D&D 5E More swingy combat

[Stoutstien]

Fair point. odd thought what if you ditched hp all together went straight to x amount of hits take you out with each class having a different threshold + con modifier? Makes hordes super deadly.

 

[Guest 6948803]

Its something that probably would be readily accepted by this particular group, but too much for my own tastes.
They are peculiar. They dislike flying furniture (still complaining about animated door they had to fight in their first D&D adventure) and tend to not behave like heroes (had to come up on a fly with more than a couple of brothels in Waterdeep). I blame adverse effects from playing too much WFRP

 

[DND_Reborn]

How about a damage threshold? So if the PC takes too much damage in a single attack (or turn maybe), they become stunned or dizzied or something which leave them vulnerable and makes the combat more dangerous?

You could also add other effects to critical hits (or if you hit by a certain amount, like 5 or 10) such as temporary blindness, loss of speed to hamper their mobility, knockdowns, etc.

 

[Stoutstien]

How about a damage threshold? So if the PC takes too much damage in a single attack (or turn maybe), they become stunned or dizzied or something which leave them vulnerable and makes the combat more dangerous?

You could also add other effects to critical hits (or if you hit by a certain amount, like 5 or 10) such as temporary blindness, loss of speed to hamper their mobility, knockdowns, etc.

Now we're talking. It rewards both active avoidance and mitigation in the face of damage.

 

[jgsugden]

You and your players seem to be focused on risk of death as the metric of difficulty. I'd suggest that you look to other challenges, other than deadly fights, to keep the PCs struggling, and give them a chance to fail miserably, without their characters dying every few sessions (which is the end result of making every challenge a life and death struggle). Trying to rebalance D&D into something it is not is going to result in unsatisfactory results more often that you'd like. For example, if you cut HP in half, then a single spell or breath weapon could result in a TPK, for example, and that just feels ... boring and anti-climatic.

As an alternative to try, you can provide them with other ways to fail. They fail to save someone. They fail to stop someone from getting away. They fail to find something before it is lost. And give these failures consequences. Let the success or failure of an action determine how the story unfolds.

For example: The PCs are walking through town and they see two thugs burst out a door and drag a young person into a carriage. There is a scream from the door pleading for help. That is the surprise round. Now what happens? Can they stop the carriage from being drawn away? I've run that scenario dozens of times, and had PCs be very excited about the entire scenario that surrounded it, without the PCs ever being at a risk of death, even remotely. Further, how the PCs respond can have a massive impact on the entire campaign. For example, in one such scenario, the parents of the abducted youth was the leader of the Underworld in the city. Saving the kid, accidentally killing the kid, failing to save the kid ... each can have a huge impact on the story that is going to unfold. Do they end up with the leader of the Underworld owing them a favor, wanting them dead, or just hiring them to recover the kid? It creates a more interesting encounter than just an appropriately difficult number of bandits being added to an encounter to make it a deadly challenge.

 

[DND_Reborn]

IMO it just depends on what the players find exciting. In your example, my group wouldn't see it as a failure if they stopped the carriage before it got away but just as part of the adventure--they might even assume the carriage getting away was the hook.

While I understand and can appreciate your point, reducing HP by half certainly could lead to TPK situations, but going into the situation knowing it is certainly possible means the PCs also have to tackle the challenge in another fashion. Maybe the straight-on approach isn't a good plan anymore because a TPK is now possible, as where before it was extremely unlikely.

Judging from the OP, I am guessing it is more about the tension in the fight more so than the potential of failing at a task, but I could be wrong.

 

[Quartz]

Rather than one level of exhaustion at 0 HP make it one level per death save so that if the party reacts immediately there's less of a penalty. It also means that a PC tank isn't penalised unduly for doing their job thanks to a lucky high damage roll.

Also, have you considered increasing the critical hit ranges rather than adjusting HP?

 

[GMMichael]

Fair point. odd thought what if you ditched hp all together went straight to x amount of hits take you out with each class having a different threshold + con modifier? Makes hordes super deadly.

This. Each PC gets three life saves and three death saves. A life save is d20 + relevant attribute modifier + (AC-10). The DC is the NPC's attack roll, but replace the d20 with 10. For every 10 damage caused beyond the first, the defender must make another life save.

 

[Asisreo]

I don't exactly know how long my combats take, because I don't keep stats. But they don't seem to drag for too many rounds - that's not a central issue here. Players complain, that in essence, they don't feel threatened by combat. As I said, they are used to far more deadly systems (we also played a lot of 1st edition L5R, where lost initiative and good attack roll by enemy = insta death no rez, and Deadlands, where few lucky rerolls from random bandit shooting at you could send you straight to St Peter). So, I need to house rule things in a way, that will make their blood pumping faster, while at the same time not make everything TOO deadly, and prevent them from niovaing important enemies (which could become a thing if I go too far with upping damage/lowering hp).
Conditions are good thing, as an extra. Core problem is combat swingability (as I see it).

Have you tried using a bigger stick when you thwack them?

Or you could give them enemy's which do not synergize well with their tactics. They're probably expecting stationary HP sponges so hit them with a good number of skirmishing, mobile strikers.

Or include monsters with very nasty status effects and make sure to hit the ones that are likely to catch them. Instead of targeting the Fighter with Poison on Con saves, target the Wizard with Stun on Constitution or the Cleric with Restrained vs Str/Dex ability check.

Don't just lean into their strengths. If you want the monsters to put up a good challenge, lean into the monster's strength. White Dragons have burrow and swim speed so they'll be in snow filled caves with several underground water reservoirs. The dragon waits for its breath weapon to recharge while burrowed or underwater, then comes up to deliver their mightiest attack. All the while, their lair actions consistently thwart the common plans a party might have to bypass this tricky situation.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Don't just lean into their strengths. If you want the monsters to put up a good challenge, lean into the monster's strength. White Dragons have burrow and swim speed so they'll be in snow filled caves with several underground water reservoirs. The dragon waits for its breath weapon to recharge while burrowed or underwater, then comes up to deliver their mightiest attack. All the while, their lair actions consistently thwart the common plans a party might have to bypass this tricky situation.

LOL yeah this is a good example! I did a similar thing with a black dragon staying underwater in the swamp and using lair actions while its breath recharged. Grappling a PC and dragging them under with you makes things VERY tense!

It is a good way to increase the tension if the tactics of the opponents are too straight forward.