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Should 5e have save or die?
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<blockquote data-quote="Fanaelialae" data-source="post: 5779575" data-attributes="member: 53980"><p>I firmly believe that save or die should be optional.</p><p></p><p>I also don't agree with it for reasons of verisimilitude. A single sword blow or arrow should be capable of killing an experienced fighter outright if you're arguing for realism. </p><p></p><p>You don't need magic to kill people; folks die in the real world all the time. I expect if you polled people on the streets, you'd find the idea of someone who can't be killed by any less than two strikes from a sword to be at least as absurd as a medusa who can't instantly turn you to stone, and probably more so.</p><p></p><p>The difference between save or die and dying from hp attrition is that one minor streak of (bad) luck typically won't cause you to die from damage, but will cost you with save or die. You only have to fail a search for traps once in order for a poison trap to cost your character's life. A bad roll during combat typically won't kill you outright; usually you have a chance to recover by playing well.</p><p></p><p>And I absolutely don't want to see a return to the good old days of tapping every tile with a 10' pole just in case. Sure it's smart play in a world filled with instant death, but it's also lame. You don't see navy seals engaging in such behavior, Conan didn't do it, and Indiana Jones didn't behave that way, so why do D&D characters?</p><p></p><p>As for whoever said that players would not want to sacrifice save-or-die so that the DM is denied it? Patently false, at least in the case of my group. We used save or die once, on a boss, and realized that it was so anti-climactic that we had no taste for it. This was back in the 3e days, and the DM had spent literally hours putting together this monstrosity; it rolled a natural 1 on it's save and an epic fight was reduced to nothing. After that, we boycotted save-or-die, even if the DM didn't. For us, it doesn't add anything to the game; it just reduces the fun for everyone.</p><p></p><p>We're not looking to be coddled. Our favorite DM, although impartial, takes great pride in killing characters. But there's nothing to take pride in when death is totally random, as is the case with save-or-die. To put it another way, there's nothing inherently skilled about playing an FPS wherein everyone just uses one-shot-one-kill rocket launchers. </p><p></p><p>I guess you can attribute my biggest qualm with save-or-die to that there's never a sense of accomplishment with it, regardless of the outcome.</p><p></p><p>IMO, of course.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Fanaelialae, post: 5779575, member: 53980"] I firmly believe that save or die should be optional. I also don't agree with it for reasons of verisimilitude. A single sword blow or arrow should be capable of killing an experienced fighter outright if you're arguing for realism. You don't need magic to kill people; folks die in the real world all the time. I expect if you polled people on the streets, you'd find the idea of someone who can't be killed by any less than two strikes from a sword to be at least as absurd as a medusa who can't instantly turn you to stone, and probably more so. The difference between save or die and dying from hp attrition is that one minor streak of (bad) luck typically won't cause you to die from damage, but will cost you with save or die. You only have to fail a search for traps once in order for a poison trap to cost your character's life. A bad roll during combat typically won't kill you outright; usually you have a chance to recover by playing well. And I absolutely don't want to see a return to the good old days of tapping every tile with a 10' pole just in case. Sure it's smart play in a world filled with instant death, but it's also lame. You don't see navy seals engaging in such behavior, Conan didn't do it, and Indiana Jones didn't behave that way, so why do D&D characters? As for whoever said that players would not want to sacrifice save-or-die so that the DM is denied it? Patently false, at least in the case of my group. We used save or die once, on a boss, and realized that it was so anti-climactic that we had no taste for it. This was back in the 3e days, and the DM had spent literally hours putting together this monstrosity; it rolled a natural 1 on it's save and an epic fight was reduced to nothing. After that, we boycotted save-or-die, even if the DM didn't. For us, it doesn't add anything to the game; it just reduces the fun for everyone. We're not looking to be coddled. Our favorite DM, although impartial, takes great pride in killing characters. But there's nothing to take pride in when death is totally random, as is the case with save-or-die. To put it another way, there's nothing inherently skilled about playing an FPS wherein everyone just uses one-shot-one-kill rocket launchers. I guess you can attribute my biggest qualm with save-or-die to that there's never a sense of accomplishment with it, regardless of the outcome. IMO, of course. [/QUOTE]
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