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Things that do enough damage to kill a character with a single roll of the d20 are pretty rare IME, especially compared to how ubiquitous save-or-die effects become at high levels. The problem is, not all encounters are created equal. Yes, if the PCs win a run-of-the-mill encounter in round 1...

Actually, no. It's perfectly on-point. I assure you that there are DMs out there who would want such a monster. Under the "options, not restrictions" philosophy, there would be no reason not to provide it, since as you are so fond of pointing out, no one has to use it.

You either haven't been paying attention, or you are deliberately mischaracterizing the argument against save-or-dies. It's not "the DM is a big fat jerk that wants to kill your beloved character." It's that the question of whether your character lives or dies should not be resolved by a single...

And you could say exactly the same thing about a monster that instakills the whole party with no save. That was my point.

I never said it was the same thing as a medusa or a finger of death. I was using it as an illustration that it's possible to take the "options, not restrictions" philosophy too far.

Actually, just going by some of the things I've read on this forum, there are at least some DMs out there who would want a monster exactly like that. They'd justify it by saying things like "Sometimes players just need to know when to run away," and "Players shouldn't be going into situations...

I agree it's a good mantra, but it can easily be taken too far. After all, under that logic, the designers could put a monster in the game that instantly kills every PC in the party with no save before initiative is even rolled. After all, you don't have to use it, right? Options are great, but...

Which is also a problem. Taking out the BBEG on the first round of combat with a save-or-die isn't much fun for anyone, either. "Gee, that was the climactic battle of the whole campaign, we'd been building up to it for months, and it was over in one round. Um.... Yay?"

I don't know - if they really are ditching the four encounters per day paradigm, I think that alone will make 4E feel much more like 1E than 3E does. IMO, anyway.

Did anybody here play the Marathon trilogy back in the day? Those games were awesome. A friend of mine described them to me as "Doom with a plot," though that description doesn't really do them justice. They really were ahead of their time, IMO.

Questioning your point is not the same thing as proving your point. Again, there has been no "pouncing" in this thread. I wasn't talking about the developers. They're constrained in what they can say, for obvious reasons. I was talking about the fans of the game, specifically the people who...

Saying "Any dissent in the "4th ed is teh bomb!" ranks is immediately pounced upon" is not a statement of opinion. It's a claim about the objective reality on these message boards, and thus it can be examined on a factual basis - either it happens, or it doesn't. Now, does that sort of thing...

Again, I will ask - where is the pouncing? Who in this thread has said any of the things that you claimed get said immediately after anyone says anything negative about 4E? You have a very strange definition of "proving." Funny, in my years on the Rules forum, I've seen lots of discussions...

Well, you posted an hour ago. Where's the pouncing? Do you have a different definition of 'immediately' than the rest of us do? People have been talking about the problems with 3.5 for years. Seriously, have you ever looked at the Rules forum?

Indeed. There are very good reasons why no one takes online polls seriously. As for Paizo making 3.75, they could do it, but they'd be going for a niche market. Now, it's possible to make a very good living serving a niche market - but it'd be a huge risk, and it might not be one they'd want to...

Not necessarily. If the party just sends the rogue to scout, he has a greater chance of not being noticed, true. But if he is noticed, there's a good chance that he's not going to make it out of the area alive. If the whole party is capable of at least attempting to sneak, it gives them a...

Please. The break between turns in combat is not nearly as long as the break between "turns" can get in other situations. As Remathilis pointed out, if the party rogue decides to scout out an area by himself (because he's the only one who has a chance of staying hidden), that basically amounts...

If you can do this without making everyone else sit around doing nothing while one player has all the fun, then great. IME it doesn't usually work that way. So I prefer that the whole party be engaged in the game as often as possible.

How else would you design a party-based game?

In fact, didn't the 3E designers say that they built the system around the combat encounter because that was the one time when they could be sure that everyone in the party would be doing something? Or am I misremembering?