Players, DMs and Save or Die

[hong]

Men & Magic, p. 31

Yes, that's right. It wasn't built for instakills even then.

 

[Hussar]

Actually, it only results in at least one 1 64% of the time. The chance of rolling 1 on ndn is always ~63% after the die size gets above about a d10.

The chance of rolling 1 on ndn is specifically 1-((n-1/n)^n). It approaches a limit around .63 as n approaches infinity. Of course, if you roll more than n times, the chances go up significantly, and approach 100% as the number of rolls approaches infinity.


Well, 63% of the time, which is still not great.

Ok, 2/3rds of the time then. Sigh. I fuggin hate math. In any case, it's still too freaking high! An EL Par encounter should not give me a fatality 2/3rds of the time.

Thanks Doc. I'm not a math guy. It's nice to know the actual numbers.

The CR system was never meant to be that perfect. Even if it had been, you didn't have to play with it long to discover that it wasn't--whether "save or die" is there or not. If you keep expecting CR to be even close to perfect, the eliminating "save or die" isn't going to stop your disappointment.

Perfect or not, an EL par encounter that is lethal twice as often as it is not is FAR outside the scope of CR. It's far outside the scope of any metric. A stock encounter - and that's what an EL par encounter is - should not be that lethal.

 

[Ahglock]

That's my point. SoD disproportionately kills PC's based on the challenge. A CR 8 encounter vs an 8th level party should NOT result in a fatality. It should be a fairly easy fight. Yet, because of SoD, I've got a reasonable chance of killing at least 1 PC. It's far and away too powerful.



Umm... Symbol of Death:


A fair bit more powerful than 65 hit points.

Um wow, I forgot how lame that was. Which basically means to me Symbol is poorly balanced, not that the idea behind it is. If it killed 100 points and didn't skip unavailable targets and was in fact wasted and consumed upon them then its balanced.

 

[Hussar]

Heck, for another example, let's give take a CR 13 encounter made of bodaks. That's 5 bodaks. According to the doc, that's 20 saving throws in the first round, so, 66% chance of PC fatality, regardless of their level. Even 20th level PC's suffer this same chance of death.

In creatures with SoD effects, 5 Cr 8's making up a CR 13 encounter is a soft ball encounter. 13th level PC's will steamroll this encounter since CR8's simply can't hit hard enough to matter. Yet, if I use bodaks, I wind up with a high chance of lethality.

This is why SoD is just lame. It can't really be taken into account when building encounters. Sure, you can soft pedal the encounter, give the PC's every advantage, but, you still run into that whole 5% chance/PC/Round. You can't really get around that. Or, if they do get around it, then the encounter is a snore fest mopping of the badguy that you've spent the last three sessions giving information about to the PC's.

Not my idea of a great monster design.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Not my idea of a great monster design.

I really begin more and more to like the idea of fundamentally different "Monster Scopes".

The every-day monster - Goblins, Ghuls, Trolls, probably even Dragon. They are represented with regular monster statistics.

The "Encounter Monster" - Monsters that can no longer be represented with a single monster statistics. Sea Serpents that swallow whole ships, Tentacled Monster that want to escape the Hellmouth. They are represented by a combination of several effects like environmental effects, hazards and even monsters.

The "Adventure Monster" - The Monster itself might be represented by a "Every-Day" monster or an "Encounter Monster", but it has a special ability or weakness that must be discovered as part of an adventure, otherwise there is no hope of success. Finding out the Cult Leader is a Medusa, discovering the True Death of a Wrathful Spirit haunting the Town.
These monsters might have Save or Die (or even just "Die") effects or be totally immune to damage, but the whole purpose of the story is to defeat this ability before you actually engage them.

(Bodaks are a bit lame for an adventure monster, because you can "accidently" have the correct ability to defeat them - prepared and cast a Death Ward.)

 

[Hussar]

I really begin more and more to like the idea of fundamentally different "Monster Scopes".

The every-day monster - Goblins, Ghuls, Trolls, probably even Dragon. They are represented with regular monster statistics.

The "Encounter Monster" - Monsters that can no longer be represented with a single monster statistics. Sea Serpents that swallow whole ships, Tentacled Monster that want to escape the Hellmouth. They are represented by a combination of several effects like environmental effects, hazards and even monsters.

The "Adventure Monster" - The Monster itself might be represented by a "Every-Day" monster or an "Encounter Monster", but it has a special ability or weakness that must be discovered as part of an adventure, otherwise there is no hope of success. Finding out the Cult Leader is a Medusa, discovering the True Death of a Wrathful Spirit haunting the Town.
These monsters might have Save or Die (or even just "Die") effects or be totally immune to damage, but the whole purpose of the story is to defeat this ability before you actually engage them.

(Bodaks are a bit lame for an adventure monster, because you can "accidently" have the correct ability to defeat them - prepared and cast a Death Ward.)

The problem with medusae is that there are also magical work arounds. Blindsight magic works.

About the only one you can't really work around is a cockatrice. And, I'm sure there's a protection from petrification spell around somewhere.

 

[Cadfan]

I don't mind Mustrum Ridcully's example of an "encounter monster" in which part of the encounter is discovering and negating aspects of the monster. I've used things like that before- a (functionally) unstoppable golem, for example, programmed to guard a particular door who attacks anyone not dressed like a priest from an ancient religion.

But there are caveats I have regarding the application of this reasoning to save-or-die.

First, save-or-die is not, has never been, and as long as its implemented in the game even close to how it is now it never will be an "encounter monster" ability. Lets make it clear: Spellcasters Have Save Or Die Spells. Unless we're intending to doom all evil spellcasters to the "encounter monster" category, this doesn't work.

Second, in an "encounter monster" paradigm, there's no reason to give the party a save. The save essentially becomes a "roll dice to avoid plot" effect.

Third, if the encounter solution is casting Death Ward, or casting Silence, or casting any single spell, the encounter design aspect of that particular encounter monster is really lame. We're back in the "I got a laser gun!" "But I got an anti laser gun shield!" territory from when we were 4.

 

[howandwhy99]

Save or Die spells are perfectly legitimate in Miniature Wargames. It's not like you're only playing one character moreover playing them for month after month.

If you want to play roleplaying games without the threat of death, don't get into life threatening situations.

A creature like a Medusa is going to be life threatening. If you are going to face one, prepare for the possibility of your character dying. It's that simple.

Is that "Unfun"? Maybe, but if you play the game without the possibility of losing, how will success mean anything? Isn't this a game about heroes?

I think the problem here isn't that the game is "unfun", but that it no longer requires much skill to play. It emulates Rambo-like fantasy where each Player keeps one character for 100's of combats all of which are stand up, face to face, slugfests with little regard to tactics or strategy at all. It's become so bad, virtually no thought is given about what or who you are face or where you face them. They are actually having to rebuild this back into 4e and good on them for doing that. Unfortunately, I think it may be a game more about picking the right Duke Nuke'm gun for the job and knowing what those guns do to whom as the actual skill element in the game.

In contrast, our low level characters killed dozens of powerful orcs by burning poisoned wood inside their cave entrance and covering it with a tarp. Not one swing swung. Was that cheating? Or "badwrongfun"? Or was it playing the game as a world vs. as a toe-to-toe slugfest? IMO, a 20th level hero should lose in such a contest against a Titan. Not for the game levels to statistically make the PC a Titan.

 

[hong]

Save or Die spells are perfectly legitimate in Miniature Wargames. It's not like you're only playing one character moreover playing them for month after month.

If you want to play roleplaying games without the threat of death, don't get into life threatening situations.

Not applicable in a game that's about killing monsters and taking their stuff.

Is that "Unfun"? Maybe, but if you play the game without the possibility of losing, how will success mean anything?

Success in D&D means something?

 

[howandwhy99]

Success in D&D means something?

I call it Fun. Beating my enemies without even needing to try? Why even have Challenge Ratings at all? Or Death as a condition?

Maybe we should make it an NPC only condition? Wouldn't that be the highest level of fun?