Did WotC underestimate the Paizo effect on 4E?

[BryonD]

If Medusa affects you with her gaze you turn to stone. That seems both to reflect how the 4e mechanics work and the way it works in classical mythology.

4E allows you to be affected, but avoid petrification.

If you're going to have a saving throw at all, you're already deviating from the sources.

I dislike that it is a fort save because that clearly suggests that the effect has been shrugged off. On that particular I'll readily agree with criticism.

But if a save represents that last gasp hope that maybe you controlled yourself, or just got really lucky, or whatever, and managed to still not see her, then that save is completely consistent with the source.

If you see her, you are stone.
If you don't, nothing happens.
There are no shades of grey. 4E is all about shades of grey, so it is out.
3E RAW is about shrugging it off and that is also wrong.

But the root SoD mechanic is completely fitting.

 

[Banshee16]

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.

I disagree with this point. Even if it's a 50% chance that a monster can kill a PC instantly, that doesn't make it poorly designed. Nor does it eliminate tension.

It's a party game. It's intended for groups of 4-5 characters, and maybe even some hirelings or followers. If there is a 50% chance per PC, what are the chances that in that instant all 4 PC's will be instantly killed? Pretty much about 6.25%. The other party members will have several rounds to fight the creature, and could very well vanquish it.

There's a heck of a lot of tension to an encounter where the PCs enter the lair of Medusa, and "Oh crap, Frank just got stoned! We have to stop her or we're all gonna die! Don't look her in the eye!" etc. etc.. That's drama. That's risk. That can make an encounter that stresses the players, and they try their darndest to take down this monster, before it kills them all.

I mean really.....there are creatures in the game that do immense damage.....ancient or older red dragons, for instance. If they get a breath in, there's a good chance the dragon can take out a character, if the character isn't protected sufficiently. What's the difference between Medusa being able to turn a character to stone with a glance, and a dragon breathing a cone of fire that can cause more damage in one attack than any character in the party who does not have 1d10's for hit dice even has for hp, when fully healed? Either way, the character is still dead.

I'm really not sure what the whole deal is with this argument. Some monsters have rather lethal attacks that characters have to prepare themselves to face. Only fools rush in unprepared. And if they do, they deserve to die.

YMMV.

It's D&D....The characters are taking the place of Perseus or Lancelot or St. George or whoever. Hunting down creatures that terrify and destroy innocents. That in many cases have maimed dozens of other adventurers who have tried to end the scourge. And now YOUR character is going to try their hand, and see if they can vanquish the beast. Of course there's going to be danger, and sometimes, characters will come back in body bags. Back in the 2E DMG (or PHB??) there was even a fantastic picture showing a pair of fighters bringing their buddy back in a "stretcher".....he was dead, obviously killed violently, arm dangling out of the stretcher, and they were walking up the steps of a temple to get him raised.

Without that kind of risk, what's the point? It's just my opinion....but I prefer epics over pulp, I guess. Where the heroes don't always have happy endings, and in many cases, they don't all make it home.

Banshee

 

[Solvarn]

I disagree with this point. Even if it's a 50% chance that a monster can kill a PC instantly, that doesn't make it poorly designed. Nor does it eliminate tension.

It's a party game. It's intended for groups of 4-5 characters, and maybe even some hirelings or followers. If there is a 50% chance per PC, what are the chances that in that instant all 4 PC's will be instantly killed? Pretty much about 6.25%. The other party members will have several rounds to fight the creature, and could very well vanquish it.

There's a heck of a lot of tension to an encounter where the PCs enter the lair of Medusa, and "Oh crap, Frank just got stoned! We have to stop her or we're all gonna die! Don't look her in the eye!" etc. etc.. That's drama. That's risk. That can make an encounter that stresses the players, and they try their darndest to take down this monster, before it kills them all.

I mean really.....there are creatures in the game that do immense damage.....ancient or older red dragons, for instance. If they get a breath in, there's a good chance the dragon can take out a character, if the character isn't protected sufficiently. What's the difference between Medusa being able to turn a character to stone with a glance, and a dragon breathing a cone of fire that can cause more damage in one attack than any character in the party who does not have 1d10's for hit dice even has for hp, when fully healed? Either way, the character is still dead.

I'm really not sure what the whole deal is with this argument. Some monsters have rather lethal attacks that characters have to prepare themselves to face. Only fools rush in unprepared. And if they do, they deserve to die.

YMMV.

It's D&D....The characters are taking the place of Perseus or Lancelot or St. George or whoever. Hunting down creatures that terrify and destroy innocents. That in many cases have maimed dozens of other adventurers who have tried to end the scourge. And now YOUR character is going to try their hand, and see if they can vanquish the beast. Of course there's going to be danger, and sometimes, characters will come back in body bags. Back in the 2E DMG (or PHB??) there was even a fantastic picture showing a pair of fighters bringing their buddy back in a "stretcher".....he was dead, obviously killed violently, arm dangling out of the stretcher, and they were walking up the steps of a temple to get him raised.

Without that kind of risk, what's the point? It's just my opinion....but I prefer epics over pulp, I guess. Where the heroes don't always have happy endings, and in many cases, they don't all make it home.

Banshee

I think there are a lot of things you can do to ratchet up tension without controlling a PC out of the fight.

 

[Imaro]

I think there are a lot of things you can do to ratchet up tension without controlling a PC out of the fight.

Wait... so now the possibility of SoD affecting a PC... is the DM "controlling a PC out of the fight."? Does that apply to SSSoD if the PC doesn't make 3 saves... how about if the DM rolls a critical and kills a PC outright... or a PC who has a bad run of luck with save ends? Aren't these all situations where a PC is out of the fight?

 

[Coldwyn]

Wait... so now the possibility of SoD affecting a PC... is the DM "controlling a PC out of the fight."? Does that apply to SSSoD if the PC doesn't make 3 saves... how about if the DM rolls a critical and kills a PC outright... or a PC who has a bad run of luck with save ends? Aren't these all situations where a PC is out of the fight?

That sentence only makes sense when you replace "controlling" with "directly taking", I guess.

 

[Imaro]

That sentence only makes sense when you replace "controlling" with "directly taking", I guess.

But SoD doesn't directly do anything... it is a chance something will or will not happen.

 

[Banshee16]

But SoD doesn't directly do anything... it is a chance something will or will not happen.

This is partly what I was getting at. It's just another me habit for how ssomething can happen.

At the end of the day, if your medusa stones a character with one saving throw or the red dragon breathes fire on the character, who passes his save but then fails his save vs massive damage, he's still dead. And in both cases it was still one attack that caused the death.

And then there are the legion of monsters or NPCs who can supposedly do sickening amounts of damage in a round. Like the optimized fighter who can do 200 hp of damage in a round. Most characters can't survive 200 hp of damage in one round. It's still one round and it's still beyond the capability of most characters to absorb. Yes, there are more rolls involved, so statistically it's a little hard to do but it's still possible.

It just seems some people focus on the SoD mechanic so much that they overlook the myriad of forms of lethal damage that are not save or die.

Banshee

 

[Hussar]

But SoD doesn't directly do anything... it is a chance something will or will not happen.

A 90% chance that something will happen based on a 4 PC party. Note, that's 90% PER ROUND, although the chances actually do drop every time a PC is killed. Funnily enough, mathematically speaking the best tactic for dealing with a medusa is to fight her one at a time.

The way I see this, there are basically three issues, so, I'll take a stab at each in turn.

1. Ramping up tension.

AFAIK, this is stating that the DM should increase tension with a SoD creature before the encounter. It apparently doesn't really matter about the tension within the encounter, tension should be driven before you even meet the SoD creature.

I 100% agree with this. This is excellent DM advice. You should raise tension before an encounter with a SoD creature. But, in the end, isn't this true of every encounter? Do DM's actually only do this with SoD creatures? I don't think so. I think a Dm should be ramping up tension before each and every encounter (save perhaps ambush encounters, but, quite possibly even then). This isn't limited to SoD and really, IMO, has little to do with SoD or SSSoD.

2. Deviation from the source.

The argument here, that BryonD has been tapping quite heavily, is that if you see the medusa you turn to stone. This is how it works in the myth, and that's the way it should work in D&D.

However, the problem here is that it has NEVER actually worked this way in D&D. You have always been able to resist a medusa's gaze attack. Every single edition of the game actually agrees with this. The flavour hasn't changed at all. The only thing that has changed is the number of chances you get to make your save.

But, as far as in game narrative goes, it plays out EXACTLY the same in any edition. Character sees the medusa and is forced to save. In pre-4e, that's the end of the story, at least for that round. In 4e, it's the end of the story if he makes his save, or, he gets a couple of more shots at it as he gradually succumbs to the power of the gaze.

Which brings me to the last point.

Math

I've been hitting this one pretty hard and I'm not sure if anyone's actually directly addressed it to be honest. In my mind, there's no difference between adding a +infinite damage bonus to a monster or SoD. Both mechanics do an end run around all the other mechanics.

But, +inifinite damage is broken, but, SoD is not? That it has been in the game for a long time does not make it not broken. The math is pretty clear on this. For a SoD area of effect creature, you're looking at about a 90% chance of PC fatality. It's fairly random which PC will die, but, it's still around 90%.

How is that in keeping with encounter design? A given creature generally shouldn't have a 90% chance of whacking a PC in a fairly standard encounter. Elder dragons have been brought up. Let's not forget that we're talking about creatures that PC's shouldn't be facing until the high teen levels in 3e. By that time, the breath weapon isn't as scary as it looks because characters can be assumed to either have the hit points to straight up take the damage, or enough resistances to make up the difference.

To me, changing to SSSoD is in keeping with the mechanics and the base assumptions of the game. A 7th level party isn't going to be walking around with a bag full of defenses up and the party is nowhere near high enough level to reverse the effects of the SoD. Poison? Sure, slow poison is a second level spell as is Lesser Restoration. Both are easily within reach of a party regularly facing poison attacks.

Anyway, I think I've derailed this poor thread enough, and, as the side comments are showing, this is just not going to go anywhere. I've presented my case and it's not going to get any better than that.

 

[billd91]

Which brings me to the last point.

Math

I've been hitting this one pretty hard and I'm not sure if anyone's actually directly addressed it to be honest. In my mind, there's no difference between adding a +infinite damage bonus to a monster or SoD. Both mechanics do an end run around all the other mechanics.

But, +inifinite damage is broken, but, SoD is not? That it has been in the game for a long time does not make it not broken. The math is pretty clear on this. For a SoD area of effect creature, you're looking at about a 90% chance of PC fatality. It's fairly random which PC will die, but, it's still around 90%.

How is that in keeping with encounter design? A given creature generally shouldn't have a 90% chance of whacking a PC in a fairly standard encounter. Elder dragons have been brought up. Let's not forget that we're talking about creatures that PC's shouldn't be facing until the high teen levels in 3e. By that time, the breath weapon isn't as scary as it looks because characters can be assumed to either have the hit points to straight up take the damage, or enough resistances to make up the difference.

To me, changing to SSSoD is in keeping with the mechanics and the base assumptions of the game. A 7th level party isn't going to be walking around with a bag full of defenses up and the party is nowhere near high enough level to reverse the effects of the SoD. Poison? Sure, slow poison is a second level spell as is Lesser Restoration. Both are easily within reach of a party regularly facing poison attacks.

You keep harping on the mechanics making an end run around... mechanics. But they're two different mechanics, designed to do two different things and with a different spirit toward doing so. That's why adding a big old load of numbers to an ablation mechanic isn't the same as a save or die effect. Save or die doesn't make an end run around hit point ablation any more or less than SSSoD does. They're simply different mechanics that can yield similar results - a character being effectively dead.

As far as the math goes, a creature with an area-effect save or die stands an excellent chance of killing someone if mobbed. So what? It doesn't really matter to me if you think some creatures have a danger threshold too high. You're welcome to not use them in your games. There's nothing wrong with that. Your squeamishness doesn't make it a bad mechanic.

 

[Tallifer]

*****Partly concerning the original topic of the thread:

Paizo did indeed end up with thousands of D&D customers. Which makes me think about the current decline of 4e (And I speak as a fanatic of 4e: books and miniatures cancelled, unfinished character builder, gutted magazines, fortune cards, production reduced to mostly hack novels and boardgames...). I think that the implosion of 4e in 2012 will mean a new company will make a retro-clone of 4e soon. Then D&D customers will be divided between Paizo and "neo-Paizo," and Hasbro will lose interest in 4e after the complete failure of 5e.

Just a thought. (A wishful one, looking forward to a time when 4e will be designed for its fanatics.)