Best of the Web - Would you Burn, Red Teams, Megadungeon Explorers

Hall of the Grymlorde has a thought provoking post titled Would you burn hit points to hit harder? It is a post in the form of a question, not actual mechanics behind it. I find the idea intriguing. If you read the magic rules for my Fantasy Heartbreaker of the moment (Not Dead Yet)  you'd see I have a similar idea for spellcasting. Spellcasters ante up stats as a sort of spell point. Ante up more and your spell can be more powerful (range, duration, power, etc). If you succeed, its all good, if you fumble your casting you lose that many points in a stat.  I can imagine a similar mechanic for combat using Hit Points. Since HP heal quicker it'd be less risky in the long term, but since they are eaten up quickly in combat the short term could be bad, really bad.

But sometimes you really need to hit. Sometimes you really need to do as much damage as possible. Being able to exert that extra effort just seems like an idea the game has been missing and I think if I ever update my game (or create a GLOG Heartbreaker) I'll probably add this mechanic. Damn I like this mechanic conceptually and hope to hear back from anyone that uses it in play.

Seed of Worlds has a post called Villainous friends: using Red Teams in your game. The idea is to have Factions in your gameworld and let another control that factions plans and reactions to the players. The folks controlling the factions don't even have to be at the table as everything is more about the big picture goals of the faction. If you had the right people involved this could work out really well. Initially I thought the post was going to be more along the lines of an old idea I had of the Joker. The Joker was the extra player at the table, who would speak for the enemies (at least some) so the GM didn't  have to do it themselves. I like the idea but never implemented it as speaking for the enemies is one of the joys of being a GM so I have always been reluctant to give that part away. With Seed of Worlds idea that isn't an issue and you'll get factional plans and development that a single GM might never have considered.

Beyond the Black Gate has an old post with a new class called Megadungeon Explorer. It seems to be a bit of a blend of fighter, wizard, and thief. I think the concept is intriguing. I'm thinking 5E with all those little abilities each level, do they make sense in all environments? What if are Ranger is stuck in a city the entire time they are earning XP to go up to 3rd level, does it make sense you'd learn Primeval Awareness the way you normally would? What about a Thief in the desert or a Wizard on a ship? It seems like there are times when the normal progression should take a pause, or those level abilities could be swapped for something more appropriate for the new environment. This idea would work better with a GLOG class with the easy multi-classing as is it is probably more effort than its worth but it seems there might be something there I'm just not sure how to form it yet.