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nolispe
2010-03-27, 04:05 PM
As the title. What spells are there that fit into those catagories? And, do they all have "death" keyword?

Starbuck_II
2010-03-27, 04:08 PM
As the title. What spells are there that fit into those catagories? And, do they all have "death" keyword?

No, only death effects/spells have death keyword. Spells like Implosion kill with a failed save but aren't Death spells.

Squark
2010-03-27, 04:09 PM
No.


Basically, save or die spells render a creature either dead, or absolutely useless/ under your control (so sleep and dominate monster are also save or dies)

Save or suck spells give you a serious handicap (think slow)

Godskook
2010-03-27, 04:16 PM
Hold Person
Charm/Dominate Person
Maze
Enervation

That's some good examples. More SoSuck than SoDie, though.

nolispe
2010-03-27, 04:21 PM
Are there any save-or-dies under 9th level?

The Glyphstone
2010-03-27, 04:22 PM
Finger of Death.
Slay Living.
Hold Person (can be Coup De Graced, so it's close enough).
Prismatic Spray/Wall (Green and Blue layers).

taltamir
2010-03-27, 04:24 PM
Hold Person
Charm/Dominate Person
Maze
Enervation

That's some good examples. More SoSuck than SoDie, though.

dominate is definitely a "save of lose" not a "save or suck"... SOL means you might as well be dead, you lost. The enemy being able to tell you to murder your friends and then commit suicide? thats a loss

Lord Vukodlak
2010-03-27, 04:29 PM
Hold Person
Charm/Dominate Person
Maze
Enervation

That's some good examples. More SoSuck than SoDie, though.

Maze has no save.

The Glyphstone
2010-03-27, 04:31 PM
You can't dominate someone into committing suicide, that's an "obviously self-destructive order". Murdering their friends would be possible, though if it's against their nature (most PCs, the answer is yes), so they'd get to save again with the +2 bonus.


Enervation, for that matter, is so good specifically because it is 'no save, just suck'. And can become 'no save, just die' with enough applications or metamagic.

Volkov
2010-03-27, 04:31 PM
What? No love for Destruction? Also you can use suggestion to make your opponent say candlejack, that shou-

Ravens_cry
2010-03-27, 04:41 PM
Bestow Curse. One of its defaults, 50/50 chance to lose their action, is great when your fighting Big Single Monsters. And it's also has a 'whatever you can convince your DM' clause.

Teron
2010-03-27, 04:41 PM
Save-or-sucks are available from level 1 (sleep and color spray, for example). The lowest level literal save-or-die in the PHB is phantasmal killer, though many lower level spells incapacitate enemies thoroughly enough that the fight ends with the party's beatsticks executing them without resistance.

ShneekeyTheLost
2010-03-27, 04:55 PM
The following are level 1-3 Save or Loose effects:

1st level: Grease, Sleep (4hd), Color Spray
2nd: Glitterdust, Web (can be a no-save just suck too), Hideous Laughter, Scare (6hd)
3rd: Stinking Cloud, Deep Slumber (10hd), Hold Person, Ray of Exhaustion, Slow

The following are level 4-6 Save or Loose effects

4th: black tentacles, Solid Fog (no save), Confusion, Resilient Sphere, Phantasmal Killer (2 saves), Rainbow Pattern (24 HD), Enervation (No Save), Fear

5th: Cloudkill (no save Con damage), Dominate Person (if Humanoid), Feeblemind, Hold Monster, Baleful Polymorph

6th: Eyebite, Disintegrate, Acid Fog, Stone to Flesh

As you can see, there's plenty to choose from. And these are just Core, those without expensive Material components

Dr Bwaa
2010-03-27, 04:56 PM
Maze has no save.

...I had never noticed this before.

Into the spellbook it goes! :smalltongue:

EDIT: Schneekey, you left Freezing Fog out of your 5th-level SoS list (though it's really a no-save-just-suck). It's basically acid fog + grease.

nightwyrm
2010-03-27, 05:01 PM
Are there any save-or-dies under 9th level?

Save or dies begins at 1st level with sleep and colorspray and goes up from there.

edit: ninja'd a bunch of times.

ShneekeyTheLost
2010-03-27, 05:29 PM
...I had never noticed this before.

Into the spellbook it goes! :smalltongue:

EDIT: Schneekey, you left Freezing Fog out of your 5th-level SoS list (though it's really a no-save-just-suck). It's basically acid fog + grease.

I was only using Core spells. Freezing Fog is not core.

Lysander
2010-03-27, 05:51 PM
...I had never noticed this before.

Into the spellbook it goes! :smalltongue:

EDIT: Schneekey, you left Freezing Fog out of your 5th-level SoS list (though it's really a no-save-just-suck). It's basically acid fog + grease.

Irresistible Dance has the advantage of allowing no save AND making your opponent look like a damn fool.

Tinydwarfman
2010-03-27, 08:53 PM
Irresistible Dance has the advantage of allowing no save AND making your opponent look like a damn fool.

A favorite build of mine is to stack tons of metamagic reducers on Irresistible Dance and then chain it to force my enemies do the Thriller dance with me as I dress up like Micheal Jackson. :smallbiggrin:

Geiger Counter
2010-03-27, 09:00 PM
Does anyone have a way to fix these spells? Other than just banning them of corse.

Ashram
2010-03-27, 09:16 PM
What, no love for Shivering Touch? With no save and 3d6 Dexterity damage with a touch, there's a reason it's called the dragon slayer.

Keld Denar
2010-03-27, 09:23 PM
Fix them? Why would you want to do that? I mean, magic is supposed to do something. What would you prefer, Save-or-Tickle?

Nothing is inherantly completely without counter. Some spells that don't have saves have attack rolls (Enervation), or short durations (Maze), spells that negate them (Darkness, Solid Fog) or relatively minor effects (Curse of Impending Blades).

If you don't like it, just redo every spell do to a bit of damage and a minor status effect with a save to counter the status effect, write it all down in a book, and call it a game.

Oh wait, 4E already did that.

EDIT: We don't talk about Shivering Touch. Other than being completely confusing (damage with a duration, WTF?), its also completely cheap, and most people don't even think about it because most people don't ever play with it.

Lord Vukodlak
2010-03-27, 09:41 PM
If you must talk about Shivering Touch do so here
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=144734

I'd rather people necro-post then infect other topics with that old 'discussion'

Runestar
2010-03-27, 09:57 PM
What, no love for Shivering Touch? With no save and 3d6 Dexterity damage with a touch, there's a reason it's called the dragon slayer.

We try to pretend that it doesn't exist. :smallwink:

nolispe
2010-03-27, 11:41 PM
Any of the above without the irritating blockability byt Mind blank and/or death ward that everyone has up anyway?

sofawall
2010-03-27, 11:53 PM
Any of the above without the irritating blockability byt Mind blank and/or death ward that everyone has up anyway?

MostMany of them, actually.

Roderick_BR
2010-03-28, 12:02 AM
What? No love for Destruction? Also you can use suggestion to make your opponent say candlejack, that shou-
That would be a "obviously self-destructive order" case if the target knows what Candlejack mea-

magic9mushroom
2010-03-28, 12:05 AM
The following are level 1-3 Save or Loose effects:

1st level: Grease, Sleep (4hd), Prismatic Spray
2nd: Glitterdust, Web (can be a no-save just suck too), Hideous Laughter, Scare (6hd)
3rd: Stinking Cloud, Deep Slumber (10hd), Hold Person, Ray of Exhaustion, Slow

The following are level 4-6 Save or Loose effects

4th: black tentacles, Solid Fog (no save), Confusion, Resilient Sphere, Phantasmal Killer (2 saves), Rainbow Pattern (24 HD), Enervation (No Save), Fear

5th: Cloudkill (no save Con damage), Dominate Person (if Humanoid), Feeblemind, Hold Monster, Baleful Polymorph

6th: Eyebite, Disintegrate, Acid Fog, Stone to Flesh

As you can see, there's plenty to choose from. And these are just Core, those without expensive Material components

Um... That's a pretty dodgy houserule you've got there. :smallamused:

Unless you meant Color Spray?


Any of the above without the irritating blockability byt Mind blank and/or death ward that everyone has up anyway?

Um, just wondering, have you actually read the spell list in the PHB? :smallconfused:

Enervation and most of the "you die" ones have [death], so they can be blocked, and a few have [Mind-Affecting], like Dominate, but most Save or Sucks and Save or Loses don't have either.

A really annoying "No save, just lose" is Blasphemy. That spell and its counterparts are pretty much the number one reason to take Divine Denial.

FishAreWet
2010-03-28, 12:07 AM
Here. (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=391.0)

People have already done the work. :smallcool:

ShneekeyTheLost
2010-03-28, 01:01 AM
Um... That's a pretty dodgy houserule you've got there. :smallamused:

Unless you meant Color Spray? Fix'd.

But yea, most of these Save or Loose effects... there are no 'standard' defenses against. Well, Freedom of Movement works well against a fair number of the 'lockdown' types (Black Tentacles, grease, solid fog...), but things like Glitterdust and Slow? No real defenses.

Eloel
2010-03-28, 01:15 AM
Fix'd.

But yea, most of these Save or Loose effects... there are no 'standard' defenses against. Well, Freedom of Movement works well against a fair number of the 'lockdown' types (Black Tentacles, grease, solid fog...), but things like Glitterdust and Slow? No real defenses.

Except those have counters as well. Haste (from boots that everyone who goes magic-mart has anyway) overrides and dispels Slow. Blindsight (again, everyone has it), kills Glitterdust.

Sure there ARE spells that have no counters and are broken, but they're not that many.

Ravens_cry
2010-03-28, 01:18 AM
Fix'd.

But yea, most of these Save or Loose effects... there are no 'standard' defenses against. Well, Freedom of Movement works well against a fair number of the 'lockdown' types (Black Tentacles, grease, solid fog...), but things like Glitterdust and Slow? No real defenses.
Glitterdust works less well if the targets don't use eyes to perceive their surroundings. Slows counter is Haste.

Sliver
2010-03-28, 02:13 AM
I don't like SOD/SOL spells.. They either destroy the encounter, or are totally useless. Sometimes you can take out a bunch of mooks, but they are there only so you won't feel useless (as the general advice for someone to asks here how to deal with a player that got those spells is to put mooks for him to take out) so you aren't really helping the party.. Any important encounter that the DM doesn't want you to finish in a single turn will be buffed with anti-SOD tactics.

The Glyphstone
2010-03-28, 02:20 AM
I don't like SOD/SOL spells.. They either destroy the encounter, or are totally useless. Sometimes you can take out a bunch of mooks, but they are there only so you won't feel useless (as the general advice for someone to asks here how to deal with a player that got those spells is to put mooks for him to take out) so you aren't really helping the party.. Any important encounter that the DM doesn't want you to finish in a single turn will be buffed with anti-SOD tactics.

Battlefield control (what most people advise adding mooks for) is slightly different from SOD/SOL though, unless you just mean to lump all non-blasting spells into that category. And if you do...what's left for the wizard to do? Blasting is considered sub-optimal specifically because anyone can do hit point damage, while only casters can open their bag of nine million tricks and do all sorts of crazy stuff.

Sliver
2010-03-28, 02:45 AM
Battlefield control (what most people advise adding mooks for) is slightly different from SOD/SOL though, unless you just mean to lump all non-blasting spells into that category. And if you do...what's left for the wizard to do? Blasting is considered sub-optimal specifically because anyone can do hit point damage, while only casters can open their bag of nine million tricks and do all sorts of crazy stuff.

Some of the SOD/SOL have an area of effect, not a single target. Spells that have a lesser effect on a save are fine. I just don't like the all or nothing of some spells, it feels kinda like item familiars. Either it rocks, or it sucks.

magic9mushroom
2010-03-28, 03:42 AM
Some of the SOD/SOL have an area of effect, not a single target. Spells that have a lesser effect on a save are fine. I just don't like the all or nothing of some spells, it feels kinda like item familiars. Either it rocks, or it sucks.

Which is a good choice of words, since things like this lead to Rocket Tag.

Runestar
2010-03-28, 04:08 AM
Save or suck/battlefield control don't immediately spell game over for one side though. Take glitterdust. If a wizard manages to affect 4 ogres with a sculpted glitterdust, they aren't out of the game yet, though their offensive prowess has certainly taken a massive hit (they have a 50% miss chance, and foes have an easier time hitting them).

What they do is enable the rest of the party by magnifying their strengths. You still need melee to provide damage dealing (so fighters aren't obsoleted). Suddenly, your fighter can hit them more easily, the rogue can consistently apply sneak attack to his attacks, and everyone takes less damage overall, so the cleric doesn't have to expend as much resources healing. And you as a wizard save slots which may otherwise have to be wasted on blasting.

I am not sure if they should be lumped together with SoDs, which I agree do make things unfun for the rest of the party (nothing like 1-shotting the BBEG with a finger of death to tell the fighter "We don't need you").

Starbuck_II
2010-03-28, 09:34 AM
Glitterdust works less well if the targets don't use eyes to perceive their surroundings. Slows counter is Haste.

Can you guve an example: Golems and skeletons are still blinded.
The only ones it fails on are creature already blinded like Grimlocks.

Saph
2010-03-28, 10:11 AM
Blinding doesn't kill a creature, it just gives it a penalty to AC and speed and a 50% miss chance. It's a significant handicap, but it's not the same as death.

Note that the base listen DC to detect a creature in combat or casting verbal spells is zero, so a blind creature can still figure out roughly where its enemies are, and if it has a reasonable Listen check it can pinpoint them.

lsfreak
2010-03-28, 02:47 PM
Fixing SoL/SoD:
You can't, really. It's a fundamental part of 3.x that at certain points (very low levels, and starting again at mid-levels), fights are rocket tag. You save, or you're dead; alternatively, you have the right defenses, or you're dead. Thanks to the Massive Damage rules, it's not unlikely that you're facing a SoD every round by mid-levels (granted, low-DC, but you'll roll a 1 eventually). Without going in and tinkering fairly significantly with the system, you can't simply fix SoD's, because there's *so* many similar effects.

In similar vein is the problem of either flattening an encounter, or standing around doing nothing (or effectively nothing), such as melee fighting fliers, only being able to target AC when something has really high AC, only being able to target saves when someone has really high saves, and so on.

taltamir
2010-03-28, 04:36 PM
...I had never noticed this before.

Into the spellbook it goes! :smalltongue:

EDIT: Schneekey, you left Freezing Fog out of your 5th-level SoS list (though it's really a no-save-just-suck). It's basically acid fog + grease.

this is awesome.

taltamir
2010-03-28, 04:40 PM
Fix'd.

But yea, most of these Save or Loose effects... there are no 'standard' defenses against. Well, Freedom of Movement works well against a fair number of the 'lockdown' types (Black Tentacles, grease, solid fog...), but things like Glitterdust and Slow? No real defenses.

freedom of movement explicitly makes you immune to slow.


I don't like SOD/SOL spells.. They either destroy the encounter, or are totally useless. Sometimes you can take out a bunch of mooks, but they are there only so you won't feel useless (as the general advice for someone to asks here how to deal with a player that got those spells is to put mooks for him to take out) so you aren't really helping the party.. Any important encounter that the DM doesn't want you to finish in a single turn will be buffed with anti-SOD tactics.

I agree... you feel useless the 5 times your highest level SoD/L/S spell fails, then the one time you one shot a BBEG everyone bitches at you.


Which is a good choice of words, since things like this lead to Rocket Tag.

its funny that we call it rocket tag... IRL we don't have HP to soak up damage (with a few exceptional people :P)... its normally "one bullet and you are out".


Save or suck/battlefield control don't immediately spell game over for one side though. Take glitterdust. If a wizard manages to affect 4 ogres with a sculpted glitterdust, they aren't out of the game yet, though their offensive prowess has certainly taken a massive hit (they have a 50% miss chance, and foes have an easier time hitting them).

What they do is enable the rest of the party by magnifying their strengths. You still need melee to provide damage dealing (so fighters aren't obsoleted). Suddenly, your fighter can hit them more easily, the rogue can consistently apply sneak attack to his attacks, and everyone takes less damage overall, so the cleric doesn't have to expend as much resources healing. And you as a wizard save slots which may otherwise have to be wasted on blasting.

I am not sure if they should be lumped together with SoDs, which I agree do make things unfun for the rest of the party (nothing like 1-shotting the BBEG with a finger of death to tell the fighter "We don't need you").

the power of glitterdust is that it is only a level 2 spell. Early game (level 1-5) the smart wizard throws around AoE save or suck spells that greatly aid the party. someone is bound to fail their save and when they do the party rejoices.
the wizard feels important because he more then doubles the party's strength, the others feel important because they are the ones actually doing the killing and without them the wizard would be splattered by the blind ogres.

At later levels though you get SoD / SoL (ex: permanent polymorph into a puppy, feeblemind, etc). if they are already failing a save, you might as well end them with the spell rather then making them 50% as efficient.

Eldariel
2010-03-28, 05:12 PM
its funny that we call it rocket tag... IRL we don't have HP to soak up damage (with a few exceptional people :P)... its normally "one bullet and you are out".

That's actually not true; one bullet is rarely lethal even without body armor of any kind. There's a reason you are taught to always shoot double shots in urban warfare and to stay in a stance where you maintain operativity after being hit with high probability, even when your functionality is otherwise compromised.

Double shot isn't intended to kill, it's meant to send the opponent into a state of shock and disable them for long enough to clean out the room and then finish the hostiles when there's no more immediate danger. Mostly, it's the bullet to the forehead that can kill you immediately.

Most shots won't and it's possible to take several bullets and come out of it alive. That's what battlefield medics are for in the first place (well, that and most importantly, to fix up people hit by splinters from grenades, artillery shells or some other explosive weapon); no use in saving the dead, but saving the living is a very worthwhile cause.


That said, this is a bit off-topic now.

SSGoW
2010-03-28, 05:33 PM
Bestow Curse. One of its defaults, 50/50 chance to lose their action, is great when your fighting Big Single Monsters. And it's also has a 'whatever you can convince your DM' clause.


There really needs to be more spells that have that clause hmm

Runestar
2010-03-28, 09:02 PM
At later levels though you get SoD / SoL (ex: permanent polymorph into a puppy, feeblemind, etc). if they are already failing a save, you might as well end them with the spell rather then making them 50% as efficient.

That is when you move on to battlefield control spells which don't offer a save, or still have an effect on a save, because that is also the point when saves start scaling out whack.

For example, solid fog does not offer a save, nor does evard's tentacles. You use wall of XXX to split up the foes and break them down into bite-sized chunks. Summons to bull rush/trip/grapple them/flank/aid. Bands of steel still entangles on a successful save.

Slow still works wonders because it is not blocked out by immunities (so you can still slow a treant, but not charm it) and affects multiple foes. Buffs such as haste never go out of style.

And best of all, your party members will not feel as if you are hogging the limelight. When the DM protested that my conjurer was making short work of his encounters and wanted me to play something else, the other players protested even more vehemently than me, because it meant I would no long be able to buff them and "enable" them as effectively.

The DM quickly backed down. :smallbiggrin:

You will never see this scenario if I had been a wizard specializing in one-shotting foes with SoDs.

I just feel that SoDs are overrated. :smallsmile:

taltamir
2010-03-28, 09:34 PM
That's actually not true; one bullet is rarely lethal even without body armor of any kind.

I said out not dead. a bullet injury is incapacitating and likely to get infected without treatment. You are transformed from a combatant into a liability.


There's a reason you are taught to always shoot double shots in urban warfare and to stay in a stance where you maintain operativity after being hit with high probability, even when your functionality is otherwise compromised.
Actually, its extremely improbably (yet possible), for the other guy to shoot you back with a gun if he got lucky and you didn't injure him to severely and he has amazing unbelievably pain tolerance and willpower. It is also directly Dependant on your bullet size. 9mm bullets don't have nearly the stopping power of a shotgun slug. 9mm is the choice for law enforment because they want the suspects alive and to minimize collateral damage and property damage. For armies, its because they WANT to injure but keep alive the enemy soldiers. An injured soldier is incapable of fighting but is a huge drain on their resources (food, medicine, money, morale, and they need to be carried around everywhere etc etc).

but as I was saying, its extremely improbably, but it CAN happen. So they are taught to double tap "just in case". they could be equipped with bigger caliber bullets or taught to empty an entire magazine if they want to kill.
Speaking of "sending to shock because they want him alive"... psychological shock? or medical shock? because medical shock is deadly without treatment.

The joking about exceptional people having HP is because I am well aware of cases where people continued on with many bullets in them. That required that the person get lucky in what is hit, and to be amazingly tough.


Double shot isn't intended to kill, it's meant to send the opponent into a state of shock and disable them for long enough to clean out the room and then finish the hostiles when there's no more immediate danger. Mostly, it's the bullet to the forehead that can kill you immediately.
Funny thing, I remember reading about a guy being shot right in the forehead with a 9mm bullet by a sharpshooter when he tried to rob him... the bullet did not penetrate the skull. (although that is unusual, it often does penetrate).

Irreverent Fool
2010-03-28, 09:47 PM
I said out not dead. a bullet injury is incapacitating and likely to get infected without treatment. You are transformed from a combatant into a liability.

Ah, argument altering! The progenitor of ceaseless circular illogic contests. I see it's also coupled with the application of specific points to generalizations in order to pull the discussion out of the context it was mentioned (That is, regarding 9mm bullets (and their appalling lack of stopping power which is neither here nor there in its response to the quoted text!).

I just popped in to mention, mostly for the OP's benefit, Being Batman - The Logic Ninja's Guide to Wizards (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=104002&highlight=Logic+Ninja%27s+Guide), which mentions most of what's already been said here.

obnoxious
sig

taltamir
2010-03-28, 09:54 PM
Ah, argument altering! The progenitor of ceaseless circular illogic contests!

1.i did not alter my argument.
2.circular logic has nothing to do with argument altering.
3.and the goal of an argument is to alter the other's opinion (and thus their argument) and to learn and thus alter your own opinion (and thus argument).

also, to make sure its clear I should not that "one bullet and you are out" means one bullet and you are either dead and "out" of the fight, or alive but unable to fight anymore and thus "out" of the fight. And originally I mentioned that there are the rare few exceptions to that rule. So "I said out not dead" doesn't say that "out" exclude "death", merely that death is not the ONLY thing out can mean.

Eldariel
2010-03-28, 10:05 PM
I said out not dead. a bullet injury is incapacitating and likely to get infected without treatment. You are transformed from a combatant into a liability.

Aye, but between the adrenaline pumping in your veins, the years of training on reflex of shooting on sight, the stance that's specifically designed to make you as "durable" as possible to avoid the shock effect and the inherent inaccuracy in short distance urban combat (the standard stance specifically eschews accuracy for mobility and durability), chances of someone being able to fire back are annoyingly high, especially with ceramic plates (standard issue in urban combat).

Really, the first shot breaks the stance, the second knocks the guy out. And yeah, most people are not able to fire back, but many enough are to ensure that it takes more than that one bullet.

DSCrankshaw
2010-03-28, 10:10 PM
Personally, I like Unluck. It's a save-or-suck, and it's not as serious a handicap as some of the others, but it's just fun when monsters have to roll twice and take the lower for everything.

Runestar
2010-03-29, 02:24 AM
Why are we even arguing about real-life gun duels? Can we simply accept that it is nothing more than an analogy (perhaps not a very apt one) and get on with the original discussion? :smallannoyed: