Danse Macabre

If you fail the Will save for the dance, do you continue taking 1d4 CON drain each round? Do you get to make the save each round?

If you fail the Will save for the dance, do you continue taking 1d4 CON drain each round? Do you get to make the save each round?

As written, yuppers. 1 save. You fail, Con drain ever round you're near the creature. Looking at this guy again, yeah, that's pretty hardcore. But hey, the monster is pretty much Death. And it ends if you coax the creature and his aura away. Hope your low Will save PCs have friends!

I was wondering about that. It seemed like the Con damage was a one-time thing, and I wondered what the Danse did to things it had trapped in the dance; did it scythe them at leisure? now I understand.

As written, yuppers. 1 save. You fail, Con drain ever round your near the creature. Looking at this guy again, yeah, that's pretty hardcore. But hey, the monster is pretty much Death. And it ends if you coax the creature and his aura away. Hope your low Will save PCs have friends!

You know, I miss the ole days of failed and and your screwed. The best campaigns I ever played in were those when heroes were beaten senselessly, close to death, or dead .. dead .. dead. This isn't to say that is the only way to have a good campaign, but in the games when I knew my character wasn't going to die regardless what happens, there just really wasn't much excitement.

Eh, disagreed. Save or Die sucks. "Hey, there's a better-than-average chance that the character I've invested hundreds of hours into developing will die in a random encounter against a high-level creature!"

Loved Ravenloft and Dark Sun back-in-the-day, both known for being especially punishing to PCs, so please don't mistake me for a Monty Haul type of guy, but... Save or Die needs to die. I like the changes that were made to this effect in Pathfinder RPG Alpha, and hope that some of them stick for Beta and the final ruleset.

"Save or Die" makes for a fun single dungeon. Much less fun when it occurs in a campaign. The hard thing I find is not that your PC is now dead, it's introducing the replacement which has far less ties to the adventure and rapport with the other PCs.

Then again, depending on how you handle resurrection magic, Save or Die is no more inconvenient than any other death.

Does Dispel Magic work on those trapped by the Dance of Death? It's a supernatural ability, so I'd say no. But those who fail their will save "are affected as is by the spell irresistible dance" would maybe make it a Yes?

Also, it's a mind-affecting compulsion - so Protection from Evil would end it?

What about Break Enchantment? If yes, what level is the effect?

And lastly, there is music involved but deafness doesn't help so a bard's countersong ability won't help either?

Save or Die is fantastic! I just hope you weren't wanting to tell a long ongoing story with the same characters... like say, Curse of the Crimson Throne.

In all seriousness though, I don't like the mechanic in the game. I have a lot of fond memories of serious harshness in game like Call of Cthulhu, but I don't like it as much in a heroic fantasy like how my group and I play D&D.

Our homebrew rule has been that any save or die effect (con dmg not included) instead of killing the character, reduces them to -8 and bleeding.

This gives an instant out of combat button, but also allows for a quick save of the character.

Sean Mahoney

Does Dispel Magic work on those trapped by the Dance of Death? It's a supernatural ability, so I'd say no. But those who fail their will save "are affected as is by the spell irresistible dance" would maybe make it a Yes?

Nope; dispel magic has no effect on this ability; dispel magic only affects supernatural abilities if the supernatural ability actually says it's affected by dispel magic.

Also, it's a mind-affecting compulsion - so Protection from Evil would end it?

Protection from evil would grant bonuses against the effect, but wouldn't prevent it. Protection from evil only blocks possession and mental command (such as those issued to a dominated victim); it has no effect on compulsions that don't actually work by letting another creature get into your mind and move you like a puppet by controlling you.

What about Break Enchantment? If yes, what level is the effect?

My gut reaction to this is that this would probably work, although I don't have a copy of the ability in front of me to make sure.

And lastly, there is music involved but deafness doesn't help so a bard's countersong ability won't help either?

I would say that a bard's countersong would help, since thematically it makes sense.

All of this DOES mean that the ability is pretty powerful and dangerous... but it's also a powerful and dangerous monster, so that's all okay.

To chime on on Save or Die...

It sucks, but it's awesome.

It sucks when it reduces a character's survivability to a single die roll, be it a saving throw to resist a powerful deadly effect, or even an initiative check to act before a monster that, if it goes first, can't NOT hit you and can't NOT just kill you with minimum damage.

It's awesome in that it keeps things exciting and adds to the unpredictability of combat. If everything is basically all super balanced to work exactly the same way with no real sudden swings in condition, combats run the risk of becoming dull. In the worst case scenario, a combat drags on for hours of real time and is obvious how it's going to end since nothing can come in and suddenly tear things up. Save or die effects also make some monsters what they are; a medusa without her petrification gaze is pointless, and a banshee who's wail doesn't kill is just a ghost.

That all said, I strongly encourage EVERY GM to let their PCs use some sort of "hero point" or "action point" mechanic. It's not the Save or Die effect itself that sucks, but the fact that it removes the player from the game that sucks. Both in removing him from being able to do anything to address the effect, and in removing him from actual play.

By giving PCs hero points or something they can use to avoid disaster like this (or at the very least force rerolls of effects that would end them), you keep the peril of instant death type effects in the game, but empower the PCs with the ability to do something about it. Hero points are a limited resource, so it's not a GUARANTEE that when a PC gets hit with a save or die effect he'll be able to stop it with a hero point, but if he can't, it's not because you, the GM, didn't empower the player with that option.

In addition, it's important to avoid introducing specific save or die effects until the PCs have not only a chance to resist, but until they actually have resources (or the capability to secure the resources soon) to handle the situation. There's a reason why slay living and raise dead, or flesh to stone and stone to flesh are the same level; they give folks the chance to recover from the effect in question. Some monsters make this difficult; the cockatrice is a good example of a creature whose ability is far more powerful than its CR should indicate.

TO SUM UP: Save or die sucks but is important enough to stay in the game, and the GM should thus use these effects responsibly and give the PCs tools to avoid or recover; hero points are good for the game.

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Because our group is prone to running long campaigns, the save or die thing is a bit of an impediment to enjoyment. Not like the good ol days where we'd go through some kind of meatgrinder (read: Temple) and have a few characters go down every session or two.

What we developed many years ago (and have evolved since) is an Edge, Fate, Karma system.

Edge and Fate regenerate with each session. Edge is a reroll (the full outcome of the failed roll is allowed to be known before deciding to "edge" it). For example, beastie gets a critical hit on your character, which is likely to do a horrific amount of damage or kill him. You can find out the critical effect (we use the Paizo critical hits deck for nat 20 crits) and the damage before you decide to force the reroll with the edge. You can only force a single die reroll, so if, for instance, the beastie rolled a 20 then confirmed with a 17, you can just make him reroll the 20. If the reroll is a 20, then the 17 still stands and the critical goes through the same way it would have. Can also be use to reroll failed saves, critical failures (we also use the Paizo critical miss deck for confirmed natural 1 failures).

Fate is a single point on a die of any size (or 5% on a %-ile roll). You can use it to push your save up by 1, your initiative roll up by 1, your to-hit up by one (or the attacker's roll down by one...) anything that is a die roll and affects only you and your attacker you can adjust by 1 (e.g. no modifying the bad guy's initiative). If you declare its use ahead of time, you get double (+/- 2 instead of 1). This is handy where you absolutely, positively have to make the save/hit/reduce damage to avoid being pulped, etc.

Karma is gained only through natural-20, confirmed, critical successes at *something*. For fighting classes this is generally attacks. Rogues and skilly classes, for using their skills. Casters generally get screwed in this particular resource since they have less opportunity to roll the dice, but it works out OK. Karma are used exactly as Fate except they do not regenerate. You have to be out of Karma before you can spend your fate.

Big-time bad guys can also end up with these benefits, depending on how important they are and depending on the DM's feelings on the subject.

Anyway, that has saved our butts many times and made for some very spectacular cinematic scenes. :) When I DM I take the approach that I'm there to tell the story of the characters. If they survive a fight they maybe shouldn't have, but they needed to use all of their special resources to do so, then I am satisfied with that (and so are the players).

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Question! In the anniversary book, it explicitly states its attack is made with touch mechanics.

So, even if the attacked character has a ghost touch armour that protects against incorporeals, it wouldn't help???

Ten year necro!

Mark this necromancy impressed!

Necromancy at its finest. Worms nice and plump!

Question! In the anniversary book, it explicitly states its attack is made with touch mechanics.

So, even if the attacked character has a ghost touch armour that protects against incorporeals, it wouldn't help???

I would think it does work, looking at the statblock and item. Handy!