NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Crimson Binome" data-source="post: 6695321" data-attributes="member: 6775031">Are you talking about third edition, or something earlier? Fifth edition is only swingy if you choose it to be so. Most characters have a pile of hit points between themselves and unconsciousness, and there are very few ways to bypass that.I suppose it can be swingy at the low end, if you absolutely insist on challenging your characters to the limits of their level, but the low levels are designed to pass quickly and those fights shouldn't last very long anyway. A string of three critical hits will occur one time in eight-thousand. Since we're talking about the possibility of house rules, though, you still have the option to fix critical hits by making them cause lingering wounds instead of extra damage.If someone drops in the first round without being at low level, or taking a string of critical hits, then the party is in over their head and should learn to better gauge their risks in the future. If someone is walking around with only a few HP left, because they had insufficient healing available to get back up to a healthy number, then either the party is in over their head or they were wasteful; and in any case, they are all well aware of the risks involved.If you're fighting an encounter where a PC drops early on, then it should be far from a forgone conclusion that the PCs will win. Enemies aren't allowed to metagame and make decisions based on the assumption that PCs are supposed to win. As far as their decision-making process is concerned, this is the real world, and it's a matter of life or death. They are allowed and expected to be as intelligent as their stats and circumstances allow. From the player perspective, it makes for a hollow victory to win because the enemies were played far dumber than they should have been.</blockquote>

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