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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Liolel" data-source="post: 1404639" data-attributes="member: 1766">Instant deaths is a tricky topic. When I first became a dm I've went through the blind adherence to the rules and module phase, and the puppy dog dm phase. I'm still developing as a dm but I have some opinions on instant death spells. First it is no fun when out of the blue some strange monster you've never heard of instant kills you. It just ruins the fun of that player. So I'll try to avoid those type of encounters without warning. Second  is that instant deaths can ruin the tension when the wizard in the party acts first and ends the climatic encounter with one spell. However I'll  just accept how the dice fell, luck has its own strange way with things.Now heres how an ideal encounter with an monster like say a bodak would go. The pcs are hired to track down a missing party of important adventurers/warriors. The party goes into the dungeon, and finds one of their bodie with a blindfold on dead from claw wounds. The party continues and find several more bodies but these had no blindfold and no wounds. As the party tries to figure out what killed these people suddenly they hear something coming towards them. At this point the party has a scary mystery which has enough clues for a quick thinker to save the party from the gaze attack.Looking that over I should run such a setup sometime.</blockquote>