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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5829836" data-attributes="member: 54877">I'll keep making my same answer that no one ever comments upon. (People must not like it, but I'll keep trying, darn it! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />) "Minion" to "Solo" should be a state, not a characteristic. There are a variety of ways you can do this, from a small set of "I'm not a Minion Yet" points to a track to a handful of set labeled states with special rules for moving between them. But for discussion here, assume something simple like this track: Minion - Thug - Standard - Elite - Solo The effects might be like this, though the details aren't terribly important to this conversation: Minion (1 hp), Thug (1/2 hp), Standard (x1 hp), Elite (x1.5 hp), Solo (x2 hp).  PCs are near the upper end of the scale, at least Elite, by default. At low levels, there isn't much you can do to change this, and thus your state on the track pretty much is a characteristic. You might have a handful of abilities that can turn "thugs" into "minions" for a short time. Then abilities in older versions that normally bypass hit points must address the track instead. The more powerful the spell, the more it can do. If it knocks you clean off the track, then it does kill you (or turn you to stone or whatever). Say that the old "Harm" knocks you down 3 levels (to stick with its historical nastiness for a moment). That's enough to outright kill a Standard or lower that fails their save.  Or you might decide that it forces 3 saves attempts, and each failure knocks you down a notch. I like that better, because it gives you more variety, and means the nastier the effect, the more chances you get. It provides another way that magic and abilities can interact, too. Demigorgon may have an ability that forces 9 saves to resist, which for most creatures is "You ain't here no more, and your parents and kids aren't feeling so hot, either."  For even more fun, spread these saves over time. This is kind of a monk "quivering palm" effect, where you are now in bad shape, but you get to act for a few rounds before you probably die. So as an assassin levels, he'd get more and more abilities to knock people down the track--more powerful, more times per day. Some of these will require setup. For example, when he achieves total surprise, he has one shot to knock you way down the track, which means that he will probably kill you immediately thereafter, even if he doesn't quite manage it outright. If you don't want spamming of lower level effects to be the fast way to kill a bigger target, simply set thresholds so that it can't happen. Perhaps any effect that doesn't force at least 3 saves is simply shrugged off by solos. (Or maybe they get three free successes each round, so only concentrated fire has a shot, and with their saving throws, that's not productive.)  Basically, the problem with SoD is that it is single roll (occasionally supplemented by magic resistance) that encourages "SoD fishing" to bypass large pools of hit points. The way to make it more acceptable is to make it require multiple rolls in a system that discourages spamming.  If you are going to require multiple rolls, though, you'd like for the partial success/partial failure to have a clean meaning. Of course, lowering the number of hit points across the board would also help.</blockquote>

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