The threshold allows everyone to participate in weakening an adversary (before the culmenating strike.) hence makes the save or die effect of these absolutist spell to become a team accomplishment .... In 4e terms a bloodied condition might be an example of a good target threshold its a detectable state and thus not a guessing game and its porportionate to the adversary and doesnt quit being relevant.
Exceptthey dumped the idea of using current hit points and in most cases now are using max hit points as the threshold.
As I said - that was the one advantage of using hit points - you could use current hit ponts. But then they abandoned that idea.
The only spell still using current hit points is sleep. All other spells with a hit point cap use the hit point maximum.
Carl
If they get rid of this idea, they need to replace it with another mechanic for making sure that lower level spells are not effective on higher level monsters. What would you suggest? I tried to work it through monster level, but that didn't work.
How about just adding the level of the monster to the save roll it wouldn't start getting ridiculous until around level 10 or so. Then of course they could add the level of the caster to the save DC...
"Charm Person" (and similar spells like Suggestion) may be outliers to the problem, and you may want to resolve them with a straightforward saving throw.
The vast majority of effects - Stone to Flesh, Sleep, Hold Person etc - don't have that same cognitive dissonance (to me at least, YMMV), and the system I described would work for them.
"Bea you until they love you" is merely the funniest way to state the phenomenon. But "beat you until you're petrified"? That doesn't follow any fantasy conventions of which I'm aware.
"Beat you until you're paralyzed"? Should we simply rename "Hold Person" to "Sever Spinal Column"?
It just doesn't feel like "Stone to Flesh" or "Hold Person" or "Sleep". I wish it did. It would be an easy fix. Heck, you could simply have a spell "Damage". And it does 1d6 imaginary damage per level. When you cast it, choose a carrier effect. Some carriers are "real" damage, like fire, force, acid, cold, lightning, thinder, etc. Some inflict imaginary damage and comes with a carrier effect like sleep, paralysis, petrification, death, dominate, stun, removed from play, plane shift, or any of the effects that are classically attached to s-o-s spells. If you choose imaginary damage at the time of casting, the effect only occurs if the imaginary damage exceeds the creature's current hp. Maybe at every other level, the caster gets to learn a new carrier effect for their imaginary damage spell.
I liked it when Schwalb first suggested it. But they abandoned it. Why? My guess is they got a lot of negative feedback on the idea.
How about if the target is 5 levels below you, they have disadvantage on saves versus your spells and if they are 5 levels above you they have advantage on saves versus your spells.
They spells would have full effect on a failed save and a lesser half effect on a successful save. So hold person might make you move at half speed and get a -2 on attacks if you make the save, if you fail the save you are paralyzed until you make the save then for the rest of the 10 rounds you get the half speed and -2 to attacks.
HP as an abstract, right? The same sword blow or paralyzing beam you evaded a dozen times finally makes contact and clocks you when your HP run low.
I undersrtand that. I was a huge fan of 4e, which relied on this conceit heavily. But lots of people hate the idea that hp is anything but physical injury.
And one problem is the narration. To maintain the illusion that hp is mostly luck, you have to continually describe a players' successful attacks as misses.
"18! And 15 hp damage" "Well, you narrowly miss the ogre, but boy is his luck running out." "Great, now I cast charm person... 12 hp imaginary damage". "The ogre's luck runs out and he is now under your spell"
It's anticlimactic. Even thought he fighter clearly contributed, it doesn't feel like he contruibuted, because in the story in his head... he whiffed. But if you treat hp like an actual blow, then it feels like you are beating the monster into loving you.
"18! And 15 hp damage!" "The ogre reels from your mighty blow. He is hurt, but not fallen." "Great, now I cast charm person... 12 hp imaginary damage". "The ogre's defenses are defeated; he is now under your spell"
Sure, the fighter feels like he contributed. But it also feels like an excerpt from 50 Shades of Gray.
Well those people that house ruled hit points as physical injury can house rule the rest of it too...
The threshold allows everyone to participate in weakening an adversary (before the culmenating strike.) hence makes the save or die effect of these absolutist spell to become a team accomplishment .... In 4e terms a bloodied condition might be an example of a good target threshold its a detectable state and thus not a guessing game and its porportionate to the adversary and doesnt quit being relevant.
Exceptthey dumped the idea of using current hit points and in most cases now are using max hit points as the threshold.
As I said - that was the one advantage of using hit points - you could use current hit ponts. But then they abandoned that idea.
The only spell still using current hit points is sleep. All other spells with a hit point cap use the hit point maximum.
Carl
If they get rid of this idea, they need to replace it with another mechanic for making sure that lower level spells are not effective on higher level monsters. What would you suggest? I tried to work it through monster level, but that didn't work.
How about just adding the level of the monster to the save roll it wouldn't start getting ridiculous until around level 10 or so. Then of course they could add the level of the caster to the save DC...
You know, something very similar to that just occurred to me about 15 minutes ago. My thought was that monsters receive a bonus based on level above the spell level used. So if you were level 4 and were saving against a level 2 spell (received at level 3), you would get an additional +1 to the save. If you were level 10, you'd get +7 to that save.
Perhaps it would not kick in until you were at least 3 levels higher than the spell level, so that you had a reasonable range of time where monsters would get no bonus. So at level 10, you'd save against a level 2 spell at a +4 bonus on top of everything else (3: level spell gained at, + 3 level range with no bonus, + 4 levels where bonus is gained = 10)
Yeah, doesn't work for Charm Person, already said that. Let that one go.
As I said, I only choose that one because it's the funniest. Relace it with "turned to stone" and the result is the same.
On the other hand, "sleep" is the easiest to justify because exhaustion is something that happens when you fight. So I'll stop using "charm" and you stop using "sleep"
The ogre charges. I intervene and heave at him with my hammer... 18! 15 hp damage! You hammer stops his charge and yowls in pain. I turn him to stone. He rolls a three. He turns to stone.
Notice how I didn't mention if we're using hp threshold or not. Did the fighter contribute to the fight? Well, he did if might have if we use thresholds, but he definitely didn't if we don't. But storywise, it really looks like he didn't.
But let's look at it this way:
The ogre charges at you from out of the darkness! I turn him to stone. The ogres shrugs off your spell and continues his charge I intervene with my mighty hammer... 18! I do 15 damage! You stopped the ogre's charge. He attacks you and... hits for 6 damage. I turn him to stone! The ogre shrugs off your spell again. I attack with my hammer again... nat 20! Critical hit... 28 hp damage! You feel the crack of bone as your hammer caves in the ogre's chest. he falls to the ground, dead.
In this scenario, did the wizard contribute? Regardless of whether we use thresholds or "imaginary hp", he did not. Because the wizard was playing the "beat the save" game and the fighter was playing "beat the hp". The "imaginary hp" rule means the wizard is dependent on the hp-depleters to play his "beat the save" game, while the fighter is not equally dependent on the wizard... except that the fighter probably has to fight for twice as long because the wizard isn't contributing anything until someone fails a save.
In the end, the problem with s-o-s is that someone is going to feel they made no contribution, depending on whether the creature is beaten on a save or by running out of hp. Even with thresholds, storywise, the fighter doesn't appear in-game to be contributing when the creature fails a save. We may now out-of-game that the fighter contributed to the defeat thanks to the glory of hp-abstraction, but in-game, there's no evidence of it.
In the end, for a lot of people that sort of metagame contribution isn't going to be very satisfying.
As I said I don't know what the solution is. I do know that thresholds are not going solve the issue.
The only solution that "works" is that every spell inflicts damage, even if it's only "psychic damage". Sleep inflicts psychic damage. Hold person inflicts force damage. Petrification inflicts untyped damage. The spell should describe the effect if the damage doesn't kill him. Sleep causes foggy thoughts. Hold person shackles the person in force. Petrification causes some of the person to turn stony.
The problem is (i) this doesn't resemble traditional D&D effects, and (ii) we tried it in 4e and people complaied it was too "samey".
How about if the target is 5 levels below you, they have disadvantage on saves versus your spells and if they are 5 levels above you they have advantage on saves versus your spells.
It doesn't solve the problem of casters and weapon-users playing different games ("beat the save" and "beat the hp", respectively)
If the problem was merely that s-o-s spells are more likely to take out a creature than hp-depletion, then we can try to rejigger the math of saving throws to ensure that it all works out. But the problem is that having two types of players operating on different premises -- particularly when one of those types can switch -- plays havoc with the game math.
It forces players to guess at a monster's maximum hit point totals (or worse, resort to using metagaming or peeking in the monster manual).
This is probably the weakest complaint as metagaming is pretty common for spell choice. "Oh, it a red dragon. I think I'll hold off on that scorching ray and fireball combo."
Guessing wrong and attempting to use the spell on a creature with too many hit points usually means you waste the spell with little or no effect. That's frustrating and not fun at all, and not for any good reason. At least when a creature makes its save, you knew there was a chance that you might have accomplished something, so you don't feel like a complete idiot for wasting your turn and prepared spell for nothing.
Yeah, that does kinda suck. A recovery mechanic might be nice. Then again, wasting an action or limited resource on a bad tactical move always sucks. Mistakes should hurt. And while it hurts less if you roll a "1" on the attack or the monster rolls a "20" it doesn't suck that much less. If the fighter makes a bad call and bull rushes the gelatinous cube the game doesn't hold his hand and reduce the error.
Many of these effects don't even allow a saving throw, even though the conditions or penalties they inflict can be quite severe.
Saves/attacks increase the chance of spells not taking. Suddenly there's not just the question of "is it's hp threshold low enough" but also "will it make its save??"
As characters increase in level, these spells eventually become worthless, since the threats the PCs will be typically fighting will have maximum hp totals above the limits of these spells.
This assumes the thresholds remain constant. We haven't seen much of spells being memorized at a higher level. This might change.
It punishes some classes more than others. Since your hit points are determined by your class, the result is that wizards end up being more susceptible to these spells than fighters are, and so on.
Tying it to saves will punish certain characters just as much. The low Wisdom fight will fail Wis saves more than wizards and clerics. There's always going to be actions better aimed at certain classes.
There are also many other, far better ways of balancing these types of spells. Players could be given multiple ways to break out of their effects, not the least of which should be a saving throw every turn in combat to shrug off a nasty effect. Spells like Charm and Suggestion can have reasonable limits on what they can make people do (like not being able to make them commit suicide or attack their allies) so that they aren't effectively save-or-lose. There's even the possibility of giving higher level beings a bonus on their saving throws rather than granting them outright immunity. There are plenty of other options. Almost anything is better than the hp threshold mechanic they're using now to "balance" these spells.
Agreed. There should be some overall guidelines either in the spells of the description of magic or conditions. Advice for the DM on when to allow the PC to snap out of it or for the player to roll a second save. But I think I'd rather have them test independant of that at first, to better get a baseline of what needs more limits and what's fine the way it is.
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I like tying the spell effect to the universal D&D indicator of overall PC/Mob power, the abstract Hitpoints. It makes it general enough to allow for any fluff description you like (since hitpoint loss is very abstract lending itself to any flavor text description you like).
One way to keep this mechanic, but not require PC metagaming guessing at mob hitpoint totals, is to include a new mechanic, perhaps call it "Shrug It Off". This mechanic would allow a spell to have a given effect on a mob, the maximum possible for the spell (this is for non-damage effects of course). Then the mob would choose to "actively resist" the spell, or not (it would attempt to "Shrug it off"). You could design it so they have to choose before they make their Save (if the spell allows one), or you can design it so they can choose after the Save.
If they choose to Shrug It Off, the spell has a damage value associated with it for this, X hitpoints. This is how many hitpoints the mob loses for resisting the spell in this way. If they do choose this option, they lose the X hitpoints, and then the initial spell effect is reduced to the Shrug It Off Effect. If the spell allows a Save, then that would further reduce the Effect.
If the loss of X hitpoints would drop the mob, then you could have the rule say that mob cannot then choose to resist it in this way, or just allow them to and then drop from the effort.
I would see spells under this mechanic having 3 Effects (or 2 if the spell has no Save allowed). The Primary Effect is the full effect. The Secondary Effect is what you get if you Shrug It Off or if You Save. The Tertiary Effect is what you get if you Both Shrug It Off and Save. So each of the "resistances" of the mob reduces it 1 level. If they actively resist (Shrug It Off) or just passively resist (Save) each success reduces the spell effect by 1 level (Primary, Secondary, Tertiary)
This way you can balance spells in more ways, by allowing a Save, and also by imposing a low or high Shrug It Off hitpoint loss.
You could say that a mob can only Shrug It Off if they can take actions (since it is Active Resistance) or are not surprised. So this makes Stunned, Unconscious, Surprised, mobs more vulnerable to certain spells with this mechanic.
You could for example have a spell that Puts you to Sleep/Dazes You/Slows You as the 3 tiers of effects. But make the Shrug It Off damage be low, like 5 hitpoints. This would mean most mobs would pay the 5 hitpoints to at worst be Dazed, and on a save merely be slowed. But surprised mobs would not get to Shrug It Off and so would be for sure Dazed of not Sleeping. Makes certain spells more useful if the target is taken off guard.
Or you could make the same spell say: Sleep/Slowed/Nothing, and make the Shrug It Off damage more, say 25 hitpoints. This means mobs may be willing to skip it, since the secondary effect is not as bad. But this spell would be less useful against unaware foes.
You could also have spells that escalate, so they have an initial weak effect, but remain for say 3 rounds. On round 1 they have their weak effect, then at the end of the target's turn, they choose to Shrug It Off, if they decline, the spell then imposes the next effect, if after their next turn they decline to Shrug It Off, it has its full effect. Then it would allow a Save after that to remove it (or allow another Shrug it Off to automatically end it). So the mob could pay the Shrug It Off value each time and prevent the escalation of the spell, they would suffer its mild effect for 3 rounds having lose the Shrug It Off damage 2 times and then get a Save to get rid of it after that. So it allows them mob to choose.
Say you have Acid Arrow: X initial acid damage, Shrug It Off damage = 15 hitpoints each time, and then the Effect = disadvantage on all attacks/disadvantage on all checks and grant foes advantage/stunned. So the acid continues to "burn" for 3 rounds, and the mob can keep the effect to disadvantage on attacks for all 3 of those rounds if it suffers the 15 damage each of rounds 2 and 3. Perhaps you could have the spell allow a Save after each round as well (after the spell effect escalates), if the mob saves, the effect is reduced by 1 level, and if already at the initial level it ends. This would mean a mob who Shrugs It Off at the end of their turn on round 1 if they make their Save also ends the effect. If they ignore the Shrug then if they Save they keep the effect at the initial level.
This allows for a lot of combinations and keeps the hitpoints connected to spell effects in some way. It makes the loss of hitpoints flavored as an active resistance which takes something out of you to resist it in this way. This would allow mobs to perhaps have a new ability, say if they have magic resistances or whatever, they lose only half the Shrug damage when they do that.
Yeah, doesn't work for Charm Person, already said that. Let that one go.
As I said, I only choose that one because it's the funniest. Relace it with "turned to stone" and the result is the same.
On the other hand, "sleep" is the easiest to justify because exhaustion is something that happens when you fight. So I'll stop using "charm" and you stop using "sleep"
The ogre charges. I intervene and heave at him with my hammer... 18! 15 hp damage! You hammer stops his charge and yowls in pain. I turn him to stone. He rolls a three. He turns to stone.
Notice how I didn't mention if we're using hp threshold or not. Did the fighter contribute to the fight? Well, he did if might have if we use thresholds, but he definitely didn't if we don't. But storywise, it really looks like he didn't.
But let's look at it this way:
The ogre charges at you from out of the darkness! I turn him to stone. The ogres shrugs off your spell and continues his charge I intervene with my mighty hammer... 18! I do 15 damage! You stopped the ogre's charge. He attacks you and... hits for 6 damage. I turn him to stone! The ogre shrugs off your spell again. I attack with my hammer again... nat 20! Critical hit... 28 hp damage! You feel the crack of bone as your hammer caves in the ogre's chest. he falls to the ground, dead.
In this scenario, did the wizard contribute? Regardless of whether we use thresholds or "imaginary hp", he did not. Because the wizard was playing the "beat the save" game and the fighter was playing "beat the hp". The "imaginary hp" rule means the wizard is dependent on the hp-depleters to play his "beat the save" game, while the fighter is not equally dependent on the wizard... except that the fighter probably has to fight for twice as long because the wizard isn't contributing anything until someone fails a save.
In the end, the problem with s-o-s is that someone is going to feel they made no contribution, depending on whether the creature is beaten on a save or by running out of hp. Even with thresholds, storywise, the fighter doesn't appear in-game to be contributing when the creature fails a save. We may now out-of-game that the fighter contributed to the defeat thanks to the glory of hp-abstraction, but in-game, there's no evidence of it.
In the end, for a lot of people that sort of metagame contribution isn't going to be very satisfying.
As I said I don't know what the solution is. I do know that thresholds are not going solve the issue.
The only solution that "works" is that every spell inflicts damage, even if it's only "psychic damage". Sleep inflicts psychic damage. Hold person inflicts force damage. Petrification inflicts untyped damage. The spell should describe the effect if the damage doesn't kill him. Sleep causes foggy thoughts. Hold person shackles the person in force. Petrification causes some of the person to turn stony.
The problem is (i) this doesn't resemble traditional D&D effects, and (ii) we tried it in 4e and people complaied it was too "samey".
How about if the target is 5 levels below you, they have disadvantage on saves versus your spells and if they are 5 levels above you they have advantage on saves versus your spells.
It doesn't solve the problem of casters and weapon-users playing different games ("beat the save" and "beat the hp", respectively)
If the problem was merely that s-o-s spells are more likely to take out a creature than hp-depletion, then we can try to rejigger the math of saving throws to ensure that it all works out. But the problem is that having two types of players operating on different premises -- particularly when one of those types can switch -- plays havoc with the game math.
Which is why fighters get something to do in the combat besides just do damage.
The ogre charges, running past the armored fighter with the sharp pointies to get at the soft human in the back. I intervene and heave at him with my hammer... 18! 15 hp damage and I knock him flat on his back! He looks up at you, surprised to be on the ground and yowls in frustration. I turn him to stone. He rolls a three. He turns to stone.
Did the fighter contribute to the fight? Yes - he kept the Ogre from squashing the mage.
Your argument only works if you assume that the role of both is to kill the monster (what some have termed the 'everyone out for themselves" view of past editions. If seen as a team effort, then both contributed.
The ogre charges, intending to run past the armored fighter with the sharp pointies to get at the soft human in the back. I turn him to stone. The ogres shrugs off your spell and continues his charge. However, the residual magic of your spell slows him down. I intervene with my mighty hammer... 18! Since the Oge is slowed and can't reach the wizard anymore, I focus on doing additional damage rather than stopping his movement. I do 20 damage! Knowing he will never reach the soft human, he attacks you and... hits for 6 damage. I turn him to stone! The ogre shrugs off your spell again. But the continued effect of your magic has now immobilized him - he can no longer advance upon you. I attack with my hammer again... nat 20! Critical hit... 28 hp damage! You feel the crack of bone as your hammer caves in the ogre's chest. he falls to the ground, dead.
Did the mage contribute to the fight? Yes - he his magic slowed the Ogre allowing the fighter to focus on doing damage rather than defending the wizard. Again - a team effort made it easier to bring him down.
The difference here was that the daily spell had a save effect that - although it was not damage - had an impact on the fight. Part of the problem of S O S spells is that they are traditionally seen as all or nothing. I'd rather see them as perhaps less powerful on a failed save (it might have taken that Ogre a couple of rounds to turn to stone had he failed his save) but still with a useful related effect on a successful save.
None of this, however, addresses the issue of imaginary hit points - which is entirely a question of "will the players accept them as a mechanic which feels intuitive and natural in play or will players reject them as a silly gamist approach." And that is not something I feel capable of predicting. The fact that I don't care for the appraoch isn't relevant because I can only speak for myself on that one. My gut reaction, however, is that players might accept them for spells which are seen as overcoming the physical defenses and resist them for spells (like Charm Person) which are seen as overcoming the mental defenses - no matter how many times we say that hit points are more than just a physical measure of damage.
Which is why fighters get something to do in the combat besides just do damage.
Agreed. If all players can inflict damage + conditions, then everyone can feel like they contribute. The problem is we had a system in whcih everyone inflicted damge and conditions and people complained that all the classes felt the same.
"+X to hit, YdZ damage plus condition"
Except in 5e, caster are.... "Ability DC 20-X, YdZ damage plus condition"
I agree that I think a lot of people will find this a gamist approach for spells that traditionally target Will defenses or require Will saves... mostly the enchantment (charm, confusion, dominate, enthrall, feeblemind, hold, hypnotize, insanity, magic jar, suggestion, fear) and the abjuration (antipathy, banish, dismissal, imprisonment, plane shift, and repulsion) schools. Some of the illusory spells too. But a lot of grognards won't like it on other save-or-die spells. It pretty much rips any flavor from Power Word: Kill, Cloudkill, or Finger of Death, turning them merely into damage dealing spells.
So it will help with those spells that can have lesser included effects, like flesh to stone. But there are whole schools of magic for which this will remain a problem.
"Charm Person" (and similar spells like Suggestion) may be outliers to the problem, and you may want to resolve them with a straightforward saving throw.
The vast majority of effects - Stone to Flesh, Sleep, Hold Person etc - don't have that same cognitive dissonance (to me at least, YMMV), and the system I described would work for them.
"Bea you until they love you" is merely the funniest way to state the phenomenon. But "beat you until you're petrified"? That doesn't follow any fantasy conventions of which I'm aware.
"Beat you until you're paralyzed"? Should we simply rename "Hold Person" to "Sever Spinal Column"?
It just doesn't feel like "Stone to Flesh" or "Hold Person" or "Sleep". I wish it did. It would be an easy fix. Heck, you could simply have a spell "Damage". And it does 1d6 imaginary damage per level. When you cast it, choose a carrier effect. Some carriers are "real" damage, like fire, force, acid, cold, lightning, thinder, etc. Some inflict imaginary damage and comes with a carrier effect like sleep, paralysis, petrification, death, dominate, stun, removed from play, plane shift, or any of the effects that are classically attached to s-o-s spells. If you choose imaginary damage at the time of casting, the effect only occurs if the imaginary damage exceeds the creature's current hp. Maybe at every other level, the caster gets to learn a new carrier effect for their imaginary damage spell.
I liked it when Schwalb first suggested it. But they abandoned it. Why? My guess is they got a lot of negative feedback on the idea.
Here is a thought....
Its called good cop bad cop...
You cant be the one to deliver the damage heheheeh.... you have to be the good cop. Not sure exactly how to codify that in a way that comes across. Of course Torture is indeed used to cow victims the torturer then promises to never hurt them again if they just do this one little thing... then maybe this one little thing more.
"18! And 15 hp damage" 
"Well, you narrowly miss the ogre, but boy is his luck running out." 
"Great, now I cast charm person... 12 hp imaginary damage". 
