Musings of a Late Night Lago

[Username17]

As long as Hold Person is a 2nd level spell, an instantaneous way to bring the dead back to life within the same combat they died in is a must.

Period.

If you have not found it so, it's because the DM in your games has been voluntarily using suboptimal strategies in order to not kill players. The D&D combat system is intensely lethal if played straight and noone is ever going to get to 7th level (where the first core dead raising spell lies) without heavy DM fudging.

A 3rd level Cleric backed up by a 2nd level Orc is a 1-2 Coup de Grace on any character who can fail a Will save. At 4th or even 5th level, you're going to be doing a lot of that. And that means that the whole concept of people not getting their heads whacked off in CR 4 encounters all the god damned time is either laughable or palpable proof of a kind DM.

You can suffer instantaneous organ damage from a first level spell (seething eyebane) - organ restoration should probably also be a first level effect therefore.

Curative spells should universally be at equal or lower level than the effects which cause them because curing has to be cheaper than infliction or it sucks. The lowest level spell that causes instantaneous death is 2nd level - which means that is the highest excusable level for a spell that reverses the condition is likewise 2nd.

-Username17

[User3]

I thought it was first level, with crap like sleep and all being able to credibly take down an entire party of 1st level PCs.

Still, I see where you're coming from.

[Username17]

Sleep is a little odd. It takes people out of the combat for a long time. So while it can take out the entire party, there's no reason to coup de grace anybody just yet.

So Sleep can be thought of as a Death effect which automatically raises the victim if their side wins the fight.

Hold Person, OTOH, has a much more limited counter - if you don't kill the victim immediately they get a save next round to come back into the fight. So you kill them, unless you are a moron (or an NPC controlled by a DM actively attempting to not kill player characters).

There's no way out of that - if you get held, you die. Making it very much not like Sleep (a spell which has the way back to life pretty well built-in).

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

I think it's more a design flaw of hold person than anything else. Hold person, and really only 3.5 hold person, is the only spell that behaves that way.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

1084413914[/unixtime]]If you have not found it so, it's because the DM in your games has been voluntarily using suboptimal strategies in order to not kill players. The D&D combat system is intensely lethal if played straight and noone is ever going to get to 7th level (where the first core dead raising spell lies) without heavy DM fudging.

I'll grant you that, but so what? The very fact that your character continues to live session to session means your DM is ussing suboptimal strategy. There is exactly the same thing keeping your DM from immediatly CDGing your held character as there is dropping an iron golem in front of a first level party: absolutely nothing.

-Desdan

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Would cure blindness/deafness cure Seething eyebane, or would you need regeneration to fix it?

[Wrenfield]

Just as info., one of the best "save-or-die" low level spells is Curse of the Putrid Husk, from the BoVD - a 3rd level Illusion/Phantasm. It's not really overpowered (like much BoVD stuff is), since it does have its limitations. But being able to cast spells like this on non-humanoids at 5th level is worth its weight in gold. A perfect anti-Troll spell for 5th level parties.

I'll grant you that, but so what? The very fact that your character continues to live session to session means your DM is ussing suboptimal strategy. There is exactly the same thing keeping your DM from immediatly CDGing your held character as there is dropping an iron golem in front of a first level party: absolutely nothing.

Every time I DM and I'm choosing spells for my NPC enemy spellcasters, I pretty much have to hold myself back from cherry-picking spells that will guarantee either mass party deaths or TPK's. Like my players who min/max, so do I as a DM ... and I tend to be better than them at doing so.

[The_Hanged_Man]

Yeah, that is the problem. If you truly optimize all your encounters as a DM, your players are dead b/c each of your NPC's can be optimized for a smackdown - not long-term survival.

I don't see the deal w/ hold person, though. Yeah, it effectively kills a PC. So does Scorching Ray, which should on average kill every 3rd level rogue, wizard, bard and sorcerer, and most at 4th level, it's used against. I agree healing could use some ampage, though.

[RandomCasualty]

1084463117[/unixtime]]
Every time I DM and I'm choosing spells for my NPC enemy spellcasters, I pretty much have to hold myself back from cherry-picking spells that will guarantee either mass party deaths or TPK's. Like my players who min/max, so do I as a DM ... and I tend to be better than them at doing so.

The main problem is that it's super easy to min/max huge amounts of damage and to kill stuff really easy. It's much harder to min/max a character who can actually survive stuff.

[Username17]

The main problem is that it's super easy to min/max huge amounts of damage and to kill stuff really easy. It's much harder to min/max a character who can actually survive stuff.

Precisely. A CR 3 Ogre right out of the 3.5 Monster Manual inflicts an average of 48 points of damage on a critical.

For healing to make any difference, you'd have to be able to undo that action as a 3rd level healer by spending one of your own actions.

A 3rd level Fighter with a Constitution of 16 has, on average, 30 hit points - which means that he just went from full to negative 18 in one enemy attack. For combat healing to matter at all, you'd have to be able to put your friend back together at that point.

Otherwise you'd be better off doing anything else - because no matter how much healing you do, the Ogre is running a chance of scoring that critical every single round of combat.

If you can't repair the damage that enemies could do in a round, your healing isn't worth your time.

-Username17

[Desdan_Mervolam]

I'd like to point out that a first level orc warrior, stock by the 3.0 rules, does an average of 9.5 points of damage, which is enough to drop every first level wizard, every sorcerer, almost all rogues and bards, and a fair amout of clerics, rangers outright. On a crit, they can kill any first level character in the game. 3.5, in switching the stock weapon to Falchion doesn't help things much since it only lowered the average damage by 1.5 while simultaniously giving a better crit range.

So, basically, this isn't a problem you don't have at any level. Why not promote a 1st level ressurection spell?

-Desdan

[The_Hanged_Man]

I don't see the point. I see 1st and 2nd level PC's as fungible. They could die; so what? Life's hard early on. You don't need Resurrection as much as a new piece of paper for your new PC. Or an eraser to change the name on the dead PC and start over.

[RandomCasualty]

1084488168[/unixtime]]I don't see the point. I see 1st and 2nd level PC's as fungible. They could die; so what? Life's hard early on. You don't need Resurrection as much as a new piece of paper for your new PC. Or an eraser to change the name on the dead PC and start over.

Yeah, I agree. Death is easy early on, and I don't think there's that much of a problem there.

D&D is already really easy on death. Allowing a 2nd level spell to cure it would really suck.

[Wrenfield]

One thing you should learn from all this is that never ever, under any circumstances, should you play a Cleric who is healing-oriented and sits back to let the frontliners and rogues fight while they prep cure spells. All Clerics should be dedicated combatants - either melee, archer, or spellslinger - and who aim to end fights fast and furious. Their enhanced capacity to outdamage Fighters should be taken advantage of. And by dealing the beats with more efficiency than any other party member, they should theoretically have to expend less spell slots on curing than by being a back-row reactive healer.

The last 2 Play-by-Post online games I've played had passive Clerics whose m.o. was hang back and heal. And our party seemed like they kept fighting uphill battles - making my Wizards work that much harder to win the scenarios.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

1084494146[/unixtime]]Yeah, I agree. Death is easy early on, and I don't think there's that much of a problem there.

D&D is already really easy on death. Allowing a 2nd level spell to cure it would really suck.

I agree. My point was that the justification that Frank uses to say there needs to be a 2nd level death-curing spell doesn't wash because that's even the case at first level.

-Des

[Username17]

But as Hanged Man says, rebirth at first level is built into the system.

If a level one character dies, you can bring in a new character at first level for free. No harm, no foul. You get a character back at a cost of zero spell slots. Your character doesn't gain any XP for that encounter, but the rest of the party gets a bigger share so the cost to the party is zero XP.

And you get to canibalize al of the previous character's swag and the new character gets a new pile of starting loot.

The party loses nothing in the long run by a death a first level, so a 1st level life-restoration spell is irrelevent. It actually makes no difference whether there is one or not. Now, at 2nd level spells it does make a difference. And now it's very important that such a spell exist. You could still have a 1st level life restoration spell, and that would go a long way towards making healers matter, but you don't actually need it thanks to the relative insignificance of 1st level characters.

Note: you can still bring some meaning into death by only having combat or noncombat life restoration.

You could go the Disgaea method, where character death in any battle is permanent and a counter towards losing the fight, but the hospital is so easy about bringing people back that if you accumulate enough resurrection the hospital gives you frequent flyer miles towards prizes.

You could go the Final Fantasy Tactics method, where anyone who dies has a little counter on their head, and if they get raised in time they are good as new, but if the timer runs out they are permanently dead.

Either way works, but the life restoration has to be quick and easy if the game is going to support long campaigns and save-or-die methodology at the same time.

-Username17

[User3]

1084497032[/unixtime]]
Your character doesn't gain any XP for that encounter, but the rest of the party gets a bigger share so the cost to the party is zero XP.

Just a minor thing, but dead characters *do* earn XP for the encounter that killed them.

-Catharz Godsfoot

[Username17]

1084497371[/unixtime]]

1084497032[/unixtime]]
Your character doesn't gain any XP for that encounter, but the rest of the party gets a bigger share so the cost to the party is zero XP.

Just a minor thing, but dead characters *do* earn XP for the encounter that killed them.

-Catharz Godsfoot

Not if they stay dead. Since this is standard D&D 1st level characters we are talking about, that's not much of a strecth.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1084497032[/unixtime]]
Either way works, but the life restoration has to be quick and easy if the game is going to support long campaigns and save-or-die methodology at the same time.

Well, really the thing is that you shouldn't run into true save or dies until very high in level when you actually can resurrect. Hold person is an aberration. Aside from that save or dies tend to be either ineffective or don't actually kill the target.

Baleful polymorph for instance takes you out of a fight, but it doesn't kill you. Sleep requires 1 whole round to cast. Color spray only works against low hit dice creatures. Phantasmal killer requires two saves. Even stone to flesh doesn't outright kill you. Slay living is the first true save or die that I can think of, and that's a touch attack.

However, also at the very same level as the first true save or die, we get the first raise dead spell. So I don't really see the problem with that.

[Username17]

Well, really the thing is that you shouldn't run into true save or dies until very high in level when you actually can resurrect. Hold person is an aberration. Aside from that save or dies tend to be either ineffective or don't actually kill the target.

Have you read Color Spray? You have a d6 rounds to cut their throat, so you tend to cut their throat on the first round - functionally it works just like Hold. Hold of course exists on levels 2 and 3. Phantasmal Killer? It kills you straight dead in two rolls and zero time.

No, spells that straight kill you are a reality from 1st through 9th. There is at no time a time when characters are not killable in one round by the magic they are supposed to be fighting.

If people really want to make Death all capitalized and bolded, it needs to happen a lot less often. Perhaps you could do away with the death margain entirely and replace it with a Fort Save with a DC of 10 minus your negative hit points (which are negative and so it's actually adding the absolute value of your hit points) to wake up the next day with blood on your lips.

Then you could allow people to heal people when they were negative (perhaps make it so the character was only subject to the largest healing spell they get hit by until they wake up). Then let people make heal checks to give characters additional chances to wake up before a day has passed, and possibly gain a bonus on the fort save to stay alive.

This would restore the concept of "leaving someone for dead" to the game while at the same time making it so that ending up stone cold dead was meaningful and not happening all the god damned time.

Then you could remove the whole concept of raising the dead, and instead allow medical care to save people who look like they are probably dead (like the real world).

Then some people could have bonuses to the death save (I'm thinking Barbarians need it), and higher level people can make addiitonal saves later on (so that you can have occassional badass who goes into a coma for three days and wakes up super pissed).

---

But unless you do a major revision like that to the death and dying system, death is something which simply happens to people all the time, and there needs to be counter death cards up everyone's sleaves all the time.

As long as Death is a condition being handed out with more frequency than Nauseated, it simply can't be a whole lot more severe.

-Username17

[User3]

1084497432[/unixtime]]

1084497371[/unixtime]]

1084497032[/unixtime]]
Your character doesn't gain any XP for that encounter, but the rest of the party gets a bigger share so the cost to the party is zero XP.

Just a minor thing, but dead characters *do* earn XP for the encounter that killed them.

-Catharz Godsfoot

Not if they stay dead. Since this is standard D&D 1st level characters we are talking about, that's not much of a strecth.

-Username17

So you plan on reducing individual party experience after they ressurect their friend? Thats great:
"Um, sorry, we can't ressurect you."
"Why not?"
"Well, we all just gained a level, but only as long as we have your share of the experience."
"Dang, better roll up a new character "

Give the dead character the experience, and if they stay dead then it is just lost XP. Considering that they must have contributed to the party's success in the encouunter, that is the only fair way to do it.

I think the best way to deal with low level party death is deus ex DM: Have whatever organization the PCs are working for ressurect the dead (and have them pay later), or make them go on a quest for the local church in exchange for services rendered. No body crosses the church that just ressurected them unless they are stupid, an Athar, or both.

-Catharz Godsfoot

-Catharz Godsfoot

[User3]

I've been thinking of ways to change the death system, simply because heroes are supposed to get shot in the head, and then wake up and chop their way through the Crazy Eighty-eight.

A Fort save could be the “does he die instantly,” a la decapitation, heart shot, arrow to the throat, etc, and then a Will save to not go into a coma. Make your Fort save and a heal check will bring you to consciousness, but you are dazed. If you made the fort, but failed the will, you are dying. Heal checks or cure spells are required to keep you alive(in a coma). A third level spell should be able to fix you up.

Several spells should be folded into each other. The second level Cure should also heal organ damage. The third should also heal poisons and diseases(ability damage). The fourth should also act like a one min a level Raise. Fifth should be a regular Raise or Heal, sixth a Raise and Heal, seventh a Raise or “crazy crap” like aboleth mucus transforms, polymorphing, lycanthropy, spawning and the like, 8th should be a no XP Raise and Heal, and 9th you be a no body, no XP Raise and Heal.
Weird forms of resurrection like cloning and reincarnation will stay outside the system, as they are rightly story hooks, and not actual playable spells.

[The_Hanged_Man]

Most people don't die from wounds directly, they go into shock and die later from blood loss or organ failure. D&D tries to simulate this by having the -10 system. I've always thought this is unworkable. There's not much reason to have "-10" be a magical number for death instead of incapacity, and the process moves way too fast anyway.

I've tossed arouund a system more like this. Any effect that causes hit point damage can bring you to 0 hp. When you get to 0, you stop taking damage and go into shock. You character is helpless, although conscious. In some arbitrary amount of time later (say, 10 minutes), you die if not treated. Massive damage also puts you into shock.

You could add a high fortitude save to let people come out on their own, or another save to reflect a chance of instant death if a blow brings somebody to, say, -10 hp or something.

[Username17]

In the real world, even decapitation doesn't kill you for four to six minutes (although it also puts you in a situation where you can't actually do anything about it).

If you could somehow stick someone's head back on their body in a real and permanent fashion within that time frame, there's no reason why decapitating someone should necessarily be fatal. At least, provided that there's magical healing available.

If death was made more realistic, and thus magical healing could be used to save people in more extreme circumstances, there would be less need for spells that get around actual death, and hopefully people would stop complaining about death not meaning enough. Further, magical healing might actually mean something. As long as magic is incapable of curing anything that wouldn't get better on its own in a day or two - noone's going to give a damn.

-Username17

[Desdan_Mervolam]

That's easy enough. You just say that if a severed extremity is placed to it's stump as the cure spell is cast within a few minutes of its removal, it's reattached.

So, what to do with the actual healing of points? We need the spell to scale not just on account of who's casting it, but also who it's being cast on. Perhaps there should be a bonus of 1 point per character level of the target of the cure spell? That way a Cure Light cast by a fifth level caster on a fifth level fighter will heal 1d8+10 hit points. The healing cap should be removed though

Or maybe we can lower the die size, but have the number of die scale. 5d6+1/level for a cure Serious cast by a fifth level caster sounds reasonable to me off the top of my head.

-Desdan