There are several cards that are, as far as I can tell, essentially Save mechanics, without using the word "Save." I'm wondering if something has to specifically say "Save" for it to be, well, a Save.

A couple off the top of my head are cards like Aeron Damphair, the Drowned Disciple, Bronn's effect. There are many others, those are just the ones that spring to mind immediately.

So, could someone play Drinking the Sea to stop any of those effects? What about Wildfire Assault? If someone Wildfire's, and I select Aeron to die, does he go to the bottom of my deck as per his text, or can he not initiate that effect because it would be considered a "Save." if someone with enough forsight used Bronn's ability before plot cards were flipped (maybe he got the money with that one shadows card), could he save someone from dying from Wildfire?

Etc, etc.

Thank you.

MechaJeff said:

Rulebook, page 23:

The exception to
this is a response action that contains the words
cancel or save.

Bronn, Aeron etc. are replacement effects.

In more detail:

No, those are not "saves." Unless an effect actually says "save" (and is a Response), it isn't a save. Saves have a particular timing (shared with cancels) and are the only true interrupts in the game.

The other effects you describe are not saves. They do not interrupt the kill effect. Heck, in most cases, they don't even prevent the card from leaving play! When Damphair or the Drowned Disciple are killed, they are killed. Their text does not stop them from being killed - it only stops them from going to the dead pile. So I'm not sure how you can consider them the same as a "save" since the kill effect still resolves. You'd still Respond to them being killed, not being saved. Bronn is a little different in that he stands instead of the target card being killed, but in that instance, the killing effect still resolves - it just resolves as a standing effect instead. Again, not the same thing as a save - which interrupts a killing effect and prevents it from resolving for the saved character.

There is no such thing as "essentially" or "functionally the same as" a save. It either is or it isn't a save effect. As Rogue said, the other things you mention are replacement effects, which are a totally separate class of effect (for one, they are constant and happen whether you want them to or not; saves are always triggered as far as I can recall).

To call replacement effects saves just because a killed card goes somewhere other than the dead pile would be like calling a "return to hand" effect the same thing as a draw effect just because the number of cards in your hand increases.