Save or die!

[Zog]

Instant death affects? I don't like 'em. No way.

Problem is two-fold:

One: Cheesey. Either killing the BCIC or a player without making it Interesting.

Two: The player of said dead character now gets to sit and watch the rest of the fight. Boo-ring. Not fun. Not only do they have bummer of a dead PC, but they are not on the sidelines. This is also true at lower levels of affects such as hold person, sleep, etc.


Here is an interesting idea - not a complete fix, but one that I think would go a long way to making things more interesting.
Change the duration of Instant-Kill spells such as stone to flesh, disintigrate, harm, slay living and finger of death to 1 round.

Stone-to-flesh and Disintigrate would take affect over a round - you are slowly falling to pieces/turning to stone. You get One last action - and your party gets one chance to save you via dispel magic, break enchantment, etc. During your action, you have penalities - say, 50% dex for Stone to flesh, 50% Str for Dis., but you can do *something*, try to go out in style, if nothing else.
Slay Living and Finger of Death likewise - affect is Con dropping to Zero.
Harm - hit points are dropping throughout the round.

Just before the jerk who cast this on you gets his next action, the spell is complete - you are a statue, a pile of dust, dead, or nigh dead. Unless someone managed to help you out somehow.

It complicates things, but seems like it certainly would add tension. Mind you, does nothing for the bored guy affected by hold person - makes dispel magic a lot more popular, and the 'insta-deaths' less popular.

Thoughts, opinions?

 

[reapersaurus]

Thoughts, opinions?

I like those ideas.

 

[Al]

And given the lethality of high-level D&D by the book, this is a Good Thing as far as I'm concerned.

Fair enough.

Nonsense.

Perhaps you misunderstand me. My point on this issue is that I have commented that save-or-die needn't be deadly due to the necessary defenses. You said that if save-or-die went, then the defenses could go as well. My counter-point was that by this logic, you might as well remove both Fire spells and Protection From Fire. In the end, the effect (i.e. narrowing the game) is the same.

Pfaugh. There should be plenty of ways to let boom-spell mages get their share of spotlight time without needing to have disintegrate, slay living, finger of death, work the way they currently do. They manage it even as low as 5th level, after all. And if you're a sorc, you can do it even as low as 3rd or 4th. I've never felt that wizards _needed_ instant death spells to make their presence known at high levels.

Short of instant death spells, and 'pseudo-instant-death' spells (Holds, Sleeps, Dominations, Flesh-to-Stones etc.) there is no way that a wizard can hold up to a fighter in a straight bash-fest. If we take 12th level to be the 'base level', the boom-wizard's best bet is a Fireball, doing 15d6 damage (around 50 on average). An archer with Rapid Shot can easily dish a similar amount out, and, although not necessarily to as large an area, is happily more than compensated by much higher durability.

You can raise a counterargument if you want. Saying "do you realise you're taking stuff out of the game?" is nothing more than stating the bleeding obvious.

The counterargument, then, is this: it changes the whole character of the game. It places much less emphasis on saves and the like (which are primarily, at high level, to resist these effects), hence cheapening the monk and paladin. It cheapens the primary spellcasting classes. It totally redistributes the power between the school specialisations. It has a small cheapening effect on classes with good Fort saves (which, at high level, are geared up to making the save-or-dies). It strongly thrusts the spotlight back onto the rogue (who always suck when hit by save-or-dies), with the fighter, barbarian and ranger all coming out strongly.

Until someone dies, anyway.

Which a) takes a long time and b) makes it no difference to save-or-die anyway!

In the long run, we're all dead, yes. Your point being...?

I have little doubt you are well-read enough to be able to quote Keynes. My point is that if, by the end of the combat, the character is dead irrespective of the mechanism, what is the ultimately difference? The course of one combat is hardly 'the long run' (at least how Keynes intended it.)

What, you want a perfect fix after one weekend's worth of messageboard haranguing? I'll keep that in mind next time you make a suggestion.

Perhaps this was unreasonable, but I expected something more substantial than just pulling the plug.

Zog:

One: Cheesey. Either killing the BCIC or a player without making it Interesting.

Read tsunami.

Two: The player of said dead character now gets to sit and watch the rest of the fight. Boo-ring. Not fun. Not only do they have bummer of a dead PC, but they are not on the sidelines. This is also true at lower levels of affects such as hold person, sleep, etc.

This can also happen with hit-point damage. Focus all the tanks on the wizard (as any good tactical opponent should do) and they can easily hit the turf in one round.

Here is an interesting idea - not a complete fix, but one that I think would go a long way to making things more interesting.

Ironically does the opposite of save-or-die banning in game mechanical terms. Banning save-or-dies greatly cheapens spellcasters; this fix boosts them severely by having them not only have the offensive power, but also the means to rectify it. And of course, ultimatley, it's not much different: you may as well keep save-or-dies as written.

 

[Zappo]

If the victim gets a chance to do something before he dies, if failing the save doesn't mean the combat is immediately over, it's a major difference.

In other terms, a combat is 'the long run'.