Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site sdamos.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!harvard!wjh12!genrad!decvax!decwrl!amd!fortune!hpda!hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!sdamos!mr-frog From: mr-frog@sdamos.UUCP (Dave Pare) Newsgroups: net.games.frp Subject: Re: Killing off characters Message-ID: <20@sdamos.UUCP> Date: Wed, 17-Oct-84 15:27:59 EDT Article-I.D.: sdamos.20 Posted: Wed Oct 17 15:27:59 1984 Date-Received: Sat, 20-Oct-84 08:03:02 EDT References: <3905@decwrl.UUCP>, <1662@ucla-cs.ARPA> Organization: Phonetics Lab, UC San Diego Lines: 31 : The key line in that last article was "in line with the power level of your campaign." I would certainly agree, were I a PC in that system, that if I had wands of disintegrate-no-save, or delayed blast fireball (no save), or power word stun (no save), or practically anything with no save that the DM would be reasonable (under your stipulation of "power level") to include items which would kill PC's with no save. How many people run games like this? Not too many. Many people do have spells which identify items from a distance (you don't have to put the item on to figure out what it does) but these spells are around sixth level. We generally don't muck around with items until we can get them back to be "identified" by high level mages, however those DM's who delight in inflicting obnoxious devices on players would be the very types who would not have NPC mages around to do analizes so that the "instant death" devices would not "go to waste". A long time ago we used to have those items in dungeons, but we quickly found that since the players always had the items identified, they got some pretty gross devices -- you could always instead of attacking a monster, throw a "robe of blending" on him and push the button... Dave Pare