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<blockquote data-quote="Ratskinner" data-source="post: 5842066" data-attributes="member: 6688937">I don't really &quot;hate&quot; SoD, but I think they need some tweaking. I voted other because its their overall effect on gameplay that bothers me more than any one aspect, but I could easily have checked off several boxes.My biggest problem is that, IME, don't help anything, and end up making more work for the DM.If the PCs have the SoD advantage, the fights are uninteresting. If the bad guys have the SoD advantage, TPKs or near TPKs become much more likely, while half the players sit and watch bored and helpless. It also increases the likelihood of a few survivors abandoning their comrades. Particularly in older editions, bizarre poison needle traps seemed to exist solely for punishing rogue/thief players for making that &quot;bad&quot; choice, in spite of their being necessary for the party. They can add some tension when aimed at the party, but it seems to come at too high a cost overall.Additionally, they can really mess up a story-based game. When an important villain or hero gets insta-gacked... it can really mess up the plot. Not even so much from the major characters as from minor characters with important information. PCs rarely seem to question knowledgable-but-dead NPCs.All of that leads the DM (me) to build in workarounds, like sneaking in some Remove Paralysis scrolls before an encounter with ghouls or something. (Of course that can still be thwarted when the party sells them off....)YMMV, of course.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ratskinner, post: 5842066, member: 6688937"] I don't really "hate" SoD, but I think they need some tweaking. I voted other because its their overall effect on gameplay that bothers me more than any one aspect, but I could easily have checked off several boxes. My biggest problem is that, IME, don't help anything, and end up making more work for the DM. If the PCs have the SoD advantage, the fights are uninteresting. If the bad guys have the SoD advantage, TPKs or near TPKs become much more likely, while half the players sit and watch bored and helpless. It also increases the likelihood of a few survivors abandoning their comrades. Particularly in older editions, bizarre poison needle traps seemed to exist solely for punishing rogue/thief players for making that "bad" choice, in spite of their being necessary for the party. They can add some tension when aimed at the party, but it seems to come at too high a cost overall. Additionally, they can really mess up a story-based game. When an important villain or hero gets insta-gacked... it can really mess up the plot. Not even so much from the major characters as from minor characters with important information. PCs rarely seem to question knowledgable-but-dead NPCs. All of that leads the DM (me) to build in workarounds, like sneaking in some [I]Remove Paralysis[/I] scrolls before an encounter with ghouls or something. (Of course that can still be thwarted when the party sells them off....) YMMV, of course. [/QUOTE]

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