D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting

[Water_Bear]

Also: D&D is, and always has been, a game of Heroic Fantasy. Pick an edition, and show me proof it isn't.

Obviously I must be right, since you are unable to prove a negative claim to my satisfaction.

But, yeah I agree with you that D&D ought to model heroic fantasy much better. That actually, IMO, means reducing the power level a little while still giving PCs tons of options. There shouldn't ever be a level where an entire army poses no threat to you, while I would argue a rat should never become a threat.

That said, high lethality is not necessarily a bad thing; my problem, and I suspect most people's here, is that character death should have meaning. Diseases poison and starvation should weaken and maim, hordes of minions should wear you down, but death should only happen in ways which highlight character awesomeness or player incompetence. I have no issue if Boromir dies on a pile of dead Uruk-Hai, or if Gandalf gets ganked by a Balrog, but even Pippin shouldn't be killed by a freaking rat.

Basically, high HP values (relative to damage) and fewer outright SoDs would make combat seem more epic and make it more dependent on Player skill rather than luck. This would also benefit the DM; BBEGs are typically built using PC classes, so any bonus to PC survivability also reduces the "they one-shotted Darth Vader" issue significantly.