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"'Kill it before it grows'...he said 'Kill it before it grows'..."
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<blockquote data-quote="Dausuul" data-source="post: 5777403" data-attributes="member: 58197"><p>As regards the third item... one approach I can see working is to corral all the "save-or-lose" effects into a handful of monsters and spells and put a big fat "USE WITH CAUTION" notice on them. The vast majority of monsters don't need instant-death effects. Poison doesn't have to take effect instantly, and in fact it's grossly unrealistic to have it do so. Most spells can take a few seconds to kick in.</p><p></p><p>If instant death or paralysis are limited to a few monsters where it's really thematically appropriate, and those monsters are called out so we don't grab them "off the rack" and only realize mid-combat that we're about to kill somebody on a bad die roll, I think it'd be okay. As for the spells, they could be limited to targeting enemies of lower level than you. So you can <em>power word kill</em> a regular monster, but you can't do it in the big boss fight.</p><p></p><p>Although I still think that anywhere you're going to put an insta-kill effect, you should have the guts to not give a saving throw. If you want a medusa to petrify enemies the instant they look at it, that's what it should do, period. Then DMs and game designers both have to face up to the possible consequences; no hiding behind "you shoulda rolled better."</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Dausuul, post: 5777403, member: 58197"] As regards the third item... one approach I can see working is to corral all the "save-or-lose" effects into a handful of monsters and spells and put a big fat "USE WITH CAUTION" notice on them. The vast majority of monsters don't need instant-death effects. Poison doesn't have to take effect instantly, and in fact it's grossly unrealistic to have it do so. Most spells can take a few seconds to kick in. If instant death or paralysis are limited to a few monsters where it's really thematically appropriate, and those monsters are called out so we don't grab them "off the rack" and only realize mid-combat that we're about to kill somebody on a bad die roll, I think it'd be okay. As for the spells, they could be limited to targeting enemies of lower level than you. So you can [i]power word kill[/i] a regular monster, but you can't do it in the big boss fight. Although I still think that anywhere you're going to put an insta-kill effect, you should have the guts to not give a saving throw. If you want a medusa to petrify enemies the instant they look at it, that's what it should do, period. Then DMs and game designers both have to face up to the possible consequences; no hiding behind "you shoulda rolled better." [/QUOTE]
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