Radical suggestion and probably impossible to script, nobody likes instantly dying to one save, why not add an addtional rule that on a failed save your hp reaches 0 then you take an addtional 1 point of magic damage for every 1 point off you were of making a successful save. Slim chance of hope in a scary world of beholders and powerful mages.
5th edition has, by my understanding, variable degrees of failure for those save or die effects. Medusas in particular will only instantly turn you to stone if you fail the DC by 5 or more. If you are in the 4-1 range of failure, you are instead stunned and have to make your next save or otherwise receive help.
I doubt the save or die stuff will ever be changed on EfU, though it might be nice if there was some sort of leeway given. Going to -8 or -9 and bleeding out (no stabilization chance) might be an option, giving people a chance to bring them back if they're quick enough, and only if you only failed the save by a few points.
Don't worry, I know its not impossible to script.
The thaypw had this in place when I played there a long time ago, it drops you to -1 and you bleed out from there but that server had a script that automatically unequipped all items that had regen property, whereas this one has a few different ways to have regen (perks being the main one!)
On the Thaypw this was very lifesaving, as myself and another girl there encountered a new creature to the server at the time, an Ultroloth, which used the standard nwn death bolt attack multiple times (no save), between us we were able to keep repeatedly stabilising each other until we could escape proper.
'Why didn't you die to that, RSD/Cursed Barb/Positivist?"
"Regen bro"
I think -5 should be fine, chances are you may not survive a follow-up attack in a mob so you still can die, and in PvP if you're on FD mode you don't necessarily want the person who failed the save on your death spell to get up right away.
Well, beholders are an "all or nothing" sort of monster. Either you've got passed the save threshold in which case it's (almost) a cakewalk, or you run for your life.
Death spells could automatically put you at -1 hp rather than instant death, allowing your team mates to jump in for daring heal making for epic moments.
However if death rays are 'devalued' in such way it would be cool get random dc rays. 10+some roll on a normal distribution. This way you can "assume" that most of the time you'll face DC 14-16, but in some (rare cases, depending on the dispersion of the normal) you'll face a potentially higher and more lethal DC.
This would immediately change the dynamic of "beholder fear" - by making them unpredictable.
Pentaxius i seem to remember them also doing tonnes of magic damage.
Not sure if this is aimed at general death magic/abilities or beholders in general.
1. For beholders I really, REALLY hate that people are like "Oh I have 14 fort I AM SAVED!!" I wish there was a randomization to the DC that ranged from 1-20? (spitting numbers out here) so that rather than being an assured death if you encounter a beholder (or assured no way to die/lose) it was truly a scary and terrify encounter.
2. Death Spells in general are cool in the aspect that it makes high end casters scary as hell, if the spells fit the encounter. Like seeing a high end priest of a more neutral God or a wizard who is not a necromancer or illusionist spamming those types of death spells really makes me feel that the preferred method to make high end content hard is to just add crazy death stuff which is not fun at all. Honestly I think some of the boss encounters could use revamps to make minions spawn mid fight as it flees for a time, or things like this. Sadly I am a newb at scripting myself so I can't offer more input than my opinion here.
I wound not mind at all seeing death magic put you to bleeding, I mean you already go to bleeding if you are beating into submission by weapons. If this was possible of course. Even if it put you to -5 at the mid range of bleeding death.
Pretty much everything is doable, to a point with nwn. What I mean is that some things can be directly be determined with the engine, and other be done with slight clever use of scripting, but such things as adjusting bleeding state is a bit dangerous as it has potential of combining with few factors: Damage taken at that same second, other effects taking place, lost buffs, etc. And it might just end up in instant death. However, in general, yes, these are all possible pointers.
I personally do approve this kind brain storming, though naturally we guarantee nothing. There are things that we want to be those really horrible flips of coins, that potential of instant death. Though, I could see this being very well near same, yet have that small split hair of hope woven into it. As an individual I like it, and could potentially discuss it with the team, but until I've sorted this last stretch of big life project, I am not able to do anything about it so that's all I say.