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Dropping to 0 HP - Alternate Rule
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<blockquote data-quote="TwoSix" data-source="post: 7443095" data-attributes="member: 205"><p>In general, rules that tend to focus on minimizing combat (and making it "risky and dangerous") tend to have the consequence of making combat less fun, rather than making doing things out of combat more fun. In general, any rule that makes things more dangerous by decreasing effectiveness is particularly not fun.</p><p></p><p>If you want to make combat more "risky and dangerous" and make the characters approach them warily, you need to make combats less predictable, possibly by doing the following:</p><p></p><p>1) Increase the offensive effectiveness and swinginess of encounters. Use more glass cannon monsters, where manipulating the battlefield in your favor can ensure a quick kill, but blundering the approach to the encounter means the characters means the enemies might get a free round or two of high damage attacks. Likewise, change damage expressions to be more variable. If a monster's attack does 2d6+4 (average 11), maybe have it do 1d12+4 or just 1d20 damage instead. It's easy to get jaded in combat when the monsters do damage of "9...11...12...8...10". When the monster does "2...7...6...19", the PCs tend to jump. Then you get to tell them, "No, that wasn't even a crit", which is right up there with the scariest things a DM can say. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></p><p></p><p>2) Going along with 1, reward the players with more consumables and less fixed items, again in the name of increasing both variability and consequence. One shot scrolls and potions of strong spells can help the players absorb a bad situation or a bad set of dice rolls, but at the cost of losing something they can't gain back after a long rest. It teaches the players that any combat, even one that seems relatively trivial, has the possibility of costing them much more than they bargained for.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="TwoSix, post: 7443095, member: 205"] In general, rules that tend to focus on minimizing combat (and making it "risky and dangerous") tend to have the consequence of making combat less fun, rather than making doing things out of combat more fun. In general, any rule that makes things more dangerous by decreasing effectiveness is particularly not fun. If you want to make combat more "risky and dangerous" and make the characters approach them warily, you need to make combats less predictable, possibly by doing the following: 1) Increase the offensive effectiveness and swinginess of encounters. Use more glass cannon monsters, where manipulating the battlefield in your favor can ensure a quick kill, but blundering the approach to the encounter means the characters means the enemies might get a free round or two of high damage attacks. Likewise, change damage expressions to be more variable. If a monster's attack does 2d6+4 (average 11), maybe have it do 1d12+4 or just 1d20 damage instead. It's easy to get jaded in combat when the monsters do damage of "9...11...12...8...10". When the monster does "2...7...6...19", the PCs tend to jump. Then you get to tell them, "No, that wasn't even a crit", which is right up there with the scariest things a DM can say. :) 2) Going along with 1, reward the players with more consumables and less fixed items, again in the name of increasing both variability and consequence. One shot scrolls and potions of strong spells can help the players absorb a bad situation or a bad set of dice rolls, but at the cost of losing something they can't gain back after a long rest. It teaches the players that any combat, even one that seems relatively trivial, has the possibility of costing them much more than they bargained for. [/QUOTE]
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