SoDs - the Sinister/U_K solution [Rebalancing 3.5]

[Mister_Sinister]

I agree with Sunic that in general it's still pretty deadly, but it does pull it back some.  If we drop it to 1d3 per level, a typical 6th level SoD will do 6d3 Con damage (average 12, with a range of 6 to 18).  It could kill you, but it's less likely to do so, espescially at that level.  It also helps to keep it a mook-killer.  Even a 9th level spell would be dealing 18 Con damage on average.

Which means you lose 6 HP per level and any follow up is going to kill you.

My proposed solution, based on this link here, for the problem of SoDs is to convert them to Con damage. As Robby has stated above, this is quite powerful, and Sunic expressed concerns over such. I wanna put this to the statistical test to see what happens against level-equivalent opposition in terms of damage dealt as a result.

Now, our premises are as follows: our caster has casting stat set at 22 (a reasonable expectation), for a total DC of 24 (10+6 [spell level] +6 [stat]+ 2 for Spell Focus), and we'll be pitching this against monsters of CR 12. The spell offers a Fort save for half.

My hypothesis is that, while significant, this will not be nearly as powerful as Sunic claims, being a solid, but not overpowering, option.

Abyssal Greater Basilisk

Roll needed to pass the save: 6 or more
Damage on a failed save (average): 108 (57% of hp)
Damage on a passed save (average): 54 (28.5% of hp)
Conclusion: This is not unreasonable, given that the monster will pass 75% of the time.

Adult Brass Dragon

Roll needed to pass the save: 9 or more
Damage on a failed save (average): 114 (57% of hp)
Damage on a passed save (average): 57 (28.5% of hp)
Conclusion: Given that dragons are supposedly under-CRed, this seems a bit odd comparing to the last entry. However, the dragon still passes more often than it fails, and even if it does fail, it is not an unreasonable damage amount.

Young Adult Bronze Dragon

Roll needed to pass the save: 9 or more
Damage on a failed save (average): 108 (57% of hp)
Damage on a passed save (average): 54 (28.5% of hp)
Conclusion: See above.

Eleven-Headed Cryohydra/Pyrohydra

Roll needed to pass the save: 12 or more
Damage on a failed save (average): 66 (56% of hp)
Damage on a passed save (average): 33 (28% of hp)
Conclusion: Although it fails more often, the percentages it posts show that this is still alright compared to the other examples.

Frost Worm

Roll needed to pass the save: 10 or more
Damage on a failed save (average): 84 (57% of hp)
Damage on a passed save (average): 42 (28.5% of hp)
Conclusion: This thing is only slightly worse-off than dragons. Now that's saying something.

Kraken

Roll needed to pass the save: 3 or more
Damage on a failed save (average): 120 (41% of hp)
Damage on a passed save: 60 (20.5% of hp)
Conclusion: This posts BETTER numbers than the dragons. Now THAT'S saying something.

Leonal

Roll needed to pass the save: 11 or more
Damage on a failed save (average): 72 (63% of hp)
Damage on a passed save (average): 36 (31.5% of hp)
Conclusion: Now, this is reason to worry, as that leaves it perilously close to death, as described by Sunic.

Collossal Monstrous Scorpion

Roll needed to pass the save: Anything but a 1
Damage on a failed save (average): 240 (80% of hp)
Damage on a passed save (average): 120 (40% of hp)
Conclusion: The damage is high percentage-wise, but in actual fact, almost every time, this will do LESS than it will against other monsters of its CR.

Elder Black Pudding

Roll needed to pass the save: 9 or more
Damage on a failed save (average): 120 (41% of hp)
Damage on a passed save (average): 60 (20.5% of hp)
Conclusion: Percentage-wise, only the scorpion gets a better deal.

Purple Worm

Roll needed to pass the save: 7 or more
Damage on a failed save (average): 96 (48% of hp)
Damage on a passed save (average): 48 (24% of hp)
Conclusion: Some very good numbers.

Roper

Roll needed to pass the save: 14 or more
Damage on a failed save (average): 60 (71% of hp)
Damage on a passed save (average): 30 (35.5% of hp)
Conclusion: This, along with the leonal, is the only case for concern.

Mature Adult White Dragon

Roll needed to pass the save: 7 or more
Damage on a failed save (average): 126 (52% of hp)
Damage on a passed save (average): 63 (26% of hp)
Conclusion: Nothing much of note here.

As can be seen, the range of damage on a failed save (worst-case scenario) here is anywhere from 60 to 240 (damage-wise) or from 41% to 80% of total hp. However, if we make those values cumulative with save probabilities, the gap narrows substantially, to 49.5 and 126, and 28.7% and 42% of hp. I do not believe that these are unacceptable values, especially if the spell is single-target and subject to resistance or immunity to death effects.

If I have made any mathematical errors, please point them out to me, and I will be happy to correct them.

[Stratovarius]

Interesting, and I like it. However, I'll throw this out there: What do you do with a SoD that works against creatures that are immune to Con damage? Undead, Constructs, and various other creatures possess that trait, but most are vulnerable to some sort of SoD.

Also, while this appears to work well for [Death] effect SoDs, what about something like, say, Dominate, which is in all respects *worse* for a fight than just killing the creature, since it has instead switched sides and is now beating on its allies?

[Mister_Sinister]

Good points, Strat. To the first, I suggest burning Str, or possibly Cha, instead. To the second, this here is the solution I would like to use, or something based on it, at least.

[Stratovarius]

I'm getting a page error on the link.

The problem with using a stat aside from Con is it is not connected to hit points in any way, making it all or nothing in many ways. For example, a mental stat loss cripples a caster relying on it, but against a fighter with a decent Cha or Int score, he takes the hit and is effectively unharmed. Likewise, Strength or Dex for a caster can prove damaging, but given that he is still able to use spells, the primary offensive capability is intact without damage.

With Con damage, the result is something that can be easily followed by another party member (fighter dealing damage, as an example). With any other, this is not generally the case, unless it is another spellcaster. I would suggest those spells going down the disintegrate route, dealing somewhere between 1d10-2d8 damage per caster level, fort save for half.

[Elennsar]

One possibility (which should be addressed in a thread on monsters, but...) is to give undead and such Constitution scores.

They're dead. So? They're tough (or not) to a greater or lesser degree just like the living.

That's one solution. I don't know if it is a good solution, but the idea that undead have no Constitution scores bothers me. At least with constructs, you can say they're just objects but animinated. But since they have the other five scores, why not?

[RobbyPants]

I like the idea of Cha damage to undead where appropriate.  Still, they'll be immune to many SoDs by virture of their creature type.

[Midnight_v]

So lets say you want to play a:
Master of the Save or Die.
... a necromancer or transmuter or something...
Is it still valid? Would you still walk around killing people at leisure?
Or is the archtype hapered into non existance?

  The save or die I think is important (and you'll here me say this more than once) because its a huge reason for people to pay attention to thier saves and save boosting items. I see the push to mitigate it a lot, and maybe that's a good thing, but I just keep thinking that somethings wrong with that thought.
Hmm... for instance, I've noticed people tend to care the least about reflex saves, but no one ignores reflex because dex does so much, but most people take something to protect thier fort and will.

These changes, affect the play dynamic signifigantly.
Its also odd to have mindless undead being affected by charisma damage...

[RobbyPants]

Its also odd to have mindless undead being affected by charisma damage...

I've always pictured Cha as an undead creature's force of will, tying them to both the material and negative energy planes.  Once the tie is weakened, they die.

[Stratovarius]

Going by RobbyPant's stated ideals of having DnD as a tier 3 game, something needs to be done to bring the primary casters somewhat back in line with the rest of the classes. Given their lack of class features, this will necessarily focus on spells. There are two areas of spells that are most commonly seen as being problems: Save or Die/Suck and Long-Term Buffs.

The most appropriate way to bring these tier 1 classes back to tier 3 is to weaken the SoD/S spells and the buffs such that they are of a comparable level, and not fight-ending at each application. The above mentioned changes are one such way to tackle the issue.

[Tshern]

Playing a SoD caster is still valid. Creating feats to improve the effects of SoD spells would solve quite a bit of the problem and making a set difference between normal ability score debuffs and Save of Dies should be done. Perhaps creatures under the effects of a spell that makes them immune to ability damage/drain would not be immune to the new modification of Save or Die spells. It could be ability rip or something.

[Midnight_v]

Playing a SoD caster is still valid. Creating feats to improve the effects of SoD spells would solve quite a bit of the problem and making a set difference between normal ability score debuffs and Save of Dies should be done. Perhaps creatures under the effects of a spell that makes them immune to ability damage/drain would not be immune to the new modification of Save or Die spells. It could be ability rip or something.

Creating feats to improve the effects of SoD spells would solve quite a bit of the problem and making a set difference between normal ability score debuffs and Save of Dies should be done

That sounds interesting actually.
I addeded more on this in the spells thread.  I hate that we have 6 threads 7? now its hard to see what the right hand is doing sometimes. 
I...guess I could reproduce it here. I'm sure we'll be in all thread equally now though. Hmm..

[Tshern]

I think the idea is workable, no point totally taking away Save or Dies, but being immune to them with Sheltered vitality sucks butt. Moreover, I think a SoD specialist is such an interesting concept that it doesn't deserve to be eradicated from D&D.

[Midnight_v]

I think the idea is workable, no point totally taking away Save or Dies, but being immune to them with Sheltered vitality sucks butt. Moreover, I think a SoD specialist is such an interesting concept that it doesn't deserve to be eradicated from D&D.

I agree. 100% The mage walking into a room and saying "DIE" and everyone falling down except the bartender(outside the circle of death) is awesome.
If we rebalance the game we shuold "Delete" anything or make it "ha ha, evocation is on top now!" either.
WHich is pretty ridiculous, if you think about it.

I do think that people have an idea that they don't want thier "Boss" being killed in one round though, as a dm I often consider that, when I make bosses. . . get back it to me. . .

[RobbyPants]

I hate that we have 6 threads 7? now its hard to see what the right hand is doing sometimes. 
I...guess I could reproduce it here. I'm sure we'll be in all thread equally now though. Hmm..

Yeah, that was the one reason I wasn't sure if I wanted to do this.  Any time I feel enough of the group has come to a concensus, I suppose I could link the topic and decision to any other relavent threads to help keep everything toward a single goal.  At least a two page argument in one thread doesn't toally bury discussions in the other.

I think the idea is workable, no point totally taking away Save or Dies, but being immune to them with Sheltered vitality sucks butt. Moreover, I think a SoD specialist is such an interesting concept that it doesn't deserve to be eradicated from D&D.

I would like to keep them too, which is why I wanted to find a way to help put them on par with DD spells.  I've done what I can to bring DD up in power a bit, but SoDs are still clear winners at this point.

Of course, this game is so situational that it's hard to come up with a truely good fix.

I agree. 100% The mage walking into a room and saying "DIE" and everyone falling down except the bartender(outside the circle of death) is awesome.
If we rebalance the game we shuold "Delete" anything or make it "ha ha, evocation is on top now!" either.
WHich is pretty ridiculous, if you think about it.

I do think that people have an idea that they don't want thier "Boss" being killed in one round though, as a dm I often consider that, when I make bosses. . . get back it to me. . .

I suppose I could add a bit of my own personal opinion to this.  I think the two worst things about SoDs is how they an so easily fell an important opponent in an anticimactic fashion and how they can kill a PC with a single bad die roll.

I have no problem with these things being mook killers.  I'd love to keep them because of flavor, but I just don't want to have the players glare at me when I pwn one of their PCs.  I don't want the player to target the BBEG's low save and say "I cast XXX at DC 43).

[Midnight_v]

I suppose I could add a bit of my own personal opinion to this.  I think the two worst things about SoDs is how they an so easily fell an important opponent in an anticimactic fashion and how they can kill a PC with a single bad die roll.

I have no problem with these things being mook killers.  I'd love to keep them because of flavor, but I just don't want to have the players glare at me when I pwn one of their PCs.  I don't want the player to target the BBEG's low save and say "I cast XXX at DC 43).

We could take a truly mechanical step?
Implement the Final Fantasy rule...
Basically, we could create the "Boss" template. Which makes a creature immune to save or die effects.

  Frankly, from the sheer volume of Dm's I've seen cheat and not let the boss die to a clearly impossible to pass save, one would think it's already done.
I'd add in that instead of dying when SoD'd they get a "suck" effect instead.  Same as players, something debilitating that drops them from combat maybe... I'm just grasping there I admit.
Though the Idea from sinsister and U_k aren't bad perse either, but its not a save or die really, which is why if we go with that rubric, we should follow Tsherns suggestion and create support feats fro the save or die guy.

[RobbyPants]

My only problem with that is how contrived it seems.  One person in the game world arbitrarily has some protection because of metagame reasons.

I see what you're getting at, and I agree that many DMs do this anyway.  If you fudge the roll, you might as well have given them this template. 

[Mister_Sinister]

Immunities in general, especially at higher levels, actually become problematic. Although this is most notable in the broke-fest that epic 3.5 turns into, even at higher levels, you paint yourself into a corner more and more as things become immune to more and more things. Therefore, I propose replacing immunity with very high resistance instead, as in this here solution. I believe spell resistance should be handled in a similar way - just make it a save bonus, and eliminate the extra annoying diceroll. For spells which offer no save, allow spell resistance to grant a save at some inordinate penalty (I recommend -10).

Seriously, guys, these SoDs are good enough to use. Now, instead of being encounter-ending, they can burn a monster for about 50% hp at equivalent-level. This is neither ridiculous nor unbalanced, and honestly, can be used as-is. Although I do agree with Tshern - they will need some love, in the form of feats, class features and what have you.

@Strat: Retry the link - it has a habit of going funny on me. If it's still giving you issues, give it another go here.

@Midnight: The 'boss' template doesn't require blanket immunities - it makes a bad problem worse. If anything, boss monsters should receive something like this:

- Max hp
- A +4 bonus to all saves

And not much else. This already solves the problem, as it means that you're reducing the chance of a failed save on an SoD by 20%, and giving more cushioning against its effects anyway, as this increases hp by between 20 and 50%, to boot.

@Robby: Metagame protection of this sort is precisely what we should seek to eliminate. The rules should cover for this already, without giving the DM more work than he already has to do. This is actually a big problem with 4E - you have to metagame everything cool (like raising armies of the dead), as the rules actually won't let you do that in any conceivable way.
Furthermore, my fix to SoDs addresses both of the problems you mentioned with a good degree of finesse.

@Elennsar and others: Undead do not necessarily need a Con score. What we can do is simply disjoin their hp and similar Con-based stuff from Con, and attach it to either Str (representing how solid their bodies are) or their Cha (representing the strength of their grip on reality). In the case of constructs, I propose the same, except it should be bonded to Str instead.

[RobbyPants]

I just had an idea while out running about SoDs that I posted on the spells thread.  It's still in the brainstorming phase, but I think it has some serious merit.

Basically, you get to make three saving throws on a SoD.  Here's how it works:

Round 1: Roll a save.  If you succeed, the spell fails (or may have some partial effect depending on the spell).  If the save fails, you are paralyzed.  This may need to be altered for creaures immune to paralysis.  Perhaps dazed instead?

Round 2: Roll a second save.  If you succeed, the paralysis ends and the spell ends.  If you fail, you are dying and at -1 HP (assuming you aren't dead or at lower HP from the previous round).

Round 3: Roll a third save.  If you succeed, you are brought up to one hit point, unless you took damage last round.  If you fail, you die.


Analysis: It's a few extra dice rolls, but I think I might be onto something.  My two biggest problems with SoDs are that PCs can be felled so easily, and important battles can end anticlimactially.  I really have no problem with mooks getting killed by these spells.  Basically, this system helps keep PCs from dying from a single roll, but it still heavily penalizes the target on a failed save.  Getting paralyzed costs you an action and leaves you vulnerable for one round at the very least.

Also, I might be open to the idea of allowing the spell to be stopped at it's various stages.  If a person fails the first save, perhaps the spell can be ended that round if the paralysis is removed.  If they fail their second save, perhaps they can be saved by both removing the paralysis and getting them above zero hit points.



Another idea: Perhaps compare the caster level of the caster to the hit dice of the target.  If there is a big enough difference (maybe four levels or so?), skip to step two.  The target is dying on their first save and dies on the second.  If there is a larger difference (perhaps eight levels?), then skip to step three.  A single failed save kills the target.

Perhaps this is unnecessary.  As the difference in the caster's level and the target's HD increase, the saves are harder to make anyway.  This might needlessly complicate things.

[Mister_Sinister]

This might needlessly complicate things.

Yes, it does. Your solution requires the players (and DM, more often than not) to keep track of WAAAY more stuff this way, as you're essentially splitting the save into 3. More dice-rolling != better or more balanced.

If you are worried about PCs dropping too easily, even with my proposed solution (I need to run PC numbers on it, though), just give PCs action points at decent numbers, and allow them to burn one of them to reroll a save they just made. And hand mettle around more than it has been. That's really all you need - there is no need for this level of micro-management just for one category of spells.

[Midnight_v]

I just had an idea while out running about SoDs that I posted on the spells thread.  It's still in the brainstorming phase, but I think it has some serious merit.

Basically, you get to make three saving throws on a SoD.  Here's how it works:

Round 1: Roll a save.  If you succeed, the spell fails (or may have some partial effect depending on the spell).  If the save fails, you are paralyzed.  This may need to be altered for creaures immune to paralysis.  Perhaps dazed instead?

Round 2: Roll a second save.  If you succeed, the paralysis ends and the spell ends.  If you fail, you are dying and at -1 HP (assuming you aren't dead or at lower HP from the previous round).

Round 3: Roll a third save.  If you succeed, you are brought up to one hit point, unless you took damage last round.  If you fail, you die.


Analysis: It's a few extra dice rolls, but I think I might be onto something.  My two biggest problems with SoDs are that PCs can be felled so easily, and important battles can end anticlimactially.  I really have no problem with mooks getting killed by these spells.  Basically, this system helps keep PCs from dying from a single roll, but it still heavily penalizes the target on a failed save.  Getting paralyzed costs you an action and leaves you vulnerable for one round at the very least.

Also, I might be open to the idea of allowing the spell to be stopped at it's various stages.  If a person fails the first save, perhaps the spell can be ended that round if the paralysis is removed.  If they fail their second save, perhaps they can be saved by both removing the paralysis and getting them above zero hit points.



Another idea: Perhaps compare the caster level of the caster to the hit dice of the target.  If there is a big enough difference (maybe four levels or so?), skip to step two.  The target is dying on their first save and dies on the second.  If there is a larger difference (perhaps eight levels?), then skip to step three.  A single failed save kills the target.

Perhaps this is unnecessary.  As the difference in the caster's level and the target's HD increase, the saves are harder to make anyway.  This might needlessly complicate things.

I like this far better than anyother fix I've seen.