OS 2 literaly has an ability called Medusa head where you petrify all enemies around you so IDK what you are talking about.
Youalso dont need to be balanced against an ENEMY. You need to be balanced against your party members. All party members should be equally capeable. THATS the problem with balance. Also what you fail to see is that "modernized" mechanics represent the exact same things as the old mechanics did.
You said it right there, saving throws. In the greek myth, you were petrified, no matter what. In DnD you get a Fortitude save. Guess what, in divinity, the Fortitude save is represented by your Magic armor. Its the same thing: a mechanical abstraction to make combat less boring. Because lets face it, if you went full greek myth, there is literaly only one way to defeat a medusa and thats using a mirror. Either that or having the blind fighting feat. Which in DnD isnt exactly hard to get, but also not very usefull most of the time.
What you say about "Immersion" is mostly "old thing good new thing bad".
