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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 958429" data-attributes="member: 3146">Even at 20th level, a wizard can't afford to toss 6-8 high level spells per encounter. Of course, at 20th level, 6th level spells aren't high level anymore.The 6-8 spells per combat is assuming one of two things: 1. That the multitude of "I want long, epic, knock down drag out battles, that's what's really fun" people get their way. In that case, 5 rounds wouldn't be a typical encounter anymore. (Of course, if the typical encounter right now is 5 rounds, I don't see what they're complainging about--IME the typical encounter is more like 2 rounds (and that's with 28 point buy, and 1/2 DMG gp value PCs)--five round battles seem pretty epic knock-down drag out affairs to me).2. The use of 3.0 Haste or Quicken spell.From my reading of the storyhour, the wintewight battle was a very serious challenge. And, to my mind, it reveals why save or die spells are balanced--and even exciting: it's quite possible to go a number of rounds casting two spells a round before the opponent sees any effect from the spells at all. That's the risk you take when using save or dies (which seem (at least from 20th level wizard vs. Pit Fiend or Titan examples) to have at best a 25%-30% chance of success. When players want to gamble like that, I don't see any reason to complain if they occasionally win.Considering that you only need to be a 3rd level cleric to cast Remove Paralysis, I would generally expect it to be available within a group of intelligent opponents. . . .If even 1/2 of monsters had the ability to cast Death Ward, there wouldn't be any point in Death Spells. Then again, most high CR monsters seem to have SR--which amounts to a second save.Actually, I don't think high AC would do much about the things that one-hit kill monsters. Even the Keen Improved Crit Scythe only crits on an 18, 19, or 20 for instance. Even with good AC scores (40+ range) those kind of rolls will hit on 20th level fighters' secondary and tertiary attacks. (Confirming may be another matter but even counting the need to confirm your standard 20th level fighter (28 strength, GWF, +5 scythe) PC has a 28% chance each full attack  to score at least one crit with his keen imp crit scythe against AC 39)I won't pretend I haven't heard complaints about Vorpal and Polymorph. However, I think that those "My PCs got lucky and killed my monster in round 1 with a spell" complaints need to be balanced. The comparison with high crit multiplier weapons seems appropriate to me since they can similarly end an encounter abruptly and anticlimactically. And, like save or die spells, high crit multiplier weapons are a gamble for the players. Generally, they do nothing on a successful save so the players are choosing to live or die by the dice when they choose save or die spells--just like players who choose scythes over falchions are choosing to live or die by the dice.* When the players deliberately choose to let luck play a larger part in their survival, it seems silly to me to complain when they actually do get lucky. . . just like it would be silly of them to complain "I've gone 5 adventures with this stupid scythe and I still haven't scored a critical hit yet except one time against an injured kobold with 1 hp left." If they didn't want to depend on luck they should be wielding a greatsword or a falchion.*Of course, you don't need to be as lucky to succeed with save or die spells as you do with high crit multiplier weapons. Often your chance of success is better than 50%. On the other hand, you only get a few shots at success with the spells while the weapon users can have up to 4 (or 8 if they dual wield picks) shots per round.</blockquote>

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