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<blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 7955754" data-attributes="member: 87792">Why? Just about every design decision in D&amp;D is about lowering the grit - and the people who talk about &quot;combat as war&quot; seem to think that American Football is war because they wear armour and have direct crunching impacts rather than soccer players who don't. I won't say D&amp;D 5e is the absolute worst game you could pick for this (there's always Exalted or Maid) but it comes close.The first thing you need to do to get any sort of gritty system in 5e is tear out hit points and replace them with wound mechanics, introducing the death spiral. Any system where you can take the maximum damage from an orc with an axe and not face lasting consequences has had most of the grit filtered out. And remember &quot;simple magic&quot; should not fix wounds; you should not be undoing the work of an orc with an axe with a first level spell.The second thing you need to do is tear out the magic system. Any full casting class is too much magic - remember Gandalf was a fifth level caster in a much lower magic game than D&amp;D; your rangers are probably too high magic for the game you are describing. Indeed there should be a good reason not to cast spells (which D&amp;D has never really had). Cantrips should be banned of course and most casting should be ritual casting.My favoured magic system here would be from WFRP 2e (and probably therefore borrowed by Zweihander). Each spell you know has a target number, and you get to pick a number of dice equal to your casting level to try to cast it. Doubles are a backfire, triples are worse, and the higher the number on the matching dice the worse and more visible the backfire. All 1s also not good.The third thing is hack the rest rules. One day for a short rest, a week for a long rest sounds about right.And the fourth is that in 5e you need a money sink; gold is almost worthless because there's not much to spend it on.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Neonchameleon, post: 7955754, member: 87792"] Why? Just about every design decision in D&D is about lowering the grit - and the people who talk about "combat as war" seem to think that American Football is war because they wear armour and have direct crunching impacts rather than soccer players who don't. I won't say D&D 5e is the absolute worst game you could pick for this (there's always Exalted or Maid) but it comes close. The first thing you need to do to get any sort of gritty system in 5e is tear out hit points and replace them with wound mechanics, introducing the death spiral. Any system where you can take the maximum damage from an orc with an axe and not face lasting consequences has had most of the grit filtered out. And remember "simple magic" should not fix wounds; you should not be undoing the work of an orc with an axe with a first level spell. The second thing you need to do is tear out the magic system. Any full casting class is too much magic - remember Gandalf was a fifth level caster in a much lower magic game than D&D; your rangers are probably too high magic for the game you are describing. Indeed there should be a good reason not to cast spells (which D&D has never really had). Cantrips should be banned of course and most casting should be ritual casting. My favoured magic system here would be from WFRP 2e (and probably therefore borrowed by Zweihander). Each spell you know has a target number, and you get to pick a number of dice equal to your casting level to try to cast it. Doubles are a backfire, triples are worse, and the higher the number on the matching dice the worse and more visible the backfire. All 1s also not good. The third thing is hack the rest rules. One day for a short rest, a week for a long rest sounds about right. And the fourth is that in 5e you need a money sink; gold is almost worthless because there's not much to spend it on. [/QUOTE]

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