D&D (2024) Is anyone at WOTC paying attention to what they print any more?

[ECMO3]

I don't read it that way at all. Not even close.

Ok how do you read it?

You fail the first save, then what?

 

[ECMO3]

Are automatic success and automatic failure like advantage, and cancel each other out?

I think after a minute you do automaticall succeed, but RAW it is pretty clear to me that if you fail the first DC12 save you are paralyzed from a minute unless someone frees you from it with Lay on Hands or Lessor Restoration or something like that.

 

[Maxperson]

I don't read it that way at all. Not even close.

How do you read it? Other than the specific beats general that I mentioned in my first post, it seems pretty clear that you get a dex save or be paralyzed, and further dex saves to overcome, but paralysis makes you auto fail dex saves.

 

[TwoSix]

I mean, that's funny as hell. LOL

How I would resolve it, though, is that it seems to me that the carrion crawler ability is more specific than the more general paralyzation rules. It seems clear from the specific ability that you can continue to make dex saves that are possible to succeed at and break the poison/paralysis.

Edit: It would have made more sense as a con save in any case.

Yea, Dex save to avoid, Con save to resist the poison after being hit. Definitely a case where the statted ability doesn't match the intended narrative.

 

[Reynard]

Yea, Dex save to avoid, Con save to resist the poison after being hit. Definitely a case where the statted ability doesn't match the intended narrative.

Why not just a to hit roll followed by a con save?

 

[Lidgar]

I haven't seen the full stat block. I assume the tentacles need to hit to trigger this affect? Or is this the main attack? If the later, I see why they went with the Dex save for triggering the initial condition, but subsequent saves really should be Con to resist the poison. Weird.

 

[Maenalis]

From Reddit.

 

[Maxperson]

Yea, Dex save to avoid, Con save to resist the poison after being hit. Definitely a case where the statted ability doesn't match the intended narrative.

I don't think the dex save needs to be there at all. The crawler has to roll to hit, right? Usually when a hit roll is required for an ability, a save isn't.

 

[Charlaquin]

“Specific beats general” doesn’t actually resolve this problem, because the specific rule “you can repeat this save, ending the effect on a success” and the general rule “you automatically fail dexterity saves” don’t conflict with each other. Both of these rules can be applied, with the result that you make and automatically fail the save.

The resolution here is to make the save to end the condition a Constitution save. I would guess that was the original idea - the initial Dave made sense to be Dexterity because it’s about dodging the tentacle, but a save to end the Paralyzed condition as a result of some a toxic agent on the tentacles would normally be Constitution. But, someone must have thought they could save wordcount by rolling the two different saves into one, and didn’t consider why the saves were made with two different abilities.

 

[ECMO3]

I haven't seen the full stat block. I assume the tentacles need to hit to trigger this affect? Or is this the main attack? If the later, I see why they went with the Dex save for triggering the initial condition, but subsequent saves really should be Con to resist the poison. Weird.

Actually no. What I wrote above is part of the action. For an action it uses Paralyzing tentacles and makes one bite attack.