Post/Author/DateTime	Post
zae 05-21-06, 03:18 AM	I've decided that, in the name of combat being a climactic experience, and also to reduce player character deaths that happen before they can even avoid the situation, I want to create a series of house rules to completely remove any form of one-shot. Step one will be to simply remove all "Save or Die" spells, or to replace them with debilitating effects. Even "Hold Person" and the like will be changed, as they're effectively Save-or-Die. They will be changed to be similar to the psionic versions, surrounding the target in a coccoon or magic bubble (like Resiliant Sphere). This means they're out of the fight so you can buff/heal yourself, or get into a good position, or summon allies, or kill their allies, or whatever, but not perform a coup de grace. Spells such as sleep will be problematic. I'm thinking of making it a light enough sleep that it is not a coup de grace, merely a bonus (+10? +20?) on the next attack made against them - which wakes them up. So for spells with Save-or-Die effects, it seems pretty simple. However I would still like any ideas anyone else can offer. Maybe decent alternatives to death effects. Maybe making them specifically work on weaker creatures, to be used for getting rid of lesser enemies that serve as distractions/delays and for chipping a small amount of resources away? Next, the big kicker, is plain old damage. D&D has always had this problem where for the first few levels, the fighter can turn around and one-shot the wizard with his greatsword and not worry about consequences. As soon as you hit later levels, the fighter starts praying that the wizard doesn't turn around and cast Finger of Death. I fixed the latter part, but being a big fan of casters there's no way I'm letting fighters get away with that in early levels. So I need a way of regulating damage dealt. One idea was to rule that no attack is able to do more than a certain percentage of the targets Maximum HP. But I'm not sure how much I like that idea - especially for weaker enemies. You'd have people wondering why it takes 2 or 3 full hits of a weapon to kill a kobold, and just as many to kill a dragon. Likewise people wondering why a group of commoners sucked up a fireball and were still standing. Another idea is to dramatically increase the HP everyone receives. Normally I give everyone 3/4 (rounding up), with max at first level. But to truly avoid low-level one-shots, possibly giving everyone 12+Con per hit die, or simply multiplying all HP by 3 or 4. Can anyone suggest a good way to fix the death-through-HP problem? With things as they are, I've found it more fun for the party to just let the foes deal random amounts of damage off the top of my head (never enough to kill in one hit), and to have a made-up number of hit points that runs out after a few decent hits/spells. Any advice or suggestions would be much appreciated.
was_fired 05-21-06, 04:03 AM	Add all creature's Con Score to their hitpoints as well as Con Mod * Level. This gives the average commoner an extra 10hp. They will still die from a good crit from a greatsword, but an average hit shouldn't take down your first level wizards anymore.
valvorik 05-22-06, 04:14 PM	The epic level rules essentially do remove "save or die" for most part, our of view it's annoying to have epic level character still die on 1 etc. e.g. Destruction: instead of destroying the target on a failed save, this spell deals 20d6 points of damage plus 1d6 points of damage per caster level, with no upper limit to its damage. If this damage reduces the target to 0 hit points (even if this would not itself be fatal), the target is destroyed utterly, as described in the spell. The "20d6 + 1d6/level no cap" is very commonly the translation of "save or die".
Xeviat-DM 05-22-06, 04:20 PM	The epic level rules essentially do remove "save or die" for most part, our of view it's annoying to have epic level character still die on 1 etc. e.g. Destruction: instead of destroying the target on a failed save, this spell deals 20d6 points of damage plus 1d6 points of damage per caster level, with no upper limit to its damage. If this damage reduces the target to 0 hit points (even if this would not itself be fatal), the target is destroyed utterly, as described in the spell. The "20d6 + 1d6/level no cap" is very commonly the translation of "save or die". Or the 2d6/level damage that disintigrate deals. I think the ELH idea was writen when they were still coming up with this idea.
stargate525 05-22-06, 05:51 PM	I wouldn't futz with the hitpoint systems too much, as they seem balanced. If you want to have them survive longer, give them an extended unconscious period, maybe up to 15 or 20.
Merestil Haye 05-22-06, 09:04 PM	My approach is to give the characters an additional chance to survive. I have a concept which might best be called "the verge of death". A creature that has received enough damage to knock him from active to dead (-10hp or less) in one attack is on the verge of death. Instead of dying instantly, the creature goes to -9hp, and if nothing intervenes within 1 round (before the currently acting creature starts their next turn) the creature dies. There is no chance that he can stabilise without outside aid. In this case, it require a spell of at least 1st level that restores hitpoints to the dying creature, or a Heal check with a DC = 10 + damage dealt by the lethal attack. Spells or other effects which cause instant death without allowing a saving throw or after failing a single saving throw cause a creature to go to the verge of death and instantly make a saving throw against the effect. If this last-ditch save fails, the creature dies; if it succeeds the creature is on the verge of death, as described above. In such a case, only healing magic can save the creature. If the spell or effect does not normally allow a save (Power Word Kill, for example) the affected creature still gets a verge-of-death save, with then save DC calculated by the usual rules. If the damage is being caused by a spell that forces side-effects on the creature dying, then (a) the side-effects only occur if the creature takes enough damage to reduce it to -10hp or less and (b) the creature fails the saving throw on the verge of death. If the spell has a hp threshold expressed as a number of hp above 0, that threshold is reduced by 10. (If anyone has any problematical cases with these rules, please let me know. I can't pretend to have thought off all possible cases and interactions.)
Oneiros 05-23-06, 03:06 PM	I also have issues with the huge amounts of damage which can be dealt out in the game, so I took the approach of getting rid of static bonuses to damage, and changing them to a die roll. A fighter who normally does d8+6 with his longsword now does d8+d6. The max damage is potentially still there, but average damage goes down. You can check out the progression I use here: Damage Bonuses (http://home.comcast.net/~joemoon5/tian/index.htm#%5B%5BDamage%20Bonuses%5D%5D)
Finarin Panjoro 05-23-06, 05:28 PM	This isn't a complete solution to your quandry, but in my campaign I changed anything that could cause instant death into something that made you dying. This included spells, massive damage, death attacks, coup de grace, etc. Basically any time a save or die situation arrived you were reduced to your hit points minus the amount by which you failed your saving throw and were dying (to a max of -9). This meant that your friends could still save you if they hurried and/or took the appropriate risks/actions. This also has the effect of making save or die effects more costly in the short run if you fail the save (you've actually had your hit points reduced), but less costly in the long run (you'll need a lot of healing, but won't have to spend 5k on a raise dead). I also decided I hated level loss so I would bestow permanent negative levels instead that were worked off with experience point gain.
zae 05-23-06, 06:32 PM	Thanks for the ideas, but the "Verge of Death" isn't really that helpful. Most of the games I run are solo, so if you are rendered helpless, you are essentially dead. Beyond that, even in a group, the idea isn't to just save them XP and money on raising, but to keep them standing for as much of the fight as possible. In the end, something I worked out with one player was this: No single attack can deal more than 1/3 of the targets maximum HP in damage, or 25, whichever is higher (thus minions and peasants can still be killed easily - based on "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", it is important for generals to be able to hack through entire armies, only to have long, epic struggles against opposing generals). No-one can take, in one round, more damage than 3/4 of their maximum HP, or 50 damage, whichever is higher (with the levels and point-buy I grant in this game, it is only just possible to have maximum HP less than that without taking level adjustments, in which case, you're bringing it onto your own head by intentionally giving yourself less than 50 HP). I also just ruled out any death effect of any kind (including ones not specifically listed as death effects that cause them to die. I believe Implosion is not a death effect?) For Sleep, I made it such a light sleep that you cannot perform a coup de grace, merely a normal attack (flat-footed, with a +4 bonus for a prone opponent) which wakes them up. For "Hold" spells, they are either wrapped in a coccoon (a conjuration spell now) or a layer of force (evocation). I'm sure problems are going to present themselves, but I guess I'll need to fix them as I go. Still, thanks for the ideas. In future I'll probably use them if the games make them relevant.
Evanta 05-23-06, 07:53 PM	Easier way instead of doing all these modifications is to introduce action points, they do decrease a PC's probabilty of death a lot. Works both ways for important BBEGs.