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<blockquote data-quote="billd91" data-source="post: 6154425" data-attributes="member: 3400"><p>Perhaps not a big cost from the viewpoint of actual game resources spent, but the psychological effect on the player has to be considered. That's probably a significant reason 3e spellcasters got as good as they are - to settle the backlog of complaints that it's not fun to have an action be totally wasted by the target making its saving throw (or have spellcasting interrupted, etc).</p><p></p><p>I agree, in theory, that a chance of the spell completely fizzling does make save or die/sit spells capable of ending an encounter (or at least completely take out an encounter creature) a less dominating strategy compared to spells that dish out an appropriate level of damage. The player has to balance the frustration of having wasted actions against the satisfaction of being the player who took out the monster. However, in this age of fun and spotlight jealousy among players, I do think having a spell be completely ineffective is perhaps a bad idea. I reluctantly have to think that some form of partial effect or progressive effect may be a good plan. If you try to hit the umber hulk with a charm monster and it makes a save, I think it might be of value to impose some kind of effect on it so that the spellcaster's action wasn't completely wasted yet the creature is not taken out of the encounter. Under 3e/PF, dazed, shaken, sickened, and staggered make good sorts of conditions to impose. But in D&D Next, putting all of the target creatures attacks under disadvantage for the next round may be enough (or even ideal) as it shakes off the magical effect.</p><p></p><p>As far as balancing save or die and it's chances of failure with other spells or effects that damage a creature, what you could compare is expected values. If the spellcaster used his same-level damaging spells to take down an opponent, how long can we expect the target to suffer the damage before being neutralized? Ideally, a save or die spell's chance of success/failure is set so that the length of time is about the same.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="billd91, post: 6154425, member: 3400"] Perhaps not a big cost from the viewpoint of actual game resources spent, but the psychological effect on the player has to be considered. That's probably a significant reason 3e spellcasters got as good as they are - to settle the backlog of complaints that it's not fun to have an action be totally wasted by the target making its saving throw (or have spellcasting interrupted, etc). I agree, in theory, that a chance of the spell completely fizzling does make save or die/sit spells capable of ending an encounter (or at least completely take out an encounter creature) a less dominating strategy compared to spells that dish out an appropriate level of damage. The player has to balance the frustration of having wasted actions against the satisfaction of being the player who took out the monster. However, in this age of fun and spotlight jealousy among players, I do think having a spell be completely ineffective is perhaps a bad idea. I reluctantly have to think that some form of partial effect or progressive effect may be a good plan. If you try to hit the umber hulk with a charm monster and it makes a save, I think it might be of value to impose some kind of effect on it so that the spellcaster's action wasn't completely wasted yet the creature is not taken out of the encounter. Under 3e/PF, dazed, shaken, sickened, and staggered make good sorts of conditions to impose. But in D&D Next, putting all of the target creatures attacks under disadvantage for the next round may be enough (or even ideal) as it shakes off the magical effect. As far as balancing save or die and it's chances of failure with other spells or effects that damage a creature, what you could compare is expected values. If the spellcaster used his same-level damaging spells to take down an opponent, how long can we expect the target to suffer the damage before being neutralized? Ideally, a save or die spell's chance of success/failure is set so that the length of time is about the same. [/QUOTE]
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