D&D 3E/3.5 The 3E Anti-Power Creep thread (or... ideas for running lower-powered 3E games)

[anonynos]

I dunno, that basically turns a benefit itno a penalty... I'm not big on such things.

 

[jonrog1]

Oh, and Jeph? One Massive Damage rule that I've always liked was 2xCON damage = Fort Save v. DC (10+ damage over 2xCON) or fall to -1hp. This does three things that I like:

1) Ties how likely the "system shock" is to the character's CON.
2) Ties how hard it is to resist to the damage dealt.
3) Replaces "Instant Death" with "Unconscious and Dying"; which I find keeps it from being too harsh on the PCs.

All this can be "tweaked" to suit the "grimness" of your campaign.

Really interesting. I'm using two things which have kept things a little tighter than most:

1.) Use the Treat Injury abilities from D20 Modern. making non-magical healing important. Also, a hang-over effect from healing potions. They still do the job, but gulp too many and some negative modifiers start creeping in.

2.) Limiting the gold. This is a little harder to tweak -- I do it by putting my guys in a frontier town, so they have to ship the really good booty back to their contact in the city -- but it just creates a saner vibe when they're not off blowing 7000 gp on arcanum lie its a frikkin' Walmart.