Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="GM Dave" data-source="post: 5816629" data-attributes="member: 6687992">Someone mentioned something like this earlier in the thread and I was at the moment thinking of something along the same lines.The ProblemPeople don't like the separate system of one good or bad die roll determining the fate of their character.  People would like to keep the feeling of lethality of Save-or-Die but have it reduce in effect; especially at higher levels when the effects and types becomes more common.One SolutionDrop the whole Saving Throw mechanic.  Toss it in the trash.Unify ThingsPeople like hit points as a system.  It provides a level of absorption of events and allows for healing to be used to prevent problems from 'killing' the character.How to unify SoD with HP?Give all SoD attack an amount of non-lethal damage that they do.  Allow the non-lethal damage to stack with lethal damage for comparison to hit points.If the total of lethal and non-lethal damage is less than the target's hit points then a lesser penalty from the SoD attack applies.  Disintegrate would apply some lethal damage while blindness would apply a negative to hit.If the total of lethal and non-lethal damage equals or exceeds the target's hit points then the 'die' mechanic is applied.  Objects are disintegrated, targets fall over dead, targets are turned into wraiths, and other nasty things.Value of UnificationThe first benefit is to have a player 'healed' from a blindness or petrification attack as cure spells will work to remove the non-lethal damage.The second benefit is that healthier characters survive better being petrified then weaker characters (helps fighters and tanks who charge the Medusa).The third benefit is players have a gauge of how close they are getting to the 'die' effect.  The 'die' effect remains a concern until the non-lethal damage is cured from the character.  This builds drama in an encounter and between encounters if healing is not common.  Players won't wait to go to zero hit points before asking to be healed as they will fear the bigger 'die' penalty that will be applied.The fourth benefit is the amount of non-lethal damage applied and whether it is randomly rolled can embrace a range of play styles.  People wanting more lethal encounters will increase the amount of non-lethal damage applied per attack compared to the player's normal hit points and people wanting less lethal can reduce the amount of damage.The fifth benefit is the effects of non-lethal damage can stack.  This makes a Beholder a fearsome creature because he can apply several non-lethal damage attacks (disintegrate and turn to stone) on the same target to build their total to a bad end.  You can also have regular damage attacks work with the non-lethal making a single vampire amongst a group of humans a very fearsome person but the humans can not be ignored either.I think this idea could do much to improve the whole way SoD are used in game play.</blockquote>

Verification