D&D General Hit Points. Did 3.0 Or 3.5 Get it Right?

[S'mon]

Just in terms of game design, I think hit point totals should almost always stay in the two-digit range (1-99), with the game balanced around that. Maybe huge ancient dragons and demon lords can go three-digit. In play there is far more brain load on the GM when dealing with three digit numbers. Then ofc PC damage output should match that to get the typical desired fight duration, 3 rounds being a decent target for a typical challenging encounter.

 

[S'mon]

Your point certainly stands, and checking back on what the DM told us (afterward), the guard was a mere Veteran (CR3, we were 5th level, the bard rolled 30 on his 9d8 hit points to put to sleep - the Veteran has 58 hp). Really seems that dropping a 3rd level spell (one player's most powerful once-per-adventure resource) on a single such minor target should have had a better than 50% chance of taking the individual out. Would've had to roll better than 6's on all the dice, and my tired brain can't math the chances of that working out for us.

If he'd been stabbed by the assassin then Sleeped the Veteran would have worked, right? This doesn't sound unfair to me. A CR 3 58 hp Veteran is an elite guard, but something a competent level 5 party could be expected to deal with IMO.

 

[S'mon]

I don't think I'd even use something as tough as the 5e veteran as a simple guard, typical guards probably aren't going to be that tough so I'd use something with 2HD that could easily be taken out with a sleep spell. Veterans would instead be guard captains or hold other positions of importance.

In terms of world simulation, it's definitely a 5e MM failing IMO that there is nothing between the very weak 11 hp Guard and the very strong 58 hp Veteran. I don't really have a problem with the BBEG in a level 5 adventure being guarded by elite Veterans, but a CR 3 Veteran is worth 700 XP, which is 28 CR 1/8 Guards - they should be pretty rare in the campaign world.

 

[Andvari]

I don't know what level your party is, but if you could upcast sleep to 3rd, you must have been at least 5th level; so I'll assume this is a CR 5 guard. You know what else is CR 5? A hill giant! I bet if the DM had described the guard as a three-ton giant 16 feet tall, you wouldn't have felt hard done by when you couldn't KO it before it got to act. But because the DM described the guard as just a guard, you were (legitimately!) annoyed when this random sentry was as tough as a hill giant.

I recently had a rogue player wanting to assassinate a hobgoblin overseer in a castle before he could escape or raise alarm. She asked if she could just slit his throat and I said "if you deal enough damage to kill him." This was in Pathfinder 2E, so i allowed her to use Stealth as initiative while the hobgoblin used perception. She decided to use her rapier instead of her dagger, as it did more damage. She was level 7 and the hobgoblin was level 1, so she did in fact kill him instantly. I don't know exactly what her initiative bonus was, but I'm guessing it's around +15 when using Stealth, while the hobgoblin only had a +7 bonus. So pretty good odds of both going first and assassinating the poor guy.

I think having lowly monsters around at higher levels works really great. You don't have to make a big encounter with a hundred of them. They just need to exist here and there. I suspect it's also very useful for players to feel their literal character growth by trouncing opponents they found challenging in the past. The castle they're exploring has plenty of tough enemies, like medusas, trolls and hill giants (funnily enough), but they don't have to all be like that. Besides, hobgoblins are less unruly and work well enough against normal would-be intruders.

 

[Minigiant]

Erm 4E basically isn't do anything ew. A minion in prec4E is just those fodder types.

And they do turn up in numbers in official adventures. Vague recollections of lvl 10 wizard circa 2002.

Fodder types of older editions didn't threaten PCs due to system expectations and DM workload.

4e minions allowed for an easy way to increase bodies and "effective HP" with low DM brainload

Fireball stunk in 3.5 because it took too much brainpower to make 15 1HD kobolds scary to 3-5 blinged out, moderately optimized 3rd edition PCs multiple times.

However in 4e you can swap out a 42 HP orc for 4 1HP orc minions effortlessly and scare the elf wizard when you simply have them rush passed the fighter.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Occasionally.

3.5 fireball was still a B tier spell and 5d6 is generally the minimum damage.

Save or sucks are still better in 5E as well eg hypnotic patter.

Even in 5E you don't really see 20 orcs it's more like 6 CR 1s or 2s and a CR 5 or whatever level 8ish.

I woukd argue its gotten worse every edition. 5E one might be better than the 4E version which had anemic damage and buckets of hp and minions got evasion iirc.

3E 5d6 fireball compares comparatively well to 5E 8d6 obe. Remember 3.5 one scales for free though and at 6d6 -10d6 it's no contest imho.

As already said, 8d6 in 5e stays relevant, as low level foes stay relevant in 5e. On top of that, saving throw in 5e scales for free while in 3.5 it does not*.

*although it practically does scale for free due to magic items.

That said, I think 5e could be improved by slightly faster proficiency bonus scaling. I would raise it at level 2, 6, 10, 14 and 18.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well with 5E coming to a close this year (long live 5.25 or 5.5) in hindsight I think the hit point bloat was a mistake. 4E also did it.

Playing OSR games again some critters might have to few eg dragons are glass cannons.

This kind of leaves 3.0 and 3.5. 3.0 essentially took 2E monsters and added ability scores while 3.5 and Pathfinder tweaked them.

3.X had other problems and the hit points may not have been enough for those editions relative to damage dealt. 3.X bounded accuracy a'la 5E or SWSE well that's interesting as an engine.

Spoilers./context Conceptually looking at a 5E engine/monster designs but tweaked to wind back the hp bloat.

I'm actually pretty happy with the hit point levels in the TSR editions and the OSR games based on them, but 3e/3.x was alright too.

 

[Micah Sweet]

In 3E, an efficient (not optimized - just efficient) 3E game, we'd often see monsters that the DM spent quite a bit of time assembling go down before they did anything. They might as well have been a potato. I recall one battle with a Frost Giant Jarl and its mount, a Frost Drake (a dragon without the smarts) that took me an hour to craft - but that the PCs killed before either could act.

This is bad design.

If anything is commonly rendered irrelevant in actual play, it is problematic. Other than fodder, a monster should survive to the end of the first round in D&D for it to have some relevancy. There may be the occasional exception to the rule (high damage crit), but it is bad design to have monsters that are easy to fell in

Let's say that a 2nd level party of 5 PCs encounters 2 ogres. This is a 'hard' encounter by the books. Those slow moving ogres will other go after 4 or 5 PCs have activated. If the PCs focus fire, you can often get 10 to 15 damage per PC on these monsters. If the ogres have less than 30 hps, there is a real high chance that one, or both, of these theoretically significant threats, will fall down before they do anything in combat.

In 3E, they had 26 hps. In 5E they have 59.

Which is a better game experience?

The party rolls for initiative. The barbarian rages and deals 2d6+5 damage. The rogue then goes and delivers 2d6+3 with the main hand sneak attack and 1d6 with the off hand. The ranger deals 1d8+1d6 (Hunter's mark) +3 with their bow. Then the warlock blasts away for 1d10+1d6+3 with their Eldritch blast. At this point the monsters have taken 1d10+1d8+6d6+14 damage - or about 45 damage. That is one ogre down and the second nearly down as well. If the fifth PC gets to go, the 52 hps of both ogres may be gone before they do anything! In 5E, you'll probably still have both up and doing something in that combat. In the 3E model, the ogres could be ogres, deinonychus, or black bears - it wouldn't matter. The difference between them would be trivial. In 5E, it matters as they're going to get to act.

5E was designed with intent and knowledge based upon the prior editions. As with most of the decisions they made for it, they improved the situation with their design.

The answer to your issue is having the PCs do less damage and reduce hit points across the board. You know, like they did in the old days.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The Ogre is one of the litmus tests I am going to use to judge the success of monster design in the revised books.

1. The Ogre is currently a boring sack of HP (with the Hill Giant just being a higher CR of that same theme). They need something interesting to make them dangerous and interesting while also feeling like you're dealing with an actual dumb, strong Ogre.
2. One problem is that due to their low AC and low intelligence, that they often get killed so quickly that they are barely a speed bump. The fact that they also only have a single attack per round that does average damage is not very scary for a group of PCs with decent damage mitigation. However, if you give them multi-attack or increase their accuracy and damage, no melee tank wants to be embarrassed by getting their butt handed to them by a stupid Ogre.

I'm curious where the designers want the ogre's effectiveness to live, narratively.

People should be scared of ogres. Its basically a giant thug, who should be doing huge damage if they connect. They need their reputation rehabilitated.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I thought this was going to be about a different aspect of hitpoints - natural healing.

If memory serves, natural healing in previous editions was painfully slow - one-2 hp/day kinda thing. In 3.X, (again, if memory serves), natural healing was 1 hp/level (all these numbers could be altered somewhat by rest, receiving competent medical aid etc).

As far as monster hp, I think it's been recognized that there is a bit too much HP in 5e for monsters, so some tweaking might help?

I liked natural healing prior to 4e much better as well.