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In my campaign, it comes up ... and if you fail your save - you die. Move on. I just don't get it.
Hecks, we found that at higher levels, it was becoming a bit easy to fail your save, die and get raised. So, we added a spin: Will to Life Save. Will Sv. DC 10 + No. of Times You've Died.
A few characters have actually decided not to come back from the dead. No player has complained.
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Ever play a spellcaster that was being grappled? That Concentration check to let you cast Dimension Door is essentially a "save or die" situation. Even if they get rid of Save or Die effects, they won't really be gone so long as life threatening situations are in the game.
That's why they have the Do-over spells in the first place.
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I've never understood it either. Maybe it's a problem in campaigns where death is a major, huge deal, but in a game with Revivify (SC) or Pathfinder's Breath of Life, as far as I've ever seen as a DM or player, a character dying is usually just a case of somebody yelling "Cleric!", the cleric doing his or her thing, and everybody moves on.
It's annoying, a distraction or even a major crimp on a party's combat plans, but nothing so horrible the game needs changing over it.
It's not save or die from the player's perspective. It's save or spend several hours watching other people have fun (while they end the combat, get back to civilization or a safe point, scrape the cash together, and cast the spell).
And that's the best case scenario; worse case scenario is de-railing the entire campaign plot to introduce the party's newest bestest buddy, who will be dropped like a used Kleenex as soon as their previous bestest buddy gets raised.
The WORST case scenario is the party deciding that the mission is too important for the characters to abandon or delay, thus leaving the player out in the cold for several weeks. If you're behind enemy lines or on a time clock or, god help, you on a time clock behind enemy lines and are medium level and thus without even raise dead or reincarnate.
And all of this happens not because you're a bad role player, not because you designed a character badly, not because you made a mistake in tactics, but because you rolled badly.
You rolled badly one time.
Is that really worth forcing a player to sit in the time out chair for several hours to several weeks?
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By that token, why not get rid of all the "save or no fun" spells, like Hold Person, Flesh to Stone, and even Sleep? Paralysis, Petrification, and Unconsciousness are just as "un-fun" as being dead. Quicker to fix (unless you don't have a mage with Stone to Flesh or Polymorph Any Object), true, but still just as much sitting around with nothing to do as a player.
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It's not save or die from the player's perspective. It's save or spend several hours watching other people have fun (while they end the combat, get back to civilization or a safe point, scrape the cash together, and cast the spell).
And that's the best case scenario; worse case scenario is de-railing the entire campaign plot to introduce the party's newest bestest buddy, who will be dropped like a used Kleenex as soon as their previous bestest buddy gets raised.
The WORST case scenario is the party deciding that the mission is too important for the characters to abandon or delay, thus leaving the player out in the cold for several weeks. If you're behind enemy lines or on a time clock or, god help, you on a time clock behind enemy lines and are medium level and thus without even raise dead or reincarnate.
And all of this happens not because you're a bad role player, not because you designed a character badly, not because you made a mistake in tactics, but because you rolled badly.
You rolled badly one time.
Is that really worth forcing a player to sit in the time out chair for several hours to several weeks?
couldnt have said it better myself!!! What is the fun of death? To some, who are more 'video game minded' its natural easy thing...ahhh died? lets just ressurect you.
for those of us who are more role play minded...its far more serious.
I have house rules that change the effect. Basicly, If you were supposed to die, you are at -10 and hovering at deaths door...and have to change your character in some way. lose an eye? that cannot be regenerated back and have to suffer a -2 on attacks and preception type skill chekcs for 1 level as you get used to it...lose a foot? and have to hobble around at 5' base move for 1 level or until you get a prosethetic. Huge scar across face? take a -2 on all cha based skills for 1 level til you get over the fear of being shunned...
This adds to role playing and makes the 'death' still have a game effect....but 'save or die' situations arent fun by any means if you lose a beloved character to bad luck
To me, save or die is simply not fun. They can kill you without doing anything wrong on your side, or they can end an important and supposedly hard battle in one or two rounds.
Both is bad in my eyes.
It's not just an issue when they're used against PCs. "Save-or-die" spells also make high level fights into a crapshoot. While the fighter is chipping away at the big bad guy's hit points, the character casting "save-or-die" spells either slays the bad guy outright (making the fighter's efforts pointless) or fails to do so (and his own efforts are pointless). Either way it's an anti-climax.
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To me, save or die is simply not fun. They can kill you without doing anything wrong on your side, or they can end an important and supposedly hard battle in one or two rounds.
Both is bad in my eyes.
Like I pointed out earlier, have a dire lion grapple your wizard. That concentration check is now your "save or die" just the same. When the raging barbarian ogre (or hill giant, depending on your level range) power attacks through the roof, your initiative check can be a "save or die". You are just as dead and it's just as "unfun".
Saying you want to remove the "unfun" elements of the game is the same as saying you want to remove all the risk from the game. Isn't getting beat down by a BBEG "unfun"? Worse, by an encounter on the way to the BBEG? Why have negative effects at all if falling prey to one is "unfun"?
Save-or-die is fine. Death Magic is a staple of fantasy and characters need to be able to die or the game isn't suspenseful. The problem is that by high level there are so many Save-or-die effects the combat becomes a grim game of russian roulette, where the one on the d20 is the filled chanmber.
That's bad because players need to feel in control of their own fate. Getting killed by a lucky crit? Well, I could have gotten so Fortification armor, or done something to boost my hit points. If you're a spellcaster, you feel stupid for getting in melee in the first place. Taken down by a death spell when you had to roll a 10? Ok, that's bad luck, but that's a powerful spell.
On the other hand, when you're taken out by a death effect and you only need to roll a 2, you feel screwed over, because there is no way you could have done better. Especially when you have to keep rolling over and over. Bodaks are the poster child for this problem.
Oh, also many save-or-die effects are Death effects, which make raising more complicated.
Like I pointed out earlier, have a dire lion grapple your wizard. That concentration check is now your "save or die" just the same. When the raging barbarian ogre (or hill giant, depending on your level range) power attacks through the roof, your initiative check can be a "save or die". You are just as dead and it's just as "unfun".
Actually, that's lots more fun. The wizard screams for help. He gets aid from his companions. Time's ticking as he gets mauled.... will they save him in time??
That's Versus: Go to [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0456.html]Ohthedrama![/url].
The raging barbarian ogre is a tactical challenge that requires teamwork to overcome. The save or die spell? Nope.
Saying you want to remove the "unfun" elements of the game is the same as saying you want to remove all the risk from the game. Isn't getting beat down by a BBEG "unfun"? Worse, by an encounter on the way to the BBEG? Why have negative effects at all if falling prey to one is "unfun"?
Not that anyone here is actually arguing your little straw man position, but I'll respond anyway. No one is saying that death should be eliminated from the game. We're saying that pure luck-based, player-no-fault, undramatic death that retards the story should be made less frequently a part of the game.
Consequences make the game fun and spur role-playing. Character death can and should be a part of that, but only when it is dramatic and satisfying, not random and with terrible consequences either to the story or to the player.
It's hard to believe that such a position is controversial, but there you go.
Since I can't get the cool linky thing to work, this is a selection from a post by Scurvy Platypus on an enworld thread in which he was taking the con position on the issue of character death, while I was pro:
"What's the point in playing the character when you know he's meat at the end?
Some people want their character to be able to die, but not everyone does. If nobody cared about their character staying alive, why bother to have healing spells, ways to come back from the dead, and the vicious arguments that can break out over rules?
When I run a game, I flat out ask people if character death is "on the table". If everyone is willing to go along with it, then my next question is "perma-death or not"?
There seems to be this thing where people feel that if death isn't on the table, then players are going to run riot and do all kinds of crazy/stupid stuff.
That's not a function of whether or not there's "consequences" for actions in the game. That's a function of the player in question acting like a jerk.
I have a certain expectation that people are going to act reasonable. And no, I don't expect to have to define "reasonable" in an upfront document, as if this were a legal debate or something. I'm running a game to have some fun, and for other people to have fun. I should be able to say, "Ok, death isn't on the table so you don't have to worry about that. Just don't do stupid stuff like jumping off a skyscraper since your character 'can't die' and we won't have any problems."
Just because the PCs have death immunity doesn't mean there's no consequences for their actions. NPCs can die, bad things can happen to the characters, resources can be lost, penalties to actions can be given... all the usual kinds of stuff that can happen in a game.
Taking death off the table means that many (not all) people can really get into their character. They don't have to worry about investing time and effort into building the character, investing in the world and all of that, only to suddenly have the rug yanked out from beneath them.
If my character can die, I admit it... I don't invest much in the character. Why should I? Sure, he'll get a history, he'll have goals, but that's about it. Leveling him? Whatever. I'll do what I have to, but it doesn't matter. Because I know at some point the GM is going to threaten character death in some fashion.
I've never understood how it is that a GM can expect me to really invest in a character, when it can get yanked away at any moment. If the character can be butchered like a hog at any time, why shouldn't I treat the character as potential ham? Go ahead, kill him. I'll just make a new one.
After a certain point of course, it becomes ridiculous. If the GM just wants to keep killing characters, we're clearly on different pages in terms of what we want out of the game and I should leave.
To me, it's the equivalent of saying, "Being friends with someone is only meaningful if you recognize that they could knife you in the back at any time." Why the heck bother investing if that's the expected potential outcome? I invest in friendships with people that I expect to be loyal and not jack me over, and I invest in games where my method of interacting with the game and the world isn't in constant jeopardy.
Afterall... how many MMOs have perma-death as the default style of play? I realize that many rpg gamers like to view MMOs as some sort of dirty and polluting influence on rpgs, but let's be honest; MMOs are simply the newest expression of rpg play. More tactical (kinda like what people like about default D&D these days) than some rpgs, and often having less emphasis on "roleplay", but it's not like the apple has fallen _that_ far from the tree.
In an MMO, "death" has a varying degree of consequence. In general, they've found that the more "sting" they give death, the less happy people tend to be. At higher levels, people are more willing to take a greater sting; but by then, they've also invested more into the character.
In other words, while MMOs have death as a "consequence", the degree of that consequence tends to be in relation to the amount of time and effort already invested in that character. And even then, it tends to not be too harsh as otherwise most people would just walk away from it.
Now, this doesn't mean that _everyone_ agrees with this. Some people just can't play a game and take it "seriously" if their character can't die. That's fine if that's your style.
Just realize that _not_ everyone agrees with it. Yes, it's a common assumption people make in rpgs, but it's getting to be a lazy one in my opinion.
I noted above that I ask players about death being on the table when I run a game. Seems kinda odd considering how much I personally dislike it, doesn't it?
Simple answer: I run games for people to be awesome in and to be entertained. If all the players are going to be more entertained by the fact that their character can die, hey that's cool. Because I don't have a character invested in the whole thing. And it doesn't bother me that I roll crappy and my monsters and NPCs get butchered, because they're only there for the PCs to look great against anyway.
Death is often the ultimate "failure". And I've already said how I personally think that failure isn't generally interesting. Death _can_ be interesting and good and bring a lot to a game. If it happens for a _reason_. And like the whole failure thing, it might seem like hair splitting, but I do think it's an important difference."
The link to the entire thread, of which this is post 54: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=225600&page=1&pp=15
From my perspective:
SoD has never been a problem for players. Players are practically bludgeoned from every angle with death-magic protections. Between hordes of magical items, a multitude of spells, and insanely high ability scores and saves (compared to the monsters/npc's they tend to face) SoD is not often a problem for players if they are prepared for what they are fighting.
SoD is actually a problem for keeping the game interesting for the players.
You think battlefield control is bad? What does the fighter do when the Wizard casts a shaped Wail of the Banshee? He puts on his red shirt, grabs a chest, and loots the bodies.
This is fine once and awhile and the DM can even occasioanlly take advantage of it by using a horde of baddies for the wizard to kill but eventually it gets extremely boring.
Combat: SoD.
Players loot.
Combat: SoD
Players loot
Rince, repeat as necessary.
It becomes a game of the DM trying to find monsters that are immune to the spell of the day in order to challenge the group- at which point the DM has actually just removed a class ability from the game.
(if the DM tailors every encounter to make an ability not work anymore, the DM has back-doored the removal of that ability from the characters).
All Paizo has done is make this "back door" method a front door method. They tell you up front that it's not gonna work anymore.
I fastly prefer that to taking a spell as a sorc, only to have the DM suddenly equip every monster with "tatto's of protection against death effects" or whatever.
You Might catch the PC's upprepared once and get to watch that "omg" moment as everyone rolls their save- but after that everyone gets protected and it's moot. The monsters generally don't fare as well against them.
Hence the nerf.
-S
From my perspective:
SoD has never been a problem for players. Players are practically bludgeoned from every angle with death-magic protections. Between hordes of magical items, a multitude of spells, and insanely high ability scores and saves (compared to the monsters/npc's they tend to face) SoD is not often a problem for players if they are prepared for what they are fighting.
I think that is part of the problem: Players are frequently so good that only a '1' will kill them, so dying feels random and arbitrary. Want to make a mockery of the CR system? Put 16 Medusas against a level 15 party. Unless the players close their eyes, they're in deep trouble, because that's a lot of saves to roll. For a party of 4, that's 64 saves to roll. Each turn. Odds are, somebody's going to die. Oh, and you can't just win initiative and wipe them out with an AoE, since you roll against gazes on your own turn.
So just add the Flesh to Stone to the list of SoDs to nerf. Or alter the Gaze mechanic.
It still doesn't negate the fact that most PC's survive SoD's. It's the monsters to fail against them repeatedly.
Nothing brings out the dire frown in a DM more than having the PC sorc walk up to within 30 feet of a badguy and Murder him with an utterance and a handwaive before the rest of the room gets to act. And Sorcs are the worst culprits because once they have a spell chosen they *have* to use it. To not use it is to have wasted the one special thing they have- their spells know. I've been in this situation and it sucks.
SoD's are a huge problem in this game.
Now that Paizo has adjusted them, I wish they'd go bump evocation spells to what they need to be as well.. but that's a story for a different thread.
To me, save or die is simply not fun. They can kill you without doing anything wrong on your side, or they can end an important and supposedly hard battle in one or two rounds.
Both is bad in my eyes.
Currently I am thinking about re-creating these spells with the limitation, that they only work if the target is under 25% of it's maximum hp. A Heal or Warcraft (a new "tactics" skill for fighters) check with a fairly simple DC of 10 for humanoids is required to discern if a creature is "strugling to remain on its feet and fight on". It's more difficult for other types of creatures, for example 15 for magical beasts and monstrous humanoids, 20 for dragons, and 25 for outsiders and aberrations.
Spells like finger of death, slay living or wail of the banshee still remain as very cool "finishing moves" and a death effect for up to 25% max tp is still not too bad.
It still doesn't negate the fact that most PC's survive SoD's. It's the monsters to fail against them repeatedly.
A PC will die a bit more often than one in every twenty times he is attacked with a SoD, since presumably he has to roll higher than a 1 on SOME of them. Monsters don't live long enough to be subjected to 20 SoD effects.
I'm not saying that having the Epic BBEG fight ended by the Sorceror who won initiative isn't bad: it's terrible. I'm just saying that SoD effects are bad for PCs too.
The fundamental problem with SoD effects is that they are binary, and therefore swingy. The best solution is to make them far less common, since they do have a role to play.
The "problem" with save or die is whiny players. Ironically, most of my gamers LIKE occasionally dying...they get to run monsters then. It is a nice change, and helps me out considerably.
Other than that, in any game when the whole raise/resurrect thing hasn't been houseruled into the Nth dimension, death is generally just a minor setback.
Now disintegrate and destruction? MUCH more fun. Undead conversions even more so.
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Something a lot of people have gotten away from is the Tomb of Horrors mentality -- making the right decisions so a character isn't put into a save or die situation.
Certainly, certain tone-downs in Pathfinder I agree with, such as negative levels going away after a certain number of days. But still, if you get into a group hug with a clutch of vampires, you are dead, period. So, it's fine.
One of the changes I like is the 'save' part now in a few spells gives you a lesser effect. That's great. So many casters get frustrated with the enemy saving and their turn is effectively ruined. The "0/1" option is absolute and someone gets the short end of the stick.
Save or die spells have their place. I wouldn't want them to go completely away. Now, I use action points in my game, so my players have a buffer against save or die, and that's great, but there needs to be some sort of threat of imminent demise to keep tension up, and make successful adventurers proud of their accomplishments.
Why, I remember in the old days, when you played every character from 1st level ... :)
For the record:
I'm glad for the SoD changes. Whether you think it was good for the players or the monsters is fine: but make no mistake- I LOVE the change. SoD sucks no matter which side of the gaming screen you are on.
I was only saying that due to the advanced nature of most PC's, and the rather "static nature" of most monsters, PC'd tend to survive them far more often, which tends to make them a problem of the DM rather than the players.
No one wants to have a 1/20 chance of dying: but monsters typically have a far, far worse fate than that. SOmetimes even praying for that 20 to make the save :)
As for player death (and starting from 1st level..)
I whole heartedly agree that player death needs to be real. It needs to be something the players fear. But it needs to be something the players can avoid with careful planning.
Making sure you don't let the troll bang the gong, or the half-breed ogre escape to warn his comrades of your presence is far more dramatic than working your way through a stronghold only to find the climactic battle is only "climactic" because of the number of SoD saves rolled and the battle to see who rolls a 1 first.
There can be danger, there can be threat of imminent and nigh irreversible death without the SoD spell coming into play.
And death need not be hanging over the heads of the PC's either.
Alert the ogres and the town the PC's are protecting may suffer (for example). Alert the dragon and half the country may suffer. It doesn't have to be SOD to be serious, or scary, or to have a drastic consequence.
-S
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 4
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I run one high-level game and play in another. My observations are that Save-Or-Die spells are in the same camp as x3 or x4 critical weapons. Each offers a pretty good way to die with a single lucky roll.
But in Pathfinder it seems that critical confirmations are becoming more common while Save or Die spells remain a sort of boogeyman. Save-Or-Die is the spellcaster's "x3 Critical Hit"
Save-Or-Die spells are only a big problem if...
1.) Your DM doesn't give enough wealth to cover the cost of raising dead. (or you blow it all on magic items)
2.) Your DM removes raise dead/resurrection to pursue a particular campaign vision (valid playstyle, BTW... just sayin') and doesn't adjust the lethality to reflect this change.
3.) Your DM uses them in an adversarial way. (Turns out this Great Wyrm Red Dragon is actually a BODAK Great Wyrm Red Dragon. Roll for initiative.)
By the time S.O.D. effects begin to show up in play, a regular party should have the means to combat them. Whether this means saving a 4th level slot for "Death Ward" or writing scrolls of "Revivify" on a regular basis. This is what adventuring is about, preparing for the unknown.
If the players are allowed to use SoDs then the DM should also. While the players and DM aren't adversarial in a bad way, they are adversarial in a good way. The DM is there to provide meaningful challenges to the players. If the PC's are steamrolling through encounters with SoD vs SoD then it's fair game for the DM to, at least occasionally, blow a hole through the PC's morale with the same tactic.
Granted a bodak great wyrm red dragon would be rightly terrible- but if the PC's are using SoD's the way they are intended (i.e. to kill things without etting hurt) then eventually the shoe is going to fall against them. And instead of the DM rolling up a new monster, the campaign is over and everything reboots at level 1.
I am not against player death but I am against nigh-unsurvivable guaranteed death. When players use SoD's then eventually they will come against the wall that is the DM's SOD and then they are dead.
I am glad they have nerfed SOD. It lets play get back to somewhat of a normal stream, where things like Hit points matter at least somewhat again, moreso than the 1/20 chance of death you had at any given round of combat before.
Death is not bad. The chance of dying is not bad. The inherent struggle of fighting something that's hard to kill, knowing it might kill you if you screw up- is not bad.
Wiping out your oppoonents with little or no threat to you, and/or being wiped out because someone else got a higher roll on a 20 than you, is not climactic. It isn't fun. It's roulette.
As to resurrection:
I'm not sure where you are going with the money argument. While I do always hope the PC's (of which I usually number- I don't tend to DM) I don't typically stockpile thousands of gold and hold it reserve in case the DM decides to near-TKP the group. When PC's get money it should be spent to help keep the party on top of the WBL guidelines. If PC's hold back substantial wealth to pay for raise deads and such to thward the SoD's that are coming then the SOD's will just be more successful (unless the DM nerfs encounters based on the players not spending the money.. which tends to end in a rather peculiar downward spiral..)
And again I reiterate: The main problem with SoD's isn't against players, its against monsters. You (Raidou)have stated, and I agree that PC's tend to be prepared. But if the DM constantly prepares for it then it's effectively ending SoD's anyway- so why not go ahead and make it official? Nerf them and be done with it.
As the game stands:
the DM can ignore SoD's and the PC's can walk over most encounters with relative impunity.
the DM can actively fight against/use SoD's in which case the PC's will stay protected against them and SoD's are then effectively nerfed to the point of non-effectiveness.
Neither method is very fun. Both require the same thing: that SoD's be put in their place, so that regular came play can commence.
SoD's are fun when you first get them. Everyone remembers the first time they cast Disintegrate. By the 27th casting however the green beam gets a little monotonous however. (and indeed- they nerfed it, even in 3.5).
SoD's are just too good. That is what's wrong with them.
They are the nuclear weapon of spell casting except that instead of mutually assured destruction, you have SoD's going off coast to coast leaving only those few things immune to it left in the debris field.
Huzzah for the death to SoD's.
-S
But in Pathfinder it seems that critical confirmations are becoming more common while Save or Die spells remain a sort of boogeyman. Save-Or-Die is the spellcaster's "x3 Critical Hit"
The important difference is that a spellcaster chooses when to employ SoD, while a fighter wielding a pick (or a Vorpal Weapon) has to rely on chance.
Edit: Oh, and the fighter has to confirm the crit.
The "problem" with save or die is whiny players. Ironically, most of my gamers LIKE occasionally dying...they get to run monsters then. It is a nice change, and helps me out considerably.
Other than that, in any game when the whole raise/resurrect thing hasn't been houseruled into the Nth dimension, death is generally just a minor setback.
Now disintegrate and destruction? MUCH more fun. Undead conversions even more so.
I see. So now I'm "whiney" because I disagree with you. Perhaps you would care to offer an actual argument rather than just toss ad hominem attacks?
In my campaign, it comes up ... and if you fail your save - you die. Move on. I just don't get it.
It's just not in fashion at the moment. Kinda like bell bottom pants or white linen spats. Eventually it will some back into fashion and everyone will wonder how they ever played games without it.
I've never been a big fan of save or die effects. I'd rather not have too much hang on a single die roll. Multiple dice rolls, yes. As DM, I'd rather have a PC die due to a succession of harsh results, several of which might have gone another way, than a single one. For one thing, I savor the victory more that way...
There is also the fact of the use by players. I am in a game where they use a quickened wish to lower their saving throws by 7 and then fling the strongest save or die spell.
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Actually, that's lots more fun. The wizard screams for help. He gets aid from his companions. Time's ticking as he gets mauled.... will they save him in time??
Like I pointed out earlier, have a dire lion grapple your wizard. That concentration check is now your "save or die" just the same. When the raging barbarian ogre (or hill giant, depending on your level range) power attacks through the roof, your initiative check can be a "save or die". You are just as dead and it's just as "unfun".
"Time's ticking as he get's mauled"? In what world can a wizard survive an average hit from a power attacking, barbarian raging, two-handed weapon-weilding giant subtype monster? None. Roll initiative, you fail, you die. Same as a save or die, only you go through the semantics of rolling damage first. I guess it takes teamwork to overcome, it takes a cleric to cast Raise Dead on the wizard.
Not that anyone here is actually arguing your little straw man position, but I'll respond anyway. No one is saying that death should be eliminated from the game. We're saying that pure luck-based, player-no-fault, undramatic death that retards the story should be made less frequently a part of the game.
So, that example I put forth is a strawman? I had this happen in a game I ran, where the party's dwarven wizard was pounced upon by a dire lion. He had to make a Concentration check to be able to cast Dimension Door to escape. Had he failed his roll, he was dead meat the next round. Save or die, feline style. How was that skill check NOT "luck-based"? It's just one example of many I could name were I so inclined where a character can die based on the luck of a die roll. Or has everyone forgotten the concept of the SAVE part of "saving throw"? The default assumption was that if you were hit with one of these effects, you died, but since you are special, you still get a roll to see if you survive somehow. Now this has morphed into "nuh-uh! I don't die, that's not fun!"??
Consequences make the game fun and spur role-playing. Character death can and should be a part of that, but only when it is dramatic and satisfying, not random and with terrible consequences either to the story or to the player.
So character death should only come at a time and place of the player's choosing? Whenever he feels it's "dramatinc and satisfying" (read as: "fun")? What kind of "terrible consequences" to the player are you talking about?? "Blackleaf, NOOOO!!"??? Please. I've read many books and seen many movies where a main character dies with little warning and the death itself provided drama. I can assure you, the MANY times I had to roll a d20 or have my character die back in 1st ed AD&D it was "dramatic", as was the concentration check in my example above. Everyone held their breath around the table as the die was cast, and everyone unanimously breathed a sigh of relief when he passed the check.
It sounds to me like the people against save or die effects either feel entitled to choose when and how their character dies, or they have to throw in extreme situations (15 medusas? wtf?) to try to make a point. The fact of the matter is, everything involving a die roll in D&D is thick with randomness, and everything in D&D can either be prevented, avoided, or undone with magic. So you bomb a save vs Slay Living and you die? Pull out the scroll of Resurrection and move on. Fail a save vs petrification? Cast Stone to Flesh and move on. Fail a Reflex save and fall in a spike-filled pit? Fish him out, cast Raise Dead, and get back to playing. Hell, one time I had to chase down a giant horned lizard and wait for him to dislodge the party's ranger's arm from his horns in order to have enough to get him Rezzed. Same ranger got himself tortured to death and thrown off a sea cliff. After fishing his soggy, fish-nibbled corpse out of the sea, I had to drag it cross-country in a gunny sack to his temple to get him raised. Didn't die the way you wanted to, throwing yourself and the Ring of Power into the fires of Mt. Doom, or holding back the persian armies at the pass, or fighting the impossible doomed rear guard next to Roland? Big deal, pay your 5000gp and get back to the game.
That should be my sig for this thread.
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I think that is part of the problem: Players are frequently so good that only a '1' will kill them, so dying feels random and arbitrary. Want to make a mockery of the CR system? Put 16 Medusas against a level 15 party. Unless the players close their eyes, they're in deep trouble, because that's a lot of saves to roll. For a party of 4, that's 64 saves to roll. Each turn. Odds are, somebody's going to die. Oh, and you can't just win initiative and wipe them out with an AoE, since you roll against gazes on your own turn.
So, you don't want to risk rolling a 1 (or *gasp*, you would have to use that scroll of Stone to Flesh *gasp*)? So CLOSE YOUR EYES! Simple, a character action negates the need for a "save or suck" save.
Oh, and you can most definately use the AoE to take them out: cast it on your position. Yeah, the party takes damage, but their saves are better (not even counting Evasion/Improved Evasion or Resist Elements) and they can take it. Or just suck it up and take your 50% miss chance and hack them down. Or use any one of a dozen other tactics. Or I dunno, move more than 30 feet away (the default range for gaze attacks) and shoot them.
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The "problem" with save or die is whiny players. Ironically, most of my gamers LIKE occasionally dying...they get to run monsters then. It is a nice change, and helps me out considerably.
I had this happen in a campaign. One player played the drow assassin hunting down the remaining heroes. Hate to admit it as the DM, but he did a FAR BETTER JOB playing a vile drow assassin than I ever could have.
BTW ... no one survived.
The real problem of save or die spells is that it is far easier to fail a ST in 3rd edition than any other edition before.
In elder editions, your ST depended only of your class and level (and magic stuff of course). Any way your chances of success were usually good and dying from a save or die spell were just once in a while.
In 3rd edition, the success of your ST depends on your class, level, stuff and on the casting ability of your foe. If you still have a good chance to make your ST on your good saves, bad saves nearly allways mean a fail at medium and high levels.
The DC of a spell increases by one every 2 class levels, while a bad save increases by one every 3 levels. As you get up in levels, you have less chances of success while the effects of the spells are nastier and nastier.
I'm going to give an example : last month I was playing an elven rogue 7 in a level 9 party (the DM absolutely wanted a rogue in the party). My Fortitude save was +4. The party faced a wizard 11 who cast Circle of Death (DC 21 : level 6 spell + 20 Int).
Even with an appropriate level, the optimum magic stuff and Great Fortitude, I can only increase my fortitude save to +10, which means I fail a DC 21 half of the time, when spells like Disintegrate come into play ...
The problem is not to be a whiny player because you die sometimes, the problem is that your DM has 2 solutions : he can play soft and must ignore this kind of spells to avoid wiping the party every 2 sessions or else he plays the monsters to the mazximum and must face an irrealistic turnover of the PCs.
"Time's ticking as he get's mauled"? In what world can a wizard survive an average hit from a power attacking, barbarian raging, two-handed weapon-weilding giant subtype monster? None. Roll initiative, you fail, you die. Same as a save or die, only you go through the semantics of rolling damage first. I guess it takes teamwork to overcome, it takes a cleric to cast Raise Dead on the wizard.Actually, that's lots more fun. The wizard screams for help. He gets aid from his companions. Time's ticking as he gets mauled.... will they save him in time??
Like I pointed out earlier, have a dire lion grapple your wizard. That concentration check is now your "save or die" just the same. When the raging barbarian ogre (or hill giant, depending on your level range) power attacks through the roof, your initiative check can be a "save or die". You are just as dead and it's just as "unfun".
Chill. We disagree. I'm not calling you names and I'm not disparaging your campaign. We have no history here. We are debating a point.
Obviously, I was using your example of the dire lion mauling the wizard. I was responding to your quoted post's examples in order. Presumably, you mean to question whether any wizard will survive a dire lion? If so, yes, I think that there are wizards who would survive the first round of said attack: 35 points of damage average if all 3 attacks hit. Specifically, it would take an 8th level wizard, presuming a 16 Con by natural stat with a low Con boosting item. So that gives the entire party a round of drama and teamwork. As you, in fact, agree with in your dwarven wizard example. So we're done with that one.
The rampaging ogre barbarian is clearly an example where teamwork plays a role in ways that they don't with SoD effects. I believe its the sole job of the fighter to impede said melee combatants long enough for a caster to target the dude's will save. Presumably this wizard is not on the front lines, and thus the rampaging barbarian has to cleave through both the fighter and the cleric. And where's the rogue? Why isn't he warning the party of this cloddish loud opponent to give them time to prepare themselves? Your example requires the wizard to be on the front lines and somehow caught by surprise by one of the least sneaky of opponents. Contrast this with the save or die effect, where there are so many possible ones you are hard put to successfully nerf all of them as a player.
Not that anyone here is actually arguing your little straw man position, but I'll respond anyway. No one is saying that death should be eliminated from the game. We're saying that pure luck-based, player-no-fault, undramatic death that retards the story should be made less frequently a part of the game.
So, that example I put forth is a strawman? I had this happen in a game I ran, where the party's dwarven wizard was pounced upon by a dire lion. He had to make a Concentration check to be able to cast Dimension Door to escape. Had he failed his roll, he was dead meat the next round. Save or die, feline style. How was that skill check NOT "luck-based"? ...
My, we are upset aren't we? Take a look at what I was actually labeling a straw man position: you stated that I wanted to remove all risk from the game, which, indeed, I never wrote nor is logically implied by what I wrote and specifically rebutted anyway with the notion of consequences. Here, I'll save you the trouble of scrolling and give you your words again, which I quoted in that post:
Saying you want to remove the "unfun" elements of the game is the same as saying you want to remove all the risk from the game. Isn't getting beat down by a BBEG "unfun"? Worse, by an encounter on the way to the BBEG? Why have negative effects at all if falling prey to one is "unfun"?
You then go on to misstate my position as saying that the player gets to determine when they die. Of course not! But as a player, you are trusting your DM to make your character's death meaningful to the story, interesting to experience as a player, the result of the choices of the players and the party, and not insignificant and anti-climactic. Is this really so controversial? In order to get a character to face a save or die effect, you've been playing this character for several years. So, yes, I would expect the DM to respect that investment of time and imagination and not have the character be killed crossing the street by a herd of rampaging yaks.
A save or die effect, however, comes across as the DM saying, "I kill you." It's not about the choices you made. It's the spell version of rampaging yaks.
It's not about evening the odds between a BBEG and a party, as most battlefield control spells are superior at that task, and minions come in second place, with death spells a distant third.
Yes, you make a good point that luck is a part of the game and that mitigates our assumptions of a meaningful death. I agree that we balance our desire for a meaningful experience with our desire for the challenge provided by fair game play, of knowing that the dice determine the outcome of our choices.
I think that the massive number of save or die effects in the game cheapens their dramatic impact, tends to derail stories, puts players in the time out chair for unfair reasons, and removes player choice.
Go ahead and use SoD effects if you get players on board with using them in your campaign ahead of time, use them in a dramatic fashion not an anti-climactic one, have safeguards to prevent the derailing of stories, maximize player choice, and minimize time in the time out chair.
But making them as common as melee is a terrible, terrible mistake. And sadly, that's what a lot of high level play is all about: pounding the worst save of your opponent.
I had this happen in a campaign. One player played the drow assassin hunting down the remaining heroes. Hate to admit it as the DM, but he did a FAR BETTER JOB playing a vile drow assassin than I ever could have.
BTW ... no one survived.
And if I was a player in that campaign, I would regard that player as a jerk. His goal isn't to kill you all. That's his character's goal. His role as junior DM is to challenge the players, but also to keep the game going. He failed in that task.
Save-Or-Die spells are only a big problem if...1.) Your DM doesn't give enough wealth to cover the cost of raising dead. (or you blow it all on magic items)
One thing to be aware of is that it's not just wealth; it's using the wealth to buy the right kind of items and having ACCESS to the right kind of items. The DM either has to make very sure that the party loots the right defensive magic items ahead of time, which means an adventure path or a DM who plans far ahead. Alternatively, it means...
Magicl Wal-marts, where the players can convert their gold into the proper magic items when they need them. Lots of SoD effects = lots of demand => a supplier to meet that demand. And some DMs do not like going that far into "high fantasy" as a genre.
Myself, I don't mind the "Magic Wal-marts", but it may be one consequence of a large number of save or die effects in a campaign.
No one is advocating letting the players choose their time of demise. No one is even advocating that every PC death be flashy and dramatic like some Movie side-kicks death that spurrs on the hero to rip the head off the BBEG.
But by that same token, no one wants to be reduced from full power to -11 by what is essentially a passing encounter in a situation that basically took all the "control" away.
What do I mean by control here?
If the group has established that they are fighting rogues then the players of that group can take pains to try and avoid being flanked. It's a specific decision on the players part. Now, that isn't to say that they will necessarily succeed- and it doesn't discount the rogues using Feint or whatnot to SA anyway; but the PC's at least can make tactical decisions. If one of them dies, it certainly isn't because the PC controlled his death but at least the PC isn't sittin there staring at one die sayin "[bleep]! i was 1 away from living".
Unless the players are Well informed before hand of what they are going to be fighting then SoDs remove tactics from the playing field. If you don't think so, add two medusa to your next encounter set without giving any advance warning to the players. Advance the monsters so they are the correct CL for your group, and see what happens.
PC's open door to room, PC's turn to stone, game over.
It isn't climactic. It isn't exciting. It's game over, new campaign, TPK, and that for just a relatively random encounter in a dungeon.
*No one* likes to die. I grant you that- but by the same token PC's know that death will happen. All they are asking for is for death to NOT simply be a situation where the DM designs an encounter to kill the PC's with no hope for salvation.
Using tons of SoD's against the players is the same as putting a dragon 10 ECL higher than the PC's against them. The outcome is foretold. It isn't climactic or exciting. It's just death.
We already know the DM can win anytime he wants to. He has the words of creation at his disposal. The DM doesn't have to prove he can TKP the group in order to keep them on their toes. No one is asking not to die- they just don't want to die in stupid ways.
Most everyone agrees that railroading is bad. SoDs are just a train on a different track. Just like the DM doesn't want PC's running through every encounter SoD'ing every monster, PC's want that same courtesy. Nerfing SoD's accomplishes both.
I'm sorry, but rolling to save or die isn't "dramatic". It "sucks".
It's "make this one roll, or you die". "make this one roll or sit out for awhile and make a new character, or wait 'till we have time to find a way to bring you back". That isn't exciting. That sucks.
What do PC's with listen checks do? They know something is there.
Yes, they are cautious of ambush. What happens when they open the door? They close their eyes just in case it's a medusa?
No- they LOOK to SEE what is THERE. And then they are statuary.
Gee that was climactic. Sure am glad I included that in the dungeon.
And sure, bring on your scythe wielder. At least they can be disarmed. At least I can Fight him. We can flank him, spells can be cast to slow him down. You have an identified enemy who has a chance, if he gets close, to kill you in a hit or two. That's dramatic. It's also rare. How many scythe wielding baddies have you made as a DM? Fought as a player? Compared to how often SoD's come up in campaigns?
Bring on the scythe and the chance of crit. It's a chance, not a foregone conclusion.
SoD's Kill Groups. They Kill them with One roll.
SoD's kill Monsters. They kill Groups of them. They kill them with One roll.
This is Not "suspense".
This is not "climatic".
This is not "excitement".
It is dying to one arbitrary die roll.
I for one am absolutely slap-happy that they beat on it good and hard with the nerf stick.
Don't get to play for hours or even weeks because your character died, and the rest of the party hasn't made it back to raise them? Then get a new gaming group. Obviously there is a problem with the gaming group if they are not allowing a player to bring in a different character on a temporary basis so that player can still have fun.
Nothing. The main problem isn't save or die effects; it's not having multiple characters pregenerated before the game starts. This "unfun" aspect of sitting on your hands with nothing to do is a symptom of not being prepared for character death and the reality of the chosen life of most adventurers.
One can't create characters with the expectation that the DM will save them so they can avoid the unpleasantness of having to create a new character while everyone else plays. This is why having multiple characters is such a good thing. Any DM worth the title can find numerous opportunities to insert pregenerated characters into an ongoing story arc that's currently running with little to no interruption in flow.
Also, think of all the creatures that have been nerfed by this trend in gaming to make death effects sting less. Catoblepas, medusa snake bites, Gorgon breath, Yellow Mold spores, wyvern stings, poisonous snake and spider bites, the list goes on. Now, they're no longer deadly, dangerous, and lethal. They're merely nuisances to be approached with as much caution as one approaches a fog bank, not knowing what might be inside, but knowing whatever it is, it won't kill me outright.
I recently read a comment by someone that stated that battles can be just as deadly with a dragon without staking your life down to a single die roll. Oh really? If I need to make the perfect shot in order to slay the dragon and save everyone, isn't that also staking your life to one die roll? What if it breathes on me? Isn't that a single save to avoid being incinerated to death?
You start taking away key creature abilities and eventually you end up with plushies that anyone can survive an attack from.
Do you have stacks of spare characters waiting unless one of them dies? Granted some campaigns operate this way, but typically this isn't the case. Most people build a character for a campaign and play him until he is dead or the campaign is concluded. If there is an NPC in the party I would agree the recently deceased could control him until such time as resurrection or a good continuity-wise replacement PC could be entered but even that isn't always the case.
Being 3 floors deep into a dungeon trying to save someone on a timer, or being in the middle of nowhere but being under pressure to get to a specific place by a specific time or to just do so expediently can all be very valid reasons for the team to not have time to stop and go back to down and find someone who can and will resurrect, and then go through the time of doing so and getting back to where they were. Granted this isn't the case all the time: Sometimes it's the final encounter that does someone in and the team has time to go and res without a worry- but sometimes it happens mid-stream.
Even so, it's merely "a" reason why SoD's are bad, not "the" reason.
I think most people would frown at the DM who started or ended a session by rolling a d6 and point at a Pc and saying "You, your character died. Roll another." Why? Because it's pointless and its railroading.
When the DM makes the choice to send an SOD against the party he's doing exactly that same thing. He's saying "I want someone to die in this encounter and I am going to make sure of it."
I honestly don't see how anyone can think that this happening is fun or exciting, anymore than if the DM simply announced that a previously-unknown volcano just exploded outside the inn and declares everyone must make a dex save or die.
Saving vs Death isn't exciting. It's just death. Whether you have to roll a 2 to pass or a 20 there is no fun or good or climactic about the scenario.
Removing that element from the game- for both players and DMs alike- is a positive thing for the game and goes a long way towards equalizing combat for the various class types/templateas.
-S
So in order to keep SoD's in the game characters now have to keep back up characters on hand and at the ready for any given level?
I'm sorry, but while I am well aware that my player can die and do Not expect Any DM to pull a punch or roll even if it means death, I can't and won't accept that I have to keep a second characer sitting on the back burner just in case the DM decides to Russian Roulette the guy I'm currently playing. I am Absolutely not against character death or character risk or character fatality or even character accident. Sometimes the Critters roll high and characters die. [bleep] happens. If the PC's can triple-crit the BBEG and send him tumbling then I'm all for the same happening to the PC's. That's the roll of the dice.
I am against however a policy that says whoever goes first wins. Whoever goes first kills the entire other team.
It'd be like a ball game where whoever won first toss won the game.
I think you'll agree football or soccer or basketball would be far less entertaining to us if the first roll mandated how the rest of the game would turn out. First up is an advantage but not an unsurmountable one.
SoD's make first attack = total kill.
Now there are some campaigns (heck Gygax wrote alot of adventures on this model) that go with the belief that the more characters who die, the more exciting the campaign is. And that's just fine. Everyone joining such a group is, or should be made aware, of that "rule" and then everyone prepares accordingly.
It should Not however be the default rule for D&D that you need a stack of extra c-sheets made up 'cuz the guy you have currently is going to die in a few minutes.
I like my characters too much to subject them to that, and the DM puts too much time into his monsters and dungeons and campaigns and storyarcs to subject Them to that treatment.
Once the game gets to the realm of SoD's the game becomes an issue of who rolls first. Who wins initiative and who gets their spell off first. That isn't a fun game for me. I've been there, I've done it. I've been the sorc who used Disintegrate and Wail of the Banshee to completely obliterate anything that got in the way. It was for for about one quarter of one game session. Then it Sucked. And it continued to suck until the campaign ended.
Why? Because it went from fun and challenge to who won initiative.
One d20 should not decide the entire encounter.
-S
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So in order to keep SoD's in the game characters now have to keep back up characters on hand and at the ready for any given level?
Or just pull out the scroll of Raise Dead/Stone to Flesh/Undo What Just Hit Us and move on. Really, not like you have to wait hours or longer of real time to get your precious character back in the game.
If death were in any way truly permenant, it might be an issue. It's not, at least not in D&D as it has been written for over 30 years. Get a Staff of Life, or a few scrolls, or whatever and move on.
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Chill. We disagree. I'm not calling you names and I'm not disparaging your campaign. We have no history here. We are debating a point.
I'm cool as a cucumber. I'm not upset or calling anyone names. I'm debating the point with examples and counter examples. Why are you getting the impression that I'm upset or getting personal? Using extreme counter examples is a valid method for counter-arguing the core point of a position.
Obviously, I was using your example of the dire lion mauling the wizard. I was responding to your quoted post's examples in order. Presumably, you mean to question whether any wizard will survive a dire lion? If so, yes, I think that there are wizards who would survive the first round of said attack: 35 points of damage average if all 3 attacks hit. Specifically, it would take an 8th level wizard, presuming a 16 Con by natural stat with a low Con boosting item. So that gives the entire party a round of drama and teamwork. As you, in fact, agree with in your dwarven wizard example. So we're done with that one.
Reread my example. I'm in no way saying that getting pounced upon by a dire lion is a death sentence. I said that the player IMC had to make a single d20 roll, and if he failed, his character died. And it was not a Saving Throw. Thus, removing SoD spells/effects from Pathfinder will in no way remove the "roll a d20 to see if you live" (SoD in all but name) from the game.
The rampaging ogre barbarian is clearly an example where teamwork plays a role in ways that they don't with SoD effects. I believe its the sole job of the fighter to impede said melee combatants long enough for a caster to target the dude's will save.
In this example, I was equating an initiative roll with a SoD effect. The raging barbarian nasty can just move through threatened squares, take the AoOs (or not, if the party hasn't beat his initiative check) and pound any slighty squishy character into the ground. While it's true, this is a multiple-roll scenario (NPC rolls high, PC has to roll higher), it's nearly the same. Roll good or get squished. My point is still that removing SoD spells does not remove the instance of a player having his character's fate ride on a single d20 roll.
The other point is that if you are having to make a save like this, you have already failed. You haven't scouted out the opposition sufficiently, you haven't buffed up propperly, you haven't cast the right divination spells, etc etc. In every case that's been presented as why SoD effects are bad, a VERY simple prevention/solution is at hand. I completely DISagree that when a DM uses a save or die effect on the party that he's "out to get you". That's absurd. When everything that can be done to a character can be undone with a spell, then it's not a Big Deal (tm).
More constructively, if the powers that be insist on changing the current crop of SoDs, I submit that the best way to do this while maintaining the feel and backwards compatability of the game is to introduce "bennies" (reroll tokens) or change each effect to require two saves, with death/suckitude only happening with both saves failing (and some lesser negative effect on a single failed save).
So in order to keep SoD's in the game characters now have to keep back up characters on hand and at the ready for any given level?
Not just for SoD's but for any type of game where death is a possibility. Whether it is taking several hits or one spell or a breath weapon from a dragon, players should be aware that they might need to drop a new character into the game in short order. Does that mean they have to have pregenerated characters ready? Not necessarily, but if they can't make one up in a short period of time then it would be a good idea (or the DM should have one ready). If a player takes a long time to make a character and does not have one prepared (either their own or a DMs) then there isn't much reason to complain that they have to sit out the game for a time.
I had a player get killed and I gave them a pregenerated character, and they were right back in the game in like 5 minutes (long enough for me to make a situation where the character would arrive).
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So in order to keep SoD's in the game characters now have to keep back up characters on hand and at the ready for any given level?Not just for SoD's but for any type of game where death is a possibility. Whether it is taking several hits or one spell or a breath weapon from a dragon, players should be aware that they might need to drop a new character into the game in short order. Does that mean they have to have pregenerated characters ready? Not necessarily, but if they can't make one up in a short period of time then it would be a good idea (or the DM should have one ready). If a player takes a long time to make a character and does not have one prepared (either their own or a DMs) then there isn't much reason to complain that they have to sit out the game for a time.
I had a player get killed and I gave them a pregenerated character, and they were right back in the game in like 5 minutes (long enough for me to make a situation where the character would arrive).
Or just take the Leadership feat and play your cohort. With a feat at every level in Pathfinder, there's little reason NOT to have a cohort, especially at the levels where the SoD effects supposedly get so hot and heavy.