Making the Game Harder.

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

You don't need many house rules to make combats harder. Just send the PCs against more high level monsters, and give them less opportunities for short or extended rests.

When they enter a dungeon, the start with a small battle of their level. This alerts other monsters in the area, that come before they can have a short rest (probably while still fighting), effectively increasing the encounter level by 2 to 3 points. If this has cost them most of their dailies and healing surges, retreat is still not an option. They are either on the clock (and have to go on), or they are chased by another group of monsters, before they can take an extended rest. This encounter doesn't have to be tough as the one before their level or their level +1 might be enough. They still have all their encounter powers, but they will need to use them.

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There is one thing that might not be covered by different encounter mechanics - extended rests. For a gritty game, you need to lessen their effect.
For example - they regain only 1/4 of their healing surges (rounded down). Some care increases this to 1/3, and a bed rest to 1/2. So it requires at least two days to recover fully (if you want, you can invent restoration rituals that improve that, but cost a fair amount of component cost.)
You might also reduce the number of daily powers recovered - maybe just 1 daily and one utility power per rest.

Also, use more disease effects, maybe invent some to model wounds. There have been quite a few suggestions in the past. Yesterday I stumbled on this site: Wyatt And Friend’s 4e Houserules « The Spirits of Eden
There are some suggestions on "grim & gritty" there, too, from various sources.

 

[eriktheguy]

First off, I think that going with a gritty setting could be very fun, and that you don't need to pay attention to criticism in this thread saying you shouldn't.

1. A few of your rules might serve to stress your players more than to add flavor. For example, rule 1. By the time the players hit level 10, they will be taking CON damage from nearly every attack, and are going to be spending pretty much all of the time dazed. Moreover, players often have characters that are built to take damage (barbarians) rather than avoid it, so I think this punishes many builds. I would suggest letting combat run freely for the most part. Remember, HP does not have to be 'how many hits your character takes'. HP represents all your character's resources for avoiding damage: luck, morale, dodging, being really tough, arcane or divine magical protection. In my campaigns, I assume that players dodge most 'hits' and that they take, and that the first heavy blow is the one that bloodies them.

2. I sorta like this one. In any session I've seen you only get about one player knockout per battle, so I don't see it being an issue, and it adds plenty of grit/challenge.

3. I strongly suggest that you up the monster damage instead of taking away the players HPs, they don't like having stuff taken away, but the effect is almost the same .

4. This would make crits weaker and less gritty, but since players score more crits than monsters, I can see how this would make the combats harder. The only problem I can see is that it would make things more grindy. I don't think it would ruin anything though. If you do this, and if you go with (some version of) number 3, then I highly recommend lowering the monsters' HPs as well. This makes things grittier for the monsters, and reduces some of the grind problems with the game at the same time.

5. This one would work, and I don't think it would make the adventuring day too short. Go for it.

Some people use a wound system to add grit to their games. If a character is bloodied in combat, they get some sort of wound. It doesn't affect them immediately, because of adrenaline, but after combat, they notice the effect (-1 speed from an injured leg, -1 hit from an injured arm, they got and infection and now have a disease...). I would suggest that you make them interesting, but not crippling, and let the players recover completely within a few extended rests. Remember, if you take a character's eye out forever, they will probably just want to make another character.

Good luck implementing all of the above into your campaign.

 

[Duelpersonality]

Instead of rule number one, you might try something akin to the condition track in Star Wars Saga: if a creature takes damage in excess of its Fort defense it moves one step down the condition track. Steps go like this:

Step 1: -1
Step 2: -2
Step 3: -5
Step 4: -10
Step 5: unconscious​

Penalties would apply to attacks, skill checks, defenses and saves. You could allow spending healing surges to move a creature up the condition track as well as heal (or in lieu of healing, but that might be a little extreme).

This is very quick and dirty, so it could use some refinement.

 

[mkill]

I'd like to know first how big your party is, how optimized the characters are, how tactical and experienced the players are, whether they are over- or underequipped, how many encounters you throw at them per day, how hard you make the encounter, how many monsters you use compared to roup size and how well the synergy is between these monsters.

Depending on the above factors, the difficulty of your campaign can vary wildly from cakewalk to nigh-impossible. If you want to change the difficulty of the game, I suggest you work on this first instead of screwing with the rules.

1. If a creature takes more than CON damage in any single HIT, they must roll a CON check greater than the damage taken or be Dazed (save ends).

- This totally does not scale well. Damage of at-will powers increased at about 1 per 2 levels, while both Con and Con checks hardly increase at all. At paragon, all encounter powers become a free daze, while at epic you daze with pretty much every attack.

- The dazed condition sucks for PCs but most monsters still work. PCs rely a lot on movement, minor actions and immediate actions. Paladins and swordmages are hit worst, because they can't mark. Most monsters, on the other hand, can just charge when they're dazed. On the monster side, only solos really suffer.

In short: NO!!!

2. If healed from Dying (negative hit points), a creature is immediately Stunned (save ends).

Meh.

3. Subtract 1 hit point per level off every class.

Uh, what a great way of demotivating players.

4. On a critical hit, extra damage from things like Sneak Attack and Warlock's Curse are rolled and not maxed.

I love broad nerfs that hit or miss classes arbitrarily. Certain builds like crit-centered Avengers will cringe in pain, most others will hardly notice, like builds optimized on cramming as many attacks per turn as possible.

5. Death Saves are reset only from an extended rest instead of short rests.

Yay, bookkeeping.

It's supposed to be a low magic world so I'm also thinking about things like... arcane casters needing to take a minor action to Channel before casting a spell, and if not the spell does damage the caster equal to twice it's level. (And similar things for the other casters). To offset this flavor, I'm thinking about giving DR to the Heavy Armors but saying that magic sources circumvent that. My standard DR of 1/2 level to minions rule would apply.

Great. Hose the arcane power source into uselessness. You realize that Swordmages need minor actions to mark, wizards need minor actions to sustain effects, and bards need minor actions to heal? Just ban them outright instead of trapping clueless players.

Your so-called "balance rule" doesn't change anything, because 1) monsters don't wear heavy armor, or any armor for that matter, their AC is a fixed stat. So that rule never applies. 2) monsters don't use "spells" either, the rules don't state what their power source is. So the rule doesn't apply in the other direction either.

Do you think that any of them are just morbidly over the top and would kill a party at whatever level?

It's easy to kill a party, you don't need houserules for that, just throw monsters at them until they are dead. The trick is not to kill everyone, the trick is to keep everyone alive but let the players *think* you try to kill everyone.

You want an honest answer? If you want to customize a game, understand it first If I was your player I'd wait until everyone is frustrated with your amateurish tinkering and then take your DM seat so everyone can have fun again.



Now, here are a few simple rules to actually make the game more gritty:

- Don't allow full healing between encounters. PCs get to spend one healing surge after a short rest, not as many as they like.

- You can't take short rests immediately after another, you are limited to one short rest per hour.

- You regain half your healing surges on an extended rest.

 

[Alex319]

Damage of at-will powers increased at about 1 per 2 levels, while both Con and Con checks hardly increase at all.

Actually, con *checks* increase at about 1 per 2 levels, since you get to add your half level bonus to con checks.