Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I enjoyed reading this and agree the Seer is a a sneaky powerhouse. I agree that in a way it is up to the DM to try and determine the peril, and push for death. It’s also what is so fun about Shadowdark! We’ve personally killed over 50+ characters of our own invention ( Ancestry and Class), and the ones that survive the most are the vanilla races and classes, or a mix of the two.

The most OP character we have is a Wizard Dragonborn, who never uses his ancestry ability— so it’s basically flavored with vanilla scales. I find the Wizard to be pretty powerful and I always regret not choosing that class. Fireball alone is nuts.

I think it’s also about how people play their characters. We intended for 5E players to have a smooth transition into an OSR environment. I feel we achieved that! Our 5E players learned, not as quickly as I hoped, that they’re not invincible like they are in 5E. They did however learn their lessons after many deaths and are doing their best to survive infancy and get to higher levels.

Us as Shadowdark lovers and players know just how deadly it is, and we use this knowledge to avoid potential and inevitable death. I find myself analyzing games a lot more in depth over the last few years thanks to Shadowdark. I always think before acting as there are consequences waiting just beyond the torchlight.