instead of adding HP or enemy numbers, it would be more interesting to reduce numbers of long rest / time you can do (maybe by limiting food), prohibiting respecs, and limiting save-reloads.
Agreed!!!
Combat is not super easy, but getting ready to it IS.
An additional "Hardcore" or "Seasoned Tactician" mode with increased difficulty would be super cool.
Some suggestions, which I believe should be simple to implement (well, maybe not SIMPLE simple, but doable)
Make pickpocketing harder and with harsher consequences
Using stolen itens in front of original vendor should have some consequence
Increase cost of scrolls, maybe make them harder to find too
Limit resting to safe areas
Limit saving the game to long rests, no quicksaves allowed
Make supplies harder to find, make them rot, or simply Increase the number of required food to rest
Split required resting supplies between edibles and liquids
Using Teleportation circles requires you to be standing next to one
Using Teleportation circles without resting causes psychic damage
Increase the cost of ressurection and respec tenfold (Withers)
Add material component cost to to revivify spell (500 GP?)
Dead characters could miss the XP earned from enemies killed while they were dead
Critical failures (and misses) should have more consequences (maybe add a 5% chance of breaking the weapon and requiring having it repaired)
We should be unable to tune the difficulty down in this hardcore mode
Naturally, with pain comes gain! So, it would be nice to see some hall of fame for people who beat the game in this mode. Or maybe exclusive content of some kind.
P.S. I simply LOVE the game and I find it very pleasing to play already! Looking forward to play it all over again in a harder mode!
I agree with some of this, but I don't think the number of scrolls you can find is a problem. Running out of food and water is not a D&D thing, so I think it would be a mistake to make players grind for more resources. I would only change resurrection/respec/revivify costs by Difficulty; they should be cheap on Story Mode and (maybe) unavailable on Hardcore Mode (one above Tactician). I wouldn't make dead NPCs drop behind others in XP because the game is more fun when everyone acts as a team; I don't want an inferior member. Heck, I don't even like that the characters sometimes go up levels at a slightly different rate; I want them to advance all at the same time. Breaking weapons is not a D&D thing. Handle players who want to shift between difficulty modes with Achievements. It's a singleplayer game, so "keeping players honest" is entirely optional. If you want to prove you played the whole game on Tactician Difficulty, show them a "Tactical Genius" achievement; Hall of Fame is fine, too.
All of that said, I agree it would be nice if there was a way to limit Long Rests. I'd probably handle it with wandering monsters that give you no XP if you encounter and defeat them. As long as the player sees there is a repercussion (however minor) it might be enough to encourage pushing through, though I think once you make it so onerous that the player would not reasonably choose to take a Long Rest, I think it has gone too far. It might be enough to just show how many days it has taken "so far" as a kind of scorecard. If you are on your 15th day in Act 1, you might start feeling like you should pick up the pace for no other reason than the number looks big. You could also sprinkle some concept of urgency into 3 or 4 quests or encounters, like if you get the mcguffin back to the quest giver in fewer days, you get a bigger reward. Maybe reduce XP across the board by about 10%, then give it back at certain checkpoints with a multiple that depends on how fast you got there. Something like that. (I think there is slightly too much XP in the game now anyway, given the Level 12 cap.)
