[quote=@Inkarnate]
[@Poi]

Sounds to me like your DM has made a rather challenging campaign (which would be fine) or just doesn’t understand combat balance yet (which would be less fine)?
[/quote]

Hopefully they know how to balance combat since I've been playing tabletop with them for four years. Could be that we tried a new RPG, but the DM has had time to balance out combat since they're always so keen on running tests.

I'm just tired of brand spanking new characters nearly dying before they finish their first adventure, especially in one hit. I don't mind character death in tabletop but I don't really enjoy it when its "Oh, hey, a new per--aaaand they're dead already" with characters dying right after the first few rounds of combat they've ever been in.

Even when playing Song of Swords, a RPG tries to emulate medieval combat through vicious mauling and other types of wound disadvantages, this never happened. You had to plan your attacks (both PC and DM's NPCs)... not just hope you survive against a werebeast that can't fail rolling d20s (dice are little different than RPGs like D&D--a 20 is a fumble but they can't fumble when their skill level is 20) and their attack deals 30 damage maximum possible (5d6, which is more than the average health), or if they crit by rolling a 20 and promptly deal up to 60 damage (10d6, which is pretty much killing us twice over if the werelion is super lucky).

For reference, the rough average amount of damage we can put out is around 18 per hit if we are lucky. And that includes even hitting since the werelion gets two attacks (so did the bear, although the moss knight got a whopping four). You may pass but if your opponent gets a higher roll in a contested roll against you, you're most likely to have the same thing happen to you like I had complained earlier. Simply, you're probably almost dead or dead.