spells like the good old lovable Sleep spell interesting again.

I must have missed something.

What'd they do to Sleep!?

 

[Darklone]

I must have missed something.

What'd they do to Sleep!?

I'll tell you after taking a nap.