5 Old School Ways for Making D&D More Lethal
It's a classic scenario. Six 1st level guardsmen have an 8th level fighter cornered in an alleyway, their crossbows cocked and loaded and trained on him. What happens next? What we might expect from D&D on the surface is that the 6 guardsmen will fire their crossbows. Most will miss. One, maybe two will hit, depleting 5-10% of the level 8 fighter's hit points, 15% at the very most. The fighter retaliates, most likely hitting one of the guardsmen with a lethal blow. After about 6 rounds, we estimate the fighter will have slain all the guardsmen while himself having only suffered 25-30% of his hit points. This squares well with some fantasy fiction. But not with others. Sometimes we want the guardsmen to present a credible enough threat such that often times the best things for the 8th level fighter to do is surrender. If there were a way of making actions other than fighting more viable and sometimes even the optimal choice, we broaden the array of possible stories th