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<blockquote data-quote="ruleslawyer" data-source="post: 3816857" data-attributes="member: 1757">I think the operative phrase is &quot;bypasses hit points completely.&quot; There's a big difference between an attack that drastically lowers a PC's ablative defenses, and an attack that may kill the PC or not simply depending on a single roll of the dice. Moreover, even in 3e, it has been acknowledged that allowing an appropriate-CR monster to deal enough damage to kill a PC with a single hit is poor design (note the swapping out of greataxes for falchions in the orc description between 3.0 and 3.5). 4e tightens this up further by giving 1st-level PCs some more hit points, meaning that a single swing shouldn't be enough to drop a PC.Save-or-dies, as Celebrim said, disrupt encounter design by bypassing the ablative mechanic of hp entirely. A single roll (and, currently, it is almost always a single roll) suffices to kill a PC in the case of stuff like finger of death, slay living, or even hold person. It would be nice to provide a means to not make lives hinge on a single roll of the dice in Round 1 of combat in a large variety of situations. Should encounters be tense and provide the potential for PC death and critical turnabout? Sure. Should the PCs (or the villains) be subject to random one-shot kills with no tactical buildup? IMHO, no.And I prefer defenses against death, whether they be modifications to the save-or-die effects, fate points, or whatever, to death + resurrection. Getting whacked and coming back from the dead repeatedly is, well, [Godwin's Law]too videogamey[/Godwin's Law] for my tastes.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="ruleslawyer, post: 3816857, member: 1757"] I think the operative phrase is "bypasses hit points completely." There's a big difference between an attack that drastically lowers a PC's ablative defenses, and an attack that may kill the PC or not simply depending on a single roll of the dice. Moreover, even in 3e, it has been acknowledged that allowing an appropriate-CR monster to deal enough damage to kill a PC with a single hit is poor design (note the swapping out of greataxes for falchions in the orc description between 3.0 and 3.5). 4e tightens this up further by giving 1st-level PCs some more hit points, meaning that a single swing shouldn't be enough to drop a PC. Save-or-dies, as Celebrim said, disrupt encounter design by bypassing the ablative mechanic of hp entirely. A single roll (and, currently, it is almost always a single roll) suffices to kill a PC in the case of stuff like finger of death, slay living, or even hold person. It would be nice to provide a means to not make lives hinge on a single roll of the dice [b]in Round 1 of combat in a large variety of situations[/b]. Should encounters be tense and provide the potential for PC death and critical turnabout? Sure. Should the PCs (or the villains) be subject to random one-shot kills with no tactical buildup? IMHO, no. And I prefer defenses against death, whether they be modifications to the save-or-die effects, fate points, or whatever, to death + resurrection. Getting whacked and coming back from the dead repeatedly is, well, [Godwin's Law]too videogamey[/Godwin's Law] for my tastes. [/QUOTE]

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