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View Full Version : Save-or-Dies vs PCs - how do you handle them?



Saph
2007-10-07, 11:48 AM
In yesterday's session, our party ran into a room filled with nasty magic traps, including three symbols. One of the symbols had a necromancy aura. Can you say 'symbol of death'?

Long story short, the symbol ended up going off and catching the entire party. Three of the five members rolled low on their Fort save. Zap, down they went. The remaining two party members (both clerics) dragged the bodies away and tried to figure out what the hell to do next. Raise dead doesn't work on creatures killed by death effects, and they weren't high enough level to cast resurrection. On top of that, the two remaining PCs were nowhere near strong enough to fight their way out on their own, and they couldn't withdraw back to town.

As it turned out, it wasn't a symbol of death after all, but some custom spell that dropped its targets into a coma. The zapped PCs recovered after 24 hours, and the game went on. It got me thinking, though - if it had been a symbol of death, it would have effectively been a TPK. The two remaining PCs had no way of getting out, and couldn't get reinforcements.

How do you handle these situations when you're DMing? Are you willing to let a long-running PC (or even the whole party) die due to a bad roll on a saving throw? Once the PCs get to highish levels, it feels like practically half the monsters in the game have some sort of instakill effect. Do you let the PCs be wiped out, fudge, or something in between?

- Saph

Cobra
2007-10-07, 12:11 PM
Depends on what kind of game you're playing really. A high combat tactical style game doesn't suffer too much from frequent player death and raising.

A long term story heavy campaign, on the other hand, does suffer from frequent character death. In those kind of games, I think the best solution is to use fate points or karma points or whatever else you want to call them. Players can use these to re-roll or auto-pass botched rolls. They key is to give them to major npc's as well. That both prevents accidental or random PC death AND prevents major encounters from ending with a whimper instead of a bang after the PC's save-or-die the major villain.

Altair_the_Vexed
2007-10-07, 12:27 PM
In my game, you roll your save vs the spell / spell-like ability / whatever, or you die. Simple.

Raolin_Fenix
2007-10-07, 12:34 PM
Raise dead doesn't work on creatures killed by death effects, and they weren't high enough level to cast resurrection.

Let's be fair -- if your cleric isn't high-level enough to cast True Resurrection (let alone regular Resurrection), you shouldn't be running into a freakin' Symbol of Death. Ninth-level spells: everyone gets 'em at the same level. :P

That being said, though, some DMs are just sadistic and cruel, so it will happen on occasion.

If I were to lay down a symbol of death, and most (or all) of my party got caught by it -- more of them than I'd expected or intended -- I would have to do some pretty quick thinking, because that's not going to make my players happy. I mean, seriously -- a campaign from levels one to fifteen, they're just starting to get really powerful, they're nearing the culmination of the entire campaign and the fight with the BBEG, and suddenly, BAM! "Huh. Uh, sorry, guys. Game over. Roll new characters. New campaign." It's practically the equivalent of "Rocks fall, everyone dies." Only without the "rocks fall."

I wouldn't fudge stuff; if the Symbol killed them, it'd kill them. You can't have players roll their Fort saves and then have one fail on a total of 20, while the next one succeeds on a 19. And you can't have the symbol just mysteriously vanish after killing one or two of the party members. Too obvious, and any player would roll his/her eyes and lose respect for you as DM.

What happens afterward, however, is DM's prerogative. If you're quick on your mental feet, and you keep your face impassive or behind the DM screen so that they can't tell how furiously you're thinking, you can come up with something quickly to salvage the situation. If you're good, they might even think you'd planned for it in advance. :P

In your situation, the clerics would be taken prisoner. Then it's not a matter of them being unable to escape on their own; they're being cared for, after a fashion, and get to wait for the opportunity to escape on their own. Fun little side-quest to recover the bodies for resurrection. Chases. Escapes. True Love. Miracles.

If everyone died, my first idea would be to have them raised as undead. I mean, whoever laid that symbol of stunning doesn't want them coming back to life. He'd raise them as piddling zombies or something to prevent it, but something goes wrong, and the newly-undead heroes get free will. Fun little sidequest to get out and be restored to normal life (probably killed in their undead forms at the local Temple, then raised normally). Chases. Escapes. True zombie Love. Miracles (or True Resurrections).

Lord_Gareth
2007-10-07, 12:46 PM
I treat save-or-die vs. PCs like I do vs. NPCs - as the spell description dictates. You'd be amazed how adaptable players can be when they realize you're not gonna save them. And a TPK, as rare as I try to make those (I'm not a huge fan of the symbol spells, myself) isn't the end of an adventure - merely those character's participation in it. If your characters die trying to save the world, whoever sent them is gonna go, "God damn it - backup plan, new adventurers". Who knows, they may encounter the old party as powerful undead, or they may just loot potential legacy items (depending on the circumstances of death) from them.

Draz74
2007-10-07, 01:18 PM
If everyone died, my first idea would be to have them raised as undead. I mean, whoever laid that symbol of stunning doesn't want them coming back to life. He'd raise them as piddling zombies or something to prevent it, but something goes wrong, and the newly-undead heroes get free will. Fun little sidequest to get out and be restored to normal life (probably killed in their undead forms at the local Temple, then raised normally). Chases. Escapes. True zombie Love. Miracles (or True Resurrections).

:smallcool: I don't think Miracle Max could pull off anything greater than a Raise Dead, really. "Well, with all dead, there's usually only one thing you can do."
"What's that?"
"Run through his clothes and look for loose change."

Silkenfist
2007-10-07, 01:20 PM
I generally try to avoid this. I have no quarrel about killing players off. However, creating a situation where a single roll kills off a chacter is just a bad idea. If you want to threaten the party and create evil traps, do something creative. My use of deadly traps falls into three categories:

1) Dangerous Situation: Expose the characters to a situation where death is likely but depends on more than a single roll. Drop them into a vat of acid. Or quicksand. Or into a pit full of snakes. You may choose to either have all of them exposed to the danger, or just part of them - and task the others on rescuing their companion.

2) Capture: Have the character drop down into the abyss, teleported away, or sucked into the evil symbol on the doorway. Use any magical or nonmagical means to remove a character from the party. But why should you kill them. Put them in a dungeon, in a soul-sucking mirror, in the BBEG's private chambers or in a dungeon plane of existence, then task the party on rescuing their companion. Or - if more than one member gets hit or the rescue is impossible - give them a way of escape. If the rescue/escape fails, they can still die later.

3) Crippling: There are countless ways to hurt someone without killing them outright: Have them lose a limb, bestow a curse on them, use Baleful Polymorph, Blind them. drain a level or two. Use heavy ability damage. Petrify one of them. The traps don't need to kill them immediately, they just need to put them in a condition in which they are much more likely to perish.

Saph
2007-10-07, 01:20 PM
Let's be fair -- if your cleric isn't high-level enough to cast True Resurrection (let alone regular Resurrection), you shouldn't be running into a freakin' Symbol of Death. Ninth-level spells: everyone gets 'em at the same level. :P

That being said, though, some DMs are just sadistic and cruel, so it will happen on occasion.

The CR ratings for magic traps are really screwy, though. A permanent auto-resetting wail of the banshee trap is listed in the DMG as being only CR 10. God knows why. Maybe they think every party is going to have a rogue with maxed-out Search and Disable Device, but even so, did they really want half the party to die if the rogue flubs his disable check?

- Saph

Machete
2007-10-07, 01:29 PM
Save or Die Spells seem really unfun for players and the DM.

Wizard just blasting everything down with save or die, you know, those carefully crafted creative encounters.

I guess I'd house rule a change in the spells allowed or alter them with something like "you can make two saves against this spell, if you fail one then you are dropped to 0 hitpoints and if you fail both, THEN you die." at least gives a character a chance to get dragged to safety MOST of the time.

enderrocksonall
2007-10-07, 01:32 PM
I'm generally a fan of using slightly underpowered bad guys, but putting a nice symbol of stunning in the room. Or using various other traps that wont hurt the NPC's but are cunningly hidden enough for the PC's to run unwittingly into them.

If i were going to use a save-or-die type spell or trap i would ensure that nearby there was an opportunity for at least one rez. If I'm feeling particularly sadistic I would make it a scroll of Wish so they have to give up the wish to get back the team member. Alternatively, the Wish is a great reward for all of them surviving.

psychoticbarber
2007-10-07, 01:57 PM
I generally try to avoid outright save-or-dies against PCs, personally. They can save-or-die my NPCs if they want, but usually one encounter won in that manner doesn't save them from all the troubles in the area.

Kaelik
2007-10-07, 02:11 PM
Am I the only one who realizes that it was a symbol of death? It became a homebrewed spell right after it became clear that a TPK was coming up.

So I guess that's how your DM would deal with it.

Kurald Galain
2007-10-07, 02:22 PM
Am I the only one who realizes that it was a symbol of death? It became a homebrewed spell right after it became clear that a TPK was coming up.
I had drawn the same conclusion, yes.

How I would deal with it? I'm more into the role-playing kind of campaigns, so I wouldn't use save-or-die effects on the player characters, especially not group-save-or-die. PCs can die as a result of their screw-ups (and that happens not infrequently), not as a result of a single bad die roll. There is plenty of nastiness a high-level enemy can throw at the PCs without resorting to SODs.

The other way around it's less of a problem, but a really plot-critical BBEG could plausibly be immune to death magic. Or, I could simply drop a few hints that he has spell reflection (even if he doesn't); does marvels to discourage SODding...

Saph
2007-10-07, 02:47 PM
Am I the only one who realizes that it was a symbol of death? It became a homebrewed spell right after it became clear that a TPK was coming up.

Well, except for the fact that it knocked out more than 150 HP worth of targets in one shot, which a symbol of death can't do.

The DM has everything for the dungeon written down, so maybe after we've finished I'll ask to see it and find out then.

- Saph

SleepingOrange
2007-10-07, 03:59 PM
I'm not a very experienced DM myself, and tend to run fairly low-level campaigns. Regardless, I tend to follow the Pratchettarian philosophy of, 'what happens, stays happened'; were your party blasted by an extremely unfortunate symbol, as DM, I'd say too bad. That's not to say, though, that I wouldn't set it up so there were some plausible way of getting out of the dungeon (BBEG's personal escape route, scroll of teleport) or resurrecting the characters (a house-ruled ritual requiring a knowledge(religion) check and two or more mid-to-high level clerics), but I wouldn't do too much roll-fudging or, 'oops, no wait, that didn't happen'-tactics. It ruins the game, loses you as the DM respect, and tells the players 'you can do any-thing you want. Daddy DM will fix any boo-boos'.

bugsysservant
2007-10-07, 04:22 PM
My theory is: don't do anything your players wouldn't do. If you have a group that is composed of Batmen, than yeah, I have no problem tossing out a few Symbols or other save or die. Why should the villains be hesitant to use tactics that the players don't shy away from? But otherwise, save or dies suck, and should only be used when your campaign is in dire need of a railroad. If your party has repeatedly ignored the big plot hook for the campaign, than throwing them a few symbols, having the local temple raise them, and in payment demand they go off on quest X isn't really a bad thing to do.

ZebulonCrispi
2007-10-07, 04:28 PM
The abundancy of ressurection led me to an idea for the ultimate spell of terror.

Fort save.
If you pass, you die.
If you fail...
...Mordenkainen's Disjunction.

AslanCross
2007-10-07, 04:45 PM
The abundancy of ressurection led me to an idea for the ultimate spell of terror.

Fort save.
If you pass, you die.
If you fail...
...Mordenkainen's Disjunction.

How horrible! Have you no mercy?! :smalleek:

goat
2007-10-07, 04:49 PM
A permanent auto-resetting wail of the banshee trap is listed in the DMG as being only CR 10. God knows why. Maybe they think every party is going to have a rogue with maxed-out Search and Disable Device, but even so, did they really want half the party to die if the rogue flubs his disable check?

That's 34 and 34 for Search and DD. Assuming they even find it (which at 34 is unlikely), 34 for DD is pretty harsh. A dungeoneering rogue should have maxed DD, and at level 10, that's 13 ranks. So for an unoptimised dexterous rogue, you might get a +3 from his stats, giving 16. Assuming you don't take nimble fingers or Skill Focus DD (because really, nobody would), you still need to get an 18 or above to take that thing out.

If you could take 20, that would be fine, but DD only allows retries if you fail by 4 or less. So, you need to roll an 18 or above, without rolling a 13 or below and setting it off.

That's too much for a trap when it going off will kill just about everyone in the area (Hello Mr "10 constitution in a fort-weak class". Please roll a 20 or die). Especially if it's in a non-bypassable tunnel. If it's an instant reset, you can't even trip it with a summon [X] and then run through while it's resetting.

Yeah, i'd call that overkill as a CR10.

Mike_Lemmer
2007-10-07, 06:02 PM
I like the idea of Save or Dies. I just don't like how damn fast they are. Mooks are supposed to be in a split-second, not heroes. Besides, it really isn't very dramatic, as OotS showed in the Cleric Duel (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0456.html).

I'd personally go with 2 or more saves for a Save-or-Die spell, like they did for Phantasmal Killer, preferably spread out over 2 or more rounds. I want to give the cleric time to cast something to counter it, like a Death Ward. Sure, you won't kill as many PCs, but imagine the conflict!

Cleric: "Three of my teammates might die in a round. I have enough time to cast a Death Ward & make one of them immune. Now who do I cast it on?!"

In closing, I think Save-or-Die/Suck effects are better if they depend on more than 1 roll & if the PCs have a chance to react to them.

tannish2
2007-10-07, 06:14 PM
well in my favorite campaign at least 1 character dies every session. thats what revivify if their stupid enough to split off from the main group then we use true ressurection from an NPC. but your situation is very difficult... i would say... set the DM on fire with your mind if it had been a symbol of death.

Azerian Kelimon
2007-10-07, 06:17 PM
Usually, save or dies are unchangable. If it happened, it happened. However, after a player becomes attached to a character, this rule changes. At, say, level 5, a save or die is just that. At level 69, a save or die follows the rules of three and out as shown in the epic handbook. If you fail a save or die, you're safe the first time (let's face it, if you negate the possibility of ocming back after going to level 69, it sucks), and the second time. The third time, you're out, though.

the_tick_rules
2007-10-07, 07:36 PM
i'd say limit them until your party has a means of resurrection.

Clementx
2007-10-07, 08:01 PM
The problem of a single bad roll completely ruining a session and a character is huge. It just gets worse with cockatrices or such, where everyone is saving every round. Nevermind the fact that in high-level games, you are saving against massive damage pretty much every round (so your fighter dies after 5% of hits, no matter what). Save-or-suck effects are much more fun. I think having to rescue your held comrade before he gets CdG'ed is much more exciting than dragging his ass back to a lvl9 cleric, and losing all momentum.

A few things I do- karma points to boost rolls/saves as a reward for good RPing instead of extra XP. If the paladin goes to rescue the puppy from the bodak, he will get a hedged save. Second, limit the amount of save-or-die effects, through careful monster selection, a bit of houseruling, etc. Third, spells like Revivify, Last Breath, or whatever those Raise Dead but only if you have been dead a couple of rounds: use them a lot. Fourth, get rid of auto-fails on natural 1s.

Azerian Kelimon
2007-10-07, 08:03 PM
That's a big one I use. Turn 20's into +30's, and 1's to -10's. It makes it a bit more likely that you survive.

Thinker
2007-10-07, 08:11 PM
That's a big one I use. Turn 20's into +30's, and 1's to -10's. It makes it a bit more likely that you survive.

Yes, I houserule similarly, except I make it so 1's are just 1's and 20's are 30's. My gaming group rolls poorly enough that 1's would be lethal.

Azerian Kelimon
2007-10-07, 08:40 PM
D'oh, that's bad karma.

Mike_Lemmer
2007-10-07, 09:12 PM
Killing players that constantly roll 1s is like shooting puppies drowning in a barrel; it's hilarious the first few times, but then it just becomes pathetic, even if you are evil incarnate.

Aquillion
2007-10-07, 11:45 PM
For all the people who said "I just have the PCs roll, same as the NPCs", remember... you're the DM. Players don't just run into deadly traps and monsters with instant-death abilities at random; they run into them because you put them there. Obviously, DMs shouldn't constantly be flubbing rolls to save players... but should they avoid throwing too many instant death attacks at PCs to begin with?

My feeling is yes. The occasional instant death attack is alright as a threat as long as you wait until the PCs have the resources to recover from it in some fashion or another, but dying because you rolled a 1 against a random encounter or a completely unimportant trap is no fun. If you are going to have PCs facing instant death, make it the traps around the Final Ultimate Sword at the end of the dungeon, or the spells cast by the BBEG, or whatever. This has the advantage that even if they die, at least their death won't feel stupid, like it would if they flubbed a roll against a generic chest with 50 gp in it. Stupid deaths can be funny occasionally, but they wear thin fast.

And instant death attacks are something that you have to be much, much more careful with throwing at the players below the recommended level. If you throw a giant or hydra of some sort at PCs who are badly matched against it, it's dangerous for them, but they can probably escape or respond in some form or another. If you throw an instant-death effect at them, though, one of them could easily be dead before they even know that they're facing something too tough for them... and with the limits on bringing back people killed by effects like those, it's extra-catastrophic for a low-level party. Sure, sometimes it's good to add some thrills with out-of-level dangers, but instant death attacks shouldn't be used for this, because then you get less thrills and more "Oh, btw, you're dead."

Solmage
2007-10-08, 12:06 AM
Killing players that constantly roll 1s is like shooting puppies drowning in a barrel; it's hilarious the first few times, but then it just becomes pathetic, even if you are evil incarnate.

I just got a weird sudden urge to get dice loaded to roll 1s more often :smalltongue:

...I'd see it as free character creation training :smallbiggrin:

Justin_Bacon
2007-10-08, 02:42 AM
As it turned out, it wasn't a symbol of death after all, but some custom spell that dropped its targets into a coma.

By which you mean "the DM realized he'd just ended the campaign with a single trap unless he backpedaled rapidly", right? ;)


How do you handle these situations when you're DMing? Are you willing to let a long-running PC (or even the whole party) die due to a bad roll on a saving throw? Once the PCs get to highish levels, it feels like practically half the monsters in the game have some sort of instakill effect. Do you let the PCs be wiped out, fudge, or something in between?

For awhile I simply resolved to never use save-or-die effects on the PCs because they're clearly Not Fun(TM). However, it quickly became apparent that this ridiculously slanted the odds in the PCs' favor: They could still use the save-or-die effects on their opponents.

So I thought about simply eliminating save-or-die spells from the game, but realized that I didn't want to get rid of powerful spells that could disintegrate people into a pile of dust and the like. (Why? Flavor reasons.)

So I went with an easy, one-size-fits-all solution:

Any death effect in the game instead causes 3d6 points of Constitution damage. If the death effect has an additional effect (trapping someone's soul; turning them into a pile of dust) the special effect only happens if the Constitution damage results in the character's death.

If I was redesigning the game from the ground-up, I would probably differentiate a bit: Less powerful death effects might deal 2d6 Con; more powerful death effects might deal 4d6 Con.

But this one-size-fits-all solution means I don't have to houserule every new death effect introduced in every new supplement: I can just apply the rule and go. Death effects remain deadly threats, but PCs retain an ablative defense against them.

Justin Alexander
http://www.thealexandrian.net

Saph
2007-10-08, 05:25 AM
By which you mean "the DM realized he'd just ended the campaign with a single trap unless he backpedaled rapidly", right? ;)

Maybe . . . Symbol of death can only affect 150 HP of targets before shutting down, while this one took out three characters with a total of 200 HP or so. Me and a couple of the players were talking about this afterwards. We'd already run into one custom symbol on the same floor, so it wasn't unreasonable that there might be another, but it was kind of suspicious . . . I'll ask him once the dungeon's over. :)


For awhile I simply resolved to never use save-or-die effects on the PCs because they're clearly Not Fun(TM). However, it quickly became apparent that this ridiculously slanted the odds in the PCs' favor: They could still use the save-or-die effects on their opponents.

So I went with an easy, one-size-fits-all solution:

Any death effect in the game instead causes 3d6 points of Constitution damage. If the death effect has an additional effect (trapping someone's soul; turning them into a pile of dust) the special effect only happens if the Constitution damage results in the character's death.

I think this is the best solution. The conclusion our group came to was that save-or-dies should work like disintegrate - a failed save causes truckloads of damage and is Bad News for the target, but it isn't a guaranteed kill and you can be fairly sure of surviving if you're tough. At the least it means you have to get unlucky twice instead of once.

3d6 Con damage sounds about right - can still kill a PC, but since most highish level PCs have Con scores of 14 or higher, they've got a good chance of surviving the first one, giving them a chance to withdraw.

- Saph

Surfer99
2007-10-08, 08:53 AM
Spending lots of time on my creation (well ok maybe not so much) but save and die spells are there if the NPC's can cast them .. how many NPC's can do that ? not to many, also they will need to be actually active (most of them have some sort of duration) and before hand they will have atleast 2 warnings if it is 100% death (ei no rez from said effect)

I like having them there for added danger but i by far prefer save and suck how could the evil villian monolouge if the player is already dead *<3 to the incredibles.

so save and suck / save or stun / paralyze and ive become quite fond of the idea of having a wand of charm person on my bbeg (my group have only meet the bbeg once and they did not realise but hey thats the way REAL fun begins :) )

Electric
2007-10-08, 10:22 AM
Action points. The characters will likely save them for such situations, and although they don't negate the effect, it does give the thrifty players a somewhat greater liklihood of making their save.

Roderick_BR
2007-10-08, 10:33 AM
Save or Die Spells seem really unfun for players and the DM.

Wizard just blasting everything down with save or die, you know, those carefully crafted creative encounters.

I guess I'd house rule a change in the spells allowed or alter them with something like "you can make two saves against this spell, if you fail one then you are dropped to 0 hitpoints and if you fail both, THEN you die." at least gives a character a chance to get dragged to safety MOST of the time.
Maybe make it "roll once to lose half your hit points, again for the rest."
You can reduce them to -1 directly, or add a 3rd roll that'll push them directly into -10 (or whatever needs to kill them).
It adds some drama "I passed the 1st, but missed the 2nd. If I fumble again, I'm at -1", and gives the players some chance of passing, but cripling them horrible still. If you roll 2 out of 3, you can still be healed by a friend.

First option, demands more rolls, and has less chances of dying.
Roll 3 times:
1 failure: lose half of your current hit points.
2 failures: drop to -1.
3 failures: drop to -10.

A second option, more powerful than the first:
Roll 2 times:
1 failure: drop to 0 hit points (still alive, but needs healing)
2 failures: drop to -10 hit points (dead)
The idea is that if you save 1 out of 2 saves, you avoid death, but loses all your hit points, leaving you weak. If you save both, you avoid it completely (maybe add some damage still), and if you fail both, it's resurrection land for you.

leperkhaun
2007-10-08, 04:19 PM
i tend to make save or die rare and make it so that i can try to arrange the situation so the whole party isnt effected.

In general im not a fan of party wide save or die/suck/loss spells. thats no fun. HOWEVER, i am a fan of 1 or 2 or 3 of the party save or suck/die/loss. From my point of view i need to arrange such spells to heignten an encounter, not TPK.

I tend to use such spells to make the players think of something other than, "ok on the count of 3 we all attack, with all 5 of us there is no way that fool is going to live."

Fights become more intreasting if every once in a while your batman/CC is turned into stone for a battle and you have to get him back to flesh quickly, your 200000 damage a round megabarb is dominated.

Renx
2007-10-08, 04:30 PM
I'd go for soultraps. Think of them as a backup plan.

Party enters a room with Symbol of Death, more than half croak. The dead ones find that their souls have been taken to a pocket dimension (á la Temple of Horrendous Doom) where the evil wizard/lich/whatever stores souls for powering his items. Which explains how most of his cohorts have really, really strong magical weapons. So the 'dead' party begins to overthrow the dimension.

Meanwhile, the rest of the party is freaking out, trying to protect their friends' corpses and the evil overlord's cohorts come barging in. Just when it looks like 'one for the bad guys', their magic items fizzle. Rage of the souls begins.

A friend of mine had this backup plan for years, never having a chance to use it. Then one day - ZAP, half the party croaks. Freaking epic.