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<blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 3278039" data-attributes="member: 3146">I don't know that I agree with this characterization of save or die effects. They can be quite climactic. Several years ago, I was playing a high level Living Greyhawk game with another player who had a 15th level (or so) wizard. He was fond of finger of death and would usually intone his verbal component when his character cast it: &quot;I give you... the wages of sin.&quot; To make a long story short, our party was attacked by a large group of half-fiend winter wolves (it wasn't the best module in the world, but they at least had been established as a presence in the mod beforehand so it's not like they just jumped out of the blue&quot;). We divided the battlefield with walls of force, walls of fire, and acid fog and had just managed to kill the rest of the pack when the leader flew out of the top of our acid fog. The paladin on his flying mount charged it and the pack leader cast a blasphemy that paralyzed both paladin and mount. Next in initiative was the wizard. &quot;I grant you... the wages of sin.&quot; The pack leader failed its save and died. Definitely climactic rather than anti-climactic.I've had the same experience with my mid-level Living Arcanis cohort and her phantasmal killer domain spell. After healing a woman seemingly cast adrift on the sea, the woman revealed herself to really be a sea hag and attacked our party. Upon seeing this, I had my cohort cast Phantasmal Killer &quot;You who have known my Lady's gifts, now feel her wrath.&quot; (unlike my friend who plays the wizard, I don't have specific epigrams for my spells, but I do like to toss out an improvised dramatic proclamation every now and then). And, with that, the sea hag failed both saves and died. It was abrupt, but not anti-climactic. To me at least, it seemed like a very appropriate way for the combat to end.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Elder-Basilisk, post: 3278039, member: 3146"] I don't know that I agree with this characterization of save or die effects. They can be quite climactic. Several years ago, I was playing a high level Living Greyhawk game with another player who had a 15th level (or so) wizard. He was fond of finger of death and would usually intone his verbal component when his character cast it: "I give you... the wages of sin." To make a long story short, our party was attacked by a large group of half-fiend winter wolves (it wasn't the best module in the world, but they at least had been established as a presence in the mod beforehand so it's not like they just jumped out of the blue"). We divided the battlefield with walls of force, walls of fire, and acid fog and had just managed to kill the rest of the pack when the leader flew out of the top of our acid fog. The paladin on his flying mount charged it and the pack leader cast a blasphemy that paralyzed both paladin and mount. Next in initiative was the wizard. "I grant you... the wages of sin." The pack leader failed its save and died. Definitely climactic rather than anti-climactic. I've had the same experience with my mid-level Living Arcanis cohort and her phantasmal killer domain spell. After healing a woman seemingly cast adrift on the sea, the woman revealed herself to really be a sea hag and attacked our party. Upon seeing this, I had my cohort cast Phantasmal Killer "You who have known my Lady's gifts, now feel her wrath." (unlike my friend who plays the wizard, I don't have specific epigrams for my spells, but I do like to toss out an improvised dramatic proclamation every now and then). And, with that, the sea hag failed both saves and died. It was abrupt, but not anti-climactic. To me at least, it seemed like a very appropriate way for the combat to end. [/QUOTE]

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