Death Magic in General

[JesterOI]

you people realize that it IS NOT HARD to SAVE VS DEATH magic!?

build a firggun decent character!!! this isnt NS3 where u dont have to worry about saves! put some points into wisdom! take strong soul, luck of heros, great fortitude! high fort doesnt only save you from death magic either! it has many uses!

some regluar old WM shouldnt be able to kill a mage, esp b/c a WM high saves are reflex.

and those of you which just absolutely refuse to learn how to get decent saves, DRINK A POTION. and w/ your WM that is SO great that can critz for oh so much.. try to kill the mage while they are busy dispelling your buffs.

it's one thing to be killed by some1 8+ lvls higher.... but equal lvls against death magic is no big trial, esp since after lvl 20 your saves go up and (currently) a mages DC doesnt budge.

I totally agree.
It's not hard to get high enough saves to render mages extemely useless in a direct offensive manner.

Tell me, how useful will a mage be vs this character?
http://www.nsrealm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=1624
Only thing that would catch this character vs a mage would be a Negative Energy Burst/Bigbies combo, then a pummeling with Ice Storm. Other than that it would be nearly impossible to have any effect on this character with a mage, death magic would be totally useless.
(Well, there is always the 5% chance that a 1 would be rolled on a save, but aren't the devs talking about taking out the fail on a 1?)

[Lokey]

Well in PnP, you'd get a few of your buddies to contribute a spell slot and cast as a 50th level spell or something--make that save

CoT: level in fighter and paladin at the same time for 5 bab, weap focus and a good alignment It's NC only so needs some flavor/uniqueness, but it's really munchkin out of the box with the + to saves because you have CoT levels.

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Anyway, shopping for ideas on how you'd like death magic to work.

Save/fail 5% of the time, bleh. Maybe a save/fail at 1% of the time or so. Also there's things you can do in PnP to limit/ignore the need to make a save (fight cockatrices blindfolded or Theseus style with a mirrored shield for example).

Things we've talked about:

- Varying effects by caster level against hit dice of what gets hit.

- Timed effect: i.e. lose a % of your current hitpoints each round until dead, have the effect dispellable and/or restorable.

- Timed effect level drain as above?

In practice, shouldn't be another hold/daze type of effect...target can still act, but the clock is ticking.

Won't be hard to do, the challenge here is in figuring out a good game mechanic. Oh, and specific suggestions of what to do with cloudkill (a spell that only effects things that wouldn't be a threat to you by the time you get it).

[IcemanXV]

Won't be hard to do, the challenge here is in figuring out a good game mechanic. Oh, and specific suggestions of what to do with cloudkill (a spell that only effects things that wouldn't be a threat to you by the time you get it).

Make it do 4d6 Acid on cast or enter (such as fire wall), then have the spell do maybe 2d6 Acid Per Round (or 2 rounds) until duration wears off or it is dispelled. Maybe make it 1 round/caster level (don't know what it is now). I know damage isn't the only answer but as is mages already have enough flavors of death spells availible. Plus, make this unsaveable damage.

[JesterOI]

That sounds a lot like acid fog spell...
How about:
For each round a target is in the cloud:
10 HD and under = fort save or death.
11 - 20 HD = fort save or paralyzation for 5 rounds.
30 HD and under = will save or movement speed decreased 50%.
40 HD and under = 1 acid damage/caster lvl (max 20), fort save for half.
Duration: 1 round/caster level.

[Bob]

Make it do 4d6 Acid on cast or enter (such as fire wall), then have the spell do maybe 2d6 Acid Per Round (or 2 rounds) until duration wears off or it is dispelled.

Yep, that is the same damage profile of Acid Fog (unfortunately, Acid Fog doesn't seem to be doing the damage as per the description. Bug report added to Bug Tracker...). Going with the increased damage side-effects would be a step in the right direction, though.

Another problematic spell is Power Word: Kill. Using the stock version (pretty sure NS4 is using stock - will have to dbl check), it's instant death to anything 100hp or below. But by the time you get the spell, maxed IGMS is already as good as instant death to anything 100hp or below, works more reliably, and hits more targets.

Could always go the NS3 route of increasing the hp limit for PWK...

[JesterOI]

I would suggest an amount of hp's that scales with caster level.

[IcemanXV]

Never play mages, so it was a stab in the dark

For cloudkill:

Possibly the original 4d6 damage, and whether in the fog or not, anyone who took the original damage has to fort save or take another 4d6 damage, continues every round until save is made. This could simulate trying to get the cloud out of your lungs. Movement speed in the cloud is still slowed.

[Levan75]

Perhaps the damage as above, and rather than death a sleep effect or something if u fail the save.

I know that sleep basically means a coup de grace if they can get near enought to hit, but I think cloud should effect friendlies if it doesnt already. so they would need to brave the cloud, and there should be a check each round to see if u wake up from the sleep, the player could also take a small amount of damage each round sleeping in the cloud, so they could die from the effect.

On another note, love the idea about item specefic resists, by this I mean like a mirror to resist the death gazes, but not death magic universally,
so you could wear a specefic helm that might help agains cloud effects, or you could wear a helm that adds the blind effect when fighting some critters, that protects against gazes, I like the idea of an item that gives otherwise bad effects will providing a immunity to an otherwise unresistable effects, gives people the opportunity to pick the worse of evils

[Denort]

Maybe part of cloudkill could be an effect similar to mind fog except reducing save vs death instead of save vs mind? Fits with the theme of the spell and helps with other death effect spells.

[Bob]

I would suggest an amount of hp's that scales with caster level.

Add PM levels to that and I think we've got an ideal solution.

[Lokey]

On specific ways to resist spells...maybe a craftable amulet/helm that'll provide immunity for a limited time/# uses against a chosen spell? That can be done (similar in method to scroll making).

Also there might be some caster level adjustments to PW: Kill...yes that needs some work.

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Ah, went to the source--now it's uses are clearer (cast it at those archers peppering the party for example). Unfortunately it's a lot of stuff that's really hard to do in a PW.

Cloudkill
Conjuration (Creation)
Level: Sor/Wiz 5
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level)
Effect: Cloud spreads 30 ft. wide and 20 ft. high
Duration: 1 minute/level
Saving Throw: See text
Spell Resistance: Yes
A bank of yellowish green poisonous fog billows out from the point the character designates. The fog obscures all sight, including darkvision, beyond 5 feet. A creature within 5 feet has one-half concealment (attacks suffer a 20% miss chance). Creatures farther away have total concealment (50% miss chance, and the attacker can’t use sight to locate the target). The fog’s vapors kill any living creature with 3 or fewer HD (no save) and cause creatures with 4 to 6 HD to make Fortitude saving throws or die. Living creatures above 6 HD, and creatures of 4 to 6 HD who make their saving throws, take 1d10 points of poison damage each round while in the cloud. Holding one’s breath doesn’t help...(some stuff about the cloud moving around and that it doesn't work underwater...)

The only thing to mimic this is with an ab penalty for those in the cloud--so it would be a mass effect Bigby's Interposing as in NWN at the same spell level with no save--not a good idea. A scaled effect along those lines seems cool, maybe do a % comparison to caster level instead of flat values?

I'd like to move back to death effects in general though. Though some of the overpowering aspects of insta-kill can be addressed with some needed NPC tweaks and having NPC casters throw up their buffs pre-fight if they aren't relaxing at home, I still don't care for the idea of being a die roll away from death, especially for things like Bodaks--looked at you, save v. death (not to say it shouldn't be a powerful effect, but as I said there's counters and preventitive measures you can take that aren't easily done in NWN).

[Lokey]

So here's a quick example for death effects in general:

Something like target hitdice / caster level <=

• 0.5: Instant death as it is now
• 0.75: 25% of hit points damage per round
• 1.0: 10% as above
• 2.0: 5% as above

For example, a 10 hd Bodak (caster level = hitdie, save dc = 10 + 1/2 hitdie or something) stares at our 5 hitdie hero who fails the save. Instant death.

Same Bodak stares at a 10 hitdie hero who fails save and has 100 hitpoints at the time of the spell. Hero takes 10 damage per round until restored or dies.

Same Bodak stares at a 20 hitdie hero who fails save and has 100 hitpoints at the time of the spell. Hero takes 5 damage per round until restored or dies.

Damage would be a type for which there are no immunities or resistance of course. How does something along those lines sound? Multiple death effects could be applied to the same target, lesser/regular restore could remove one while greater resore could remove any and all...

Ideas? Comments?

[TGPO]

Personally I like that idea Jester with one exception. Instead of a % based on total HP make it a variable based on caster level. Even if you make your save vs the spell there would be a secondary chance that it would still kill the target depending on the targets current HPs and base HD. The variable would then be tweaked by the base spell level d4, d6, d8 ect as the level of the spell increases.

So a 10th level caster popping a lower death spell would get the 10d4 damage and the same caster popping a higher death spell would pull a 10d8.

just my .02

[Denort]

Damage would be a type for which there are no immunities or resistance of course. How does something along those lines sound? Multiple death effects could be applied to the same target, lesser/regular restore could remove one while greater resore could remove any and all...

Ideas? Comments?

Sounds like an interesting way to handle death effects. My only gripe is that once again, a cleric spell is the only way to cure it. Perhaps there could be a few different spells that could remove the hitpoint loss.

Restoration - cleric
Aura of Glory - paladin
Aura of Vitality - druid
Healing Circle - cleric, druid, bard

The reason I suggest healing circle is that at the moment the spell is little more than a party trick for slaying groups of skeletons. As a level 5 spell it only heals around 20 hit points. Giving it a few other uses might make it worthwhile.