I Need DMing Advice -- Mass Save-Or-Die Effects

[Atavar]

I could use some advice concerning the encounters for an adventure I am writing for my players.

My players play five, 17th-level characters (Cleric 17, Monk 17, Sorcerer 9/Dragon Disciple 8, Fighter 17, and Rogue 3/Wizard 4/Arcane Trickster 10) plus one 15th-level cohort (Barbarian 15).

They are at a high enough level to encounter mass save-or-die effects. For example, facing a 17th-level wizard with a kickin' Int score and 9th-level spells. He can cast a hard-to-save-against mass save-or-die spell.

Now, imagine genius-Int monsters with similar spell-like abilities. On paper, these monsters are well within what a party of their level is supposed to be able to handle. Being genius-Int, it wouldn't be realistic to play them dumb and have them hold back on using such abilities.

However, I can too easily see bad rolls resulting in instant multiple character deaths if I play such monsters to their fullest extent. What's the fun in that? I guess this is one of the down sides to high-level play.

So...thoughts? Advice on how to, somehow, play such encounters in a challenging way that's enjoyed by all?

Thanks,

Atavar

[MurphysParadox]

An important aspect of it would be your players being able to identify and approach the monster. Appropriate knowledge skills of a 17th level caster will be plenty to figure out what it is and that it can do some pretty nasty things. So tactically, the party would have to ensure they don't make it easy for the monster. If they know it has some circle-of-death style thing, they'll have to remain far enough apart as to make it not possible to snag more than one in a casting.

They can also throw up various buffs to help handle the particular casting. It may be that they still roll poorly, but something like Death Ward can make it very unlikely (possibly down to an 'anything but 1' roll). There may also be need by the casters to prepare necessary counter spells or other mitigation options (wish, miracle, time stop, quickened dimension door, etc) to react.

I don't think, especially at this level, a mass save-or-die is a concern for a party that is well prepared. Now, if you just have the monster walk into a bar and hit the entire common room without warning or preparation... that's a bit less nice of you and will feel more cheap (though would be a pretty awesome introduction: a loud busy bar full of people going suddenly silent and their bodies hitting the floor hanging in the air as the players turn to see the creature that just entered).

[pipedreamsam]

You could try warning your players in game ahead of time. Creatures with abilities like that tend to develop legends around them. Stories of armies being wiped out companies at a time, entire adventuring parties killed with a single spell. Maybe some of the players roll Knowledge checks to find out what these abilities are and the creatures who control them.

A party as diverse as yours should be able to prepare for pretty much anything. Make it the clerics job to protect the group against the effect (or at least bolster the party defenses), the monk is in charge of grappling so that the caster can't cast, the sorcerer can keep the party mobile enough to keep up with the enemies while running interference/crowd control and the arcane trickster can time their attacks to line up with the moment the enemy starts casting a spell.

Basically the bottom line is just to telegraph the effect like there's no tomorrow. If you think you have told your party enough times what is about to happen; tell them three more times in increasing volume.

[Gregory Connolly]

I find high levels hard to GM for this exact reason. The assumption that a party will expend about 25% of their resources on a APL=CR fight starts to mean that 1 out of 4 characters will need to be brought back to life after each minion battle and that half the characters will be dead from a boss fight. Go with the Rocket Tag. Plan your fights to be very short and very deadly with the monsters/NPCs playing offense not defense. Assume that Breath of Life and Raise Dead and Restoration are important parts of the game and let loose the challenge. Assume that the only 2 outcomes after a certain level are PCs win or TPK, running away from people who can cast Scrying and Teleport is really hard.

[tonyz]

Well, a number of those spells can be countered by various means (e.g., deathward, or spell immunity, or specific limited wishes, or counterspells). With a cleric who can cast 9th level spells in the party, you've pretty much got any defensive spells available...

...if the party thinks to use them. Very-high-level play is somewhat a game of "counter, counter, who's got the counter?", intelligence gathering, and advance preparation. If the PCs just wade into an encounter with no clue who they're up against, and don't take steps to find out, then they ought to get whacked. Multiple times. There are a lot of useful info-gathering spells available at this level, and the PCs ought to have some decent Knowledge checks as well.

If you've been GMing for these PCs for a while, you should know how they play, what they likely do, and how they react to situations. Use that to feed them information about their foes. (If this is a newly created bunch of characters for a one-shot, then things are much trickier, because neither you nor your players know how these specific PCs will work out.)

Also note that at this level, raise dead and resurrection are spells the PCs should have easy multiples of available. Death is easy to pull back from, unless the enemies take steps to neutralize it (trap the soul, imprisonment, disintegrate, or stuff like that). Death isn't a major game-breaking hurdle.

[Moondragon Starshadow]

My advice:

Individual "Save or Die" is totally legit once you reach level 9-10, usually reserved for the boss fight. "Save or Die" prior to this is just unreasonable, and group "Save or Die" is also unreasonable at this level. But having one player have to do it? Probably okay.

Total party "Save or Die" is probably a level 15+ boss encounter, and could be a difficult "non-boss" encounter at level 17+.

I do agree that the game becomes rocket-tag at higher levels. But, it is what it is, and I also agree players should be warned that the NPCs will also play rocket-tag.

[andreww]

Welcome to high level play. Note that you have 3 characters there all capable of doing exactly the same thing. The Cleric has access to **Word Spells or Dazing evocations, the Arcane Trickster has 14 caster levels, level 7 spells and therefore stuff like dazing fire snake/chain lighting, persistent stinking cloud and worse. The sorcerer has the same with 15 sorcerer caster levels. They are all eligible to take spell perfection, pray they don't find it. All of them should be capable of producing potent defences and should be buffing each other.

[Sehnder]

I asked the same question of the venture captain in my area and his answer was that this is simply how the core game goes at higher levels. Spells get cast and you have a 25-75% chance of insta-losing.

Of course, that isn't terribly helpful to your question. I personally house rule around it.

For save vs. lose spells, I use what I call the "Degree of Failure" system. If you lose by a couple points I will give you the option of taking damage of a similar level spell (with a failed save) and a debuff. Lose by a few more and we up the damage and effect. Fumble or fail terribly and let it play out like the disaster it was.

An Example on the fly...

SAVE FAILED VS PETRIFY SPELL

Failed by 1-2: Take ?d6 damage, movement speed reduced by 10

Failed by 3-6: Take an additional 5% total life as damage for each point you fail by. Slowed until dispel magic cast.

Failed by 7+: Turned to stone.

This approach requires a lot of faith in your GM to handle ad hoc situations, but I find the players like it a lot better than the alternative. The balancing factor is that I use the same rules for boss monsters- you can polymorph the mooks if you want, but the big bad isn't defeated because he rolls a 3 on your baleful polymorph.

Choosing whether to take a full spell effect or damage helps the player retain a feeling of some control, even when they fail a saving throw. Balancing removing debuffs vs pressing on also becomes more exciting. If your wizard gets turned to stone, the choice to disple magic is pretty straight forward. But what if he is instead slowed? Does he take the time to remove the debuff or hope his allies can keep him safe? Gameplay decisions!

[voideternal]

I think mass save-or-die effects can happen a lot earlier than level 15. Circle of Death is mass save-or-die at only spell level 6, and if it's a trap, it can be as low as CR 7 (or even lower with negative trap modifiers, such as a low Disable Device DC).

I think not all enemies or spellcasters have to use mass save-or-die spells. Save-or-sucks (from Glitterdust to Black Tentacles to Insanity) are good spells to challenge your PCs and have them still active in combat.

If you foresee your players losing their characters early in your session, I'd recommend taking precautions so your players don't get bored. I often make flash cards with important stats (HP / AC / Saves / to-hit / damage / spells & DCs) of both enemy monsters and friendly NPCs that I can hand to my players in case they lose their character. One time, I had a character's death lead to a mini-scenario in the afterworld, so the player could still be active in the session.

[Pan]

Well there is a BBEG with mass SoD spells and then there is a BBEG optimized to the heavens too. I wouldn't shy away from a mass SoD but I probably wouldn't go full throttle either. My players tend to do their homework so they will take precautions against an enemy they know to be dangerous. I like to give them a fighting chance so I probably wouldn't randomly drop this caster on them. So my advice give them a fighting chance.