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But there should be situations where fear can be the source of the enjoyment. Save or die effects can be really fun if you know they're coming and either need to avoid them or gear up for them.
If you venture into a hideout for cultists of a death god, you might want to prepare a spell or two to stop sudden death effects.
Besides, it looks like massive damage is still a part of the game. I've got a character right now that can inflict massive damage with nearly every hit, and we just house ruled it out.
don't want dice-orgies interrupting my / or my palyers narrations... (please no "it is just one save for the player...I hear this several times and another roll and another roll is two rolls, etc.- guess you know what i mean). perhaps a save per minute is better?I suppose the last thing we want is for the player who has been hosed to remain engaged in the game, with a chance to save every time his action comes up.
Better to banish him to the couch than interrupt your game with that orgy of 1 die rolling. Who needs that kind of chaos?
Mmmmh. True. I think my "fear" originates with 4e's handling of conditions (save every round)...I don't mind one die roll. But things can get ugly / lead to chaos when this will be overdone...which will hopefully not be the case...
Save or die is good. Keep it.
It either A) Forces players to devote spell slots to Death Ward, in which case you can do other things to them that are not Save or Die, or B) Suck the d20 roll.
The PC's knew they were going to fight people who threw a lot of Save or Die effects, so they cast Death Ward on everyone before going into combat. BUT...it hampered their combat effectiveness in other ways.
The people who don't like Save or Die are the same people who don't like tradeoffs. The tradeoff is that if you want to stop Save or Die, you likely won't have Freedom of Movement, or other similar effects.
That's the RISK inherent in D+D.
Or maybe I could have fun, interesting choices that don't involve wasting a spell slot or dieing. Like which spell should I prepare Fireball or Lightning Bolt or who should I attack?
If you read the designers' articles on WotC website a few years back, you'll see that Save or Die basically means "any time the outcome of one die roll takes the PLAYER out of the game for hours on end". So, see also: Confusion, Dominate Monster, et al.I, personally, hate these. These effects basically mean that the player's choice is to sit around and watch everyone else play D&D for the rest of the night or head home early.
In my AOW campaign, during the Champion's Games, Khellek led off with a confusion spell, which all but two characters failed. Had I not HR'd then and there that an unaffected character can take a full-round action to shake a confused character out of it, the party would've lost the games over a single 4th level spell, & I would've had some very disappointed players.
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One more vote for save or die effects! I really like the way the AP's have spaced them apart as well. It seems like those are some of the most memorable moments from our AoW campaign. I wouldn't mind seeing a new take on them for pathfinder. It might be nice to have the 1st fail disable you(allow some time for the party to help), then if 2nd save fails one round later say hello to Saranrae.
A random thought on action points in pathfinder: When I ran a 4th edition fan adventure for my group, the action points really seemed to slow things down. I might not mind them if they are limited like the fate points were in AoW. Just as long as the pc's aren't expected to use them every encounter.
A random thought on action points in pathfinder: When I ran a 4th edition fan adventure for my group, the action points really seemed to slow things down. I might not mind them if they are limited like the fate points were in AoW. Just as long as the pc's aren't expected to use them every encounter.
I definitely agree with this--make them meaningful and impressive when used, not so common that a character will use them for a random 1d6 on a die roll. These things should literally change the game. I just read through the Savage Worlds implementation of Qualities (imported from Spirit of the Century, which I'm really going to have to check out I think). You can find the full write-up in SharkBytes Volume 3, Issue 2 (January 2008), but the interesting bit for me in relation to this discussion was "Also, at the GM’s discretion, a player may spend a benny to edit the details of the story." That's starting to be how I think about this option--they are rare, but when used can actually allow the player some hand in shaping the overall story (in coordination with the GM).