Hit Points and D&D

There has been a number of threads surfacing recently peripherally (not in that they do not deal with hit points in detail, but because that is not their primary focus) dealing with the benefits/penalties of hit points in D&D and with possible solutions to some of the issues that are brought up.

Well, I thought such discussions deserve their own thread, so here it comes.

As far as I am concerned, hit points have several advantages:

They are ablative and a resource to be managed, hence providing
They are a simple mechanic

They also have, in my view, several disadvantages in their current incarnation:

They provide complete immunity to high level characters against attacks by low level characters
The spread in hit points between low levels and high levels is too high, making high level characters a world apart from low level characters by a margin that I find somewhat uncomfortable
Problems of internal logical consistency (hit points represent not how tough a character is, but how welll he can roll with the damage... but than why are they modified by Con and not Dex...)


The Wounds and Vitality system does a decent job of dealing with the weaknesses of hit points while maintaining the strengths, but it adds another layer of complexity by introducing yet more in-game mechanics (rather than merely dealing with the problem at the point(s) of character creation/advancement).

The best solution I can come up with would be to simply add a one time bonus to hit points of all characters (and monsters) at creation and lower the hit point progression by hit dice

I am thinking something along the lines of the following:

The hit point progression per level/hit dice is reduced by 1 die step. Therefore:

d12 --> d10
d10 --> d8
d8 --> d6
d6 --> d4
d4 --> d2

Note that negative constitution modifiers should now be able to bring the hit points gained per level to 0 (but not below), in order to prevent constitution from becoming a dump stat for wizards and their ilk.

At the same time, all characters and monsters are given a one time hit point bonus at character creation based on their size and constitution. Something along the lines of the following would probably function:

Fine: 1 + Constitution modifier
Diminutive: 1d2 + Constitution modifier
Tiny: 1d4 + Constitution modifier
Small: 1d6 + Constitution modifier
Medium: 1d8 + Constitution modifier
Large: 2d8 + Constitution modifier
Huge: 3d8 + Constitution modifier
Gargantuan: 4d8 + Constitution modifier
Colossal: 5d8 + Constitution modifier

Negative constitution modifier cannot reduce the hit points thus gained below 1.

If it were desired, it would be possible to add extra racial modifiers to this. Say Half-Orcs or Orcs gain an extra starting hit point and a really, really tough medium race might gain two extra hit points, while some physically weaker races (eg. Elves) might gain fewer starting hit points.

It should be mentioned that I have chosen the starting hit point bonuses in such a way so as to reduce the hit point disparity between the high and low level extremes, but so as to ensure that by level 20, the hit points will not be higher than they would be using the normal system. I have also opted not to simply add automatic hit dice (of say humanoid), so as not to mess with skill points, BAB, saves and other issues affected by hit dice.

Anyway, what do you think about the system? I have not play-tested it, but it does reduce the hit point disparities without adding complexity to actual game play (rather than merely character creation). The one problem I do foresee is that it probably does not go far enough in doing so.

It all depends on the amount of deadliness you want in the campaign.

Wounds/Vitality starts to fail when you look at crits. Even a high level character can be killed by an archer who rolls a 20 and then confirms; 3d8 is likely to kill or severly incapacitate anyone with a Wounds system.

Also, you need to look at damage done at the higher levels. It's not unusual around 10th-13th to start breaking 70-100 hit points done in a round by some critters or like-equipped NPCs. If you've dropped hit points without mitigating the damage in some way then around those levels you're going to either go broke getting people Raised, or start working up a new character every session.

There is no perfect fix.

Hit point systems are great at modelling scalable 'heroic' systems where single individuals are more than a match for any 20 (or more) ordinary individuals. You get something wrong though...

They provide complete immunity to high level characters against attacks by low level characters

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No, that's more a factor of armor class than hit points, precisely because hit points are ablative. If your design goal was to provide complete immunity for high level characters against the attacks of low level characters, you'd adopt something like a defensive save/resisted roll. Typically you see this design approach in 'super-heroic' games where you want any number of bullets to just bounce off the hero if they are being fired by henchmen, or any number of laser blasts to fly by the hero so long as they are being fired by storm troopers.

However you change the system, there will be tradeoffs. More realistic systems tend to lead to every situation being a 'save or die' situation in some form. Because hit points are ablative, characters are rarely in a combat system situation where a single dice roll determines the outcome. In fact, D20 might could use some extra complexity and reduced elegance here because its combat mechanic - while great for handling combat - is not so great against things like 'Polymorph' or 'Disentigrate' which remain single throw save or die situations with linear probabilities of failure and binary save/failure issues at higher levels (fighters unable to make will saves, wizards unable to make fort saves, etc.).

Roman said:

Note that negative constitution modifiers should now be able to bring the hit points gained per level to 0 (but not below), in order to prevent constitution from becoming a dump stat for wizards and their ilk.

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Smaller HD means MORE need for Con, not less. High level casters already get more HP from Con than they do from HD.

This change also doesn't address any of your concerns. At level 20, the HD step down results in ~20 (plus the start with max HP bonus) less HP. Is having 280 instead of 300 or 100 instead of 120 HP really going to make that much of a difference in terms of high level characters vs low level ones? Oh wait, there's the size based HP to consider. So a normal character is adding another ~5 +Con (we'll say it's worth 10 by high levels). The difference is even smaller. Size changes might be another problem.

Moreover, small and large creatures already generally have differing amounts of HD and Con, so adding in additional size based element to HP seems pretty pointless.

Really, if you want to narrow the gap between high level characters and low level ones, look at AC. Have you ever seen a high level guy get attacked by mook enemies when they have a 10 AC? The damage comes in fast. Sure, any single hit is a small matter, but if the weak guys have a decent chance to hit instead of needing 20s then their numbers translate into damage at far more efficient rate. To use the rather silly "a dozen guys with crossbows vs high level man" scenario, it's one thing for the character to probably take no damage because of AC or then only get hit once or twice for an average of 9 points. But if half those guards hit, then we're looking ~27 damage - heavy X-bows and Point Blank would increase damage to 39. While this damage is going to be surviveable for mid through high level characters, it's also going to be noticeable to all but the toughest guys.

Stuff like Fireball becomes even weaker since the crowds of comparatively weak foes (formerly a near optimal situation for AoE) now have almost twice their previous HP.

WayneLigon said:

It all depends on the amount of deadliness you want in the campaign.

Wounds/Vitality starts to fail when you look at crits. Even a high level character can be killed by an archer who rolls a 20 and then confirms; 3d8 is likely to kill or severly incapacitate anyone with a Wounds system.

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Starts to fail? I see this as one of the strengths of the VP/WP system. But then again, I wouldn't use VP/WP for a "standard" D&D campaign.

GlassJaw said:

Starts to fail? I see this as one of the strengths of the VP/WP system. But then again, I wouldn't use VP/WP for a "standard" D&D campaign.

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I think it fails for any campaign in which combat occurs regularly and the players are expected to face heroic challenges like dragons and giants. If you want to run a gritty RP heavy political campaign in which fights are rare and most of the combat challenges when they do occur are roughly analogous to being attacked by a medium sized mortal foe, then it will work ok, especially because the system will strongly discourage getting into combat. But too often people who want to run a 'non-heroic' system like VP/WP (or in general who want mroe realism in thier system) don't want to or are inable to change thier game style, so they are continually forcing players into combat and wondering why thier players don't enjoy it when their characters are dropped in what is a generally meaningless purely tactical encounter with some foe's faceless minions.

Well, yes, I can certainly see that my system does not really decrease hit points of high level characters to a significant degree. However, it does increase the hit points of lower level characters without increasing those of higher level ones, so it reduces the problem at one end of the scale without exacerbating the problem at the other end.

Also, it does change the ratios of hit points of high level versus low level characters.

Let's compare a 20th level cleric (chosen for the middle hit die size among the PC classes) and a first level commoner:

Under normal system:

Average 1st level commoner: 2.5 hp (HD + Con = d4 + 0)
Average 20th level cleric: 193.5 hp (8 + 19xHD - 1 + 20xCon = 93.5 + 20 x 5 [assuming 20 Con from inherent bonuses, etc. by level 20])

Ratio of hp of 20th level cleric to 1st level commoner = 1:77.4


Under my system:

Average 1st level commoner: 7 hp (HD + Con = d4 + 0)
Average 20th level cleric: 182 hp (4.5 + 8 + 19xHD - 1 + 20xCon = 72.5 + 4.5 + 20 x 5 [assuming 20 Con from inherent bonuses, etc. by level 20])

Ratio of hp of 20th level cleric to 1st level commoner = 1:26


Sure, the ratio is still very substantial, but it is almost 3 times lower than in the standard system.


Still, I recognise that the new system does not solve most of the issues, it merely mitigates them slightly. It also has the added benefit of making characters more survivable at lower levels, which is another problem of the current hp system. Any other suggestions as to how to deal with these, yet still maintain the scaling nature of hit points (I don't want to eliminate it, merely mitigate it).

WayneLigon said:

Wounds/Vitality starts to fail when you look at crits. Even a high level character can be killed by an archer who rolls a 20 and then confirms; 3d8 is likely to kill or severly incapacitate anyone with a Wounds system.

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Have you actually read the WP/VP system? An arrow will never do 3d8 points of damage. No weapon has a critical multiplier.

AbeTheGnome said:

An arrow will never do 3d8 points of damage. No weapon has a critical multiplier.

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But a blaster in Star Wars can do this damage and that used Wound Points. One hit can easily down a character in that system and that is one of the problems that is usually pointed out in discussions about it.

Roman said:

Under normal system:

Average 1st level commoner: 2.5 hp (HD + Con = d4 + 0)
Average 20th level cleric: 193.5 hp (8 + 19xHD - 1 + 20xCon = 93.5 + 20 x 5 [assuming 20 Con from inherent bonuses, etc. by level 20])

Ratio of hp of 20th level cleric to 1st level commoner = 1:77.4


Under my system:

Average 1st level commoner: 7 hp (HD + Con = d4 + 0)
Average 20th level cleric: 182 hp (4.5 + 8 + 19xHD - 1 + 20xCon = 72.5 + 4.5 + 20 x 5 [assuming 20 Con from inherent bonuses, etc. by level 20])

Ratio of hp of 20th level cleric to 1st level commoner = 1:26

Click to expand...

Um... you forgot max hp at first level for the commoner in your standard system analysis. The numbers for the standard system then become

Average 1st level commoner: 4 hp (HD + Con = d4 + 0)
Average 20th level cleric: 193.5 hp (8 + 19X(4.5 {average HP from a d8) + 20xCon = 93.5 + 20 x 5 [assuming 20 Con from inherent bonuses, etc. by level 20])

So the ratio is 48.375 to 1 in favor of the cleric.

I'm not sure exactly how you got 7 hp for the commoner. (your calculations aren't enlightening), but most of the difference with the ratio comes from the 3 bonus HP the commoner gets. In other words, you could just give commoners Toughness for free instead of reinventing the wheel. And considering how worthless toughness is (very), I doubt anyone would have a hissy fit about it.