Yeah...there are limits. Looking at the manga/anime world, there are crazy fights where combatants bleed 10x more blood than their body contains, lose limbs, and keep on truckin'. Kinda silly.
I beat the hell out of my characters. They get injured, maimed and die. There's usually some down time to heal between events, but if not, I describe how exhaustion sets in. Keeping it realistic, telling the reader how the characters are feeling is very important and raises the stakes.
The other thing is keeping track of the effects of hardship. One of my characters loses an arm at one point. It's not just a point of drama, it understandably,, greatly affects his life. The obvious things like fighting are completely different (he cant even use the same weapon), but everyday things...cutting steak at a meal, getting dressed...all these things are now very hard out of the gate. There's a psychological toll.
I beat the hell out of my characters. They get injured, maimed and die. There's usually some down time to heal between events, but if not, I describe how exhaustion sets in. Keeping it realistic, telling the reader how the characters are feeling is very important and raises the stakes.
The other thing is keeping track of the effects of hardship. One of my characters loses an arm at one point. It's not just a point of drama, it understandably,, greatly affects his life. The obvious things like fighting are completely different (he cant even use the same weapon), but everyday things...cutting steak at a meal, getting dressed...all these things are now very hard out of the gate. There's a psychological toll.