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<blockquote data-quote="toucanbuzz" data-source="post: 8200976" data-attributes="member: 19270"><p>It's a rare game where the players are asking for quicker ways to die. </p><p></p><p>My typical response would be to increase the challenge and diversify monsters. Many Monster Manual creatures are boring (a single melee attack). Give them some Bonus actions (e.g. second wind feature) or even Reactions (e.g. wolf can leap back 5' if enemy misses it), gets more interesting but will make your combats more lethal.</p><p></p><p>Same with "bosses." There was a reddit project on this years back, in short: split their HP in stages (e.g. divide by 3). When they drop to the next stage, wave off, like PCs do, the excess damage and add or trigger some ability (e.g. troll giant goes into rage, attacking recklessly for rest of battle). You can also diversify the combat itself. I borrowed a list years ago I found on the net; here's a sample:</p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Defend the Innocent</strong>: The enemies aren't focused on the party, they're focused on a defenseless third party that the party needs to intervene and protect.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Stop the Ritual</strong>: The party has X turns to stop A Bad Thing from happening.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Achilles' Heel</strong>: The enemies are nearly impervious to conventional tactics except for a specific, crippling weakness that the party can exploit.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>By The Power of Greyskull</strong>: The battle has some kind of power-up that the party can leverage to make an unwinnable fight winnable. Maybe the enemies have powerful, enchanted weapons in their armory and the party can steal them and use them for themselves, allowing you to throw more powerful enemies that the party shouldn't be able to fight at their current level. Maybe there's a magical wellspring that allows the spellcasters to regenerate spell slots, allowing them to cast their highest level spells more times than normal.</li> </ul><p>As to death, D&D doesn't do "death spirals" too well because HP is an abstract of avoiding damage. It doesn't matter if a human is 20th level or 1st level, if that giant's club actually lands on him, he's going to die. I don't have a perfect solution on this one. Death Saves are default for a forgiving campaign that doesn't want a lot of player deaths. It bleeds off damage that should kill a helpless character. I use a homebrew "negative hit points" variant with disadvantage to everything once you're in this zone, loss of movement (can "Dash" to move), and stacking "death points" each time you hit 0hp. The first time, nothing. Second time, a "lingering injury" (DMG 272). Third time, death. These shed one per long rest.</p><p></p><p>The exhaustion mechanic is a solid option, though it can stack extremely fast. That'll get you a death spiral, but it can also turn your exciting dungeon crawl into a "let's retreat and head home" game when the fighter is so crippled he can't do anything (and a death spiral tends to punish the front-liners more than other classes). You may wish to incorporate something into your game that, at a cost of resources, can help shed exhaustion (even if temporarily, which might be a good alternative instead of parties retreating to rest up when facing the exhaustion death spiral).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="toucanbuzz, post: 8200976, member: 19270"] It's a rare game where the players are asking for quicker ways to die. My typical response would be to increase the challenge and diversify monsters. Many Monster Manual creatures are boring (a single melee attack). Give them some Bonus actions (e.g. second wind feature) or even Reactions (e.g. wolf can leap back 5' if enemy misses it), gets more interesting but will make your combats more lethal. Same with "bosses." There was a reddit project on this years back, in short: split their HP in stages (e.g. divide by 3). When they drop to the next stage, wave off, like PCs do, the excess damage and add or trigger some ability (e.g. troll giant goes into rage, attacking recklessly for rest of battle). You can also diversify the combat itself. I borrowed a list years ago I found on the net; here's a sample: [LIST] [*][B]Defend the Innocent[/B]: The enemies aren't focused on the party, they're focused on a defenseless third party that the party needs to intervene and protect. [*][B]Stop the Ritual[/B]: The party has X turns to stop A Bad Thing from happening. [*][B]Achilles' Heel[/B]: The enemies are nearly impervious to conventional tactics except for a specific, crippling weakness that the party can exploit. [*][B]By The Power of Greyskull[/B]: The battle has some kind of power-up that the party can leverage to make an unwinnable fight winnable. Maybe the enemies have powerful, enchanted weapons in their armory and the party can steal them and use them for themselves, allowing you to throw more powerful enemies that the party shouldn't be able to fight at their current level. Maybe there's a magical wellspring that allows the spellcasters to regenerate spell slots, allowing them to cast their highest level spells more times than normal. [/LIST] As to death, D&D doesn't do "death spirals" too well because HP is an abstract of avoiding damage. It doesn't matter if a human is 20th level or 1st level, if that giant's club actually lands on him, he's going to die. I don't have a perfect solution on this one. Death Saves are default for a forgiving campaign that doesn't want a lot of player deaths. It bleeds off damage that should kill a helpless character. I use a homebrew "negative hit points" variant with disadvantage to everything once you're in this zone, loss of movement (can "Dash" to move), and stacking "death points" each time you hit 0hp. The first time, nothing. Second time, a "lingering injury" (DMG 272). Third time, death. These shed one per long rest. The exhaustion mechanic is a solid option, though it can stack extremely fast. That'll get you a death spiral, but it can also turn your exciting dungeon crawl into a "let's retreat and head home" game when the fighter is so crippled he can't do anything (and a death spiral tends to punish the front-liners more than other classes). You may wish to incorporate something into your game that, at a cost of resources, can help shed exhaustion (even if temporarily, which might be a good alternative instead of parties retreating to rest up when facing the exhaustion death spiral). [/QUOTE]
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