Making combat less deadly.

[Narfellus]

Limit the combat. Don't throw as many baddies against them as in a default DnD scenario. If you do, make sure their attack/defense stats are comparable to the party's power level, or substantially weaker. Give them lots of advice ahead of time that resurrection is not an option.

 

[tec-9-7]

20 HP kicker ala Hackmaster?

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

You can keep the Save-Or-Die spells, but instead of dying when you fail your save, you go into negative HP equal to the amount by which you failed your save. Instead of being dead, you're dying.

Reduce the Critical hits as per the optional rule in the DMG.

Give the PC's henchmen. Make them hire guards for perilous journeys (good RP chances).

AR

 

[CronoDekar]

You can keep the Save-Or-Die spells, but instead of dying when you fail your save, you go into negative HP equal to the amount by which you failed your save. Instead of being dead, you're dying.

I like that idea. One house rule I'm working with is that any attack that knocks a PC to negative HP only knocks them to -1 (unless they abuse it, but I don't think my players would). I haven't found a solution I like to situations where through a character due to bad rolls, underestimating an enemy's strength, lapses in judgment (everyone has had these from time to time), or any comination of these a character shoots right down from positive HP to <= -10 HP. I don't completely like this rule since it's a little too easy on the PCs (and because an enemy with a full attack could just take their last attack to go ahead an kill them), but it's the best solution I can come up with that deals with my beef.

I considered using this rule with action points, but I want the players to use AP for more... well, actiony purposes instead of keeping them stocked up in case they fall in battle.

 

[Tony Vargas]

One system I've considered for games where healing (let alone ressurection) magic is less apropriate, is partially ripped off from Omega World. It goes like this.

You have 'Reserves' equal to your hps. Out of combat, you can transfer reserves to hps - effectively 'healing' yourself. Remember, though that hps don't always represent wounds, so much as the ability to avoid them - in this system, that's more litterally true.

Once you're out of hps, the damage you take goes directly to a stat (randomly determined). You can take a deep flesh wound that devestates your DEX or STR, or a chest wound that damages your CON, or a head wound that blasts a mental stat. This damage represents 'real' wounds. Criticals do hp damage, and stat damage, instead of multiples of hp damage. To make it less deadly, you can toss the critical rule, and also allow that you don't take real wounds until you run out of hps - even 1 hp will save you from taking stat damage from the next attack. The advantage is that it's very easy for players to know when they should break off a fight that's going against them, which'll tend to make the game less deadly.

I'd like to second two other ideas that have been mentioned: Save or dies being Save or 0hps, instead. And, the simple idea of just not using terribly tough encounters. If there's no ressurrection, any encounter is 'dangerous,' since it's always possible to take a crit or whatever and die, and death is permanent - you don't need to make every encounter burn through some proportion of the party resources to get accross the feeling of danger.

 

[argo]

The Conan RPG is quite deadly (massive damage threshold is 20! ) and there is no raise dead so to compensate they use a mechanic called Fate Points. Anytime a character would die he can instead spend one Fate Point to be "Left for Dead": he appears dead to a casual examination and if he recieves at leas one point of healing (by any means) within the next hour he stabilizes at -9 and begins healing, if he is not healed then at the end of one hour he makes a DC 20 Fort save to stabilize at -9 or die.

This easily sets up dramatic secnarios of heroes waking up at the bottom of cliffs or under a pile of corpses or maybe even tied up and captured by the enemy, basically the DM gets to use this as an excuse to put the players in whatever twisted plot he wants in exchange for not killing them.

Other good options are improving Toughness to 1 HP/level, improving the Dodge feat to be +1 AC against everyone, having armor provide some DR or maybe convert some damage into subdual, increasing the rate of natural healing and simply reminding the players that they are weak and puny and should try to think their way past encounters instead of going toe to toe with the competition (but be sure to provide them with opportunities to do so).

Hope that helps.

 

[Magesmiley]

Unearthed Arcana has a number of optional rules concerning death (one of which completely does away with hit points even if I recall). You might consider taking a look at some of those.

 

[Trainz]

Let your players, when they die, roll their next character at one level less than the previous one. This way, you'll still have the risk of death (and it's consequences), but they won't be back to square one and the party will continue to advance as a whole.

That's how we do it in the campaign I'm currently a player of, and I'm with my third PC. I'm only one level lower than the rest of the group, and it allows me to try different things. Hell, one player was just plain bored with his character. He retired him, and created a new character one level lower.

I understand him, it was a ranger...

 

[Jondor_Battlehammer]

Max HPs each level.

Lose altogether or half the damage from area of affect spells. Maybe bump them up a spell level, (i.e. Fireball would be 4th level).

Do fewer, but more meaningful combats.

If you want to slow the PCs down, send out the one hit wonders, but with the best equiptment and tactics. If the PCs are 10th level, several 5th level NPCs would be a distraction, going down in one or two hits. So instead bring out 20 1st level NPCs. They won't have any greater staying power, but with more of them, they will take longer to kill. They will also do little to harm the PCs, so they will have ample time to deal with them or run if the fight isn't going well.

For important encounters, (say the BBEG), force the PCs to pull out all the stops or lose. Many of the players I DM for simply don't use potions and scrolls, and save them for trading fodder. Don't let your players take such things for granted. One way of doing this might be to not award such things as a potion of aid as part of a treasure, but to save it. Then, when you knoe the PCs are about to enter a tough encounter, have the kindly old apothacary, a total non combatant, suggest/give/force the potion on them. Instead of giving them treasure, give them the chance to make friends of low level NPCs with useful abilities. This also gives you more people to potentially hold for ransom, use to learn secrets about your PCs, or stab them in the back themselves if things are gettng dull.

 

[Blue Sky]

My opinion? Just get rid of "Die at -10". Instead, let the players know that you will be penalizing them each time they drop. Did the character drop from the giant getting a crit? Then they're knocked out, and their armor absorbed the blow, being destroyed in the process.

"But wait! If there's no consequences to death, then nobody will fear it!" Rubbish. If the players know they'll get captured by the orcs, lose all their items, and have to fight their way out using discarded chicken bones, then (IMX) they'll fight harder to stay alive.

Heck, in my group, death is just a nuisance. Character dies? Just make a new one. Character gets shafted by the bad guys? Now it's time to fight.