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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JamesonCourage" data-source="post: 5885921" data-attributes="member: 6668292">Surprise, or numbers. (Sorry for the delay, I was running a game for most of yesterday.)When attacks are made against your ACvS (Armor Class vs. Surprise), you basically lose most of your AC. A lucky hit can cause ongoing blood loss, punctured lungs, or other effects (again, it needs to be a lucky hit). Also, you have two different HP pools in my RPG (HP and THP [temporary hit points]). If an attack deals only THP (which recovers some every round), you avoid any attached negative effects (such as the lucky shots mentioned above). However, you do not get any THP when you're surprised.When you're attacked multiple times in a round, you take a cumulative penalty to your AC (excluding ACvS). This means that 20 guys with crossbows give you a -19 penalty as of the last attack (AC tops out around 30 by level 20 in my RPG). Any of the attacks (that finally hit your HP after you lose your THP) that do connect might be a lucky shot, inflicting ongoing blood loss, skull fractures, etc. So, you can fight a Balor, and if you're not surprised, you're getting your full AC and THP, and he's not making 20 attacks at you. You can have this epic drag-out fight with him, but later on feel threatened when 40 archers appear on the walls when the city guard yells for you to halt.It's just how my system handles it. Again, I don't think it's the only way, and I don't expect this to be anywhere near base for D&D 5e. But, I am positive that you can have deadly 1st level archers in a world where level 20 Fighters can fight Balors.Now, players can certainly obtain ways to negate level 1 archers, too. Get enough damage reduction (achievable by level 20, for sure), making you monstrously tough. Get abilities or combat maneuvers that reduce penalties for being attacked multiple times. Etc. But, these are probably only going to apply to a couple PCs in a party of 5-6, meaning most are vulnerable to common arrows while challenging Balors, dragons, liches, and Pit Fiends. As always, play what you like <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=":)" /></blockquote>

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