Making things deadly (way deadly)

[Richard369]

Alright,

As a DM I've found that nothing bogs down a game more than long, LLLLLOOOOOONNNNNG combat. I mean, even with powerful magic items, spells and maneuvers, combat is still only so deadly. So, I pondered a solution.

I came up with a system to advance both the number of damage dice for a particular item, but also advance the dice category (i.e; moving a dagger from d4 to d6.) Using this through magic, materials and type of construction.

Is anyone else doing this?

Thus far it has yielded great results. The players are more cautious, and can be taken down just as quickly, while also allowing for the feeling of being more powerful, taking on giants and ogres and such and taking them down in quick fashion, but not too quick.

[JNAProductions]

Would you like to share the system? And what game is this for?

[Eerie]

How about this solution:

Every successful attack deal 1 hp damage. There, no need to calculate damage any more.

The catch? Every character gets 3 hp. No less, no more.

Suddenly combat is a lot deadlier.

[Grod_The_Giant]

How about this solution:

Every successful attack deal 1 hp damage. There, no need to calculate damage any more.

The catch? Every character gets 3 hp. No less, no more.

Suddenly combat is a lot deadlier.
Poor solution; fundamentally warps the game in ways the are wholly incompatible with the original image. Anything that depended on being tanky or landing fewer stronger attacks just got drastically weaker, while anything with a miss chance or multiple attacks got far more deadly. A giant octopus is now one of the scariest things in the monster man, while a purple worm and a kobold are about equally threatening. Magic missile is now a stronger spell than disintegrate, which is no better than acid splash. And so on.

[noob]

Maybe higher damage increase the likeliness of the attack to be successful.(so a 1 damage attack have a very low probability of working against a high level player while a 5000000000000000^34554 damage attack is likely to succeed against a level 1 character(and somehow the universe is less lethal against low players than before now that a level 1 character can tank the destruction of the universe then being hit by a black hole going at the speed of light(both make the target lose 1 hp)))

[Malifice]

Make all damage dice explode.

If you roll the maximum possible on a damage die, pick it up roll it again and add it to the total. If that die comes up the maximum, pick it up roll it again and added to the total. And so forth.

Even a hit from a kobold with a dagger can fell the mightiest hero.

Those 10d6 fireballs look scary indeed. 20d6 falls are absolutely terrifying.

[Richard369]

Make all damage dice explode.

If you roll the maximum possible on a damage die, pick it up roll it again and add it to the total. If that die comes up the maximum, pick it up roll it again and added to the total. And so forth.

Even a hit from a kobold with a dagger can fell the mightiest hero.

Those 10d6 fireballs look scary indeed. 20d6 falls are absolutely terrifying.


I kinda like that too.

[Potato_Priest]

I kinda like that too.

I think it works fine on weapons, but don't allow it for spells, since those tend to have way too many dice for it to be a balanced mechanic, whereas weapons largely depend on damage bonuses.

Edit: I don't do this because combat in 5e (what I play) is already super deadly. Most classes have a burst option, and monsters tend to deal enough damage that they don't need one.

[The-0-Endless]

Just make more realistic combat. For example, you would have damage dice almost entirely dependent on where you hit, with different parts being save or die, (neck) or save or massive debuff (stomach) or just 1d10 - 3 on top of whatever the weapon does. Armor would eliminate the dexterity reflex save or die stuff, but make you far weaker to any sort of electric, fire, or piercing damage, (dealing extra for shrapnel on metal armors) as well as making it more difficult to heal. Then give smarter monsters tactics, and a territory they have advantage on hide, run, search, and any check that can be impaired by terrain.

[Grod_The_Giant]

You... really don't need any crazy system-altering stuff. (Especially stuff that makes it harder on poor melee fighters). I've always found that damage spikes pretty quickly in 3.5; the problem isn't so much "it takes ten round to kill this" as it is "one round takes an hour of real-life time."