Ah-ha, thanks! Yes, those do look awfully similar, and they even seem to have the same stroke order. I tried them out in my four reference fonts, and thankfully they do all look different in all four fonts — one would assume that this is something font-makers make sure to take into account.
Another similar thing I've noticed is comparative stroke length. For example, with 羊 (yáng/sheep), some fonts have the three horizontal strokes pretty much the same length, while others have the outer ones the same length and the inner one shorter, while still others have the middle one shortest, then the upper one a bit longer, and finally the lower one significantly longer than either of the others. It doesn't seem to matter hugely. However, 士 (shì/scholar, which is used phonetically in 多士/duō shì/toast) and 土 (tǔ/earth, which I know from 土豆/tǔ dòu/potato) differ only in the lengths of their horizontal strokes, so there's no room for playing around with these in font design.
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Another similar thing I've noticed is comparative stroke length. For example, with 羊 (yáng/sheep), some fonts have the three horizontal strokes pretty much the same length, while others have the outer ones the same length and the inner one shorter, while still others have the middle one shortest, then the upper one a bit longer, and finally the lower one significantly longer than either of the others. It doesn't seem to matter hugely. However, 士 (shì/scholar, which is used phonetically in 多士/duō shì/toast) and 土 (tǔ/earth, which I know from 土豆/tǔ dòu/potato) differ only in the lengths of their horizontal strokes, so there's no room for playing around with these in font design.