iserith
Magic Wordsmith
There are indeed a lot of ways to make failure matter and keep players invested, but in this case I am specifically looking for holding on to that 1st level feel of impending doom for as long as possible. I don't want to necessarily deny players their characters' cool toys, so i don't want to just be stingy with XP or liberal with level-drain, though. I am considering implementing massive damage, or maybe generally up the amount of creatures that poison or other wise force save or die stuff.
Try making death saves succeed on 15 or higher only.
Then switch from 6 to 8 medium to hard difficulty encounters per adventuring day to 6 to 8 hard to deadly encounters per adventuring day.
That ought to do it.