Quote Originally Posted by jjordan View Post
Smaug was killed by a skilled archer with his lucky arrow.
If you stabbed Conan in the heart he'd die.
Clerics should only get spells appropriate to their deity's sphere of influence.
People who are 1hp away from possibly bleeding out shouldn't be able to leap chasms.
If you're a warlock and you aren't actively advancing the cause of your patron there should be some freaking consequences.
Magic should be powerful and hard and pretty damn rare and not a matter of going pew, pew, pew every freaking round of combat.
Death spirals are real.
Make stupid choices, win stupid prizes.
Armor works, which is why people wore it.
Armor needs more maintenance than a Harley-Davidson built the Monday after the plant-wide drinking contest.
Logistics are both incredibly boring and the cornerstone of any sort of exploration or long journey.
Gold is rare, people trade in silver.
Frodo spent two freaking months recovering from his wounds (and never did fully recover).
Some specialties are not meant to be used in combat and making them combat classes is ridiculous (cough artificer cough).
Bilbo traveled 1,000 miles over the course of 6 months, fought trolls, goblins, gollum, giant spiders, elves, matched wits with a dragon, fought goblins (again), and had a nice suit of excellent armor, a magic ring, and a magic sword for his troubles.
To quote a certain website...

Have you tried not playing D&D?

Seriously, there are quite a few systems that try to do those things you're describing.