Is 4th edition getting soft? - edited for friendly content :)

[Henry]

Because from where I'm sitting, if no one can answer it, its basically a concession that the CR system is NOT to blame, save-or-die is.

I agree with Reynard -- about 10th level, maybe 12th, where the fighters get a +10 or so to fort saves, and other classes can get boosts to fort saves through magic items and spells. I'm not sure I understand how it would prove save-or-die is a problem or not, though.

 

[DM-Rocco]

Originally Posted by DM-Rocco
I agree with this. I think the main problem, which seems to be addressed by the WOTC 4th edition team, is the power curve, the CR system and other items you talk about and not so much the SoD effects. I seriously fail to see why people are so worked up about the SoD effect in the game. The only thing I can see is that the anti SoD crowd has had some bad DMs or really bad situations and therefore want a ban on something they have first hand knowledge of being abused.


Response from Cadfan from post 394

I design a monster that has an ability which inflicts on an opponent a DC 20 fortitude save. Failure kills the target. Its a magical effect that has no other roll to hit, and occurs at range.

1) At what level is this monster an appropriate encounter for a character? If you don't want to answer with a particular level, just answer with the fort save you think a character should have at the point where this monster is an appropriate encounter. Please specify whether the fortitude save you've given is the expected low fortitude save for the group, or the expected high fortitude save.

2) Would I be right in assuming that your view of proper use of a save-or-die effect is to place it in a situation where the players do not actually have to save-or-die, but where they feel frightened that they might in the future? Because your examples of proper use of save-or-die spells and effects invariably involve situations where the party has some means of never having to actually roll the save. Sometimes its death ward, sometimes its magical rings, sometimes its fighting with their eyes closed. How frequently do you feel that players, who are in general playing well and not doing anything stupid, should have to actually make the roll and either save, or die?

Okay, does the effect target one person or a cone or everyone in a 30 foor radius or line of sight or just looking at it. Usable once per day? Every round? What is the DC based on, (a simuliar spells and the monsters high Chr usually)? How many HD? Any natural attacks? Any weaknesses like avoids light?

Here, fill in the blanks and give me more information and then I will try t o answer:


Size:
Where is it from:
Hit Dice:
Initiative:
Speed:
Armor Class:
Base Attack/Grapple:
Attack:
Full Attack:
Space/Reach:
Special Attacks:
Special Qualities:
Saves: Fort +0, Ref +0, Will +0
Abilities: Str 0, Dex 0, Con 0, Int 0, Wis 0, Cha 0
Skills:
Feats:
Environment:
Organization:
Challenge Rating:
Treasure:
Alignment:
Advancement:
Level Adjustment: —

 

[Cadfan]

I agree with Reynard -- about 10th level, maybe 12th, where the fighters get a +10 or so to fort saves, and other classes can get boosts to fort saves through magic items and spells. I'm not sure I understand how it would prove save-or-die is a problem or not, though.

At 10th level, the wizard's fort save will be what, a +7, optimistically, with good gear?

So is the consensus that I'm hearing that at level 10 it is appropriate to have an encounter in which an enemy can inflict on the party wizard a 60% chance of death per round, until the enemy is killed?

Lets keep designing our hypothetical monster. How many hit points does he have? This controls how many rounds he will last. Then we can take (1-.6)^x where X is the number of rounds he will survive. The result will be the likelihood the wizard lives through the fight.

We can rework the numbers for level 12, if people feel that's more appropriate. I don't mind.

The point of this exercise is that people have been claiming that save-or-die is not the problem with monsters like the bodak, the CR system which puts the bodak at CR8 is. If no appropriate character level exists at which a DC 20 ranged fort save or die attack is appropriate, then the problem certainly isn't the CR system, its the save-or-die system.

10th level sounds about right -- the PCs will be tough enough and they'll have access to the right resources to either deal with the creature or recover from the consequences.

By "recover from the consequences" do you mean "raise dead?"

Its ok if you do. I will concede that in games where "raise dead" is considered an every day method of fixing up bad things that happen in a fight, save-or-die is much, much less of a concern. In fact, its about the same concern as save-or-go-blind. I don't personally play that way, but kudos to those who do.

 

[Cadfan]

DM-Rocco- You answer those questions for yourself. I really don't care. I just want to see if you can place a CR on this hypothetical creature.

Look. Essentially, what's going on is this. We've got a DC 20 fort save or die effect. As players go up in level, their only defense against this is their increasing fortitude save. What likelihood of success makes encountering this effect good game design?

I'll be up front about what I expect that we'll find. We'll find that for many levels, the likelihood is too high that the monster starts killing characters left and right. We'll find that for some levels, the fighters and high fort characters can encounter the monster with low likelihood of death, but at these levels the wizards and rogues will still drop like flies. And then finally we'll find that at a certain point, the fighter only dies on a 1, and the wizards and rogues have a small but real chance of death.

In the first set of levels, the encounter is unbalanced.

In the second set, the encounter only balances if the monster is deemed very stupid, and intentionally attacks the characters most likely to survive its attack.

And in the third set, the monster will be an annoying anti-climax. It will have to be killed quickly because the chance that someone will roll a 1 is too high to accept, but it will kill characters so rarely that when it DOES kill a character, everyone will be angry that they died due to a fluke natural 1.

I don't think the effect balances. It bypasses secondary defenses, like ability scores and hit points, which means that it all comes down to one die roll no matter your level or your stats. I don't think that a high odds or low odds die roll is going to be satisfying. I think that no matter what you do, the encounter will suck.

Suggesting that CR is not to blame, monster design is. Or rather, save-or-die design.

 

[Raven Crowking]

So all those chess masters who see checkmate coming five or six or seven moves away and concede - they just don't know anything about the game? Is that it?

Not at all; they simply know their opponent will take advantage of their mistake. They make a mistake, see that they made a mistake, and know that the one move has now cost them the game. If they thought that other moves could save the game, they would not concede.

RC

 

[Geron Raveneye]

The difference is, the gambler chose to make that bet. Players don't choose to have to save or die - it's something that's forced on them over the course of mid-high level D&D play. It's not the same thing at all.

From your point of view maybe not. From where I stand? Nobody forces you to play D&D. Playing it means you bet the life of your character on the roll of the dice and his own abilities. Just because death doesn't always come parceled out in neat little packages of hit point damage doesn't mean you aren't gambling with the life of your character every time you go into a confrontation.

And by the way, all this "one die roll" rethoric is a lot of shadow-boxing, in my opinion. If you really assign that much difference to another roll of the dice or two before your character croaks, I'm pretty sure we won't find any common ground on which to stand, which makes further discussions pretty much useless. To me, there isn't that much difference between saying "The bodak's eyes bore into yours, piercing your soul to the very core and...make a Fort save...you escape a final death by a hair's breadth." and saying "The enraged minotaur barbarian swings his double-bladed greataxe at your cleric and...*sound of rolling dice*...splits him in half by causing 63 points of damage." Sure, there was an attack roll, a confirmation roll and a damage roll before that announcement, but they were all mine, not yours, and the end is the same. And I'd say the chance of critting somebody with a greataxe is about as great as randomly meeting a bodak and failing your saving throw.

So? There only needs to be one, you know. Well, two - one arcane and one divine. The existence of just one arcane and one divine save-or-die spell means that any spellcaster above a certain level can throw a save-or-die. What's special about a power if every spellcaster in the world above 6th or 8th level has access to it?

Right...especially since 6th or higher level casters are a dime a dozen. Arcane spells don't jump around to the caster's mind just because, like they do with clerics, either. And the whole unlimited spell access of clerics is a completely different can of worms.

 

[Reynard]

Look. Essentially, what's going on is this. We've got a DC 20 fort save or die effect. As players go up in level, their only defense against this is their increasing fortitude save.

No, it's not. What many of us are suggesting is that a combination of ingame resources and good play can act as defenses against the save or die creature. You're continuing under the pretense that the save or die creature always wins initiative, or can't be killed or countered.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

I design a monster that has an ability which inflicts on an opponent a DC 20 fortitude save. Failure kills the target. Its a magical effect that has no other roll to hit, and occurs at range.

1) At what level is this monster an appropriate encounter for a character? If you don't want to answer with a particular level, just answer with the fort save you think a character should have at the point where this monster is an appropriate encounter. Please specify whether the fortitude save you've given is the expected low fortitude save for the group, or the expected high fortitude save.

Could you specify a little more, please? What kind of encounter are you talking about? A random encounter, a planned encounter, one where the characters have a chance of knowing what's ahead or one that's getting them by surprise?

 

[DM-Rocco]

Alright, I'm getting close to tossing out insults.

Go read my post at 394. Someone needs to answer Question 1 from that post. I've asked multiple times. I've explained earlier in this thread why I think the question can't be answered. If no one can answer that question, then someone needs to explain why its the wrong question.

Because from where I'm sitting, if no one can answer it, its basically a concession that the CR system is NOT to blame, save-or-die is.

I'd rewrite the question, but then I'd get answers to the rewrite, and not the original question, which I tried to write out in decent detail.

Would I be right in assuming that your view of proper use of a save-or-die effect is to place it in a situation where the players do not actually have to save-or-die, but where they feel frightened that they might in the future? Because your examples of proper use of save-or-die spells and effects invariably involve situations where the party has some means of never having to actually roll the save. Sometimes its death ward, sometimes its magical rings, sometimes its fighting with their eyes closed. How frequently do you feel that players, who are in general playing well and not doing anything stupid, should have to actually make the roll and either save, or die?

Using a SoD effect should not be a common every battle thing and it should not be a Bodak locked in a closet type thing. It should be used for dramatic effect and also to illustrate the power that some people have. It should not be used only for story and it should not be used in every encounter. It should drive the story and be used sparingly. It should be used both when the players are expecting it but also as a surprise element when they are not.

Basically it is a judgement call on the part of the DM. I mostly use it to illustrate the power that some people have over lifeor death and yes, at higher levels (14 of higher) there are more surprise uses of SoD effects than at lower levels. At lower levels, if I use a SoD effect it is one of the friendlier ones like Phantasmal Killer that has more than one chance for the PC to survive. At mid levels I might use a cloud kill or circle of death. Most of the PCs will not have to make the SoD roll but instead take other damage. One or more might not have enough HD to avoid such a roll and if they don't have protection they will have to make the SoD saving throw. For encounters like this I don't usually give them a lot of warning unless the whole party would have to make a SoD roll. Then I might give a bit more in the clues area and less of the, "Surprise, the boss is a necromancer," type of thing. At higher levels, say somewhere around 12 or higher, the party should have high saving throws and protections. Not all will and not all care. It is like fortified armor, I love to make myself immune to crits by getting 100% fortification on my armor but not everyone does. By now the PCs know that if they face a caster there is a good chance that a SoD spell is coming. They will either have to kill the caster quickly or have protection. I still don't just throw them out randomly or all the time, but during an adventure or module it would be likely that they would encounter at least one person who will throw out one, maybe two SoD effects. If they have no effect, the caster would either dispell the protections and try again, giving the PCs two rounds to kill the caster, or just try more effective spells like force cage, imprisonment, maze or the like.

SoD effects and spells, like everything in the game, are a judgement call. Depending on the level of the PCs the way you handle then varies. If you want a clearer answer, make up four characters with gear at level 4, 8, 12, 16 and 20. Place then in a senerio with a creature or spellcaster that can use a SoD effect or spell. Ask yourself how many people are going to be effected and of those, what are the odds that they can survive? If you give me exact details of the party and monster or spells being used I would be glad to offer you advice on how to make good use of a SoD effect or spell in the game.

 

[Simia Saturnalia]

I'm at work and I spent enough time for today answering with long answers, but the short answer is that when I started in 1st edition none of us new anything and it all came down to trial error. I would suspect either the PCs get lucky and no one dies or the DM realizes taht something is a miss and learns the hard way that CR is not always right.

Early game design - like 1e - was nothing but trial and error. Why some gamers persist on pursuing the error is beyond me.