Did WotC underestimate the Paizo effect on 4E?

[BryonD]

Nothing. You're either alive or dead. No build up of tension.

And we return to start, do not collect $200.

If the "build up of tension" starts being measured at the point of rolling a save then just go play your game and have a blast.

I have no interest in your game. You have no interest in mine.
But your statement is radically far from even contributing to a discussion of what happens at my table so worry about your own game. If you are not going to show any progress in grasping the point, there is nothing to be gained by continuing to reach wrong conclusions built on completely wrong assumptions.

It was stated that my point of view doesn't exist.
That is just stupid.
And I'll leave it at that.

 

[Wicht]

You're right, it's all about the math. Being okay with 1 in 2 doesn't make the mechanics well designed. If a creature has a 1 in 2 chance of instantly killing a PC in D&D, that's a poorly designed monster. It's binary. There's no middle ground. No tactics. Nothing. You're either alive or dead. No build up of tension.

In rebuttal, I simply offer the following:

Now, the point of the story is this: Did the tiger come out of that door, or did the lady ?

The more we reflect upon this question, the harder it is to answer. It involves a study of the human heart which leads us through devious mazes of passion, out of which it is difficult to find our way. Think of it, fair reader, not as if the decision of the question depended upon yourself, but upon that hot-blooded, semi-barbaric princess, her soul at a white heat beneath the combined fires of despair and jealousy. She had lost him, but who should have him?

How often, in her waking hours and in her dreams, had she started in wild horror, and covered her face with her hands as she thought of her lover opening the door on the other side of which waited the cruel fangs of the tiger!

But how much oftener had she seen him at the other door! How in her grievous reveries had she gnashed her teeth, and torn her hair, when she saw his start of rapturous delight as he opened the door of the lady! How her soul had burned in agony when she had seen him rush to meet that woman, with her flushing cheek and sparkling eye of triumph; when she had seen him lead her forth, his whole frame kindled with the joy of recovered life; when she had heard the glad shouts from the multitude, and the wild ringing of the happy bells; when she had seen the priest, with his joyous followers, advance to the couple, and make them man and wife before her very eyes; and when she had seen them walk away together upon their path of flowers, followed by the tremendous shouts of the hilarious multitude, in which her one despairing shriek was lost and drowned!

Would it not be better for him to die at once, and go to wait for her in the blessed regions of semi-barbaric futurity?

And yet, that awful tiger, those shrieks, that blood!

Her decision had been indicated in an instant, but it had been made after days and nights of anguished deliberation. She had known she would be asked, she had decided what she would answer, and, without the slightest hesitation, she had moved her hand to the right.

The question of her decision is one not to be lightly considered, and it is not for me to presume to set myself up as the one person able to answer it. And so I leave it with all of you: Which came out of the opened door - the lady, or the tiger?​

When appropriate, a 50/50 chance can be full of tension.

 

[Hussar]

What version of 3e do you play?

Well, I played 3e until 3.5 came out and played 3.5 until about 09, so I do have a bit of experience with the system. Can you point me to where I missed SSSoD in 3e? I don't recall ever seeing it, but, there are lots of rules in those books, so, it's possible I missed it.

Otherwise, what's your point?

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Y'know, all this discussion about saving throws got me curious. So, I went back to my 3.0 Monster manual and actually reread the medusa, instead of going by the SRD. Funnily enough, it includes in the combat section a line that reads that a medusa will switch to its other attacks if a target "survives" (exact quote) her gaze attack.

Finding that 3e says that medusa gaze attacks can be survived, I went back to my Basic book and reread the medusa and it says that if you look at a medusa, you turn to stone UNLESS you make your turn to stone save.

Now, I realize I didn't look in every book, but, I'm willing to bet dollars to donuts that every single D&D monster manual includes something similar. In other words, in no edition of D&D does a medusa actually work the way BryonD says that it does. In EVERY single case, you can resist the gaze attack.

The only difference is that in 4e, the onset time is changed from one round to three and instead of about a 50/50 chance of failure, you have about an 85% chance of success.

But, narratively? Within the game world? They operate in IDENTICAL ways. You can have staring contests with a medusa in every single edition, so long as you make your saves.


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Wicht - we've been over this. There is nothing precluding SSSoD from EXACTLY the same set up. Building tension in game is just good DMing. That has nothing to do with SoD or SSSoD.

Then again, I play a game, I don't write fiction, so maybe that's the issue here. I have no interests in playing in someone's novel.

To me, this is pretty cut and dried. Mechanically SoD is broken. It bypasses all the mechanics in order to deliver a cheap death to the PC's. Flipping coins to determine if you live or die isn't exciting. There's a reason you don't play Russion Roulette with 3 bullets.

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In the end, I am just going to have to drop this, because I know that I cannot convince anyone if I haven't already done so. I can't explain it any better than I have. The math of SoD doesn't work IMO. I have no problem with the die part, I have a problem with the fact that SoD area of effect abilities, in particular, aren't 50/50, they're about 90% likely to end in a PC death.

 

[billd91]

Actually, 3e doesn't have both. 3e has SoD, but it doesn't have SSSoD.

Phantasmal killer. That's a SSoD.
Poisons that do Constitution damage have 2 saves as well. Fail that first save and your condition deteriorates, making that second save harder. Those are pretty deadly.
And then I suppose we can get into encounter-ending spells that are often referred to as save or die spells (because most people assume that succumbing to them leads to character death by coup de grace) but are more appropriately save or sit spells like hold person. You get a save every round for that one until you break free of it, the duration ends, or you die. Dominate Person offers a second save under certain circumstances.

So there are situations in 3e in which there are multiple chances for a saving throw to save your bacon.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

How about this to answer things.

You feel that the game should translate directly the monster from the story (nevermind that it, well, doesn't). If the medusa sees you, you turn to stone, end of that. The importance is in directly simulating the monster as close as you can to the story itself.

I feel that the game should localize the monster. What I'm more interested is in simulating the narrative focus of the story. The hero doesn't succeed because he makes his saving throw or because the dice are "against him," he succeeds because he trusts the gods, he has bravery, and because he's the protagonist.

For your style of gameplay, SoDs are, as in your own words, adequete. They don't quite add up to the whole "If she sees you, you are stone, period." But, they roughly get the job done. SSSoD for this style is bad, because it creates another layer between a direct translation of the monster and the game.

For my style of gameplay, SSSoDs work fantastically, The narrative of the story flows and tension heightens as the failed saves comes up - and I'm sorry, but if you think the first two saves are utterly unimportant and ignorable, you're speaking from ignorance. Being slowed for many classes is terrible, and being immobilized for just about every class is horrifying. For me, SoDs ruin this - too much importance is placed on a single dice roll, too much power is out of the players' hands, when the narrative should be about them bravely facing an evil and scary monster, not praying to be lucky.

To use a non-D&D example, if you're playing a Star Trek game and the klingons damage the ship and a bridge member is there with a few others, you roll the dice and damn, he dies. Important character, lost. In my case, the nameless red shirt always dies first, because that's how the narrative of that type of story works.

 

[billd91]

To me, this is pretty cut and dried. Mechanically SoD is broken. It bypasses all the mechanics in order to deliver a cheap death to the PC's.

There you'd be wrong. It's not a means to bypass all the mechanics. Save or die effects have always been a mechanic to deliver quick death to the PCs who encounter them. How can a mechanic by pass all mechanics?

Flipping coins to determine if you live or die isn't exciting. There's a reason you don't play Russion Roulette with 3 bullets.

You know, even with your SSSoD mechanic that you seem to favor, you're still just flipping coins to determine if you live or die. You're just flipping them in a different way.

The math of SoD doesn't work IMO. I have no problem with the die part, I have a problem with the fact that SoD area of effect abilities, in particular, aren't 50/50, they're about 90% likely to end in a PC death.

It all depends on what you want the math (from a modeling perspective) or the creature's attack (from a narrative perspective) to do. Do you want your medusa to be lethal or not particularly lethal?

 

[Bluenose]

Well since 4e is a game based on more modernized influences... I thought the Clash of the Titans medusa was more appropriate as an example, of course 4e doesn't model the most recent incarnation very well anyway so I guess it's a moot point.

But okay, since the difference must be relevant to the conversation... in which version again does medusa not change her victims to stone instantly with just a glance but instead slows them down and allows them to continue battling, fighting and moving as they wait to shrug the effect off? or is it, for all practical purposes not particularly relevant to the point of whether SoD models her power more accurately than SSSoD?

You still seem to be working on the basis that Medusa had to look at people to turn them to stone. She didn't. Otherwise, Perseus wouldn't have needed his mirrored shield. She was asleep when he cut her head off, after all. And then kept her head to use as his 'I Win' button in a few other conflicts. Instant death is certainly part of the story, but saving throws aren't. Not SSSoD or SoD. Just D.

 

[Nagol]

You still seem to be working on the basis that Medusa had to look at people to turn them to stone. She didn't. Otherwise, Perseus wouldn't have needed his mirrored shield. She was asleep when he cut her head off, after all. And then kept her head to use as his 'I Win' button in a few other conflicts. Instant death is certainly part of the story, but saving throws aren't. Not SSSoD or SoD. Just D.

Medusa didn't have to look at you; you had to look at her. The S is accidentally/reflexively not doing that. You can circumvent the need to save by deliberately setting up a situation where you didn't/couldn't look at her.

 

[Imaro]

You still seem to be working on the basis that Medusa had to look at people to turn them to stone. She didn't. Otherwise, Perseus wouldn't have needed his mirrored shield. She was asleep when he cut her head off, after all. And then kept her head to use as his 'I Win' button in a few other conflicts. Instant death is certainly part of the story, but saving throws aren't. Not SSSoD or SoD. Just D.

Uhm... Nagol pretty much summed up the point I have been trying to make about SoD since the beginning... yet...you've not come up with a way that 4e's mechanics in any way model the medusa of classical mythology or modern culture.

 

[Wicht]

Wicht - we've been over this. There is nothing precluding SSSoD from EXACTLY the same set up. Building tension in game is just good DMing. That has nothing to do with SoD or SSSoD.

Actually you have claimed that there is no tension with sudden-death effects. Some of us disagree. If you will acknowledge that there can be tension in games which use the mechanic (even though you don't like it), the whole thing could be easily dropped.