The best way to do Death Effects?

[Pygon]

I like the idea of slow death. In 1e and 2e, I usually didn't let death poison kill a character immediately - I gave the PC's 1-2 rounds to do something about it.

If you got stung with Orcus' tail and failed your save, though, you were toast. I suppose some death effects can be that extreme as well, but weaker ones could have a response time involved.

 

[Li Shenron]

I voted slow death, but even something loosely similar to 3ed negative level would be nice: you have 24 hours (or whatever) to find everything you can to help you maximise your chances of survival (negative levels at this point diverge because they don't kill you later but give you a permanent penalty).

 

[Simia Saturnalia]

I'm for either ability damage (and I'm even okay with big-ass amounts of it, like "touch the Wand of Orcus, take 2d6+10 Con and Wis damage") or (coincidentally) Li Shenron's slightly old but bloody brilliant "Mortally Wounded" condition, which I found linked just recently and added to the house rules for an upcoming campaign immediately (apropos of nothing but having seen Li post just above me).

 

[Doug McCrae]

Most of us will probably agree that iconic spells like "Finger of Death" and "Wail of the Banshee" need to be in the game in one or the other

Neither is iconic imo. And neither needs to be in the game.

I'm starting to think digital should be replaced by analogue. As a previous poster pointed out, a 4th level spell shouldn't stop the death gaze of the God of Death.

Finger of Death -> Finger of Doom

 

[Psion]

Slow Death and Ability Score are both interesting variants.

In Scarred Lands, there's this spell called Mormo's Serpent Hands. It turns each of your fingers into a poisonous serpent. One time, the party's paladin got hit with 2 handfuls of them. The party had no delay poison or neutralize poison. They had to cast restoration to remove the ability damage before the second round of ability damage hit.

 

[Simia Saturnalia]

Wail of the Banshee isn't in my 1e or 2e PHBs...is it really that iconic a spell, being a 9th level spell that's only been in the game for one and a half editions?

 

[Lackhand]

None of the above, exactly. Each spell can resolve separately.
I like "does a lot of damage each round" and "does stat damage" and a variety of other effects.

Another one I'm fond of is the Holy Word mechanic -- different effects depending on the level difference between caster and target.
This is especially good for things like Sleep and Hold Person -- Once the save is failed, if the target higher level than the caster, they get a -1 penalty to everything; if they're of caster level or below, they get slowed or drowsy or frightened or some other status condition that still allows them to participate (but they're screwed!); if they're even less than that, they're asleep/held/dead/they lose.

This lets the God of Death take anyone out, because their caster level is infinity+1.

 

[Celebrim]

The 'Sanity Point' mechanic from CoC.

You have a pool of say Fortitude points. All spells with Fortitude saves or suffer some condition, now do damage to your Fortitude pool: say 1d6/level of the spell, save for half damage. The following possibilities occur on a 'save or die' spell:

1) You save and your fortitude pool is still positive: No effect.
2) You fail your save and your fortitude pool is still positive: You suffer a specified lesser effect. For example, if you would have died you instead of taking full lethal damage, take full non-lethal damage and fall unconscious.
3) You fail your save and your fortitude pool is negative: You die.

A table could be created to define which lesser conditions a condition defaults to. For example:

Death/Unconscious
Petrified/Stunned
Turn To Stone/1d6 Temporary Dex damage
Stunned/Dazed
Dazed/Dazzled
Dazzled/None
Paniced/Frightened
Frightened/Shaken
Ability Damage/Temporary Ability Damage
Energy Drain/Fatigued
Fatigued/Dazzled

Or whatever.

Additionally, you could define conditions for having your Fortitude/Reflex/Will pool being depleted. As an example, a person with a reflex pool depleted might automatically be under a condition similar to fatigued, or a person with a will pool depleted might automatically be under a condition similar to shaken.

 

[theredrobedwizard]

I'm more a fan of "drops you 4 steps down the Condition track and does X HP damage". That way, it *could* kill you, but might not and also leaves you debilitated.

-TRRW

 

[Psion]

Wail of the Banshee isn't in my 1e or 2e PHBs...

Finger of Death, on the other hand...