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Drynwyn
2011-01-06, 04:54 PM
Part 1: Personal opinion/hypothesis
Save or Die means any effect that causes it's target to be immediately removed as a threat for a long period of time.
Save or Die spells often come under heavy criticism, and where largely eliminated in the fourth edition. It is my feeling that these spells are useful when used correctly by a skilled DM.
Save or die works because the Pc's are the sole purpose of d and d. They tip the balance for casters in " arena combat", but work in campaign because PC's most always have several daily encounters. However, they should be used against the PC's sparingly, and major villians should have some form of protection.
Please share any Save or Die experiences you have had. This data will be used in Part Two.

jumpet
2011-01-06, 05:05 PM
These types of spells are used often in our games, by both PCs and DM. Often PCs die with a bad roll, however we also have house rules that make Raise not prohibitively expensive, nor do they take away XP. This makes instant death stuff a lot more palatable.

molten_dragon
2011-01-06, 05:30 PM
They can definitely be a problem for a campaign, which is why they're best used sparingly. If players use them in a big boss fight and the boss rolls poorly (or the PC has buffed his save DC to ridiculous levels), then what was supposed to be a fun and memorable encounter ends instantly. If a PC is killed by one through bad luck, and they are not able to get rezzed soon, then essentially that player doesn't get to play that day because of something completely outside his control.

That being said, I'm quite fond of the prismatic line of spells (i.e. prismatic ray, prismatic spray, prismatic bow, etc.) I love the random chaos of them. For some reason though, I roll a lot of 8s on that spell, and that ends up with the combination turned to stone and sent to other plane. So it's sort of become a joke in our campaign about me littering the outer planes with statues of our enemies.