Why is there a Bodak?

[Plane Sailing]

Another interesting possibility would be to change "save or die" attacks into "save or at -1hp and dying" effects (borrowing the idea from d20Modern).

This means that you don't wipe out PC's on a single roll, that there can be tension as the PC's try to avoid gaze/kill the bodak/stabilise their friend(s).

That sounds like an all-good option to me

As a DM of course

 

[Utrecht]

Planesailing,

Hmmmm, I like that, I like that alot - makes both the DMs and PCs happy!

 

[Yobgod Ababua]

Of course I was 400 short fo 8th, and thus lost 10000 exp from dying, so I am a touch bitter.

Assuming that the party eventually defeated said bodak, you should technically still get your experience for the encounter (and the rest of the session) which would level you up just in time to have the raise drop you back to 7th. Some people seem to have the weird misconception that PCs who don't survive an encounter don't get xp, which is patently untrue.

Or did you mean that you were still 400 short -after- you got that experience?

 

[Burne]

If its any concilation buzzard, I also got Bodak'd this weekend. 10th level party of five, vs 4 bodaks and 2 ghasts in a surprise situation. Dead Aetho. Cie la Vie.

 

[rounser]

[SPECULATION]Why does it exist? From what I've heard, the Monster Manual was built by quota so that PCs of level X get to feel useful by using abilities X,Y and Z (which lead to, IMO, conceptually awful monsters like the Destrachan, Digester, Delver, Yrthak etc.).

Designers probably thought; "We need another undead of this CR to balance the clerics and rogues, and another gaze attack critter of this CR to make sure gaze defense spells don't become obsolete....hmmmm, two for the price of one!" Thus, the Bodak.[/SPECULATION]

I think that just as valid an approach would have been to catalog which monsters get used in adventures the most (go through Dungeon magazine back issues and RPGA adventures for source material) and have made sure they made the cut at least some of the time. Watch the game mechanic ball too much and you miss the soul-of-the-game boat perhaps, methinks...

 

[Derulbaskul]

Bodaks are great monsters for flavor purposes. I mean this is a creature that has been "destroyed by the touch of absolute evil". What the hell does that mean? Would a demon be absolute evil? a sphere of annihilation? an evil insane god? Orcus?
At the very least Bodaks should be rare, (the initial bodak), and have a cool backstory. (snip)

Bodaks were first introduced in the 1E module, S4 Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, and were described as, "Bodaks are evil humans changed into monsters by exposure to the demonic forces and substances of the Abyss."

I used to run them as the poor souls who died in the Abyss.

Cheers
D

 

[satori01]

good memory there, I had forgotten that. That segues well into the amazing coincedence that I just recently recovered that very same module from a storage bin, I hadnt seen it for probably 15 years.

 

[Grog]

Another interesting possibility would be to change "save or die" attacks into "save or at -1hp and dying" effects (borrowing the idea from d20Modern).

This means that you don't wipe out PC's on a single roll, that there can be tension as the PC's try to avoid gaze/kill the bodak/stabilise their friend(s).

That sounds like an all-good option to me

As a DM of course

As a DM, I rather like the idea of having save-or-die effects do Con damage instead of killing outright. It's still a very dangerous effect, it allows for roleplaying flavor (i.e., your lifeforce is ripped away by the attack), but you (probably) won't kill the PCs with a single roll.

 

[Deadguy]

Why Bodaks?

I agree with satori that Bodaks have great flavour. I haven't directly used a Bodak in my Shattered World camapign yet, but they fit right in with the cosmology. I have a place that is effectively the source of Evil, and that place has servants and agents. In the right circumstances, even the noblest can be destroyed by the dread power of the Darkheart, and the corrupted remains serve as a reminder that some Evil is too terrible to face - it needs to be by-passed, or sacrifices will be made.

But...

Why 'Save-Or-Die'?

I also happen to agree with RangerWickett that 'save-or-die' is really a holdover from an earlier incarnation of the game, which was balanced and structured differently to the current game. However, whilst we could just replace them with massive damage effects, it occurs to me that we have a new mechanism as of 3e, that of Attribute Damage. I think that with care, 'save-or-die' could be replaced with 'save-or-wither' effects, that drain Attributes. That way there is a protection of sorts: the character's pool of Attribute Points. Still very dangerous, but less arbitrary and more cinematic. Losing attribtes can be described in interesting fashions, and leave interesting permanent stamps on the PCs.

 

[Fauxargent]

I think this contrasts nicely with the "Raise Dead is too cheap/easy to get hold of" rants.

The loss of thousands of xp really hurts (at least in our campaigns) although not as much as the point of CON did in earlier editions