Mearls Monster Makeover: Beholder

[delericho]

Being taken out at the start of what turns out to be a long combat can quite easily be called "boring". If you get taken out a few rounds before the fight stops then there isn't a problem. If the fight goes on for another 1/2 hour (or more) you then have a player just sitting there... because of a single die roll.

And I think that is the problem Mearls has been trying to remove.

As someone else mentioned, if he wants to fix the problems with save-or-die effects, he should fix the save-or-die effects.

And I'm definately of the opinion that something should be done, because as was indicated, being taken out of the game for a single bad roll isn't a lot of fun, and as Mike said there's also the problem that most of these effects are all or nothing deals. (In the worst case, this gives DMs a dilemma: fudge the dice to give his BBEG a successful save and thus cheat the players, or don't fudge the dice and see the anti-climax of having your BBEG killed off in one attack.)

However, I'm also of the opinion that fixing these effects would represent a change at least as fundamental as the polymorph changes, if not moreso, and I feel that changes of that scale are simply too extreme for anything short of a new revision. Of course, YMMV.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Seems like the bit about facing is just trying to make somethign out of a non-issue to up his word count. By "B-O-R-I-N-G", I think he means "unsuitable for miniatures combat". Indeed, I get the feeling that the entire purpose of this redesign (much like the others) was to create creatures and abilities that fit nicely onto a DDM card with easy to resolve effects in a minatures game rather than an RPG.

What isn't boring about having to sit around waiting until your friends manage to drag your petrified corpse back to town so the wizard can go looking for a stone to flesh spell to unpetrify you? I think that sort of effect is more suitable for something like DDM than for an RPG, because in a minis combat, each player controls more than one mini (eliminating the problem of having your only character put out of commission), and if a mini is petrified, it's effectively out of the game, so you just remove the mini and don't worry about a remedy.

I looks as though by trying to remove save-or-die effects, he's making the game more suitable for RPG play, rather than less. In an RPG, effects that hinder characters while leaving them in play are better than effects that remove characters from play. In DDM, both are good, since it doesn't matter to anyone's fun whether a character is removed from play. If you're playing D&D, and because of one bad saving throw you have to sit around for four hours waiting for the party to get back to town to buy the diamond dust they need to cast Raise Dead on you, that sucks. If instead of dying outright, you are damaged or hindered, you have a chance to get back in the action before too long.

Can someone explain why I might be wrong? Why does removing save-or-die effects make D&D more like DDM? Aren't save-or-die effects (or just simply die effects) more suitable for games in which your characters are essentially expendable?

I think that the design decisions on these sorts of subjects have been good. It's like that article on reactive traps. Which is cooler to have happen in a game?:

PC: I walk down the hallway
DM: As you do that, you spring a blade trap (roll) that hits you for (roll) 7 points of damage.
PC: ow.

or

DM: Opening the door, you see that the next hallway is full of spinning blades. It looks like you could make it through, if you're very careful.

In the first case, damage appeared out of nowhere. In the second case it's not just random damage occurring. It's a challenge.

 

[diaglo]

Which is cooler to have happen in a game?:

PC: I walk down the hallway
DM: As you do that, you spring a blade trap (roll) that hits you for (roll) 7 points of damage.
PC: ow.

or

DM: Opening the door, you see that the next hallway is full of spinning blades. It looks like you could make it through, if you're very careful.

In the first case, damage appeared out of nowhere. In the second case it's not just random damage occurring. It's a challenge.

the first one is way cooler.
it makes a trap... well.. a trap.

the second is st00pid. why would anyone build a hallway with blades spinning in the middle?

 

[Knight Otu]

...miniatures...

I hate* ruining perfectly good conspiracy theories with facts, but the beholder has already been translated into the miniatures game.

*not actually true.

 

[I'm A Banana]

he said hack not hackneyed

*rimshot*

 

[Endur]

The anti-magic ray was the core of the old beholder, that and lots of ray armed eye stalks.

I'm ok with changing the 10 eye stalks, but I did not like the change to the anti-magic ray.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

the first one is way cooler.
it makes a trap... well.. a trap.

the second is st00pid. why would anyone build a hallway with blades spinning in the middle?

To keep people from going down the hallway without permission, perhaps? I didn't invent the "spinning blade hallway." It's a old fantasy standby. And it provides both a challenge to players and a cinematic angle on the concept of a trap.

If you really want to have the DM just rolling for random damage without warning every once in a while, and call that fun, that's your business.

If I were going to design a reactive trap that didn't suck, however, I'd model mine off some of the old AD&D modules like White Plume Mountain, in which there were complicated trap rooms that had a system that could be figured out and/or disabled. Much better than "(roll) ow (roll) ow (roll) ow."

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

I hate* ruining perfectly good conspiracy theories with facts, but the beholder has already been translated into the miniatures game.

*not actually true.

Aww... you'll spoil all their fun. Oh well, at least they can still complain that it makes the beholder too video-gamey.

 

[Lanefan]

What isn't boring about having to sit around waiting until your friends manage to drag your petrified corpse back to town so the wizard can go looking for a stone to flesh spell to unpetrify you? I think that sort of effect is more suitable for something like DDM than for an RPG, because in a minis combat, each player controls more than one mini (eliminating the problem of having your only character put out of commission)

Play. Two. Characters.

Or have henches. Or have NPC party members. Whatever.

In other words, know going in that sometimes you're gonna die, and make the requisite arrangements ahead of time to have something else to play - or at least roll for - during such times.

Lanefan

 

[Felix]

What isn't boring about having to sit around waiting until your friends manage to drag your petrified corpse back to town so the wizard can go looking for a stone to flesh spell to unpetrify you?

It is boring.

But what isn't boring is the idea that while you're still alive you know there's a real possibility that you might die. There's that valid threat that creates excitement and anxiety. Sure, dying sucks. But removing the possibility of it happening like *that* to you, makes me feel like DnD has been covered in these. And that I don't like.

Which is cooler to have happen in a game?:

PC: I walk down the hallway
DM: As you do that, you spring a blade trap (roll) that hits you for (roll) 7 points of damage.
PC: ow.

or

DM: Opening the door, you see that the next hallway is full of spinning blades. It looks like you could make it through, if you're very careful.

I'd rather the first. Because if I were going to keep people out of the room the hallway leads to, I'd either a) not build a hallway there in the first place, or, assuming a hallway, b) lure the unsuspecting into a sense of safety and then gut them; this means a hidden trap.

If people were regularly supposed to get into that room (meaning, there's a reason I have a hallway going there in the first place), then I wouldn't put a bunch of spinning blades in the way that would interfere. Are there guards patrolling the halls? Well, I would have to make sure my guards didn't die. If I had the hallway trapped, I could let them know about the safety switch riiiiiiight *there*, so they wouldn't get hacked.

What would I do with a room nobody was supposed to get to? Well, if I'm a wizard (and I would be), I'd have hallways leading to empty room. From whence I'd Dimension Door 400ft down to. That would be the room everyone wants to get to.

I mean, if you want the PCs to know what the challenge is they're facing, what's the point of Illusions?