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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CapnZapp" data-source="post: 8214118" data-attributes="member: 12731">It's almost as if my arguments are invisible...?As a designer, the solution needs to actually solve the problem, and be appropriate for the genre.Is your problem that fights don't feel very dangerous when heroes have lots of hit points? Reduce the maximum number of hit points or increase monster damage. As long as heroes have access to sufficient healing, and the hp pool remains enough for any given fight, this increases excitement more than deadliness.Do you want there to be a small risk of combatants dropping dead randomly? Why? That's a simulationist idea, and we're discussing S&S here. If you just want it to happen to mooks, fine, but really the fact they die at 0 hp ensures you'll see sudden death often enough. After all the heroes don't know the hp totals of opponents - it'll be a "surprise" to them which blow that chops their head off and which blows are just dodged. And if you want it to happen to heroes too, don't. You can't sustain a campaign that way. If a hero faces a hundred enemies during his "career" and they each manage to make four attacks on average (hits and misses), an 0.25% instant death risk suddenly transforms into a very likely chance that character will die randomly, regardless of what the player does. And if you then add a way to mitigate that rule, such as being able to spend a point of some kind to negate it, we really are deep in why bother territory.Just making the case for S&S not being the genre you want to complexify. (For instance, I checked out the Modiphius 2d20 Conan game, and I really don't like all the clutter, and would say Xoth being based on 5E is a much sleeker platform to use for my S&S needs! <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=":)" />) I don't see the Xoth setting being particularly suited for any rule that mostly just adds extra procedures and rolls with no real impact. More critically, I suggest to only include variant rules that 1) really have an impact, and 2) really adds to the S&S flavor. Anything else, and you just bloat your document.If anything, I'd instead focus my design energy on adding feats to the game that gives extra damage to other fighting styles to better match GWM and SS (assuming we agree those feats are borderline overpowered*). More damage in general fixes the problem and maintains 5E's simplicity. More damage to those fighting styles that doesn't get it in the PHB improves balance. Maybe even take the opportunity to offer variant GWM/SS feats that doesn't rely on the player being able to do the probabilities (if you use the -5/+10 mechanism against high-AC targets the feat is actually a severe trap!) - a more straightforward "always-on" damage boost means the player doesn't have to be smarter than her character... <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />*) you could argue that while having a powerful ranged feat (SS) isn't especially appropriate for S&S, having a powerful greatweapon feat (GWM) actually is. Being able to kill people from a distance with a bow isn't the manly brawling expected of Conanesque heroes, but wielding weapons so large only muscular men can lift them certainly is. So even if we do agree GWM is too good, maybe the feat is suited to S&S anyway...?Cheers</blockquote>

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