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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 7952681" data-attributes="member: 7006">Here are the things I think you are going to need to do to get this game to work the way you want it:First... only have four players.  Any more than that gives you rising numbers of hit points and abilities and class features that exponentially add to the group's survivability.  More players, more targets, more hit points, more curative magic.  Don't let that happen.  Stick with four.Second... go Basic Rules only and curate the cleric's and wizard's spell lists.  With only four players you can go Core Four and have a better chance of classes not synergizing with each other to make the PC's functionality get too good.  And if you curate the two spell lists... you can remove from them the spells that eliminate the challenges that come from exploration as well as removing negative status effects.  Now granted... by not allowing rangers, druids, and paladins you will already be removing spells and features from the game that help with those things (no more immunity from disease from Lay on Hands, no more food from Goodberry, no more "can't get lost" from Natural Explorer etc.), but there are still things in the spell lists that can remove those challenges (Lesser Restoration, I'm looking at you!)  Do it.Third... if you ignore Rule #1 above and decide to have more players than four, then for goodness sake DO NOT give PCs hit points for leveling up.  They get their HP totals for 1st level and that is all they are going to get.  Ever!  No more hit points unless their CON score/modifier raises through ASIs or magic items.  People have and will throw out all the different ways to do "gritty" via changing rests times, changing hit dice spending/recovery, adding exhaustion etc. etc.  I've done all of them, and I can tell you... when you have 6 or more players none of them work!  When your table is too big, the pool of hit points you as DM have to go through to challenge them is too large, and the amount of actions the PCs have to heal each other, rescure each other, and stabilize each other during combat makes any other "gritty" rules pretty much useless.  So instead... the only way I've found to really make things gritty for a table of 6 or more players is to drastically reduce the number of hit points they each have.  If each of them only has 8 to 12 hit points for an entire day (plus healing, short rests and spells that grant THP), it makes them think about challenges differently.  They don't have the stamina to just keep going, they have to find shelter.  You also get the bonus of being able to use cool solo monsters of only around CR 5 or so and have them actually be a challenge to the group.  Now, you'll probably still end up with the 5 Minute Work Day... but it won't be because of the casters going nova... it'll be from everybody getting their asses kicked after facing off against a half-dozen goblins.  That is a GOOD thing, in my opinion.  But in truth... just go with Rule #1 instead and not have to worry so much about it.</blockquote>

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