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

[Geron Raveneye]

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

Only if you WANT to blame save-or-die, for whatever reason. Personally, I'm blaming monster design philosophy, or for a more general principle the assumption that underlies 3E that everything must be balanced for every occasion, which simply doesn't work in a lot of cases.

 

[Grog]

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.

But according to you, it hasn't. According to you, the game is only decided on the final move which establishes checkmate. So I ask again - are all the chess masters who concede when they see checkmate coming several moves away simply ignorant of how the game really works?

 

[Raven Crowking]

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.

There isn't enough information to answer this question in your post. But, let us assume for the sake of argument, that this monster is otherwise statistically identical to a goblin. Is that fair? You haven't specified how the ability works, either, which would be necessary to answer the question. Let's imagine that it was a 1/day spell (edit: targetting 1 individual), and then imagine that it was a gaze attack, okay?

As a spell, we are creating a sort of one-shot wonder. It uses the ability, you either save or don't save, and then it is killed (regardless of PC level). We are looking, then, at what chance we want to have as to a single PC death. If your group travels with cohorts or hirelings, we might be talking about a single "red shirt" death. Depending upon the group, then, this could be used in various ways from 1st level to about 6th.

1st level PCs generally encounter the creature in a set-up where it shows its power against someone/something else. They then slaughter it (and get XP for a goblin). This now sets up tension for when they see the creature again. By the end of 6th level, using the 3e power curve, they might no longer feel any tension from the creature. I would personally change the DC to about 15, making it more of the 1st-4th level range, depending upon how the encounter is set up and how the group handles problems.

CR is, as I've said, and as WotC has confirmed, always something of a guess. Nonetheless, I would venture to place this creature at CR 3 if it used its ability against the PCs, CR as goblin otherwise.

If this was a gaze attack, this might be the means to create an encounter where the PCs are encouraged to close their eyes and fight. Again, this would be 1st-4th level in range, though one might again lower the DC of the save. Obviously, the save DC would be perfectly fine if you upped the other traits of the monster. It is also perfectly fine if there is ample warning; i.e., if the PCs are deciding between (1) not having the encounter, (2) fighting blind, and (3) risking the gaze attack.

This creature would fall under the "Special: Easy if Handled Properly" category. I would make the creature CR 2.

IMHO, of course. And off the top of my head.

RC

 

[DM-Rocco]

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.

Without that information it is truely impossible to get a good feel for the CR should be. a SoD effect is really different if you have to touch someone to use it and it changes if the creature can effect more than one target. It changes based on HD and abilities scores and weaknesses and immunities.

I think you are trying to get me to put a CR on a creature with a SoD effect equal to a wail of the Banshee, usuable every round on everyone within sight. Such a creature, able to cast round after round of SoD in a simuliar way to Wail of the Banshee would be, assuming decent HD around a CR 17 or so creature. It would have to be because I know that is the trap you are trying to paint me in. Without the relavent information, that is what I would say.

You should cast death ward, and maybe persist it at this level, or get a luck feat or take Steadfast determination (to avoid failing on a 1) or get protection from death effects on your armor if you are that worried about it.

At this level you should have a way of dealing with it and without you filling in the other areas of the monster, I can't tell you what it would be so this whole question is not relavent to anything. You want a better answer, give me more information.

 

[Raven Crowking]

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

All game design is trial and error. Read any of the current WotC comments about 3.5. Just because something is new doesn't mean it is better (nor does it mean it is better because it is old).

What you call "error" others call "a good idea".

And, really, that's how it should be. Unless you imagine that there really is One True Game, of which all the others are mere shadows.

RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

But according to you, it hasn't. According to you, the game is only decided on the final move which establishes checkmate. So I ask again - are all the chess masters who concede when they see checkmate coming several moves away simply ignorant of how the game really works?

Strawman.

Those several moves never happened; they are non-moves. I said that the game comes down to one move, and it does. You're right that I didn't consider a conceded game, but that game is also conceded after one move makes the outcome known to both parties.

This is equivilent to me saying that in D&D, death comes down to one roll: the one that brings you to -10 hp. You can counter that the roll might bring you to 0 Con instead, but they are both still one roll, and it doesn't change the point.

One move is still one move. One roll is still one roll.

Or are you trying to claim that a game of chess still continues after its final move?

RC

 

[Grog]

From your point of view maybe not. From where I stand? Nobody forces you to play D&D.

That's a specious argument if I've ever heard one. This conversation is about save-or-die, not about playing D&D in general.

Playing it means you bet the life of your character on the roll of the dice and his own abilities.

But it does not (necessarily) mean that you bet the life of your character on one single roll of the die.

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.

Actually, that's not true. The chance of randomly meeting an enemy which can take your character from full hit points to -10 or less in one crit, and then actually having that enemy roll a natural 20, then confirm the crit, and then roll enough damage to actually kill your character, is vanishingly small compared to the chance of losing a character to a save-or-die. To take the bodak example, an 8th level wizard or rogue will probably have a +7 Fort save or thereabouts. That means he has a 35% chance of dying to the bodak's death attack. Meanwhile, the chance of dying to a greataxe crit is less than 5% (since there's a 5% chance of a natural 20, and then a confirmation roll and a damage roll after that).

Full-HP-to-dead crits are incredibly rare in D&D, especially in comparison to how ubiquitous save-or-die attacks become at high levels.

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.

Wrong. By the RAW, Wizards get to pick any two spells they want to add to their spellbook when they go up a level. And Sorcerors can of course take any spell they want. Once you hit about 13th level or so (and in many cases, much sooner than that), every CR-appropriate spellcaster you meet is capable of packing save-or-dies.

 

[Benben]

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.

Additionally the party cleric at 10th level will be willing to waste a spell slot on death ward.

 

[Cadfan]

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?

You can pick, as long as you make it explicit. That way we can criticize what you pick. So if you pick "the players know it is coming and there is a special spell that makes this monster's attack not work and the players have purchased multiple copies of this spell on a scroll and scouted out the monster's location before hand and have several rounds to prepare with the special spell," then we can at least know for sure what you mean.

Hopefully, I'm looking for an actual encounter where the monster gets to actually use its attack. But if you feel that this sort of encounter is only acceptable in situations where player preparation makes it so that the monster cannot actually use its attack, go ahead and say so.

 

[Grog]

I said that the game comes down to one move, and it does.

One move in chess is meaningless when divorced from the context of the moves that came before it (except for the opening move, but it's impossible to win the game on the opening move).

If all that matters in chess is one move, as you claim, then answer me this:

Bxe5

Is that a good move, or not?

Will that move win me the game, or won't it?