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Message: <blockquote data-quote="snickersnax" data-source="post: 7832395" data-attributes="member: 6888204">If you make serious effects too common then its a problem because adventurers won't be able to survive for a whole campaign.  I felt like my suggestion for a slight improvement to critical hits was just right.  It does scale with skill ( critical hits are more common due to multi-attack and advantage).   The biggest impact from the rule is that all hits to a character with 0 hit points are critical hits, so I don't think these changes turn the game into a must crit fish and hope for luck scenario at all.Your point about massive damage is a good one, but there are some great optional rules for massive damage (5e DMG p273) which solve this, independently from the changes I was brainstorming.This thread isn't really about design space for the characters to have cool or trick abilities.  Its more about having a better way to describe hit point reduction for the purposes of story telling.  In the past I've been firmly in the camp of hit points should be best described as meat, but after reading this thread I'm contemplating conversion.As others in this thread have suggested,  successful hits would generally be a minor touch, or a very slight wound, until 0 hit points and then 0 to death is where the meat points are.The OP was originally looking for a way to have fighting power reduced as hit points were lost.  While you could give penalties at certain percentages of hitpoints lost.  The book keeping for that is cumbersome.  Tacking a point of exhaustion onto critical hits is easy to book keep and isn't so severe that it will impose the swinginess you are worried about.</blockquote>

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