
If it happens more than once, then bring death into the equation.Įxact numbers aren't important. I would prefer to go with less lethal measures-have them faint or black out, or perhaps enter the good old "Heroic Blue Screen of Death". It's a sucky way to lose your PC if you aren't expecting it.

Or perhaps it simply raises the threshold for a heart attack-their stress stays the same, but they're in less danger of immediately dying.Ĥ. Do they develop a reckless streak? If they rush into battle unwisely one time, perhaps they become a little bit less stressed out. Perhaps allow them to reduce stress slightly when they do this, to incentivize them to look for places to trigger their characters in dangerous ways. They could acquire traits and be expected to roleplay them, and when they go into circumstances where those stress points trigger, prompt them about it. The question is, how forceful do you want these problems to be? Forcing them to say things like they do in Darkest Dungeons obviously wouldn't work. If you want stress to be especially prevalent, make the threshold lower.ģ. Perhaps make it a flat 1d6 per hit die for everyone, to avoid favoring certain classes. You could base it on their Wisdom and/or Con scores, or perhaps just base it on their Hit Dice. Then you decide when stress gets the better of them. Say they give 1d4 each (or particularly bad events, like a death, give 2d4 or 3d4). The exact numbers don't matter, but they should give an amount that works proportionately to the maximum.

Getting knocked unconscious by lethal damage, failing a save against a mind-affecting effect, seeing something particularly awful, losing a party member, when a combat gets particularly hopeless (be wary of this one-you don't want to just pile on bad stuff, so you might consider making inflicting this one group decision rather than a GM decision), another party member's stress getting the better of them.Ģ (and 3-4).

Funny, I was just thinking about this a few days ago.ġ.
