A Flaw with saving throws or is there

[dcollins]

Drow poison; Injury DC 13; Unconsciousness; Unconsciousness for 2d4 hours; 75gp...?

It's not a sleep or paralysis effect, so dragons aren't immune...

That definitely reads as being in the category of a "sleep or paralysis" effect to me.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Anditch,

Perhaps one of the reasons for this is to enable a party of different classes to share risk.

For example, the DC14 poison that doesn't threaten you at all might be a severe problem for the 16th level elven rogue with a Fort ST bonus of +6. What is the DM to do? If he wants to challenge you with the poison, should he make sure that it is at least DC18 or higher... with the resulting increase in difficulty for the rogue?

Keeping the "fail on a 1, succeed on a 20" makes it easier to have situations which are not *only* threatening to some members of a party.

 

[Hypersmurf]

That definitely reads as being in the category of a "sleep or paralysis" effect to me.

"Helpless: A helpless character is paralyzed, held, bound, sleeping, unconscious, or otherwise completely at an opponent’s mercy."

Paralyzed, sleeping, and unconscious are listed as three separate conditions. Something that makes you sleep is a sleep effect. Something that makes you paralyzed is a paralysis effect. Something that makes you unconscious is neither.

-Hyp.

 

[Plane Sailing]

OT: back in 1e drow used sleep poison, I wonder if that is where his confusion stems from?

 

[Ferret]

Now I want to make this comment:

In the first round of combat, a colossal red wyrm is hit with a poisononed dagger wielded by a halfling with...mmmm...let's say Fort DC 13 saving throw...then the DM rolls a "1".

Well...Dang.

How do you suppose that minuscule portion of poison manage to spread through the gigantic body of the wyrm and knocked him/her unconscious or even worse cause paralysis?

Like I said...dang.

By luck they sliped it under the scales into an artery, maybe the pulmonery vein even, that blood should round that body damn fast. Passing through a lot of organs.

 

[BSF]

I have no problem with automatic success/failure.

In the games I run, I do not tailor all the encounters for the PC's. Most are tailored, some are just random. A horde of kobolds? Yeah, the players know they will probably win. What's more, they will probably win pretty handily. But, they also know that even the lowliest kobold might get a lucky hit in. They also accept that a normally easy save might be bungled.

Oddly enough, the "unfairness" of it has never cropped up. If I can't think of a justification, my players usually can. There have been many, many times where a Fort DC 14 ghoul paralysis took down mid to high level Barbarians, Paladins, or Fighter/Clerics. The players do not like those natural 1's, but they think it makes the story interesting. They also don't mind when the creatures get that natural 1.

I had a mallebranche (Demon, most recently converted in the Monster Manual II) that was tasked with assassinating the fighter/cleric. It would typically do 50-60 points in that first round. Not enough to kill the PC, but easily enough to get some attention. In all 3 encounters with that mallebranche, the resolution was a dismissal manifested by the party Psion/Ghostbreaker. It was sad that all three times, that natural 1 came up and the mallebranche went away. It was also funny and became a running joke that the little telepathic Psion would tell the mallebranche to go home, and he would. Her unreal charisma would manifest in interesting ways.

 

[UltimaGabe]

Exactly. There's nothing "unfair" about critical successes or failures- what's there to be "unfair" about? Is it unfair that your characters aren't invincible? Hardly not. Is it unfair that your characters may get hurt every now and then? Don't make me laugh. Is it unfair that there's a sense of realism amidst all of these fantasy game mechanics? Nope. After all, in the real world, no human is immune to poison, regardless of how long he can run or how healthy he is. Everybody's mind can be broken. Every can have a bad day and not jump out of the way of a moving vehicle. Everyone can miss, and everyone can get lucky. So I think you all should just stop complaining and play the dumb game. If you wanted to win everything, why do you play D&D?

 

[dcollins]

Paralyzed, sleeping, and unconscious are listed as three separate conditions. Something that makes you sleep is a sleep effect. Something that makes you paralyzed is a paralysis effect. Something that makes you unconscious is neither.

Thanks, no sale.

The official glossary definition of "unconscious" is being damaged to negative hit points (or too much subdual damage). Since this poison does neither, it looks like a glitch in the poison write-up.

 

[Hypersmurf]

The official glossary definition of "unconscious" is being damaged to negative hit points (or too much subdual damage).

"Unconscious: Knocked out and helpless. Unconsciousness can result from having current hit points between –1 and –9, or from nonlethal damage in excess of current hit points."

Can result. Doesn't say it's an exclusive list.

But someone suffering the effects of drow poison is "knocked out and helpless".

-Hyp.

 

[Darth K'Trava]

I know that there is a 5 % chance of failure but why not just scrub it off. If u wanna poison someone then make the poison stronger or whatever and give it a higher DC. This then says that the poison or whatever is stronger. How can an extremely weak poison be as potent as an extremely potent one. Also on the being able to hit an AC of 55 with a natural 20. How many DMs do you know that would give you a creature that makes you have to roll a 20 to hit. If there is one out there remind me never to be a player in there campaign. If the mob has an AC that high then give it a weakness somewhere else and try and get the players to find its weakness by casting different spells at it or whatever. Its pointless if a save is too easy as its pointless if its too hard.

There's been instances where we've needed a 20 to hit a creature but more times, it's been the creature who needed a 20 to even think of hitting our epic party.

The only flaw with saving throws is that the spell DCs are pathetically low for spellcasters when the PCs have much higher saves than any spell DC and also holds true for monsters as well. What's the point of throwing a spell when the creature is automatically gonna either move out of the way, resist it or can shake off anything with his mental control?