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Fair enough, but these stories (and the Conan comics by Marvel, etc) are full of examples of the protagonist getting hit in the head by a sneaky thief or lucky guard, and then captured. You could say "he ran out of hit points", and yeah, he did, but it was due to a rare/double crit, and not slow...

To "simulate" the fact that even Conan can't wade into battle with a ton of mooks without there being a small chance he might get killed. Now, thankfully the bounded accuracy of 5E already mostly fixes this, so this suggested rule is just some icing on the cake. The "heroes" (if you can call...

I think the original idea is fine as it is (roll two crits, target goes to zero hp). As you have pointed out, there are already several options that can increase the crit range: The Fighter/Champion's Improved Critical The Rogue/Assassin's auto-crit against surprised targets The Conqueror's...

I agree with you that reducing hit points would extend the "sweet spot" level range. However, my stated goal from the beginning has been "to change as little as possible" so it still feels like D&D. And while I personally would be okay with it (as a player), I think that reducing Player...

No need for exceptions here. From the 5E core rules: "When an attacker reduces a creature to 0 hit points with a melee attack, the attacker can knock the creature out. The attacker can make this choice the instant the damage is dealt. The creature falls unconscious and is stable."

Note that there are already rules for this in the Player's Guide. The Sorcery chapter (pages 40-41) notes that life force that is restored via healing spells "must be transferred or taken from somewhere else, typically via sacrifice". The Cultist class (page 30) is built on this concept and has...

Here's a variant for your consideration: Deadly Critical: When you score a critical hit against an opponent, roll another d20. If you roll a natural 20 on this second roll, the opponent's hit point total is instantly reduced to zero. For player characters, this means they must start rolling...

I'm not saying the campaign should end at a certain level, I'm just saying the sweet spot is below level 10. Statistics (from D&D Beyond and elsewhere) show that most campaigns tend to end before getting into the really high levels anyway... possibly because high-level D&D (and Pathfinder!) is a...

It does what it says, nothing more: You gain +1 to attack rolls when flanking. It doesn't say "hit points", it says "Hit Dice" (aka what you call "healing surges", which is a 4E term I believe...). "A long rest restores all Hit Dice (not just half your Hit Dice as per the standard rules)."...

I'd say the sweet spot -- where the gameplay and Conan-style S&S fiction generally overlap -- are between levels 3-8 or so. Anything below and the PCs are too fragile, and anything above (say, around levels 10-11) it starts to get too "far out" to resemble the fiction. It helps if you restrict...

Agreed! :)

I think you have a good point, and I'm really on the fence myself about this rule. There's even a sentence in the Player's Guide (that you left out when you quoted the rest of the paragraph) that explicitly calls out that this is up for discussion: "GMs should discuss with their players before...

I'm planning to run Throne of Gondira as an online game over the coming months, if anyone is interested, check out this post: https://www.enworld.org/threads/online-5e-world-of-xoth-seeking-players-for-throne-of-gondira-online-play.677872/

Play Method: Online using RPG Manager combined with video chat (Google Meet) and a VTT (probably Owlbear Rodeo) Game/System: 5E Player or GM? I'm the GM. Time/Frequency: Bi-weekly, at a time of day/night convenient for the group. Starting late January 2021. Genre: Sword and Sorcery! Current...

My viewpoint is quite far from the vanilla D&D / high fantasy default. I prefer swords & sorcery, where no PCs (and no current NPCs for that matter) are able to create magic items; such items are all leftovers from fallen civilizations. Most items found as treasure tend to be potions or other...

Fine, if you really want the PCs to buy and sell magic items. I personally don't like that. It "takes away the magic from the magic", so to speak. IMHO, magic should be something you find or take, not something you buy from Ye Local Magic Shoppe.

Some thoughts on how I would do this: You need to spend the gold to get the XP (essentially, you are "buying XP"). You can buy XP only with gold/items designated as "treasure" by the GM. (The point of this is to avoid the PCs grabbing every bit of furniture, livestock, used weapons and armor...

Can this be fixed by using old-school "XP for gold" rules? Basically require lots of gold (and training time) to advance to higher levels. It fixes the "there is nothing to spend gold on" problem, and forces some downtime between adventures (avoiding the "my PC is just 17 years old but already...

Tough choice, that sounds like a good thing?

I feel your pain :-) I've always liked the humanocentric, low magic, swords & sorcery (or swords & planet) style better than "everything goes" high fantasy. Check out the Freebies section on my website to see how you can do a human-only campaign using Pathfinder or 5E: xoth.net publishing -...