Save or Die: Yea or Nay?

[MrMyth]

Do what you will is the whole of the law for your game.

Otherwise, I am sorry but -- like football or figure skating or whatever else you might undertake to dislike -- it's not about you. The people who like it are as entitled to it as you are to the things that you like.

And I've never said otherwise. I'm pretty sure the argument has been the other way around - that the approach I prefer in the game isn't acceptable from someone else's point of view (or isn't 'logically consistent' as the argument might be.)

I reckon that if a foolish magic-user can discover how to summon one in the first place, then slightly less foolish adventurers can discover what they need to know about the lair of Dreadgore the Demented and the Dweller in Darkness before they invite themselves in.

That's one assumption. But... not one that always holds true.

I mean, how many possible monstrosities can a bad guy summon? This expectation that PCs should be able to pinpoint precisely what resources an enemy has and what monsters they will fight - that players are "foolish" if they are not capable of knowing in advance what they will be encountering - really is not an attitude I agree with.

I think there can be games that are about that level of investigation and some sort of battle of wits between the players and the DM. But I don't think that is, or should be, true of every game. And I think there remains many, many legitimate reasons why PCs can - and often will - enter an encounter without knowing exactly what they are up against.

 

[Raven Crowking]

You don't feel that is what you are saying, that's fine. Nonetheless, that is how it came across, to me.

That is absolutely what you have been arguing.

Again, you are saying that if a PC makes an uninformed decision, it means either the player screwed up by not looking hard enough, or the DM screwed up by not having more clues.

Regardless of clarifications and objections that this is not what I am saying.....And yet

Dude, not cool. I'm not moving any goalposts here. I'm trying to explain myself, and demonstrate the issues with SoD compared to other encounters.

<snip>

You know what? I think I'm done here.

The only thing I can say here is, if you think I am in error in my response, it rather reflects what I am responding to. You have told me, repeatedly, what I think. You have ignored, repeatedly, every clarification. And you are upset because I draw conclusions from your post?

Sorry, but AFAICT and IMHO, expecting a certain level of sure information prior to making any decision which could be disasterous is a guarantee of safety. Not absolute safety, sure. But safety nonetheless. A guarantee that one botched gamble will not instantly result in your character's death.

Or, as I pointed out repeatedly, it is more accurate to say a guarantee that a plethora of botched gambles with less than perfect information will not result in your death prior to having at least two chances to react once information has become crystal-clear.

And, yes, to me this is playing "in a padded game". This is "playing safe".

It is not "being unwilling to accept responsibility for the decisions made as a player" unless, as a player, you entered a game where you bear that responsibility. Clearly, this is a game where you do not.

And that's fine, if it is what you want. You don't have to justify your preference to anyone -- until the point where you advocate removing something from the game that I value.

At that point, yes, I will examine the implications of that preference, and I will contest the removal of that thing.

So, just to confirm, it is your belief that a rogue who has successfully hid himself is not capable of viewing the face of someone he is observing?

Sorry? I am uncertain whether you done here, or did you want an answer?

Assuming the second, obviously not.

"Meeting the gaze of" =/= "viewing the face of".

I'm not at home right now, so I don't have the full text in front of me. If, after reading the full text (as opposed to the SRD text), it turns out that "gaze attacks" really should have been called "face attacks", I will concede that you are correct......And count that as another strike against the 3e design team.

Until that point, however, I intend to give the design team the benefit of the doubt.



RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

If the character's intelligence and wisdom stats weren't supposed to enter into the characters ability to overcome traps and instead it was all about player skill... How come the same wasn't true for physical stats?

How come people didn't like, arm wrestle the DM to see who won the fight vrs the monster?

Why doesn't the character's intelligence and wisdom stats determine what tactics the character uses in combat? Why doesn't the character's intelligence and wisdom stats determine what diretion he chooses? Why have the player show up at all?

 

[Raven Crowking]

And I've never said otherwise. I'm pretty sure the argument has been the other way around - that the approach I prefer in the game isn't acceptable from someone else's point of view (or isn't 'logically consistent' as the argument might be.)

Correction: Because scenarios outlined are not consistent, it doesn't follow that an idea cannot be used consistently.

"I don't like my PC's death to be instantaneous" is inconsistent with liking SSSoD because the final S results in instanteous D (or not), just as with SoD.

"I prefer SS before SoD" is consistent, and one can then examine exactly what SS provides (ex., at least one, and possibly two clear choices where most variables are known prior to the final SoD, which can be used to alter the situation in some way).

In the waaayyyyy upthread discussion, I would have said that you prefer more narrative control (when discussing narrative vs. random tension). All games require both a random/unkown element (to give choices consequence, and to be games) and a narrative element (so that choices can occur in context).

Games with stronger narrative elements are "safer" than those with stronger random/unknown elements. That's pretty much tautological.


RC

 

[Ariosto]

I believe Tiamat to have been on the 1e DMG tables.

That's a 1/500 chance on Monster Level X, which gives from a 1/10,000 chance on Dungeon Levels 8-11 to a 1/2,500 chance on Dungeon Levels 16 and deeper.

Demon Princes there are 40 times more common, Elder Titans 50 times. Other specimens of Monster Level X include:
Beholders
Arch-devils
Ancient and Very Old Dragons
Iron Golems
Liches
Vampires

A DM can use monsters stupidly or brilliantly regardless of whether he was determined from the start to use them or generated the ideas with rolls on tables.

It's all in the implementation.

At the end of the day, the quality of the dungeon depends on the quality of the Dungeon Master.

According to the Monster Manual:

Tiamat rules the first plane of the Nine Hells where she spawns all of evil dragonkind. She hates all good as fiercely as she loves cruelty and hoards wealth. She is seldom (10%) outside her lair, but occasionally she comes to earth to place a new dragon or to seek more treasure. She can travel astrally or ethereally.

That would certainly be a memorable encounter, although a person of Chaotic Stupid alignment might not survive to recount it.

 

[Ariosto]

That's one assumption. But... not one that always holds true.

Which is up to whom, pray tell?

If you are really determined to hit your players with inescapable doom, then your fixation on methods that permit saving throws can only be a godsend to them!

 

[Ariosto]

If you are indeed claiming that SoD is expected to be equivalent to entering a fight that isn't level appropriate, or entering a fight already injured and in a position to lose, than I suggest that you have directly proven that something is wrong with SoD in the context of the game.

Since "wrong" is just your own opinion, there is no sense in anyone else "proving" it.

"Save or die" is intended to restore risk, and that is just what it does.

In Chainmail, precursor of D&D and its "Alternative" combat system, normal men needed to score four simultaneous kills against a Hero to eliminate it. Otherwise, there was no effect.

An attack by one Hero or other fantastic figure against another had three possible results: No Effect, Defender Falls Back a move, or Defender Killed.

Essentially, everything was "save or die" for a Hero, Superhero, Seer, Magician, Warlock, Sorcerer or Wizard.

Dungeons & Dragons added hit points, which provided for gradual attrition rather than sudden death. (A number of monsters may have been meant to be treated similarly versus normal men in Chainmail, as the rules referred to "cumulative" hits.)

"Save or die" distinguished certain monsters as especially dangerous for high-level characters that otherwise tended to have a big hit-point buffer for risk management.

 

[Ariosto]

So, just to confirm, it is your belief that a rogue who has successfully hid himself is not capable of viewing the face of someone he is observing?

I'm not RC, obviously, but I take it as plain by normal English usage that one cannot "meet the gaze" of a subject from whom one is "hidden".

A gaze is a long, steady look. "To meet a gaze" is to look at someone while that one looks back. Even more usually, and pretty explicitly in the cases at hand, it is to "look someone in the eye". It is a meeting of gazes, a reciprocal alignment of focus both optical and in attention.

 

[Ariosto]

This expectation that PCs should be able to pinpoint precisely what resources an enemy has and what monsters they will fight - that players are "foolish" if they are not capable of knowing in advance what they will be encountering - really is not an attitude I agree with.

Nobody but you and Hussar appears to be expressing that attitude.

 

[Lanefan]

Buy if I'm fighting a Bodak, or a Basilisk, or a Medusa, and I spend my turns hiding in the shadows and shooting them, I'm not immune to their gaze attacks. Their gaze attacks involve me looking at them. It doesn't matter if they can see me or not. If Perseus is invisible, and standing in front of a Medusa, and meets its gaze, he turns to stone. If a rogue is in the shadows, spying on a Bodak, he's still subject to saving vs death.

Now, you could argue that there is no guarantee the Bodak is looking in his direction. And there, maybe, you might have a point, and could make up some chance as to whether the Bodak is looking that way or not. Of course, 3rd Edition doesn't work like that - there is no facing. Gaze attacks happen when you are within a certain range and look at the creature - you can only avoid it by looking away entirely or trying to avert your eyes. Those are the rules.

The idea that if you hide from a creature, this somehow physically prevents it from looking in your direction - I'm sorry, but there's no justification for that. And arguing that running the rules the way they are written is the fault of the DM here, rather than ths system, is absolutely absurd.

That's because you're letting 3e RAW get in the way of common sense and well-known mythology.

For a gaze attack to work in myth*, the attacker and the target have to be looking at each other at the same time - their eyes have to meet. 3e did away with facing and in so doing gave gaze attacks much more power and the wrong name; because gaze - as in eyes meeting - is obviously no longer a factor.

If I'm looking in a window at a basilisk who is watching a door in the right-hand wall, I'm safe - or I should be. Get the rules out of the way and use common sense.

* - Medusa is the exception here; merely looking at her face at all could do you in, whether you met her eyes or not.

Lan-"I've died, lost limbs, been polymorphed - but never turned to stone"-efan