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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 6157049" data-attributes="member: 22779">No, of course it's not a foregone conclusion.  Failing your saving throw isn't either.  However, you're also presuming a single snake vs an entire party.  This being AD&D, normal snakes appear in groups of 1-6.  But, that's the point - it's rocket tag.  Either we kill the snake before it gets a chance to make some hits, or we almost guarantee a fatality.  Whereas with a normal monster, given the EXACT same setup, the chances of fatality are far, far less.Put it another way.  Single hit is still about 50:50 PC death.  Single hit with a d8 weapon cannot even drop the PC into the negatives.  How's that for being overpowered?  Your PC's best chances of survival are 50:50.  It's interesting though, that you bring up 2nd Edition D&D, in regards to poison.  Here's what the 2e PHB says about Poison:Yet, according to the rules, any poisonous snake that bites a PC has about a 50/50 chance of instantly killing that PC.  The text doesn't match the rules.  Sure, while the priest might have a bit better chance of shrugging off poison, everyone else is worse than 50:50 until 9th (for fighters - everyone else is worse until well into double digit levels), so, in most parties, almost everyone has worse than a 50:50 chance of dying from any poison effect.So, spread it out over time then if you don't like it in a single encounter.  Hit by three poison effects between 1st and 5th level and you're almost guaranteed (about 90%) of dying.  And you don't get neutralize poison until 7th.  Oh, and against the medusa, no one gets better than 50:50 until the fighter at 9th level.  So, again, party of 4 PC's faces a medusa and the chance of PC fatality is very, very close to 100%.See, this is why I don't buy the "oh, it's all a matter of personal preference" argument.  The math just doesn't work.  It doesn't do what proponents want it to do - ie. make combat more random - all it does is yank the chance of PC death way too high.You'd get exactly the same effect by tripling the damage output of any monster.</blockquote>

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