Save or Die Spells

[TismeVader]

what are your opinions on spells that give a save or die. i personally hate them and am thinking of banning them in future games. half of the people i play with agree and half dont, any feedback would be nice.

thank you

[Bluestorm]

I only use them if there is someway the bring them back to life very soon.

[galraen]

I take it you mean spells such as Slay Living etc., yo me they're part of the game, as is death itself. It's the DM's responsibility to make sure that there are temples available until the party get high enough level to have raise dead, or to put raise dead scrolls in treasure occasionally.

If you're playing with rules that stipulate that Elves can't be raised, then a rod of resurrection should find its way into the parties back pack. Of course sometimes raise dead/resurrection doesn't work, if the DM is flexible with re-incarnation then that can be used as an option. But players should be prepared to bury characters when they start out, it happens. I've lost characters, and had others lose them when I've been DMing. One has to accept it, hold a wake or whatever, and roll a new character. It is a good idea IMO to have, and persuade your players to have a character ready to go in those situations. There's usually someone who turns up early for a session, us the time to prepare for the worst.

Banning save or die spells (and/or weapons) is not only unfair on monsters (and ALWAYS give the monsters and even break), it is also unfair on the party, there have been times in my campaigning days that the parties lives were saved by the arch-enemy failing such saves. And if the party have access to them, so should their opponents if appropriate.

The one spell I have routinely banned is disintegrate, for both sides. I do believe in giving deceased characters every chance of coming back, and that spell is too over the top, even for me.

[Siberys]

Originally Posted by TismeVader

what are your opinions on spells that give a save or die. i personally hate them and am thinking of banning them in future games. half of the people i play with agree and half dont, any feedback would be nice.

thank you

Perfectly legitimate spells In my opinion, nothing broken about them. Even for NPC's and creatures, saving throws for these types of spells can become high enough that they have about as much worth in casting as casting a fireball spell.

[Kheros]

and ofcourse in 4 months if you switch to 4th edition you wont have to worry about that

It all comes down to preference really. If you like a high-magic gameworld where resurrections are common, then there is very little penalty for dying and the spells aren't disruptive at all. If, however, you think resurrection is cheesy, then you should defenitely stay clear of those spells because a natural 1 on a d20 is always a failure by the rules, and everyone rolls them no matter how good their saves.

There is IMO very little middle-ground between these 2 options because you either allow the players to be raised or not. Making it too hard to raise people from the dead and it'll be easier and faster for the players to make new characters, and that defeats the purpose.

Heck, even in MMORPGs death is an oft-discussed topic, just what penalty is too high, and what is too low.

Finding the "sweet spot" is the name of the game here. You can certainly keep the save-or-die in the game, but then you have to figure out a way for your players to have fun dying and coming back.

After all, this is a game, and you are meant to have fun, if you and your friends don't have fun it defeats the purpose of the game.

Have fun!

[TismeVader]

thanks for the feedback and to give you a bit more info on this. i hate the idea of raise dead and the like. if you make death to easy to overcome whats the point of playing. when you are in a party of 4/5 there is no real danger if you are 1 level below the rest of the party, therefore people take death as a laugh. i also believe that the party should overcome battles with problem solving and tactics not super high level save or die spells.

is there also any way of spicing up combat. when you are highish level it always seems to be you hit and deal X amount of damage, your hit and take Y amount of damage. all your really seeing is who has the most hit points.

[Kheros]

Unfortunately, at high-end levels (bordering on epic) you are above the "sweet spot" where tactics really matters. You players have multiple attacks per round (atleast 3-4) and are loathe to give those up since that is their majority of DPS. Hence it becomes a slug-fest far too often. The only break in this are casters really, and they are ofc overpowered and the spell-system with saves suck

You can try some variant rules from Unearthed Arcana to spice things up abit. Look at SAGA too (Star Wars SAGA Edition.) SAGA is by far a better system for me. Don't know if it is for you.

If none of the above is any help, all I can say is wait for 4th edition. The designers claim (there is no proof yet) that they will do away with all those annoying things (like save or die, slugfests, etc.)

[GawainBS]

I would never ban those spells. They aren't half as bad as you think. An alternative might be that save or die spells instead "knock out" the subject on a failed save for the rest of the encounter. That way, everybody still has the application of the spells (One shot, one kill.) while nobody suffers the drawback. I'm not saying this is a perfect solution, but one that might suit your group.
For the slugfest: Try incorporating Tome of Battle. It turns combat in to something more varied than "I attack." Don't believe what people say, it's not overpowered. (At least, not more than Core is.)

[TismeVader]

i am not familier with that can you give me an example of how it improves combat

[GawainBS]

Bear with me, I'm trying to keep this as general as possible so that I don't violate any copyrights. (It's not SRD material.)
You got Move, Standard, Swift and Immediate actions, right? Tome of Battle uses this to the fullest in combat. It uses a system called manouvres. A class that prepares these is called a Martial Adept. (This is not a class per se, but a general term, like "Spellcaster.")
Each martial adept has a number of manouvres known and readied. (See link at the end for a sample Martial Adept, called the Warblade.)
Manouvres come in three type: Strikes, Boosts & Counters. Then there are Stances.

Stances: These can be active as long as you like, and give you some general bonus, for example: Blindsense or so.
Strikes: These require a standard or a full action to initiate ( "cast", if you will) and generally require and attack roll and they do weapon damage. An example: A strike that lets you treat the attack as a touch attack.
Boosts: A swift action to initiate, these give some bonus for the rest of your turn, for example: 1d6 extra fire damage to all attacks.
Counters: An immediate action, these are used in reaction to actions by the enemy, for example: After an opponent attacks you, you can initiate this to make an opposed attack roll and if you score higher, you parry the attack and take no damage.

The number of manouvres readied is per encounter. Each encounter, you can use each readied manouvre once. The Warblade, for example, can make an attack and spend his swift action to regain all his readied manouvres.
In between encounters, you can change which manouvres you have readied, based on the ones you know.

The catch is that by using the different kinds of action, that you are forced to think ahead. "Should I spend my swift action to use an immediate action and use a Counter? Or should I wait and use it to power a Boost?"
Different Strikes have different effects: It depends on you to maximalise them. Since most Strikes are standard actions, people tend to stick much less to their full attacks, creating more opportunities for movement and thus avoiding a slugfest, which boils down to: "I attack. I do damage."

On first glance, you might think that the system is overpowered. It isn't. Sure, the Warblade is better than a Fighter. Which class isn't?
Tests on the Character Optimisation Boards on Wizards have proven that, for example, a Warblade doesn't do more damage than a Barbarian.
Ofcourse, there are sick broken combo's possible, but then again, that's also possible in Core-only. (Natural Spell? Time Stop? Gate?)

Here's the link: Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords