The Subtle Power of Constitution and Toughness

Something I just realized today:

Constitution seems to be played down in 4e because it only affects hit points directly at 1st level. The new version of Toughness also seems not much better than 3e's Improved Toughness, adding just 3 hp + 1 hp per level.

However, this does not take healing surges into account.

A healing surge restores 25% of your hit points, and you get an additional healing surge per point of Constitution bonus. This means that if you get more than 4 hp per level, each point of Constitution bonus effectively gives you more hp per level than in 3e.

Toughness increases base hit points and thus (presumably) the number of hit points you get back from a healing surge. Toughness thus effectively gives you approximately (due to rounding) an additional 3 hp + 1 hp per level for every four healing surges you have. For a character with 13 healing surges, like the Dwarf Fighter PC from D&D XP, the minimum effect of the Toughness feat is an additional 17 hp: 4 base hp from the feat and another 13 from healing surges.

Not too shabby, eh?

I see the more bang for your buck. A character with Toughness will recover from fights faster. That works nicely into any Defender archetype.

Interesting. Implications of this:

#1: Constitution now provides you with long-term endurance rather than short-term durability. It won't help you survive within a single encounter, but it will let you keep going through more encounters per day before you have to stop and rest.

#2: Defenders and other front-liners now have a much higher incentive to boost Constitution than those who stay in the back. In 3E, Constitution was vital for wizards and other low-Hit-Die types; you might not get attacked often, but when you did, you were hosed unless you had a good Con score. Under the new system, the frequency with which you get attacked is the central factor. Defenders face a constant pounding and so need frequent surges, but controllers may only need to surge rarely. This means it's now feasible for some classes to dump Constitution, which previously was suicidal.

#3: Class-granted hit points (the equivalent of 3E Hit Dice) no longer affect the impact of Constitution. In other words, in 3E, a character with a d12 Hit Die got less proportional benefit from a high Con than a character with a d4 Hit Die; when you factored in stat-boosting items, wizards were often getting more hit points from their Con scores than from the dice. Under the new system, the effect of Con scales proportionally with your class-granted hit points.

#4: Hit point variability is much reduced. Designers now have a solid idea of how many hit points to expect on a character of class X at level Y, without having to worry about the vagaries of Constitution. (If multiclassing works purely through class training feats, as seems likely, then you won't have to worry about multiclass levels either; and since people are no longer rolling for hit points, that source of variation also is gone.)

I like what I'm seeing here.

Very interesting! That's an excellent observation! I certainly hadn't considered that angle before!

Hmmm... very observant. I like it!