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Message: <blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 3738629" data-attributes="member: 22424">Absolutely. But that doesn't mean we should simply ignore balance, but rather that instead of seeking "absolute balance" the game should seek "reasonable balance". In general, it really does make for a better game.I agree with this somewhat. Removing the lose conditions from the game stems from a misunderstanding of what fun is in the longer term. If there's no chance of failure then there's no excitement, no thrill, and ultimately it all pales into insignificance. I'm pretty sure there are a number of stories where the protagonist is cursed to instantly receive anything he wishes for, said protagonist becoming terribly miserable because he winds up bored.No, it's really not. A DM who pulls that sort of thing will find himself without players in short order. However, that's not a rule change that's needed - it's a DM in need of re-education.The thing about the massive damage rules is that they were utterly redundant. By the time a character could survive a single hit for 50 damage, passing a DC 15 Fort save was essentially trivial. The rule served no useful purpose, and is rightly being dropped. (Although, by lowering the threshold, raising the DC, or both, the DM had the ability to quickly and effectively adjust the danger level in his campaign. So, as a House Rule, massive damage could be great; it's just the RAW that was near-pointless.)"No save and die" is another thing that will lose players - they will rightly rebel. However, in this instance I agree that there is a better way to model lethal poisons, and that's by using a souped-up version of the disease rules.In 3e terms, a 'magical poison' might work as follows:Each poison has an onset time, a recurrence time, a save DC, a damage level, and a survival threshold.When a character is initially poisoned, the poison has no effect until the onset time is reached, whereupon he must make his first save, or suffer the indicated damage. Thereafter, at each interval of the recurrence time, a new save must be made, or further damage is taken. If the PC makes a number of consecutive successful saves equal to the survival threshold, he has defeated the poison and need make no further saves.(Obviously, Slow Poison would delay the next save for the duration of the spell; Neutralise Poison would get rid of it entirely.)So, for instance, the poison Indiana Jones swallows in Temple of Doom might have the stats: Onset Time: 1 minute, Recurrence: 1 minute, Save DC 20, Damage 1d4 Con, Survival Threshold: 5.By modelling the poison like this, the DM avoids charges of railroading (via a plot device), isn't accused of victimising players (with a 'no save' situation), places parameters on the whole process (allowing a huge array of such poisons to be used), and gets to use properly lethal poisons. Not to mention, by handling the decay of the character over a period of time, the PC becomes gradually more desperate as the poison takes its course - which matches the source material as well.</blockquote>

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