The Heroes Measure

Q1000 · Sep 21, 2003

Do to the violent nature of my game I have added the heroes measure to first level characters. This is what carries them to the status of heroes or antiheroes as the case may be.
At level one each character gains 10 extra HP. These act as normal HP but the con bonus does not modify. These HP are permanent. The Player may exchange one of these bonus HP for an attribute increase, 1 point of HP for a one point increase of any one character attribute. No attribute may be increased higher than 18 in this fashion (before racial mods). The player may use all 10 points of the bonus HP is desired. None of the characters initial HPs can be used in this fashion, only the bonus HPs. The attribute modification must occure at character creation.

Q1000

Crothian · Sep 21, 2003

Interesting idea. What method do you use for attribute generation?

Scion · Sep 21, 2003

wow.. That is a lot

If you start doing that let me know how it goes for you (though it seems most characters would be really smart to max out their con useing these extra hp, by level 2 they are even with the shift, and then its all bonus after that)

I have been toying with the idea of letting pc's take a number of levels of npc classes equal to the extra amount of power/ability I want them to have, but not counting these levels for exp needed to level. This idea can even go to the point of trading in some amount of exp to gain extra npc levels. When done correctly I think this would get you most of what you are looking for, but I could be wrong

npc classes are generally underwhelming, but you could limit it just to expert and say certain skills are offlimits.

Q1000 · Sep 22, 2003

Crothian said:
Interesting idea. What method do you use for attribute generation?

4D6 drop the lowest. The goal is to create a hero, that stands above the rest. We just started using this method to try and find some balance and control over character creation

Q1000

Q1000 · Sep 22, 2003

Scion said:
wow.. That is a lot If you start doing that let me know how it goes for you (though it seems most characters would be really smart to max out their con useing these extra hp, by level 2 they are even with the shift, and then its all bonus after that)

The reason we have done this is to give them a reasonable chance to survive. The problem with the character el vs level system is even though the character has higher than normal abilities there HP was to low. In an encounter in the game the whole party was killed by an EL3 encounter and they were EL 4. But the average HP was only 7.

Q1000

Scion · Sep 22, 2003

of course

I understand what you are going for, I was just pointing out the most obvious problem that I could see.

Giving max hp at every level would also help out, changing toughness to be a virtual +2 con that only works for hp (or a chain of feats to gain a lot of hp, better than those in one of the splatbooks), and the extra npc levels I suggested above do the same thing.

I would just be very hesitant to actually run the trading in mechanic, as it is much more worthwhile to put your low stat in con (thus saving better scores for the other abilities) and then trading in all of these bonus hp in for more con. There are other abuses but that is the easiest one to describe ;/

4d6 drop the low should get decently tough characters to begin with (if you want more tough there are tons of methods for that, such as giving a few extra dice that they can put on the abilities they are sure to want high).

With the +10 hp at first level (non-trading in) I think they would all be tougher and able to survive a crit sometimes, which is good. So that is cool

I'm just worried about the abuses to stat modification.

Silverglass · Sep 22, 2003

Q1000 said:
The reason we have done this is to give them a reasonable chance to survive. The problem with the character el vs level system is even though the character has higher than normal abilities there HP was to low. In an encounter in the game the whole party was killed by an EL3 encounter and they were EL 4. But the average HP was only 7.
Q1000

I'd be interested to find out what sort of EL4 party had average hit points of 7, only a sorceror or wizard would have 7 HP (absolute minumum) at 4th level unless they were all +2 or +3 ECL races (with no racial hit dice).

4 2nd level PCs should be able to take and EL3 encounter and I've seen 5 1st level PCs do it with good tactics.

Q1000 · Sep 24, 2003

Silverglass said:
I'd be interested to find out what sort of EL4 party had average hit points of 7, only a sorceror or wizard would have 7 HP (absolute minumum) at 4th level unless they were all +2 or +3 ECL races (with no racial hit dice).

4 2nd level PCs should be able to take and EL3 encounter and I've seen 5 1st level PCs do it with good tactics.

The party was an odd mix of racial classes, we had 6 players whose starting el was 3, I then adjusted up one due to the extra two players. Think Drow.

Q1000

ciaran00 · Sep 24, 2003

So don't reward them for playing power-hog races (like Drow, ECL +2) by giving them 10 extra hp! Good god.

???

ciaran

AeroDm · Sep 24, 2003

Question for ya-

When you say EL4 do you mean that in the sense that there are like 4 1st level people (two 1st level are EL2, two EL2 are EL4)? Because that could be part of your problem if I that is what you intend.

The Heroes Measure

Q1000

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Crothian

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Scion

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Q1000

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Q1000

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Scion

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Silverglass

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Q1000

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ciaran00

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AeroDm

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