The ethics of ... death

[Ahnehnois]

Only because it doesn't work. If it performed its stated goal well enough it would be excellent.

I'm skeptical that its stated goal is realistically achievable.

This is correct. Which is precisely why I don't like 3.5e anymore. I don't like so much unpredictability.

Your preferences are your own, but I don't think I want to see the converse, i.e. a "predictable" game.

That's true. But say I only give you the names of monsters that I've made up and you've never seen before. Monster A and Monster B. Which one will kill the PCs and which one will be a cake walk for them?

I really don't need to be told that.

I'm just stating that there were definitely people at WOTC who believed that the EL/CR system was in fact a rule. They made us use the rule explicitly because they wanted Living Greyhawk to be a campaign that felt like "baseline" D&D. Which means the rules as designed.

In your example, you indicated that their average EL was significantly higher than what the DMG recommends, if I understood it correctly. Which would suggest that even they realized that a "challenging" encounter as described in the DMG was often too easy to provide any meaningful enjoyment. It also seems to me that those organized play situations impose a variety of rules that are more restrictive than the game itself; I don't think that anyone believes that the rules themselves require that the party faces a particular mix of challenges.

The rules don't need to be followed. But they WERE rules.

In Living Greyhawk, they were rules. In the game of D&D itself, they're guidelines or suggestions. The section in the DMG is pretty clear about that, and even there quite a few limitations are acknowledged.

I don't suggest following those guidelines, but regardless of whether one does or not, they are not rules.

I'd prefer my job be much easier. I'd like to 1. look in a book 2 minutes before the game starts, 2. find a monster of the correct level/CR/whatever and say alright, this should be a fun fight with some danger, and say 3. "Let's do this".

Numbers added. Personally, I'd rather skip steps 1 and 2 and get straight to 3.

That's the problem with CRs. They are self-justifying. You can't really know how unnecessary they are until you try playing a game where they're ignored and see that it works.

One issue with 3e's CR system is that PC builds and tactics are far superior in 2013 to those in 2000. The CR system is most likely correct for a PHB-only game where the cleric uses most of his spells for healing, the druid doesn't have natural spell, the wizard is a blaster, and the fighter takes weapon focus and specialization.

Even using those very strict limitations I don't think it is. There are just way too many variables. A four fighter party is enormously different from a four cleric party (or any other mix). A party built for monster hunting is different than a party built for urban intrigue. Equipment varies enormously. Situational factors and tactics vary enormously. Monsters and NPCs vary enormously.

And how many people ever played the game that way?

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I'm skeptical that its stated goal is realistically achievable.

I think D&D Next is very close to achieving it.

Your preferences are your own, but I don't think I want to see the converse, i.e. a "predictable" game.

See above, I think D&D Next has basically done it by making magic items optional, making the rules for monsters and PCs different, carefully creating combat stats for monsters, and constraining attack bonuses for PCs while limiting spellcasting.

So far, every encounter I've run has had its difficulty predicted by the different between the monster's level and the PCs.

In your example, you indicated that their average EL was significantly higher than what the DMG recommends, if I understood it correctly. Which would suggest that even they realized that a "challenging" encounter as described in the DMG was often too easy to provide any meaningful enjoyment. It also seems to me that those organized play situations impose a variety of rules that are more restrictive than the game itself; I don't think that anyone believes that the rules themselves require that the party faces a particular mix of challenges.

I do. I ran my game like this before I ever even knew what LG was. It required basically no adjustments to write LG adventures.

As for the EL thing, the issue was that PCs started off at one power level where the CR/EL system worked fairly well. Then, as players became more accustomed to the rules and learned to powergame, they became more and more powerful. In addition, each book that came out caused power creep for the players.

Authors just learned that it was possible to increase the difficulty of an encounter without increasing it's CR(which means it's EL stayed the same). This shouldn't be possible, since CR is supposed to be a measure of difficulty. But it was, so authors learned to use the holes in the EL/CR rules to increase the challenge without breaking the rules.

Though, this was always a large debate. Since a player would show up with a character created entirely from the PHB and would die the first adventure they played in because of how weak they were compared to the rest of the players. The CR guidelines DID work for their character. And since the adventure writer "bent" the CR guidelines in order to make the monsters more powerful, it was a guaranteed death for this type of character.

In Living Greyhawk, they were rules. In the game of D&D itself, they're guidelines or suggestions. The section in the DMG is pretty clear about that, and even there quite a few limitations are acknowledged.

It explains not to use monsters too high or too low because it'll be too hard or too easy for the PCs. It says the XP you give PCs is based on the difficulty of the monster compared to the power of the group, which is it's CR. You can't give out XP(or you make a mockery of the idea of the XP system) if you don't acknowledge that CR is a measure of difficulty.

I mean, it's difficult to say that any rule that says "Here's how difficult monsters are, be warned if you use enemies more difficult than X, you will likely kill off the PCs...be warned. Because of this, we won't give you XP for anything above this level, since it's impossible for the PCs to win if you run that encounter. We recommend not killing off the PCs playing in your game since it can be no fun, therefore here is the percentage of each difficulty encounter we suggest using in your game to provide a good mix of easy and hard encounters" is a RULE. It's a statement of fact with some advice attached to it.

You are correct that nothing in the game requires you to run a game with 60%(or whatever it was) encounters with EL=APL. Though, the book gives very good reasons why you SHOULD(which were once again ruined by the fact that CR didn't work, but that's another story).

Then again, nothing in the rules says you HAVE to have a 1d6 per level damage on fireball. It just suggests that damage is the most balanced for the game.

They are guidelines the same way every word written in the book is a guideline.

Agreed, 100% if that's what we're calling everything else in the book.

Numbers added. Personally, I'd rather skip steps 1 and 2 and get straight to 3.

That's the problem with CRs. They are self-justifying. You can't really know how unnecessary they are until you try playing a game where they're ignored and see that it works.

Here's the problem. I've done that. My 2nd edition games were FILLED with incidents of me doing a Total Party Kill with monsters I had NO idea were going to be that hard. A couple of times I had to write contrived ways to save the PCs when I wanted the campaign to continue.

I also broke the guidelines and ran a couple of APL+5 and APL+6 encounters in my home game with equally bad effects. I killed everyone without really meaning to. It wasn't very fun for anyone and I decided to stick to the guidelines in the future.

 

[Ahnehnois]

See above, I think D&D Next has basically done it by making magic items optional, making the rules for monsters and PCs different, carefully creating combat stats for monsters, and constraining attack bonuses for PCs while limiting spellcasting.

Haven't looked at their monsters very hard, but that definitely lowers my opinion of 5e.

I mean, it's difficult to say that any rule that says "Here's how difficult monsters are, be warned if you use enemies more difficult than X, you will likely kill off the PCs...be warned. Because of this, we won't give you XP for anything above this level, since it's impossible for the PCs to win if you run that encounter. We recommend not killing off the PCs playing in your game since it can be no fun, therefore here is the percentage of each difficulty encounter we suggest using in your game to provide a good mix of easy and hard encounters" is a RULE. It's a statement of fact with some advice attached to it.

You've really changed the intent of that section. It's not worded nearly that strongly. Nothing says that your characters will die (because, as you know, they often won't). I mean, as far as I'm concerned, those pages of the DMG are total garbage and I never learned that part of the book very well, but even looking at now it's pretty clear that the writers at the time weren't very confident in it, and didn't want it to be taken too literally.

And none of that stuff is on the SRD or part of open content either; I'd argue that anything that's not there isn't really part of the core of the game, especially given how many people (and companies) use the SRD as a primary resource.

Agreed, 100% if that's what we're calling everything else in the book.

I do.

I mean, my D&D characters rarely look anything like what one would make from the original PHB. The game is about creating your own experience. The rules are suggestions; they're not inherent to the game like the rules of, say, basketball or chess. If you double dribble, or move a piece where it isn't allowed, that's breaking the rules. If I choose to play a game where Fireball does 2d6/level, I'm still playing D&D.

I do, however, think that the DMG contains suggestions that are much more vague, much more open to interpretation, and much less likely to be used as written than the stuff in the PHB.

Here's the problem. I've done that. My 2nd edition games were FILLED with incidents of me doing a Total Party Kill with monsters I had NO idea were going to be that hard. A couple of times I had to write contrived ways to save the PCs when I wanted the campaign to continue.

I see nothing terribly wrong with contrived survival on occasion. It happens all the time in every venue of adventure fiction.

That said, if you really killed too many PCs, somehow I doubt it was the rules' fault; and you yourself posted above that you had an easier time understanding monster difficulty with 2e than with 3e. An unintentional TPK is likely the result of the DM or the players doing something they shouldn't have. I've done it (only once, I think), and it was pretty clear after the fact that I just created a situation that was unwinnable. That's a mistake on me. Other times, players have gotten a character killed when they clearly shouldn't have attacked in the first place, or when they should have used more defensive tactics or more effective tactics or tried to retreat or negotiate rather than fighting blindly to the death. In any case, none of those scenarios would be ameliorated by anything like a CR/EL system, and the responsibility for the outcome was always with the people at the table.

And to top it off, failure is part of the game; just because a character dies and no one meant it to happen doesn't mean the game is broken. What kind of a game has no losers?

 

[Hussar]

Ok, waded through that. Gonna take one more stab at the cat, just because. I do believe that good game design is not "well someone likes this, therefore it's good game design." That's just lazy justification. There are objective points you can look at to decide whether something is good game design or not. Otherwise, RIFTS becomes the epitome of good game design since it has remained largely unchanged for far longer than any other system. I've heard a lot of things about RIFTS, but, very few people laud its game design.

Why Hussar Believes that SOD is Poor Game Design in a Game with HP Mechanics.

• SOD completely bypasses the mechanics for measuring character survivability. Everything else goes into your hit points. Hit by a sword? Swimming in lava? Falling off a cliff? Everything. But, for some reason, we make this differentiation between one kind of damage and another and it's entirely arbitrary. Why is it SOD when you get bitten by a snake, but, not SOD when you get enveloped in a ball of fire?
  
• SOD makes the game very unpredictable. Actually, that's not true. It makes the game very predictable in some cases. Area of effect SOD effects are almost guaranteed to kill at least one PC. Even single attack SOD effects are going to kill your PC. Exposed to four or five SOD effects, it's virtually guaranteed that your PC will die. With HP ablation, you can withstand dozens, if not hundreds of attacks over the course of the character's career, and not die. But, about five SOD effects is almost certainly going to kill your PC. It breaks game math. It's too powerful.
  
• SOD effects are impossible to judge from a rewards standpoint. How much xp should a creature be worth that has about a 95% chance of killing one PC? Any area of effect SOD has about that chance. Creatures that do HP ablation certainly don't have those kinds of odds. Not against reasonable leveled PC's. A troll does not have a 95% chance of whacking a PC. But a Medusa does.
  
• Related to the above. SoD monsters become one trick ponies. Not always, but, frequently. Above was mentioned a Bodak. Ok. But, a single 3rd level cleric spell and the bodak is now doing a d8+1 damage per round. You can send in the wizard with a club to beat it to death if you want. It's binary. Either it kills a PC or it's a waste of table time.
  
• Even the game designers have realized that SoD was a bad idea. Look at how poison changed from AD&D to 3e. In AD&D, with a few exceptions, if you failed a poison save you died. Every snake, spider and whatnot was a SoD creature. In 3e, it went to stat damage. Why did they change this if SoD was such a great idea?
  
• SoD ignores existing mechanics. We have always had different damage types. From AD&D onward, we've had fire damage and lightning damage, at the very least. Various effects were typed and then shunted into the HP mechanics. But, for some reason, we give special treatment to poisons and other effects. Why? Why not simply go with typed damage? A snake does XdY points of poison damage. If the PC dies, then he was poisoned to death.
  
• SoD is genre breaking. Our heroes bravely square off with dragons, demons and giants. But throw a couple of spiders at them and they turn and run away. The risk/reward is nowhere near high enough to engage the spiders. And it's not like spiders are going to become a non-combat encounter all that often. Sneaking past is a joke when you have a skill system that pretty much tells any armored character that he is not sneaking anywhere. So, our brave heroes hear about a giant ransacking the countryside and gear up, but a single medusa means that they are seriously considering a new line of work.
  
• SoD forces arms races. Typically, but not always, the casters have the counter for the SoD effect - protection from poison/silence spells/whatever. So, whenever SoD critters come up, it's over to the casters to save the day and then the encounter goes from being interesting to being a speed bump.
  

So, no. I do not believe that good game design is reliant on whether or not someone happens to like it. If you cannot justify why something is good game design with anything other than, "Well, it's fun for me", that doesn't make it well designed. Good game design actually means something beyond, "I like it". It means that given mechanics are robust and streamlined. That given mechanics fit with overall mechanics. That given mechanics are not completely arbitrary after thoughts tacked on to Spackle over other systems. SoD is a mechanic that adds lethality to a system (AD&D) where the PC's very quickly outstrip the HP damage mechanics of monsters. Since monsters in AD&D largely cannot actually kill PC's with straight up damage, they added in SoD to make the game more lethal.

 

[Ahnehnois]

• SOD completely bypasses the mechanics for measuring character survivability. Everything else goes into your hit points.

• Not really. There are a variety of sconditions and (in 3e, at least) ability damage.
  

  [*]SOD makes the game very unpredictable.

  Good. Predictability is not a design goal that I'm aware of. That's why we use dice.
  

  [*]SOD effects are impossible to judge from a rewards standpoint.

  Irrelevant. It's just as impossible to judge as everything else.
  

  [*] SoD monsters become one trick ponies.

  Okay. Many monsters have only one effective attack form. Horses just have hoof attacks, so they are literally one trick ponies. No big deal.
  

  [*]Even the game designers have realized that SoD was a bad idea. Look at how poison changed from AD&D to 3e.

  And changed to something other than hp damage, that could render a character helpless or dead regardless of hp. Also note how PC access to SoD was increased, particularly with supplements. They seemed to think alternative ways of harming enemies was a good idea.
  

  [*]SoD ignores existing mechanics.

  Saves are an existing mechanic. Death is an existing mechanic. Are you suggesting that saves are somehow subservient to hit points, and can't function independently?
  

  [*]SoD is genre breaking.

  Not really. Depends which genre I suppose, but plot immunity is somewhere between a Hollywood-ism and a D&D-ism.
  

  [*]SoD forces arms races.

  An arms race, in a combat oriented game? Okay.
  
  

  So, no. I do not believe that good game design is reliant on whether or not someone happens to like it. If you cannot justify why something is good game design with anything other than, "Well, it's fun for me", that doesn't make it well designed. Good game design actually means something beyond, "I like it".

  Okay.
  
  

  It means that given mechanics are robust and streamlined. That given mechanics fit with overall mechanics. That given mechanics are not completely arbitrary after thoughts tacked on to Spackle over other systems.

  Check, check, check.
  
  It's a good mechanic because it utilizes assets that were always in the game but have been underused (saving throws), because it creates more dynamic tactical situations, and because it increases the overall level of challenge in a game that is by default far too easy.

 

[JamesonCourage]

I do believe that good game design is not "well someone likes this, therefore it's good game design." That's just lazy justification.

You didn't actually counter my post that talks about this, you just disagreed. Not much I can say on this bit.

There are objective points you can look at to decide whether something is good game design or not.

As long as you have certain goals in mind for what you want out of the game, yes. Which is what I said. Those goals are probably based on your personal preference, though (and if not, they're based on something else you decide, like what might appeal to most people's preferences, etc.). You can try to objectively see if they fit your goals, but your initial goals are just personal preference.

Why is it SOD when you get bitten by a snake, but, not SOD when you get enveloped in a ball of fire?

I think the idea is that snakes need to be potentially more dangerous, even at high levels. Not 100%, though, as I didn't play any pre-3.X game. But, bypassing HP mechanics aren't necessarily arbitrary. If you want an effect to be more dangerous, to potentially happen regardless of the game's take on HP, etc., then you have strong reasons to bypass HP and institute Save or Die effects.

But, about five SOD effects is almost certainly going to kill your PC. It breaks game math. It's too powerful.

How is this not personal preference? What if the goal is to create an effect / monster / attack / whatever that is that powerful? What if the goal is to kill at least one PC / NPC / Monster / whatever? I can't see how this isn't personal preference.

SOD effects are impossible to judge from a rewards standpoint.

I think rewards based on fights are pretty much based on pacing anyways. Do you want pacing to increase faster than normal when that type of monster / spell / effect is used? If so, then increase XP by the amount you'd like to see. XP for challenges aren't arbitrary, they're a pacing mechanic. If you feel that the SOD effect warrants faster pacing, then do that. If not, then don't. You just use the same reasoning that you do for all other XP rewards based on individual challenges.

Related to the above. SoD monsters become one trick ponies. Not always, but, frequently. Above was mentioned a Bodak. Ok. But, a single 3rd level cleric spell and the bodak is now doing a d8+1 damage per round. You can send in the wizard with a club to beat it to death if you want. It's binary. Either it kills a PC or it's a waste of table time.

This is your preference for non-one trick ponies. That's all it is. Sometimes, a monster / NPC / PC / etc. is only a one trick pony, and that's all you need or want, even from a story perspective. You can dislike that, and that's fine. You can design things so this isn't the case. But this is completely based on preference.

Even the game designers have realized that SoD was a bad idea. Look at how poison changed from AD&D to 3e. In AD&D, with a few exceptions, if you failed a poison save you died. Every snake, spider and whatnot was a SoD creature. In 3e, it went to stat damage. Why did they change this if SoD was such a great idea?

Personal preference (they thought spiders should no longer be as big a threat as they used to be). I should also note that 3.X is full of SOD, still.

Also, "some designers did it in some cases, so it's objective"? I don't get it.

SoD ignores existing mechanics. We have always had different damage types. From AD&D onward, we've had fire damage and lightning damage, at the very least. Various effects were typed and then shunted into the HP mechanics. But, for some reason, we give special treatment to poisons and other effects. Why? Why not simply go with typed damage? A snake does XdY points of poison damage. If the PC dies, then he was poisoned to death.

Addressed this earlier. If the goal is to make the effect / attack / monster / spell / etc. more dangerous, more random, more lethal, etc., then you'd want to bypass potential mountains of HP. It also depends on what HP means in the game, or potentially even at the table. I don't understand the "it's bypassing another mechanic" argument as somehow bad, if it helps accomplish the goal that the designer has in mind.

SoD is genre breaking.

We play entirely different genres. I've never run a game that was "heroic fantasy where the heroes are awesome and will live to the end", nor have I played the Die Hard style people talk about on this site and others, nor the Big Damn Heroes style either.

D&D can be played in different genres. You can advocate for yours, and that's cool, but how is this not personal preference again?

SoD forces arms races. Typically, but not always, the casters have the counter for the SoD effect - protection from poison/silence spells/whatever. So, whenever SoD critters come up, it's over to the casters to save the day and then the encounter goes from being interesting to being a speed bump.

This is a design issue with spellcasters having something that you want shared, not a problem with SOD. Which is personal preference. You can definitely solve these issues, too, while keeping SOD, or even granting it to non-spellcasters (high level martial characters in my RPG can make a SOD attack each round).

So, no. I do not believe that good game design is reliant on whether or not someone happens to like it.

Whereas I think that's pretty obviously the case, since people have to set goals based on personal preferences before trying to objectively judge the system.

If you cannot justify why something is good game design with anything other than, "Well, it's fun for me", that doesn't make it well designed.

Unless the goal was "fun for me", in which case, the mechanics are a success. Which, to me, seems like it's well designed.

Good game design actually means something beyond, "I like it".

True. It means that the mechanics help achieve the result you aimed for. Your aim is just based on personal preference.

It means that given mechanics are robust and streamlined. That given mechanics fit with overall mechanics. That given mechanics are not completely arbitrary after thoughts tacked on to Spackle over other systems.

Your personal preferences. If you created mechanics that fit these criteria, they would be well designed. I mean, really, yes, you can attempt to judge game mechanics objectively. (I say "attempt" because people often let bias seep in.) You just need to set goals for the mechanics to achieve first, and those goals are founded on personal preference. Right? As always, play what you like

 

[Hussar]

How is this not personal preference? What if the goal is to create an effect / monster / attack / whatever that is that powerful? What if the goal is to kill at least one PC / NPC / Monster / whatever? I can't see how this isn't personal preference.

Does the word broken mean anything to you? An effect which completely bypasses the survival mechanics is broken. End of story. It's too powerful, in any hands, whether DM or player.

When is the goal of monster design EVER to kill at least one PC?

It's not a personal preference because it's pretty easy to prove that it's broken. What's the level adjustment on a medusa? Oh, that's right. Doesn't have one because it's not allowed (by the rules anyway) to be a PC. Why not? Because a medusa's gaze attack is way too powerful for any PC to have.

After all, it's just a monstrous humanoid. Virtually every other Monstrous Humanoid has a Level Adjustment, allowing it to be a PC race. Why are Medusa special?

We play entirely different genres. I've never run a game that was "heroic fantasy where the heroes are awesome and will live to the end", nor have I played the Die Hard style people talk about on this site and others, nor the Big Damn Heroes style either.

Umm, since when does removing SOD mean that PC'S will live to the end? Is the only way you kill PC's through SoD effects? Is that the only possible way to kill PC's in your game? If not, then please stop making this presumption about other people's games.

Removing SOD does not mean anything about the lethality of a given campaign. It just removes the blindingly arbitrary and pointless death that it causes.

 

[JamesonCourage]

Does the word broken mean anything to you?

Yes. That something is not functioning how it's intended, in RPG-speak.

An effect which completely bypasses the survival mechanics is broken. End of story.

Consider me unconvinced.

It's too powerful, in any hands, whether DM or player.

In your opinion, obviously. If that's the goal of the mechanic, then it's functioning properly.

When is the goal of monster design EVER to kill at least one PC?

Depends on the monster. If I was creating a monster for my RPG that I wanted to be greatly feared because it would normally kill most people it interacted with, including combat-focused NPCs of the world, I'd certainly give it mechanics to reflect this.

It's not a personal preference because it's pretty easy to prove that it's broken.

Again, if it's serving its intended function (which could be "be more lethal than HP normally allows things to be"), then it's not broken.

It sounds like "broken" means "can kill things instantly" to you (as far as I can tell). As I've said, that's not what it means to me. The "can kill things instantly" is just a SOD effect, and that's not necessarily "broken", as I see it, in RPG-speak.

What's the level adjustment on a medusa? Oh, that's right. Doesn't have one because it's not allowed (by the rules anyway) to be a PC. Why not? Because a medusa's gaze attack is way too powerful for any PC to have.

After all, it's just a monstrous humanoid. Virtually every other Monstrous Humanoid has a Level Adjustment, allowing it to be a PC race. Why are Medusa special?

Not a lot of demand? Not a high priority? LA wasn't well implemented? It was viewed as too powerful for PCs? I don't know. It could be a lot of reasons. I know that, in my level-based fantasy RPG, I could LA it.

Again, is your point "some designers did this thing in this game, so it's objective"? Because I don't follow.

Umm, since when does removing SOD mean that PC'S will live to the end?

Never?

Is the only way you kill PC's through SoD effects?

No.

Is that the only possible way to kill PC's in your game?

Nope, there's also HP, poison, starvation, etc.

If not, then please stop making this presumption about other people's games.

I didn't make that presumption. You assumed I meant something I didn't. I was stating several different styles that are talked about on these boards. You talked about genre; I was expressing that there are many "genres" that you can handle with D&D, and I never touched on these other popular to semi-popular "genres" that other posters on this board talk about. It had nothing to do with "if there's no SOD, then you can't die." It was entirely about your "genre" comment.

Removing SOD does not mean anything about the lethality of a given campaign. It just removes the blindingly arbitrary and pointless death that it causes.

The idea that all SOD is arbitrary or pointless is funny to me. I think I'm starting to see why you're railing against them.

Also, you've not shown how it's a poorly designed mechanic, though. You've just shown that it's not your preference, and that the randomness it brings fails your standards. You can say that it objectively fails your standards, but when your (in the general sense) preference is to add that randomness, then SOD becomes a well implemented mechanic. As always, play what you like

 

[LostSoul]

Good. Predictability is not a design goal that I'm aware of. That's why we use dice.

The choices the players make must be at least partially predictable, otherwise they're not choices; they'd be random meaningless noise.

I don't think save-or-die reduces possible choices into noise. It seems to me that save-or-die works on a strategic level. They create a cost (facing a save-or-die situation) to going into a tactical situation unprepared. Thus you will want to gather information as to how to prepare for those upcoming tactical situations. One of the best ways to do this is to use spells; spells are generally a limited resource, and how you use those resources is a choice. (Should I cast Divination or prepare another Death Ward?)

That being said, it can be difficult, at times, to make spells a limited resource. The best way I can think of to do this is to make time the main resource that PCs have, but I don't think D&D generally does a good job about enforcing this. I think time, and how to use it, deserves its own major chapter in the DMG, listing different ways of using time as a resource for different styles of campaigns.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Does the word broken mean anything to you?

It means that you don't like it.

An effect which completely bypasses the survival mechanics is broken.

Saving throws are clearly a survival mechanic.

When is the goal of monster design EVER to kill at least one PC?

Ever since the game was largely focused on combat and had rules for how characters die, I imagine.

It's not a personal preference because it's pretty easy to prove that it's broken. What's the level adjustment on a medusa? Oh, that's right. Doesn't have one because it's not allowed (by the rules anyway) to be a PC. Why not? Because a medusa's gaze attack is way too powerful for any PC to have.

After all, it's just a monstrous humanoid. Virtually every other Monstrous Humanoid has a Level Adjustment, allowing it to be a PC race.

Many monsters don't. Lots of monstrous humanoids don't. For example, hags don't. Can we arbitrarily conclude that one of the hags' abilities is "broken"? Of course not. Nothing proven there. LA is an arbitrary judgement someone made after the fact to facilitate a nonstandard use of the monster. Monsters often have abilities PCs shouldn't have, but that doesn't make them "broken". And one could quite reasonably invent an LA for a Medusa. LA doesn't mean all that much one way or the other.