L&L 3/05 - Save or Die!

[Incenjucar]

You have misread it.

It's an IF ... THEN statement.

It doesn't say that the gaze will reduce you to 25 HP.

Nope. It reduces your HP by 75. in 4E, once reduced to 0HP you only die when you fail three saves or take 50% of your max HP in damage. A 100hp PC effectively has 150HP to survive on outside of healing.

If you have 100hp, that means this ability takes off 25HP+50HP=75HP.

 

[Sunseeker]

I like the idea of certain very powerful spells requiring lower health in order to function. Granted the biggest problem as he points out is that players will need metagame information such as enemy HP values. The spell won't just light up on our spell bar when we get the monster low enough. Of course, this also depends on how the DM plays things, some DMs are OK with giving out monster HP, others might play it up a little bit.

I think this is a feature that could tie into a "bloodied"-like condition, that way players wouldn't need to be given explicit information like HP, but only a general idea of the monster's status. IE: "The monster lets out a wailing cry of agony from it's grievous wounds!" *psst: it's now bloodied*


Spells or abilities that would one-shot a full-health player or a monster(provided there isn't a massive power difference between the two) are IMO, not fun.

 

[Incenjucar]

Simply circumventing the "dying" phase and causing 0HP to finish off a PC would be terrifying all by itself.

 

[Savage Wombat]

Nope. It reduces your HP by 75. in 4E, once reduced to 0HP you only die when you fail three saves or take 50% of your max HP in damage. A 100hp PC effectively has 150HP to survive on outside of healing.

If you have 100hp, that means this ability takes off 25HP+50HP=75HP.

Are you missing a step here? I can't follow this logic at all. Are healing surges involved or something?

 

[Astrosicebear]

Removing certain status effects from the game, paralysis, petrification, insanity, etc, removes the need for the system to handle those effects. In addition, monsters then no longer need these status effect attacks, and everything becomes bland deals HP damage. At the same time, the mechanical needs of the system to handle those status effects disappears as well. Spells and rituals dedicated to dealing with effects become useless. In effect the system becomes bland.

Now, no one was talking about removing those effects, but removing Save or Die is practically the same thing.

I liked Mearl' take on the HP threshold. I also thing many DM's do stay away from save or die monsters, and this would be a good way to get them to challenge their parties without having to worry about bad rolls and TPK's.

It would be easy to list in the new DM that the monsters are presented as basic challenges. If the DM does not wish to use save or die features, do not use them, have them deal damage all the time, and lower the experience the creature gives by 25%.

Additionally, if the DM so wishes to remain true to lore of the monster, remove the HP threshold or increase it to make the monster more challenging. Award 50% more experience for defeating the creature.

 

[Incenjucar]

Are you missing a step here? I can't follow this logic at all. Are healing surges involved or something?

You start at 100 HP.

During the battle you are reduced to 25HP.

At 25 HP, the medusa turns you to stone.

You miss out on the buffer from your negative bloodied value (50HP). In 4E, 0HP puts you into the state of "dying." You don't actually DIE until you reach negative bloodied value or you fail three death saves.

That's effectively 75HP of damage from the medusa's effect.

 

[Savage Wombat]

You start at 100 HP.

During the battle you are reduced to 25HP.

At 25 HP, the medusa turns you to stone.

You miss out on the buffer from your negative bloodied value (50HP). In 4E, 0HP puts you into the state of "dying." You don't actually DIE until you reach negative bloodied value or you fail three death saves.

That's effectively 75HP of damage from the medusa's effect.

OK, see, that was a better way to phrase it. I understand what you're saying now.

It also makes me think that if that's the way 4th Ed battles go, no wonder people complain about fights taking forever.

 

[Kingreaper]

Nope. It reduces your HP by 75. in 4E, once reduced to 0HP you only die when you fail three saves or take 50% of your max HP in damage. A 100hp PC effectively has 150HP to survive on outside of healing.

If you have 100hp, that means this ability takes off 25HP+50HP=75HP.

Being turned to stone is incapacitated, not dead.

I like the idea of people being restored when a medusa dies. If implemented, that would help. It makes more sense than being able to brew a potion using their bodyparts.

(what does a medusa feed on? In my cosmology, it's the tortured souls of those trapped in stone )

 

[Dausuul]

The idea is that a non-injured/exhausted high-level character is able to reliably fight the medusa without gazing at it directly, while less experienced or more wounded/exhausted characters are not.

I agree that the mechanics need a stronger "avoid the gaze" aspect, but using hp threshold as part of those mechanics seems plausible to me.

I guess it comes down to how the ability is worded, then. Something like this could work: "Any creature that looks directly at a medusa turns to stone. Averting one's eyes imposes a -2 penalty on attack rolls. Opponents with less than X hit points must make a save each round to avoid accidentally looking at the medusa."

What worries me is that Wizards, in a misguided effort to make the mechanic "simple," will strip this down to: "Opponents have -2 to attack the medusa*. Opponents with less than X hit points must make a save each round or turn to stone."

In a typical combat, the two are functionally identical, since PCs would presumably choose not to look at the medusa and accept the -2 to hit. But the second version gives the DM no guidance when it comes to narrating the effect, or understanding how to adjudicate corner cases. It would wreck immersion for me.

[SIZE=-2]*Or just add +2 to the medusa's AC.[/SIZE]

 

[BryonD]

When presented with a dial, why not just be happy that you can set it to what you want instead of complaining that it can be adjusted to a setting you don't want?

Because the presence of a dial and the need for the underlying system to account for the dial may make the effect not work as well or as smoothly as it would if it was just hard wired to work correctly in the first place.

And, to be clear, there is a difference between, "I'm unhappy" and "I'll be other there playing that other game that makes me MORE happy."