How to make a game deadlier

[Sir cryosin]

So for my next campaign I want it to feel like what the party is doing is a life and death thing. I would like for them to feel a bit lost and barely in control of anything. What rules do yall use. Is there anything about dropping to zero hp.

Now before anyone gives me flack about being a bad DM. For wanting to do this. I just want to provide a different feel then the " I have plot armor as long as I don't commit suicide" play. Now there is nothing wrong with that.

[nickl_2000]

A campaign feel would be a low resource campaign. Make it hard to find good equipment, have to scavenge for food and water (or use precious spells slots to get it).

also, look into the variant healing options (I can't remember the name, something like Gritty Realism).

[denthor]

You can make it harder double the threat in each encounter

[Aett_Thorn]

Besides just upping the difficulty of encounters, you can always make it harder for the party to rest. Either they need to scout for a good spot to camp (which could take time/resources), or they get woken up during the night. Exhaustion + lack of resources the next day can make a party think long and hard about where they camp for the night, and how they will address issues during the day. Knowing that the wizard might not get his full compliment of spells the next day might lead them to not use spells when they otherwise should.

[NOhara24]

So for my next campaign I want it to feel like what the party is doing is a life and death thing. I would like for them to feel a bit lost and barely in control of anything. What rules do yall use. Is there anything about dropping to zero hp.

Now before anyone gives me flack about being a bad DM. For wanting to do this. I just want to provide a different feel then the " I have plot armor as long as I don't commit suicide" play. Now there is nothing wrong with that.

I don't really play 5.0, but an easy way to make the players really fear each encounter is to use the default sleeping & recovery rules for 3.5:

When you sleep you only recover 1 HP, or two if someone is tending to you.

That way the players aren't starting each encounter with full HP, and they'll be forced to rely on potions & healing spells. It's a good way to make the players feel more "mortal" without making the game artificially difficult.

[Geddy2112]

In making encounters more difficult, you can always increase the CR of monsters you throw at the party, or add more monsters.

Another option is to play the monsters more intelligently and use environment against the players/for the monsters.

Enforce things that give levels of fatigue-even one or two levels makes it much harder for the party.

[Jeran]

First time posting, but the Gritty Realism variant rules in the DMG will go a long way towards giving you the feel your looking for. Our group uses them and, not saying this is the case, but to us it feels like the game was designed around gritty realism and changed to core healing and resting rules after the fact. The game is much more enjoyable, for our group, using gritty realism.

[Specter]

Yeah, basically enforcing exhaustion and upping the ante on challenge rating should be fine. If your dungeon features CR 1, 2, 3 and 6 enemies, it should now feature 2, 3, 4 and 7 enemies. Or, if you want to use the same monsters, increase their proficiency bonus and HP. That should do it.

As for exhaustion, count the minutes the party spends on dungeons and the like, and at every 20-40 minutes call for a CON check to avoid exhaustion.

[Emay Ecks]

You can have players gain a level of exhaustion whenever they hit 0 hp. It works very well for having players burn resources earlier, feeling more desperate when they get low, and not saving healing word until someone goes down.

You can also use the "Massive Damage" rule on page 273 of the DMG (taking 50% or more of your maximum hit points in one hit requires a DC 15 constitution save, with negative results ranging from immediately dropping to 0 to not being able to take reactions for a turn)

I've never tried it, but the injury rules on page 272 of the DMG also look like they could really make your party feel barely in control. If you are planning on going through characters fairly quickly, why not give them some horrible disfiguring injuries?

[Sir cryosin]

I want them to feel like the were in a old fairy tales and old myths. Like the grim Brothers picked them up and dropped them into there tales. I would like them to struggle through the blood, Sweat and Tears. I would like for them to feel like they gone through hell then coming out on a high after killing the devil. They might be missing a leg, arm, or body part but hey we killed the devil.


PS just upping the monsters doesn't quite work I'm already do that in my current campaign. They find it challenging but it doesn't invoke a life or death feel.

[Demonslayer666]

Put them in a world where the people in power have a lot of it, and are not good. Make the characters keep a low profile or face persecution. Have them invested in making the change to make the world a better place by replacing this power, but make that take a long time.

[alchahest]

start at level 1 and play bad guys like they want to win. assisting each other for advantage, attacking at range from hiding, high strength grapplers, bringing in intellect devourers, etc.

you know, play them like they're PCs

[Rabbit_Shadow]

What we have been doing is that when anyone (enemy or PC).

Instant Death
-If you take damage from a single source equal to your hit point maximum and it drops you to zero hit points, take a Con Save DC = 1/2 Damage taken or die.

Massive Damage
-If you take damage equal to half your hit point maximum or greater from a single source roll on the System Shock Table.

System Shock 1d20
-Roll 1d20 Result

1 Con Save DC= 1/2 Damage Taken; On a success, fall to 0 HP(Stable). On a failure, death.
2-5 Fall to 0 HP(Stable)
6-20 Disadvantage on saves, attack rolls, and ability checks till end of your next turn.

[Waterdeep Merch]

Use intelligent enemies and play them ruthlessly. The ur-example is Tucker's Kobolds, monsters that use the resources available to them in tactically clever ways to defeat the more powerful players. Traps, favorable terrain, appropriate weapons and formations, tactical retreats and advances, situations that favor them in, bare minimum, three different ways with no reasonable methods by which the party can circumvent them. Every assault should feel like a catch 22 for the players, and obvious easy routes should actually be their primary weapon.

To make this fair and not a steamroll, give the players plenty of leverage to overcome your enemies by coming up with their own countertactics and plans. Numbers won't matter as much as planning. Whoever outthinks their opponent wins.

Things to watch out for-

1.) If the enemies are fighting on their turf, seriously think through how the place works. A cave with a single entryway is begging to be flooded or smoked out. A small stone fort can be heated from underneath like an oven with a bit of work. A lack of goods, especially food with a long shelf-life and water, could kill them in the case of attrition. In fact, creating areas with these deficits on purpose and leading the players there is a pretty great plan of attack.

2.) The enemies are rarely suicidal. Assume that if they're alive and have been for a while, they have some appreciation for their continued ability to breathe. They won't put themselves in harms way if they can help it, nor open themselves up to being surprised or captured by the party. If anyone engages in melee, they should do so because they think they're already winning.

3.) Flanking tactics and reinforcements are a great way to force players to overcommit to a bad fight. That's the most important word, right there- overcommit. The enemies will try to create scenarios where it appears the players strictly have the upper hand, but in reality will get them surrounded and picked off with no chance of escape.

4.) Communication is key for any group to realistically coordinate their actions, and your enemies will be no exception. They won't open themselves up to scenarios where they can't easily call for help, and even scouts will have intervals where they're supposed to check in- failure to do so will tell their allies to be on high alert, double the guard, and seal off unneeded back entries. They won't just cascade down into the forest with their remaining scouts and let them get picked off in a bog-standard medium difficulty fight. If scouts are still out at all, they'll operate close enough to base that a single shout will clue everyone in on where the party is, and no corpse will go unfound.

5.) Hidden traps are fine, but obvious ones serve a much greater purpose- deterrents. The enemies can be certain (or near certain) that the players won't willingly walk into gouts of fire, off ledges, into uncovered spike pits, and the like. This information is vital. If they can know precisely where the players are coming from, they can plan ambushes, traps, and formations around it. Consider the modest bridge assault scenario- most of the players will cross the bridge on foot, and won't want to be over the ledge. Some creatures fly, of course, but they're still weak to gravity, too. Since they must come from this one direction, it's very easy to create blockades to hide a small army behind, create lines for archers to snipe from, threaten the bridge itself, and prepare dispel magic for flying mages and weighted nets for winged players.

6.) Speaking of dispel magic, magic is a known force in most campaign settings. If it exists in yours' and is used with even a modicum of frequency, your enemies should prepare defenses against it. Even if magic is rare in your world. Remember that there's no magic spells in our world, yet people to this day carry good luck charms and have rituals to protect themselves. Regular ways of casting dispel magic, counterspell, and the like, ways to ruin concentration at range, systems and setups in place to prevent or mute the danger from especially popular spells (no wooden structures on fighting grounds given the propensity for fireball). They should never be at a loss just because an enemy wizard casts grease.

7.) There needs to be a working chain of command and ways to verify who you're talking to. In a world with doppelgangers, mind flayers, and wizards, you have to be sure who you're talking to. Enemies that are expecting fights will plan for this, and it's likely to be a two-step process. One in which the person in question verifies that they are who they say they are, and another where someone else verifies that they are who they say they are. A lone individual wearing a uniform and a familiar face isn't enough to be assumed friendly, especially if their presence is unexpected. The enemies likely have a lingo all their own to hide their orders from prying ears, and failure to use it immediately casts suspicion that will be met with force.

[Byke]

Gritty Realism slows down campaigns and neuters casters (none of your casters will ever advance a plot line with confidence, for fear of not having the spell they need when they need them). They will constantly be looking for safe havens for long rest to the point of annoyance.

In a RP heavy / combat -lite campaign it could work. But if you have a combat heavy campaign designing a better encounter or upping the difficulty is the better way to go.

[Tanarii]

Do you want to make it harder to survive, or do you want to make it contingent on the players to decide their level or risk?

If the former AND you build encounters by budget or control when the players rest (either directly or indirectly), just up the difficulty of encounters throughout the day. Or for a less swingy but probably more deadly result, make them face more of the same difficulty per short rest or long rest. For example, try adding 25% to the adventuring day encounter budget. So instead of 4.5 mixed medium/hard encounters per day*, they'll be facing about 6 medium/hard encounters per day. If they can still handle that up it to 50% extra. Etc.

If you want to make it contingent on the players deciding their own risk level, you're probably either dealing with players controlling their own rest schedule or a combat as war sandbox, or both. Add extra incentives for the players not to rest as often**. Plan, or at least roughly outline, areas and encounters well beyond what the party can handle. Then let them choose when to rest, and where to risk going to. And trust me on this, players will ALWAYS choose to do something stupid given the right incentives, even in the face of dire warnings of danger. :smallamused:

(*the DMGs statement of 6-8 medium or hard encounters per day doesn match the adventuring day table.)

(**I find complaints about a 5 min workday hilarious. Every group I've ever run eventually pushes too long before resting. In previous editions, I often controlled rests myself to stop parties from overextending themselves.)

[psychopomp23]

You can have players gain a level of exhaustion whenever they hit 0 hp. It works very well for having players burn resources earlier, feeling more desperate when they get low, and not saving healing word until someone goes down.

You can also use the "Massive Damage" rule on page 273 of the DMG (taking 50% or more of your maximum hit points in one hit requires a DC 15 constitution save, with negative results ranging from immediately dropping to 0 to not being able to take reactions for a turn)

I've never tried it, but the injury rules on page 272 of the DMG also look like they could really make your party feel barely in control. If you are planning on going through characters fairly quickly, why not give them some horrible disfiguring injuries?

We usually play with those rules and they're quite fun. We've had scars and one of my friend lost part of his leg because of it! We had to find someone to grow it back but until then he was mostly on his horse (paladin) or had his speed decreased on foot.

It's pretty entertaining and add to the realism of a fight and can sometime make it go faster for both side!

[Waterdeep Merch]

Do you want to make it harder to survive, or do you want to make it contingent on the players to decide their level or risk?

If the former AND you build encounters by budget or control when the players rest (either directly or indirectly), just up the difficulty of encounters throughout the day. Or for a less swingy but probably more deadly result, make them face more of the same difficulty per short rest or long rest. For example, try adding 25% to the adventuring day encounter budget. So instead of 4.5 mixed medium/hard encounters per day*, they'll be facing about 6 medium/hard encounters per day. If they can still handle that up it to 50% extra. Etc.
Tried-and-true method regardless of edition. I remember a game in 3.5 where I kept increasing the XP budget whenever my players managed to handle the last jump, ending with them regularly fighting enemies about five levels over their heads. This is especially fun for the kinds of players that love gambling, as victory merits gobs of experience.


If you want to make it contingent on the players deciding their own risk level, you're probably either dealing with players controlling their own rest schedule or a combat as war sandbox, or both. Add extra incentives for the players not to rest as often**. Plan, or at least roughly outline, areas and encounters well beyond what the party can handle. Then let them choose when to rest, and where to risk going to. And trust me on this, players will ALWAYS choose to do something stupid given the right incentives, even in the face of dire warnings of danger. :smallamused:
A good bet. Prepare for your smarter players, but expect your dumbest ones. Create traps and encounters that could only even happen if the party does something stupid, and watch as you get to use every single one of them.


(**I find complaints about a 5 min workday hilarious. Every group I've ever run eventually pushes too long before resting. In previous editions, I often controlled rests myself to stop parties from overextending themselves.)
Every time I decide to ambush the party during a rest, I make another player terrified of sleeping. I don't actually do it all that often, but it seems to stick in the minds of the survivors. They pass the lesson on to the next generation- don't fall asleep.

[Laurefindel]

There are various ways to make the game more deadly.

It seems to me that the percieved issue is that players go down to 0 hp without much concequences.

The DMG has a variant rule for permanant injuries (can't remember how its called. might be as simple as "permanant injuries")

You could impose 1 level of exhaustion when PCs reach 0 hp.

Some DM don't have PC roll for death save until someone checks their vitals, increasing the suspence of being between life and death (note that this prevents a PC from rising back up to 1 hp by rolling a 20).

Some DM don't allow players to regain consciousness (even if healed back to 1 hp or more) until a lesser restoration or short rest is taken.

[Breashios]

PS just upping the monsters doesn't quite work I'm already do that in my current campaign. They find it challenging but it doesn't invoke a life or death feel.

Exactly.

If a group wants more individual injury and death, not more total party kills the answer is somewhere in the 3x death save mechanic and there being a real cost or rarity of Resurrections in the world.

We left the 3x death save mechanic alone and only in the very last session did we have a character at -2 saves with an enemy about to purposefully attack that character, but another character wisely risked a hit (actually a miss) to pour a potion down his throat.

There are no resurrections in this campaign only because there were no characters/NPCs known to the heroes that were of level to cast such a spell, until the druid got reincarnation himself. It is a "low number of living high level creatures" campaign (is there a short name for this or an acronym?), where the highest level characters lived and died long ago.

That has added a lot of enjoyable tension without having to have many deadly encounters. Also allows NPC injuries/deaths to be a serious concern for the heroes as well.

[lperkins2]

First, don't up monsters' HP. 5e scales kinda badly on in terms of HP for monsters, at higher levels it often turns into a slugfest just chewing through monster HP. If anything, I often reduce the monster HP, but add some extra monsters. If you want the encounter to be more dangerous, instead of a single troll with 80 HP, use 4 trolls with 20 HP. This actually makes the fight considerably harder. The damage the party needs to do is the same, possibly a bit higher, since overdamage won't do any good. The enemies attack much harder, since instead of a single action, they start out with 4. At the same time, the party will feel like they are making progress faster, since the number of attacks incoming drops much sooner. This also helps work around the awkwardness of d&d monsters fighting at full strength until they suddenly drop dead.

If you up the number of monsters, reduce their HP, but not their attacks, AC, or anything else, the party can easily lose in the action economy. This means fanatic monsters can often achieve a TPK. Few monsters are fanatics, each individual monster usually wants to survive. This means they are unlikely to press the attack if they think they are more likely to live by letting the party get away. If you go this route, make sure to play the monsters intelligently, figure out what the monsters wants from the encounter, and have them pursue that. For wild animals, it usually means escape, maybe protecting a nest or the young, maybe food. Once that objective is achieved (the party is in full flight, or if the goal was food, one party member is dead), don't pursue.

Sapients are likewise unlikely to press the attack, since the odds are good that whoever catches the PCs first won't survive. If the PCs are attacking a fort, or something similar, where the enemies are trying to defend, have the enemies focus fire on whomever looks softest. If the PCs break and run when the party mage goes down, don't pursue. Only if the PCs come back after rescuing and healing the mage should the enemies decide it is worth chasing them down, even then they are unlikely to try to kill all the PCs, just do enough more damage to convince them not to return.

Don't stop shooting the PC when it goes down, after all, healing magic is cheap, and killing adventurers is the best way to scare off their friends. Just remember shots at a downed PC are at disadvantage, but it only takes hitting them 2 times to have a good chance of killing them. Acid splash is great for this, since it lets you hit the downed PC and whomever is trying to rescue them.

[mephnick]

-Don't track death saves in the open. Keep track of how many are triggered and then roll them once a character is healed or checked on, then decide if they're still alive or not. It prevents the meta-gaming aspect of death saves and creates a little more urgency because the party doesn't know how close to death their ally is.

-Have enemies kill downed players. Raging dumb monstrosities with multi-attack will use all attacks on a single target regardless of if the first hit drops them to 0. Intelligent enemies understand that healing is a thing and will finish their kills if given the opportunity (though will switch targets if a better option).

- I have an injury table that triggers if someone fails a death save, it accumulates if you fail more death saves and comes with an exhaustion effect that does not accumulate. You can still pop up from 0 but you sure as hell aren't coming back at 100% fighting capacity. I had to add a few healing rules to make injuries not a total hand-wave. Don't use anything that will make a character useless though.

- Enforce the adventuring day. Make them actually use resources. The 6th fight of the adventuring day (doesn't matter what rest variant) should be a "...**** we better get this done fast or we're screwed" situation.

- Create encounters for areas, not encounters for parties. Say "this is a level 4-7 area" and then design a thematic table that includes Level 4 hard encounters up to level 7 deadly encounters. If they're level 4 and trigger a level 7 deadly encounter then they better think on their feet. Combat as Sport mentality takes a lot of the teeth out of D&D and 5e makes it very hard to actually endanger parties that are built even remotely properly if they're good about getting rests.

- Restrict rests through various positive and negative reinforcements. Time limits, restocking dungeon rosters, direct attacks, bosses get stronger the longer it takes, etc etc. Eventually the players will realize they sometimes have to push through to accomplish an objective.

- And, of course, play enemies to their strengths. Read the statblocks and lore. All creatures have preferred tactics and don't want to die. A group of wolves is actually unlikely to rush a party, have them track the characters to a camp instead and try to pull away the lone guy on watch when given the opportunity. Shambling mounds and Ropers will ambush using camouflage in terrain that suits them. Ghouls will paralyze one character and start dragging them from the fight to eat them. Kuo-toa will attack with numbers using nets to restrain PC's and then drown them or stab them on the ground. Gnolls will rush in immediately and fight to the death regardless of numbers. Not only will playing to monster strengths make the game deadlier, it will make your world seem alive.

[lperkins2]

-Don't track death saves in the open. Keep track of how many are triggered and then roll them once a character is healed or checked on, then decide if they're still alive or not. It prevents the meta-gaming aspect of death saves and creates a little more urgency because the party doesn't know how close to death their ally is.


How do you handle a natural 20 restoring 1HP? I always houserule it to just automatically stabilize them, since otherwise it creates the perverse incentive to let the character make at least 1 death save on the off chance that they pop back up.

[mephnick]

How do you handle a natural 20 restoring 1HP? I always houserule it to just automatically stabilize them, since otherwise it creates the perverse incentive to let the character make at least 1 death save on the off chance that they pop back up.

I still roll them in order, so if you rack up 4 death saves and the second one is a 20, they pop back up. It takes a bit of the advantage out of it because you still need to wait, yeah. I treat it as a shaken awake "don't die on me!" thing like from a movie. For the most part people will still use healing to get downed players up, but it puts more pressure on when to make the decision. You can't say "eh, he's at two saves and no fails, I'll attack this turn."

[lperkins2]

I still roll them in order, so if you rack up 4 death saves and the second one is a 20, they pop back up. It takes a bit of the advantage out of it because you still need to wait, yeah. I treat it as a shaken awake "don't die on me!" thing like from a movie. For the most part people will still use healing to get downed players up, but it puts more pressure on when to make the decision. You can't say "eh, he's at two saves and no fails, I'll attack this turn."

Yeah, if I wasn't going to change the mechanic, I'd probably roll for the players, in secret, on each turn. That way if they pop awake, I can let them know, otherwise it's the same as rolling all of them at once when checked.

[mephnick]

Yeah, if I wasn't going to change the mechanic, I'd probably roll for the players, in secret, on each turn. That way if they pop awake, I can let them know, otherwise it's the same as rolling all of them at once when checked.

I started with that but the players agreed it felt bad to have rolls decide their fate hidden in the hands of the DM. Let's them feel more in control if they physically roll themselves, so this was the compromise.

[NinaWu]

I had the party pass through an innocent looking waterfall that was a portal to another plane where the only language spoken and heard was gnomish. Didn't matter if you spoke (what in your mind was common) it came out as gnomish. No one in the group understood gnomish and they had a hell of a time organising themselves, communicating in combat, communicating at all. Their opponents all understood gnomish but even something as simple as asking for directions was a nightmare.

[Steampunkette]

Different approach: Kill Magical Healing.

For "REASONS" magical healing is incredibly limited. Perhaps there's some necrotic plague the PCs have to solve that makes mystical healing not work well, or perhaps at all. Force the players to be reliant on their short rest hit dice.

Then institute the Health-Risk challenge. Essentially, give traps and skill challenges a health risk value based on what they are. If the player fails the challenge, the lose one (or more) hit dice. Dart trap in a treasure chest? 1 HD lost. Boulder rolling down a corridor and they failed a dex check? 4-5 HD lost. Didn't quite make the jump check to get over the Razorwire fence? 2 HD lost.

When they run out of HD whether it be from falls or traps or whatever, they start taking HD Damage from failed challenges. The 5th level wizard who takes 1d6 of damage from falling takes as much relative damage to their HP as the 5th level Barbarian taking 1d12, after all.

And remember: They only get half their HD back on a long rest!

[NinaWu]

Different approach: Kill Magical Healing.

For "REASONS" magical healing is incredibly limited. Perhaps there's some necrotic plague the PCs have to solve that makes mystical healing not work well, or perhaps at all. Force the players to be reliant on their short rest hit dice.

Then institute the Health-Risk challenge. Essentially, give traps and skill challenges a health risk value based on what they are. If the player fails the challenge, the lose one (or more) hit dice. Dart trap in a treasure chest? 1 HD lost. Boulder rolling down a corridor and they failed a dex check? 4-5 HD lost. Didn't quite make the jump check to get over the Razorwire fence? 2 HD lost.

When they run out of HD whether it be from falls or traps or whatever, they start taking HD Damage from failed challenges. The 5th level wizard who takes 1d6 of damage from falling takes as much relative damage to their HP as the 5th level Barbarian taking 1d12, after all.

And remember: They only get half their HD back on a long rest!

I do very much like this idea and will find a place for it (similar lets say to a magic dead zone) in my campaign.

[smcmike]

Making the enemies smart & increasing the CR of encounters is fine, but it doesn't necessarily give the game a desperate, deadly tone, which is what you are looking for. You can only ramp up the difficulty so far without just killing the party, and killing the party repeatedly makes the game feel LESS real/dangerous, not more, because death becomes weightless. Games can be infinitely hard and still feel like games.

What you need to do is force the players to make tough out-of-combat decisions, and the way to do that is to force them to manage their resources carefully. Gritty realism helps, I think, since it makes it more narratively plausible to pile on encounters between rests. Low resource settings can help. Not giving them any sure safe harbors can help.

[Tanarii]

You can only ramp up the difficulty so far without just killing the party, and killing the party repeatedly makes the game feel LESS real/dangerous, not more, because death becomes weightless.
This just isn't true. The PCs dying repeatedly generally makes the players play a specific kind of smarter, to stay alive. More cautiously when it's required, and decidedly bold when necessary, and both strategically and tactically. Provided it isn't arbitrary or impossible to win, ie it depends on their 'player skill'. (Quotes because it's a specific kind of skill, there are many kinds.)

It's best to warn the players that it'll be hard, and ideally what will make it hard. And their PCs will likely die a lot at first. Because what is true is if the players perceive it as impossible to win or arbitrary, as opposed to dangerous but possible, they will quit in frustration.

I used to tell players I was running a hard game. Now that my campaign has some time in it, I can warn players new to the table that the average for the campaign is they will lose 3 Tier 1 PCs before they get one to Tier 2. But they sure will be (and are) better at surviving by the end of that.

Despite that, some find it's not for them and quit. Which is totally fine. Not everyone wants to have to be on their tactical and strategic A-game in their down time. Many people are gaming to relax and be sociable, or do some serious in-character acting, or see where the DM's plot takes them, or see how their characters personality develops, or any number of 'my characters shouldn't die just because I don't try desperately to stay alive' reasons

[Laurefindel]

"teaching" me how to play by repetitively killing my PC will only result with me leaving the table, but if the DM warns us that he/she is increasing the difficulty level and PC death is likely to happen (and thus to play our PCs accordingly), I will try to "smarten-up".

A chance to rebuilt the PC would be appreciated if that happens mid-game though.

[Chugger]

I just played an Adv. L. module which had the feel you're looking for. In it the party starts off (in a lawful evil city) accused of some crime (they didn't commit), when a darkness-cloaked assassin drops down and kills the city official questioning the party. His guards assume the party did it and start shooting xbows at them. The party must run and get away from the large numbers of city guards - find a safe haven - and then figure out how to vindicate themselves while being hunted relentlessly by city guards - never knowing if any place is safe or who might turn them in.

You could expand this concept to a campaign - i.e. start off with the party blamed for something and hunted - wanted - so they never really feel safe anywhere (til they earn it, perhaps - or learn which areas so hate the people offering a reward that they actually help the party, but only in limited places and at limited times). It could be that the party has no way to prove its innocence and instead must fight up to lvl x to help overthrow the tyrant who accused them. Or it could be that it takes x adventures to finally get all the clues to prove innocence - the point being that you can drag this out for some time. I think this might actually be a pretty cool theme for an adventure. Might try it myself one day. Think of that Harrison Ford movie based on the old TV show about the doc accused of murdering his wife - he has to stay ahead of the law (and not kill them) while finding and then fighting the real killer - but even more amped up and more action oriented.

[Chugger]

(an added thought to the above - do pace this properly - don't be too exhausting - include safe havens that they hop to in between dangerous must-be-sneaky missions - if it is all too grinding too paranoia-inducing too death-on-toast, it won't be fun (and players will quit) - balance it so they are periodically _rewarded_ for their hardship-suffering - and dangle golden carrots in front of them to keep them motivated and trying for thigns)

[Basement Cat]

Tucker's Kobolds (http://www.tuckerskobolds.com/) is always a good start. Tactically smart mooks can become terrifying in the blink of an eye.

Include little headaches like having underground tunnels being goblin sized--a must for smaller monsters--can really eat at a normal party's meta thinking. Especially if the PCs are big guys.

Re-skin your monsters: The players won't know what to expect.

As mentioned above having areas that have certain challenge levels is always smart. Like in Dragon Age: Inquisition you don't want to go into the Hinterlands and fight the dragon at too low a level but the dragon is there from day one.

Go further and have NPCs who are higher levels dispersed among the general populace. It's an old trick but useful if you haven't used it lately. The first time a party member picks a bar fight and gets his butt handed to him by an NPC five levels higher than him usually teaches PCs to respect strangers.

Worse...have the higher level NPCs pick fights with the PCs specifically because the NPC has heard some kind of misinformation about the PCs. This kind of thing can give players the willies about what kind of reputation they're developing. Especially if you've got one NPC deliberately slandering the PCs for reasons the players don't know.

[Jeran]

Gritty Realism slows down campaigns and neuters casters (none of your casters will ever advance a plot line with confidence, for fear of not having the spell they need when they need them). They will constantly be looking for safe havens for long rest to the point of annoyance.

In a RP heavy / combat -lite campaign it could work. But if you have a combat heavy campaign designing a better encounter or upping the difficulty is the better way to go.

I disagree about gritty realism neutering casters. What it does is make them play strategically and with an eye to future encounters. However, it does impacts all classes significantly. Monks, Rogues, Paladins, Barbarians, Rangers and even Fighters have long and short rest abilities that are impacted by this variant rule. Champion Fighters are, obviously impacted the least, but Battemasters and Eldritch Knights also have their resources limited. (Finally a reason to actually play a Champion.) This makes every class have to plan when to use an ability knowing that another fight is coming keeping them from going nova except when they have too in order to win or survive. A side benefit is that it solves the exponential wizard and linear fighter conundrum as well as it essentially removes the 3 to 5 encounter/day guidelines from the game, which make no sense short of a war or dungeon setting.

Gritty realism isn't for everyone, but for groups that don't prefer a highly magical game setting, are looking for a more challenging game to relieve 5e boredom or for DM's that want to enforce strategic thinking beyond nuking the enemy with fireball or spamming said enemy with smites it solves many problems with 5e. I highly recommend everyone try it for at least a few sessions to see what you think. If it's not your group's cup of tea, the standard rules await your return.

[Steampunkette]

For me, all Gritty Realism does is turn an adventuring Day into an adventuring Week.

Players spend about the same amount of time on a given encounter or short series of encounters, about the same amount of resources, and then spend a day resting instead of an hour, or a week to rest instead of a night.

The story gets stretched over a longer period of time in the game world, but nothing changes at the table.

[Tanarii]

For me, all Gritty Realism does is turn an adventuring Day into an adventuring Week.

Players spend about the same amount of time on a given encounter or short series of encounters, about the same amount of resources, and then spend a day resting instead of an hour, or a week to rest instead of a night.

The story gets stretched over a longer period of time in the game world, but nothing changes at the table.
Exactly. The purpose of the rest variants isn't to have more or less encounters per time period, but rather to change the in-game time associated with them.

Of course, due to uneven scaling they definitely have an impact. Especially if a safe haven for a weeks rest isn't available. Even if it is, daily SR can easily result in SR-resource based classes wanting to push on day after day for a while. Similarly, the Heroic Rest variant can impact the balance between SR/LR, typically in favor of LR classes IMX. Of course, those impacts are most heavily felt in sandbox or 'play every minute/day' styles of play. As opposed to ones featuring encounters / adventure time only, with 'downtime' in between.