Hygiene
I feel like “rot grub check” is the D&D equivalent of a “cup check.”
Shall we talk about save-or-die abilities? Let’s shall, because the old school rot grub is the poster boy for “oops you’re dead.”
This stuff is on my mind because of my megadungeon campaign. My PCs recently walked into a dungeon level dominated by a medusa cult, and there is A LOT of of save-or-die going on. If I’m mathing properly, the party have encountered no less than 18 medusae and one fiendish basilisk over the course of the past two sessions. They’re at that stage of the campaign where most of them have to roll a natural 1 to fail the save, but in the face of multiple saves per round… Well you guys remember Clown Shoes the monk, right? The same math applies. A total of four party members have been petrified so far.
It sounds like a miserable experience on paper, but in practice it’s been a lot of fun. Session one involved a narrow escape for a three-man party. The last unstoned PC managed to beat up on three medusa blackguards before teleporting his stoned companions back to town. They regrouped, made a butt-load of break enchantment scrolls, and then headed back down with greater numbers. My sense is that they’re enjoying the challenge and the risk, and that negotiating with save-or-die situations is adding fun rather than frustration to the campaign.
Of course, you may have noticed that I’m cheating a bit. Getting turned to stone is not the same thing as death, and a break enchantment scroll is far less expensive than raise dead. This is a “soft save-or-die,” and so far the concept has fit perfectly into my game. My players got plenty of warning about the situation, took the time to prepare, and are able to bounce back from a bad save with relative ease. So for me, the lesson is clear: If you’re going to turn up the dials on save-or-die situations, it pays to turn down the dials on consequences for death.
How about the rest of you guys? What has your experience been like with save-or-die effects? Do you like ’em or hate ’em? Let’s hear it in the comments!
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I think the idea of failing *multiple* saves or die is fantastic. There’s a lot of tension there. Death Saves are a prime example; can you heal your downed friend in time? Is it better to end the combat first? Will they roll a Nat 20 before they roll a Nat 1?? It’s quite riveting.
Conversely, save or die is boring to me. You roll one die and whoops, there goes your character. Hope you were insured.
For the record, I prefer a good maiming. Chop off my leg, gouge out my eyes, drive me insane. Just don’t kill me a single roll of the dice.
Now that’s interesting. Rather than a reduced penalty for failure, you’re looking at a reduced chance of failure.
That’s always the issue, you know? You want the thrill of rolling a clutch saving throw without the irritation of having to roll up a new PC every other session.
My wizard was once killed by the Phantasmal Killer spell, which I’m fairly sure is the first save or die spell, soft or otherwise, that is available. In terms of fairness, it does require two failed saves, will and fortitude, to actually work as intended. Most creatures will have one of those as a good save.
So then. What is your opinion of Phantasmal Killer after that experience?
The same. Hell, I’d been planning to use it to kill the party rogue at that point.
Your campaign sounds amazing, makes me wish i could participate. I havent played in a good group since ages
One of these days I’ll have to organize an online gaming event for Handbook peeps. One of the Patreon things Laurel and I are working on is a collection of “mini-dungeons.” Getting to run one of them on Roll 20 with some of you guys is a definite possibility. 🙂
Count me in! =)
The plan is to have ’em ready for Denver’s GenghisCon in February. We’ll have to figure something out around then.
Im not following you guys on patreon tho 🙁 i cant afford it with univ coming up…
Which is a shame because ive been having this silly concept of gnoll bard wielding an axe guitar for a few months now.
For the low, low price of $1 a month, you could adopt a starving webcomic.
*Cue “Arms of an Angel”*
Nah man. Your comment is literally what made me think of this. I’ve got zero details so far, because the event is extremely hypothetical. That said, I doubt I’d make it Patreon exclusive. I mean, if we were to do some kind of virtual con I might announce it to Patreon peeps first, but I wouldn’t want to restrict participation.
One of the things I dislike most about save or dies is how binary they are. This applies to most spells in D&D and PF which I consider a design flaw, but I don’t like it that if you cast, say, Dominate Monster (which I consider a save or lose spell) on someone they are either helplessly under your control, completely to your will, or they laugh in your face and you wasted the slot. 5e tried to mitigate this in some ways by either having a smaller effect still occur on a successful save, or requiring multiple failed saves to full lose. This is actually great for tension, like when our group was running away from a beholder and the paladin got hit by a flesh to stone, and since he had to fail three high save DCs there was great tension of whether he would succeed or not, as well as debate of whether any of us should double back to help him or trust his saves.
My favorite system for handling saves is Mutants and Masterminds. Saves DCs tend to be higher, but if you just barely fail your save against a domination you are instead fighting against their will, losing some actions but still retaining control. On a worse save they are controlling you, but your still fighting it so you still have limited actions. It’s only when you completely flunk your save that you are fully under their dominion, which I think it better both mechanically and for story (dumb peasants easily controlled, heroes are able to fight against it in a way obvious to observers. “I know you’re in there somewhere! Fight it!”
I’ve noticed that many Pathfinder spell selection guides will judge the handful of “save to partial” spells as superior options. I wonder if that’s an optimization call, or if it’s a reflection of the idea that save to partial just feels better.
Reliability is a key factor in Pathfinder optimization. After all, anyone can pad the stats and spend gold on weapon upgrades or headbands of caster stats or whatever. But with few exceptions, you can’t predict the d20 roll. This is especially important for enemy saving throws, since high priority targets are harder to take down and -anyone- can roll a nat 20 and auto-pass.
Casting a save-or-die that gets resisted is as bad as skipping your turn. Actually, it’s -worse- because you’ve skipped your turn and you’re out one resource. Also, you may have painted yourself as a target.
Looking at the Ray of Exhaustion spell, your goal when casting this is to shut down a powerful melee fighter. Even if resisted (their Fort save is likely high) they end up fatigued, meaning they cannot run or charge (bye bye Pounce) and getting this on a Barbarian type in the surprise round really shuts them down. Plus, if you’ve got spells to spare, it can be double-tapped to exhaust them no matter what. You couldn’t ask for a better spell for a relatively low level.
Makes me wonder if that’s the reason behind the popularity of summoning spells. The creatures might be underwhelming (especially at early levels), but they’re going to get in there and do something, even if it’s only providing a flanking bonus.
The creatures have their uses, even at low levels. Augment-Summons’d ponies are 14 HP meat walls, which is amazing at 1st level. Eagles get 3 attacks and can fly.
Most of what makes Summon Monster shine, at least in optimization guides, is the fact that you can steal spells by having your critters fast them. There are some nice examples, but my favorite is the Bralani Azata. I’ll spare you a ramble, but I willsay that summoning multiples means you can Flurry of Lightning Bolts or drop a fistful of d8’s on Cure Serious. Plus, they’re pretty dang good at combat.
Yah. Guides seem to think that lighting bolt and cure spells are a waste of magic, but when they’re effectively quickened the calculus changes in a hurry.
That was something I liked about 4e, just about all of your big abilities had something happen even on a terrible roll. A lot were of the “half damage on a miss, and no other effects”, but that is still a whole lot better than the feeling of having wasted your best power.
I remember the one time I tried LARPing. The vitriol in this one dude’s voice when he missed on his “big fireball” was startling. Wasting your one big shot is never fun, even if that one big shot happens to be birdseed wrapped up in a handkerchief.
Personally, I hate those (…when applied to me or my fellow PCs, of course 😛 ). Now, call me a dirty hippy storygamer but I find permanent player character death to be decidedly unfun. I’ve poured a lot of heart, sweat and tears into that piece of paper with a few numbers on it, and I hate loosing it just because my last offering on the altar of RNJesus wasn’t good enough. That isn’t to say of course that failure shouldn’t have consequences, but I feel in most cases there is some space between “total victory” and “please reroll a new character” that tends to go mostly unexplored.
I think we’re on the same page here. Remember that one time Wizard died?
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/the-worth-of-a-life
And also my love affair with the Reincarnation spell?
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/karma
RNJesus or consequences is the name of the game, up to and including death. However, since we have the good fortune to play in fantastical worlds, I find that “please reroll a new character” is rarely the only consequence for catching a case of dead.
Which is why I specified: “permanent player character death”. There are however systems (13th Age ) / GMs ( Matthew Mercer of Critical Role being a well known case) that go out of their way to make resurrection difficult – presumably out of fear that otherwise death will feel cheap. Not that it’s badwrong kind of fun for the people that enjoy this style of play, but it’s just not for me. And honestly, even if you know you’re going to get your PC back, Save-or-Die is still boring (again, to me) – it’s basically “roll a d20 to see if you’re going to be sitting around doing nothing for the next hour”.
An entirely valid point of view. I’ve got to ask though: How do you prefer to handle death in-game? Have you seen death “done well?”
Honestly, this is something I am yet to figure out. Certainly there are some systems that try to have their cake and eat it too. 13th Age has a Meaningful Death optional rule, where basically you can only be killed by a named villain, presumably during a boss battle. Mooks/random encounters can only knock you unconcious. In Fate games there are two ways of loosing a fight – conceding ( I “surrender”, but so long as I don’t diminish your victory I get to say what happens to me), and being taken out ( you get to say what happens to me, up to and including deciding that I die). Wheter these are “done well”, I don’t know – it seems to be a balancing act between “I want my PC to live” and “how much metagaming I am willing to swallow to get that”.
Pendragon is a brutal game, as there is very little healing, and what there is takes weeks, or even months. Which means that most combat, if it’s to the death, can really be the end of your character. However you can yield, and also become unconsious, and then you’re a prisoner. But, role-players being what they are, seldom take that route.
There is even this three day big fight in the Great Pendragon Campaign, in which you’re supposed to lose more then half the knights in the party, called the battle of Badon. So therefor you make sure to have a family, and a child, who can then take your place afterwards. This does tend to make the knights a little more cautious when entering a fight, or they just go at it, “For Love” (of fighting that is), which usually ends after “First Blood” (at least when you’re not called Johnny Rambo that is…)