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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dragonblade" data-source="post: 5786659" data-attributes="member: 2804">Yes, exactly. Stalker0 highlights the problem with going the opposite way. With ascending bonuses but low HP and damage output. You end up with a grittier game, but one where the grittiness is predicated on swinginess.Without the HP pad, the game becomes very binary. Either you take no damage or are significantly hurt. It makes encounter difficulty much harder to guage and depending on the dice the players either don't feel challenged or face a TPK.For many, this may seem more "realistic" and in a sense it is. But I think whatever gains you make in simulation are at the expense of the game and narrative side of the equation. Its harder to write a long term story arc focusing on a PC when a couple bad die rolls can kill them off. And for a player of that PC I think it would be frustrating. And from a game standpoint, I think it gives you less to work with in terms of player powers and abilities without exacerbating the problem. Like Stalker0 pointed out, any effect that boosts or hinders your defenses has a hugely disproportional effect on combat.But as I proposed before, if you don't ascend bonuses (or ascend them slowly) and instead increase HP and damage outputs, I think you have more freedom as a DM. You can tweak HP and damage outputs for grittiness without also taking on as much swinginess as a side effect. You also have more game space to work with in terms of buffs and bonuses to defenses, damage or HP and it becomes much easier to predict the results it will have on the game. Swinginess can be minimized thanks to the buffer that HP affords you. And because of that its easier for DMs to challenge players while minimizing the threat of TPK or unwanted random death.Just my thoughts. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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