Spells which were not properly nerved...

[Voadam]

In my experience, the person who is mostly unsatisfied when the BBEG gets oneshotted is the DM. And since I'm generally the DM, I'm OK with it happening occasionally. The cheering and the cake from my players make up for it!

I think the whole thing about Baleful Polymorph is overblown; FORT saves scale up pretty well on monsters. Glitterdust (which Pathfinder nerfed) was a much bigger problem.

Ken

Its pretty easy to find save or die for will save ones too. Color spray and sleep don't have the save each round that glitterdust now does and impact the game at 1st level while dominate person similarly does not at the 5th level spell range.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Save-or-die spells also make rotten traps.

I was running the Worlds Largest Dungeon and it had a Phantasmal Killer trap in a hallway. The party member running point failed his TWO saves and keeled over dead.

The players thought I was joking at first, not wanting to believe he really did just scream and fall over dead for no reason, but soon came to realize that he was, indeed, dead.

It really wasn't fun on the GM side of the screen, nor was it very fun for the player who died who was forced to roll up another character and waste the rest of the night before I could insert him into the story.

DS

 

[Mark Chance]

Save-or-die spells also make rotten traps.

I was running the Worlds Largest Dungeon and it had a Phantasmal Killer trap in a hallway. The party member running point failed his TWO saves and keeled over dead.

Rotten traps, and rotten tactics by the bad guys. I avoid all-or-nothing effects when DMing most of the time, and then usually put them in play when I know the PCs have a counter on hand.

As to the phantasmal killer trap, yeah, gotta agree that's pretty lame. A monster summoning IV trap would be more interesting.

 

[Sylrae]

For dealin with save or suck, here's something I came up with earlier today. obviously needs refinement and testing. But it could lead to a valid fix if someone did the probability math or alot of playtesting.

Here is the post

 

[Mark Chance]

Here is the post

I've been following that thread. It's an interesting read, but such a thorough overhaul of magic is way beyond what I'd be willing to implement in a game. I like to make things simpler and to keep the learning curve from approaching anything resembling steep.



In other news, this thread has spawned a blog post. Spooky, huh?