How do I make my combat more dangerous? Regardless of system

How do I make my combat more dangerous? Regardless of system.

Add more mechanical nuances to combat that players have to look out for and roll on

aka artificial difficulty

Why do you want it to be more dangerous?

Have rocks floating above your players' heads at all times, with random rolls determining whether they fall or not.

Make sure battles take place in dynamic battlefields.

That there is always something to throw people into , off of, or at.

Make the enemies your players fight fight smart. Bandits will gang up on anyone that's vulnerable, wolves savage anyone on the ground, snipers will target obvious leaders, etc. Play the way they would; an enemy doesn't care about the narrative, he wants to win.

Arm your encounters with lodestones and slingshots.

Exploding damage dice seems to work with my group. It's a substitute for crits and happens much more often than usual. But, if your system has a method of upgrading the critical hit chance or critical damage multipliers you should probably not change it to "Explode on the top two values of a damage dice" because that leads to ridiculous shit. I had to learn the hard way. Example:
>Rogue took the feat since he loves burst damage.
>First enemy is a hill giant
>Rogue sneaks up and rolls for backstabbing damage.
>on 2d4 damage
>4
>3
>3
>4
>4
>3
>4
>4
>3
>3
>4
>3
>4
>4
>3
>4
>3
>4
>4
>2
>One-shots a Very difficult encounter in one hit with 70 damage.

Exploding dice in systems that don't use a single die type is terrible.

Always roll a d6 if the result is 1 you die

Exploding dice was shit in Savage Worlds and it's shit in whatever system you're playing, too.

I know it sounds cool cause you can one-shot a dragon with a dagger but it's really lolrandumb crap that shouldn't appeal to anyone with maturity past the age of 15.

threaten to kill your players for real if their character dies in the game

The trick isn't to make combat more dangerous itself, but the consequences of combat more pressing.

Remove easy ways of healing or recovery mid session. You don't want to take the players out for months at a time, but you do want them to do their best to avoid getting hurt in the middle of that dungeon.

Make sure to combine this with pressure to finish whatever it is they're doing in a timely manner. Don't give them time to stop and recover at their leisure, make sure that they need to tough their injuries out. Carry this over into the real game: don't let them debate various encounters themselves until they create the perfect plan, only give them enough time to figure out the barest hint of an idea before you start pressing on them.

If you're doing an HP system, add in some houserules for taking certain amounts of damage to give them disadvantage. That fighter down a 4th his HP? -2 to attack rolls until he recovers. That spellcaster take a nasty hit? Failure chance on their spells of some description.

Essentially, you're not looking to make combat itself more lethal, you're looking to make the combat you already do seem more pressing and dangerous.

You can't do this all the time(well, you can, for certain groups), but in general it can make for some pretty tense situations.

Context is all important.

With the right context a confrontation that would be trivial to players will become panic stricken and confused.

This is the biggest thing.

So many times have I both played and heard of other people playing where every single encounter took place on a completely flat, completely empty coliseum-type battlefield on solid ground with clear weather. It's no wonder everybody thinks a 1st-level Wizard can win a fight with a single Grease spell.

Add SOMETHING, anything at all, to the battlefield to spice things up. Have there be a strong wind. Make the ground muddy. Have there be hills and trees and undergrowth. Put the battle in the middle of a dense city with buildings everywhere and panicked civilians running around screaming for their lives. This isn't rocket surgery. Not every fight needs to take place in a perfectly sculpted dueling arena.

>Panicked Civilians

This has recently become one of my favorite ones for mid-level parties. A group of monsters that they would be able to easily bring in on even terms, but in the middle of a crowded market square. The monsters attack from multiple angles, causing the crowds of civilians stampede in random directions, which damages, bull rushes, and impedes the movement of players caught up in them. Two of my players got into PVP when one fireballed the crowd to kill the monster and the other took offense to it, turned into the most memorable encounter I've run in a while and a great moment.

>It's no wonder everybody thinks a 1st-level Wizard can win a fight with a single Grease spell.

Flat empty coliseum is the WORST place for grease. People can spread out, and just walk around it.

I have no idea why some people think that the class who can interact with its surroundings the most (either by shaping it, straight up using it with spells like spider walk, or just taking advantage of it by creating zones in choke points, etc.) would somehow get worse when the terrain gets more complex. Instead, the classes who actually have to deal with shit like cover and difficult terrain are in a tougher spot; which is good if the payoff is there, but in 3.PF (the game of broken wizards) it most often isn't.

depends on why you think your combats aren't dangerous.
If it's because your PCs are dominating you either
A)make NPCS more powerful
or
B) throw your PCs into more combats per day to strain them more.
or
C)think outside the box.

Because people are retarded. Flat out, full out. I actually had someone trying to argue with a straight face that PF had better balance, rather then caster imbalance being worse then 3.5.

And then the shithead had the audacity to act surprised that I got angry at his brain-damaged ass for continuing that lie, and refusing to actually listen when I pointed out a large number of reasons why martials got to suck more caster cock in PF.

just restrict the players to weaponry, and armoury, which they could feasibly wield irl.

>scrawny nerd wants to slam face with battle-hammer, but can't lift one above knee height...
>fat kneck-beard wants to fire magical arrows but can barely manage a quarter draw because he-tits get in the way...

so effectively your player characters are limited to kitchen knives and puffer-jackets.

>rat swarms are suddenly something they run the fuck away from.... but fatty can't keep up the pace for long

Enjoy having no fucking players.

I think it's a tradeoff between 3.5 and PF. PF reeled in the polymorph spells at least, so that's something, even if otherwise it's mostly upgrades.

>be Veeky Forums
>other players at table include 400 pound hambeast, 250 pound hambeast, and skinnybro
with your rules i am become death, destroyer of worlds

I say just toss a match at them both. And tie up the poor braindead fuckers that refuse to play anything else.

Let them all burn together.

Exploding damage dice.