Mike's suggestion is to have the effect requiring saving throw only kick in when your hit points drop below a certain level:
Here's my idea. A save or die effect kicks in only if a character is at or below a certain hit point threshold, and that threshold is determined by the power of the effect and the creature. We can extend the effect to things such as paralysis, which can take you out of the fight. Like this:I like this suggestion - I've had similar thoughts about tying hit point level to character effectiveness. However with Mike's suggestion it is another thing for DM's to track, and while not overly cumbersome I have an alternate idea that might be a little more streamlined and fun (to me anyway).
If a ghoul's claw damage reduces a creature to 10 or fewer hit points, the creature must make a save or be paralyzed.
The medusa's gaze forces creatures currently at 25 or fewer hit points to make a save or be turned to stone.
A creature hit by Tiamat's tail stinger must make a save or die. (Powerful creatures might lack any hit point limit for their save or die attacks.)
Saving Throws
Roll your saving throw die and add the result to your hit points. If the result is equal to or higher than the character’s saving throw target number, the saving throw succeeds.
This could be used "as is" with systems like B/X D&D, Swords & Wizardry, Labyrinth Lord for situations where you only want the saving throw failure to apply to weakened or novice characters (or monsters). If you want to use this hit point based saving throw alternative but not given the characters a big advantage switch the saving throw dice from a d20 to a d12.
We could even create a new set of saving throw numbers and use different sized dice for the different types of saving throws. d12 for poison, d10 for wands, d8 for paralysis, d6 for dragon breath and d4 for spells.
6 comments:
Genius. I really, really like this idea. switching-up the type of dice used for different types of Saves is a great idea.
I found this idea interesting and wrote a post about it: http://www.digitalorc.blogspot.com/2012/03/saving-throw-house-rule-analysis.html
Thanks!
I'm not sure how I feel about this rule. I don't hate it, but I'm not sold yet. I like the fact that saves are tied to nothing but levels. Levels are impossible to optimize through builds. You have to earn them.
Further, if you tie saves to HP, that becomes one more reason why PCs will not want to enter combat without full everything. Whether that is a good or bad thing depends on the campaign in question, but it will probably lead to more emphasis on healing magic (clerics as medics, wands of cure light wounds, etc).
I am intrigued. I like the possibility of have the different sized dice attached to class: Dwarves and Halflings have higher dice vs. poison and magic for example. I know this is very 3.5ish, but saving throws could have target numbers based on what is being saved from rather than based on class. Are there other effexts that can be garnered from the mechanic? Damage done instead of death? As I said, I am intrigued...
A bit like capturing Pokemon in a ball actually. A spider bite doesn't poison you until it wears you down a bit, then bites again.
Then again, I like the idea of a spider biting you and injecting poison straight away.
I solve this by making weak monsters cause weak poison types. A 1 HD spider does poison at +4 bonus to save and if you fail you take -2 to all rolls. A 3 HD spider might be +4 save and 15 damage if you fail (D&D1 poison type A). This way one shot of poison probably won't kill you unless you're out of your depth.
I still have save or die effects, just not on low-HD monsters. Consider the spells available to PCs of a given level, and assign potential monster abilities based on their HD. This prevents a 1 HD monster with Prismatic Sphere or something.
I like your solution for save or die effects (the 1d12 plus current hit points was inspired) but I think there then needs to be a secondary effect even if you make the save, whether it's hit point or ability score damage. After all, under the proposed system, a 4th level character would be Immune from the effects completely, unless you stay with the "1" roll as an automatic failure.
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