Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Majoru Oakheart" data-source="post: 6774885" data-attributes="member: 5143">I'm just not sure what benefit you get from classifying it that way.&nbsp; The reason people refer to the class of &quot;save or die&quot; spells or &quot;save or suck&quot; spells at all is because of the two problems I mentioned.&nbsp; It sucks as a DM when a big, powerful monster gets taken down by one spell without having to do any damage to it at all.&nbsp; It sucks for a PC to have the same thing happen to them.&nbsp; Completely healthy to dead or at least incapacitated with one spell and one die roll can suck.&nbsp; Well, unless the creature was really weak to begin with.&nbsp; It doesn't matter if your &quot;Finger of Death&quot; or whatever kills someone outright if they only have 4 hitpoints and would have died to any weapon attack against them.&nbsp; Since, at that point, the spell is effectively doing 4 points of damage and is the same as a magic missile.&quot;Save or Die&quot; is a category of spells that says &quot;I don't care how many hit points you have....you die(or you are so incapacitated or debuffed that you might as well be dead since you can no longer effectively fight back)&quot;.This spell doesn't have that problem at all.&nbsp; Classifying it as a &quot;save or die&quot; spell implies it does have that problem....since that's the only thing that &quot;save or die&quot; spells have in common.&nbsp; Otherwise every spells that doesn't do actual damage should be classified as &quot;save or die&quot;.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Majoru Oakheart, post: 6774885, member: 5143"] I'm just not sure what benefit you get from classifying it that way. The reason people refer to the class of "save or die" spells or "save or suck" spells at all is because of the two problems I mentioned. It sucks as a DM when a big, powerful monster gets taken down by one spell without having to do any damage to it at all. It sucks for a PC to have the same thing happen to them. Completely healthy to dead or at least incapacitated with one spell and one die roll can suck. Well, unless the creature was really weak to begin with. It doesn't matter if your "Finger of Death" or whatever kills someone outright if they only have 4 hitpoints and would have died to any weapon attack against them. Since, at that point, the spell is effectively doing 4 points of damage and is the same as a magic missile. "Save or Die" is a category of spells that says "I don't care how many hit points you have....you die(or you are so incapacitated or debuffed that you might as well be dead since you can no longer effectively fight back)". This spell doesn't have that problem at all. Classifying it as a "save or die" spell implies it does have that problem....since that's the only thing that "save or die" spells have in common. Otherwise every spells that doesn't do actual damage should be classified as "save or die". [/QUOTE]

Verification