Paralysis

[Blade]

I don't like paralysis. In most cases, it doesn't matter when it happens because the monsters who paralyze you merely an annoyance. However, in a few situations, it is perfectly feasible for paralysis to be a one-shot "kill" that checks MR -- even against high-level players. Recently, for example, I had a level 18 halfling warper with approximately 19/42/13 defenses and 111 hp who was taken down from full health to nothing in one paralysis after an unlucky ogre mage encounter. I do not think this is a reasonable threat to have.

Paralysis has several problems: First, it strips you of most of your defenses. It doesn't matter how much EV, how much SH you have...one paralysis and all that is gone. Second, it renders you powerless. 99% of Crawl deaths feel entirely avoidable every step of the way. When a monster gets that killing blow on you, you feel, "Dang, I screwed up." Paralysis, on the other hand, feels like the game flipping you off. "Oh, you have an awesome character? Too bad you were in LOS of an ogre mage without enough MR! Better luck next time, sucker!" All you can do is press -more- until your character inevitably dies, unable to do a thing about it. Third, it is instant. You have no chance to react to it; once it happens, you're either fine or dead.

This is in stark contrast to other dangerous MR-checking effects such as banishment and confusion. With banishment, even low-level characters have a chance to escape the Abyss; confusion, on the other hand, can be cured by the most common potion in the game. Even confusion on mummies isn't as bad as paralysis; they have a few things they can do to avoid death, such as unwielding distortion. At the very least, they still have defenses.

My proposal, therefore, is to replace all sources of paralysis in the game with petrification. Petrification is already very similar to paralysis, but it removes several of the "unfair" elements. The key differences: First, it significantly reduces the amount of incoming damage. Being next to one or two dangerous enemies while petrified is not nearly as much of a death sentence as being next to those same enemies while paralyzed. Second, and more importantly, it gives you time to react. You can read teleportation, you can blink out of the way, you can take steps to mitigate the effect. This is huge. It gives the player the chance to kill or save themselves, rather then condemning them to death for no good reason. Petrification is still a dangerous effect that can get careless players killed, but it is a much better dangerous effect than something that can instantly strip you of your defenses and prevent action.

Thoughts?

[nicolae]

A billion times yes, though some of the devs don't feel as strongly against paralysis as you (and I) do.

Petrification might not fit, flavorwise, but a reworking of paralysis would definitely improve things. At the very least, some mechanism of reacting to paralysis after the fact beyond "welp, hope I don't get the shit beat out of me, doo dee dum".

Idea: Paralysis is progressive. The first turn, it affects your legs, and you lose the ability to move to another square. Second turn, your torso begins to stiffen, and you lose some EV and also your attacks are penalized because you can't put your whole body into it, but your arms still work enough to get a potion or scroll. Third turn, your arms freeze up, and scrolls and potions are no longer an option, but you can still use breath weapons and speech acts (Recite, spells, etc.) Fourth turn you're frozen.

The actual details of that progression probably need a ton of work, but I think even one or two turns where you can still Do A Thing would make paralysis so much less of a potential instadeath.

If that doesn't work, then existing monsters with paralysis attacks could have some weaker but still painful version: inability to move off your square, with slower actions, or with less EV/attack accuracy, because all your muscles have stiffened up. It's still tactically painful but at least you can still do something in response to your condition.

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

Or maybe the progression should be random?
Three or four sections: legs, hands, torso (and head/lips) [movement, EV/certain_attacks, potions/scrolls/wands/attacks, commands/shouting/potions/scrolls]. On turn 1, something stiffens: on turn 4, everything stiffens. However, when the paralysis lets go, you always first recover your control over the legs.

[nicolae]

Or maybe the progression should be random?

That is not how nervous systems work *shoves inner biologist back down into his den*

That would be interesting, but I'm not sure if I like the possibility of having potions and scrolls be the first faculty to go: being able to move, defend yourself, and attack are going to be helpful, but in a lot of situations, curing or teleport/blink are going to be your best options -- if you get paralyzed by Grinder, being able to drink a potion is going to be more helpful than poking at him for three turns.

[Tiber]

I agree with the criticism, but I don't know that I'd get rid of it, and the whole "make it take multiple turns to take effect" is petrification's niche. I'd maybe make it so it only lasts until you get hit once (but things like poison don't count).

[Roderic]

In my experience, eye's paralysis was very much terrible in Nethack, mostly because you found the eye not alone but at least with some monster to kick you when disabled. I often found eyes alone, which are easy to mangle. What about paralysis + glow or paralysis + alarm to call the attention of some foes ?

[Blade]

Sleep already does that, although it's only cast by Aizul, ghosts, and Pan lords(?), and also lets monsters get a "stab" (double melee damage or so).

And that's why sleep isn't an issue and paralysis is. A few unique monsters having a very powerful, dangerous ability is fine. Several common enemies having that ability is not.

What about paralysis + glow or paralysis + alarm to call the attention of some foes ?

That misses the point entirely. The point is not to make paralysis -more- dangerous, the point is to make it less dangerous. Eyes are already deadly enough; in Slime and with pan lords, they are often the most deadly things on the screen. I died on Zig:21 because of an eye once.

[Roderic]

That misses the point entirely. The point is not to make paralysis -more- dangerous, the point is to make it less dangerous. Eyes are already deadly enough; in Slime and with pan lords, they are often the most deadly things on the screen. I died on Zig:21 because of an eye once.

I read the first sentence

I don't like paralysis. In most cases, it doesn't matter when it happens because the monsters who paralyze you merely an annoyance.

And I interpreted the wrong sense.

[greepish]

Paralysis sucks, but you deal with it by a) early game teleporting the heck away and B) late game by putting on an amulet of stasis. Sure that makes hard monsters (ancient liches/rupert) even harder, but that's fine. The only problems are hells paralysis, which I think is getting the axe, and sometimes not finding an amulet of stasis by the end game, which should have an equally dangerous alternative.

[mikee]

This subject gets brought up fairly frequently, which is probably a sign that something is wrong with current paralysis. Clearly, paralysis is very strong and possibly in a bad way. I can think of one 'bullshit' (not caused by operator error) paralysis death I have, and I know some other players with more.

The main argument in favor of this situation is to make MR more valuable. In 0.6, bonus MR was removed from the enchantments skill and the chance for paralysis to work vs. MR was buffed.

The result is that MR is actually the most important resistance in the game up until zot. It is the only resistance such that if you don't have it - for all characters - you can be killed in one turn. So if you are a well-informed player who has not had bad luck, you have a ton of MR through the middle and late game. This is mostly for paralysis and to a lesser extent for banishment. This has the side effect of more tactical threats like confusion, slow, porkalator, never being an issue for this given player. And no, the solution is not to buff confuse and slow =P. See sentence one of this paragraph.

In conclusion: when paralysis is taking place, it is often frustrating, unfair, and simply not fun. When paralysis is not taking place, it is preventing other cool, more fun hexes from taking place.
Edit: I forgot to mention my actual proposal. My solution is to relower the success rate of paralysis. It may not be the best long-term solution, but it is certainly the simplest and most obvious to me.

[greepish]

I think it just needs more options for the player to deal with it. Confusion is deadly, but you have A of clarity, ashenzari, heal potions, and stasis as reliable counters. Paralysis you have only stasis. Of course adding more options might be needless work.

As well, perhaps paralysis duration should be a function of spell power? I.e. rupert shouldn't be able to paralyze you for 7 turns, but liches can since you usually have a way to counter it by then.

[dassem]

I'd definitely support some sort of change.
You can read some comments about the Hell effect in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=2377&p=35206&hilit=hell+effects+paralysis#p35206

To me, the annoying thing is the one-shot instadeath (in my example a level 27 character with 220 HP and level 9 spells castable who underestimated a Lich that it would have taken 1 more turn to finish). If I enjoyed that, I'd go back to Nethack.
My suggestion was just that enough damage should 'snap you out of it'. i.e. If you have less than 50% HP you're risking it, but full-health instadeaths without another turn should be very unlikely.

[roctavian]

I think it just needs more options for the player to deal with it.

I feel like philosophically, this is ideal, but in practice a paralyzed person can't take any actions.

What if the range of paralysis were reduced -- perhaps by just one tile, even? I think smart play will keep you out of trouble much more, but it'll still be a very real threat.

Edit: That doesn't solve the issue of zot traps, or other sources. What other sources would we have to consider? Is hell effect paralysis really out?

[o_O]

Maybe paralysis should give 1-2 turns of slow before paralyzing.

[Kate]

Edit: I forgot to mention my actual proposal. My solution is to relower the success rate of paralysis. It may not be the best long-term solution, but it is certainly the simplest and most obvious to me.

I actually already did that recently, when adjusting some other Hex success rates. 0.10 also has some bugs fixed with Hell effect paralysis, bringing it down to the regular 2-7 turns of paralysis that (almost?) all other sources of paralysis cause, instead of being a fixed 10 turns of paralysis which was definitely too much.

[Galefury]

One big problem with paralysis is that it often is in random spell lists. The chance of an ogre mage having paralysis is not that high, the chance of it casting it if it does is not that high, and the chance of it working is not that high (especially not if you're wearing MR). But if the stars align and you actually do get paralyzed you get clubbed to death by a horde of normally fairly harmless ogres. It is simply not reasonable to wear stasis for every ogre mage, wizard, lich and alich, because these monsters have so many spells more likely to kill you. The time spent switching amulets is usually just better spent on trying to kill the monsters. Lowering the success rate wont change this. Paralysis in random spell lists is still a horrible idea.

The monsters that always have paralysis, but are rare and don't use it that often are not much better. Rare instadeath that can be avoided by obscure spoilers. Vampire Knights are the worst offenders in this regard. Rupert and sphinxes are better, but still very spoilery. Grinder spawns early enough to assume that the average player will learn about his paralysis fairly quickly.

Eyes are fine IMO. You see the eye, you know it will paralyze you, so you react in some way (usually by a zap to the ball, but running, swapping amulets or reading tele are also good things to do), and if you don't that's your own fault. It's still a death that can only be avoided by knowing about eyeballs previously, but that's not obscure knowledge, but something the game teaches you rather quickly.

Replacing paralysis by petrification or sleep in nearly every case would be good. Another possibly more interesting option would be shortening the duration to 2-3 turns and slowing you afterwards. I like the powerful instant effect of paralysis, it sets it apart from petrification and most other hexes. A new spell that only disabled defenses and movement while allowing other actions (web, basically) might also be interesting.

Here's a thread with more discussion and a bunch of links.

[mikee]

I should have had more faith in marvinpa.

[evilmike]

The result is that MR is actually the most important resistance in the game up until zot. It is the only resistance such that if you don't have it - for all characters - you can be killed in one turn. So if you are a well-informed player who has not had bad luck, you have a ton of MR through the middle and late game. This is mostly for paralysis and to a lesser extent for banishment. This has the side effect of more tactical threats like confusion, slow, porkalator, never being an issue for this given player. And no, the solution is not to buff confuse and slow =P. See sentence one of this paragraph.

I think this point is a very important one. It's something I mentioned before in another thread (might've been linked here), and it's a huge reason for why I dislike paralysis. My opinions re: paralysis have changed only a little bit since I last posted them on this forum.

I don't think paralysis is too dangerous so much as it is the most dangerous MR-checking effect while *also* being the least interesting. You load up on huge amounts of MR to deal with it, and by doing so block out all the other, more interesting, MR-checking effects (confusion, slow, etc). I also think it's important to say why all these other effects are interesting: unlike para, you can adapt to them _after_ they hit you. For slow you can haste yourself, for confusion you can drink healing, for porkolator, well, you can at least run away! Paralysis is just "wait and hope I don't die".

What I think is paralysis should mostly be replaced by other effects (sleep is good and underused, maybe petrify could replace it in some cases although this is already used by a fair number of monsters). One monster that I think makes good use of paralysis is giant eyes. Bad uses are on vampire knights, rupert, sphinxes, random pan lords, etc, where the monster that casts it is quite capable of killing you.

Might sound weird that I like giant eyes, but consider that they are very slow, and don't have attacks of their own. Thus, they work by making other monsters dangerous, and can be avoided without much trouble. Also, they ignore MR, so there is no problem on that front.

If I had to list monsters that I think should keep paralysis, it would be pretty short: giant eyeballs, wasps, maybe eresh (as a signature spell, and something worthy of a boss monster). Note that pan lords are not on this list!

Also, wands of paralysis are quite bad (when monsters use them). I do not have many bullshit deaths to paralysis (only three I can think of), but two of them are wand related! The other one was a red wasp, back when chain paralysis was a thing.

I have other issues with paralysis too but the uninteresting effect it tends to have is the biggest problem for me.

[njvack]

What I think is paralysis should mostly be replaced by other effects (sleep is good and underused, maybe petrify could replace it in some cases although this is already used by a fair number of monsters)

I can only think of two petrifying monsters, unless pan lords can have the spell. But maybe it's because I do the standard "load up on MR so I don't get paralyzed" trick.

Agree that sleep is a more interesting effect, especially if it lets monsters get a stab on you.

Might sound weird that I like giant eyes, but consider that they are very slow, and don't have attacks of their own. Thus, they work by making other monsters dangerous, and can be avoided without much trouble. Also, they ignore MR, so there is no problem on that front.

I like Giant Eyes, too -- they're early enough and common enough that it's really easy to learn that they paralyze, and are dangerous, and are a dire threat if anyone else is around.

Ogre/deep elf magi, however, are more problematic to me. Occasionally they'll have paralysis in their spell set. Occasionally, they'll cast it and hit you with it, and then their heavily-armed friends can murder you.

It's the "normally these monsters are somewhat threatening but manageable; occasionally, they can just kill you" aspect that I don't think is fun.

I'm not saying that paralysis is OP -- I've only died to it maybe once or twice -- but it's much less fun to me than, well, any other status effect. And I definitely agree that loading up on MR to prevent paralysis (and, to a lesser extent, banishment) keeps you from seeing more interesting effects. I don't remember the last time someone actually landed a Tele Other on me.

[dpeg]

I don't have a plan for paralysis, but I agree it is not a very good effect. It does kill players, but without the proper sort of tension -- paralysis deaths tend to be annoying rather than exciting. Since I don't have a plan for paralysis (simply removing is not an option, we need a change or a replacement) I trust evilmike and MarvinPA.

The proposal to have get slowed before paralysis sets in is not so good, in my opinion: it would lead to just the obvious reactions, teleportation being a standard one. What about being cheap and making paralysis stop before you get killed? In other words, if you don't survive it anyway, you get out of it with very little HP. A sorry state, but you have an action? (The difference with the above is that you have the action afterwards. Teleportation might not be best thing to do anymore.)

[njvack]

What about being cheap and making paralysis stop before you get killed?

If it's simple to implement, it'd make paralysis less annoying.

At the same time, though, I feel like Giant Eyeball paralysis works perfectly, and wouldn't really like to see it changed -- so unless you and the devs disagree, it'd be 'add another effect' which leaves you back there. Red Wasps should also probably keep working as they do now.

Really, replacing paralyze with sleep (unless y'all want to specifically reserve sleep for Aizul the Enchantress and pan lords) in the 'hey here's a random spell set' monsters seems like it'd get you a lot of the way towards a 'paralyze that stops before you get killed' effect. In my mind, it'd even be reasonable to buff sleep somewhat, so that taking damage while slept doesn't always wake you -- maybe more damaging attacks or low HP would make waking more likely.

[Eji1700]

My quick and dirty suggestion-
Change what monsters have para to slightly fewer.
Make para duration something like 1-3 turns.
Make resist based on something else(HD?)
Ideally give a one turn "channel" like effect for the monster casting it. Something like "the monster begins to prepare a deadly spell" or something as a nice big oh shit warning. I actually think this would be a good mechanic in general to add to some of the bigger issues spells(para, hellfire, torment, etc) especially if it didn't really let you know which one the monster was doing for those that are given more options.

The idea being that anything that can paralyze you should be able to already screw you up badly in 1-3 turns. This leaves confuse and slow as actual options, and slightly more likely to hit because you won't be just jacking up MR to prevent para. Unless banish looks at MR too, in which case that should be looked at as well. Further things like a floating eye are still going to be an issue early game, but should you not deal with it quickly and correctly you're a little less likely to be totally fucked by a 7 turn stun. Also if it happens to be in a scenario such as a 1 on 1, where that just wastes player time, it'll go faster.

Not perfect, but at the very least it might be easy to do except possibly for the last part.

[Danei]

How about reducing the number of monsters that can paralyze you (like, to eyeballs and wasps, maybe) and give the other usual suspects a new hex that prevents all actions besides basic movement? Or would that be too much like silence-only-better?

[evilmike]

How about reducing the number of monsters that can paralyze you (like, to eyeballs and wasps, maybe) and give the other usual suspects a new hex that prevents all actions besides basic movement? Or would that be too much like silence-only-better?

I've thought in the past that a good monster spell (not player) would be a "Mute" hex that checks MR and acts as a single target silence (only affects you, your surroundings are unaffected). Harder to resist than paralysis, but can be resisted unlike the regular Silence spell. Could give it to high level caster enemies. This isn't quite what you're suggesting but it's somewhat close.

[dpeg]

evilmike: interesting. What about a non-MR related solution?

I like how moths of wrath are a threat to anyone, and spicing up an arbitrary monster set (they're boring on their own, though). So similarly, we could have a "moth of mutism". Could appear in swarms. Is fast, upon reaching you a single contact is enough to spread the Mute flag, as suggested above. A pure fighter would completely ignore these moths, for a caster they'd be horrible (a bit like the eyes which drain MP).

[evilmike]

Well, I was thinking of it more along the lines of "What can liches get as an alternative to paralysis?" Something nasty to replace it, but not so nasty that MR (or stasis) is basically mandatory. Maybe it's not even a good idea though, it's not something I've thought about a whole lot.

I think that moth idea could be given to silent spectres, which have extreme problems in Crypt in that they help you almost as much as they harm you (although they work fine in Tartarus). It also probably wouldn't be great in zot, considering ghost moths already drain your MP and somewhat fill the niche of an enemy that disables casters.

[greepish]

What about this... to really guarantee you don't get killed in one turn from paralysis you need stasis, and I think stasis makes the battles pretty interesting. But sometimes you don't have an amulet of stasis. So... why not (for ancient liches and stuff, not eyeballs) replace paralysis with a "stasis" spell? Very dangerous and essentially causes the same effect if you had an amulet, but you can't get RNG screwed by not finding the amulet.

[njvack]

A pure fighter would completely ignore these moths

Not quite: if it works as silence does, it'd disable scrolls and religious powers. So in a vault where you got muted before the Big Bad was revealed, it'd keep you from using BiA or Heroism or your blink scroll.

It'd be situationally dangerous to very nearly everyone, just like Moths of Wrath.

[Stormfox]

By the way, I thought hell effect paralysis had been taken out. I still got nailed by one in 0.10-a0-2919-g073c87c.

[Kate]

No, it still exists. It just no longer paralyses you for a fixed 10 turns, it's 2-7 turns of paralysis like almost all other sources.

[Stormfox]

Gotcha. It didn't result in death, but I was a little surprised to see it.

[Zelkelion]

Could replace some users of Paralyze with a new ability, Stun. Has a chance to prevent you from taking a turn when afflicted with it, can be cured by potions of curing and naturally wears off in a few turns.

[jejorda2]

Could replace some users of Paralyze with a new ability, Stun. Has a chance to prevent you from taking a turn when afflicted with it, can be cured by potions of curing and naturally wears off in a few turns.

This sounds a lot like Zin's Daze. I'd say that status could stand to be used more often.

[Zelkelion]

Could replace some users of Paralyze with a new ability, Stun. Has a chance to prevent you from taking a turn when afflicted with it, can be cured by potions of curing and naturally wears off in a few turns.

This sounds a lot like Zin's Daze. I'd say that status could stand to be used more often.

I've never played Zin (I use DS) so I had no idea~

[srulz]

Today I learned that Paralysis absolutely destroys an EV-based char.

AC-based char would be able to survive purely because the AC is intact when paralyzed. EV however, would instantly becomes 0. Fail 1 MR check? Bye bye, char.

Sure, it's "realistic", but couldn't it be "balanced" better? It leaves such a sour taste in my mouth to die like this.

Sorry for not having any suggestions to solve this problem. I'm still in shock. Going to lie down for a while.

[snow]

The main source of paralysis (eyes) ignore MR.

Stasis protects against paralysis and with good stealth you should be able to toss it on as soon as you see an eye. I've added a force more for eyeballs into my options just because they've killed me so many times. Also with two pieces of MR gear you should almost never fail an MR check.

Paralysis sucks but is manageable at the moment.

[srulz]

Eyeballs is so ridiculously easy to kill it's not even funny. Here is a simple guide on dealing with Eyeballs:
1. Wands of cold/fire/lightning/draining/anything piercing (the easiest way)
2. Running away, either with or without teleport/blink.
3. Invisibility.
And on the very far bottom of options: stasis.

Eyeballs is good. They are perfectly balanced in my eyes.

The problem is with the "common" paralysis. The ones performed by wizard, great orb of eyes, sphinx, lich, ancient lich, ogre-mage, vampire knight, deep elf mage, orc sorcerer, Rupert, Ereshkigal, Norris, Erolcha, and anyone who picks up the wand.

The fact is simple:

If you are an EV-based char, covered from head to toe with MR equipment, and you failed even 1 paralysis check versus the ones above, you are going to die.

Thanks to that fact, I'm never ever going to touch an EV-based char with a 6-foot pole. All my char from now on would be AC-based.

[KoboldLord]

If you overstate your case that much, you aren't going to convince anybody. I've had EV characters paralyzed multiple times, and they generally survive. Rather than the specifics of your defenses, the most important factor is whether you get paralyzed when you are about to be swarmed by other fodder. It is usually very feasible to separate and destroy any fodder monsters accompanying a spellcaster with Paralyze, and it's generally preferable to separate monster packs even if they don't have Paralyze so this isn't even all that different than the normal way of killing. You can also throw out a line of your own chaff; you can't be spell- or wand-paralyzed if there's a summon in the way.

[varsovie]

I don't think that paralysis is a bad effect, but it's because I'm not that good and most of time it's a unique, an eyeball or an ogre that cause it, and I've been lucky most of the times (2 or 3 turns only).

Most suggestions go in the direction of modifying the effect for the annoying sources (like hell and ogre mage), but they goes in the direction of the sleep and the petrification (slowing before or waking up after/near death).

I propose that paralysis on annoying sources to be replaced by Tremor. That wouldn't slow any actions, but give 2/3 chance to miss any action (attack, spells, drink, read, walk...) Also each action that require targeting have a 1/3 chance to be shifted by one tile in random direction. So it's more like confusion than slow, but it let defensive skills, allow a better control of movement and actions. But to get ride of it could lead to a big waste of resources.

[TwilightPhoenix]

Sure, it's "realistic", but couldn't it be "balanced" better?

Yes, it already is. For example, if an AC character gets hit by Poison Arrow or Sticky Flame, they reduce the damage some and still get poisoned or catch fire. If an EV character dodges it, they take zero damage and get zero status effects. Paralysis hurting EV more than AC is just fine.

[srulz]

If you overstate your case that much, you aren't going to convince anybody.

Overstate? Let me quote OP's post in this kinda old thread:

Recently, for example, I had a level 18 halfling warper with approximately 19/42/13 defenses and 111 hp who was taken down from full health to nothing in one paralysis after an unlucky ogre mage encounter.

My case: 177 health to nothing in one shot of paralysis. Still overstating?

Anyway, as far as I'm concerned, I'm not trying to convince anybody here. I don't even have a "case". I'm just saying that since paralysis seems like one of those Crawl mechanics that exists "because Crawl hates you!!!", I'm just explaining (not so eloquently I suppose) on how I'm going to deal with it: namely, never ever play an EV-based char - at least one that didn't just Firestorm everything, because one unlucky paralysis will ruin everything. If the devs are not going to change it, then fine, I'm just going to deal with it my way.

Yes, it already is. For example, if an AC character gets hit by Poison Arrow or Sticky Flame, they reduce the damage some and still get poisoned or catch fire. If an EV character dodges it, they take zero damage and get zero status effects. Paralysis hurting EV more than AC is just fine.

Err. But I don't instantly die if I get poisoned/catch fire.

[Wereox]

Another option might be to change the way MR works (possibly just for Paralysis, possibly in general) to be less all-or-nothing and instead affect both success and duration, ie, if you have very low MR, paralysis will hit for 2-7 turns, if you have medium or high MR, it might be 1-5 or 1-2 or whatever. That makes it more in line with other resists (imagine how unfun much of the game would be if rF+++ gave you a 90% chance to ignore fire damage and a 10% chance to take full damage instead of how it works now), and keeps MR useful, while also reducing the odds of instagibs. It does mean you don't want to do stuff like stand right next to dangerous monsters with a paralyzer nearby, but that is much more avoidable.

[Galefury]

That would not only make enemies with hexes much more interesting (because the success rate would be higher, which means we get to see more hexes in action), it would also help with some of the problems of the hexes spell school for players. I think I would prefer this to the repeated hexing lowering MR idea.

[TwilightPhoenix]

Err. But I don't instantly die if I get poisoned/catch fire.

True, but Paralysis can cause an AC focused character to die instantly too, it's just less likely. However, the problem isn't in EV but rather Paralysis itself. Should also note that Paralysis reduces SH to zero too.

[galehar]

Another option might be to change the way MR works (possibly just for Paralysis, possibly in general) to be less all-or-nothing and instead affect both success and duration.

That's a very interesting suggestion, thanks. Might not be easy to implement, but as Galefury said, it might be an interesting alternative to the "failed hexes reduces MR" idea.