How Do You Determine HP?

[The Baron]

So, how DO you determine HP when you level up?

I always though it was ludicrous that your HP, perhaps the most important stat in the game, the one that keeps you going, keeps you alive, that forces you to always be trying to make friends with people who want to play frickin' clerics, is RANDOMLY DETERMINED at each level.

Absurd.

Next campaign, I'm doing max HP each level. Anyone have any experience with this? Hard to balance things (though I guess you could just give max HP to all the monsters too)?

In the games I'm playing, we do two rolls. Good, but you can still have those two 1's or 2's in a row to ruin your HP party.

Do you do half HP?
Roll 3 times?

Curious. Just curious.

 

[Thanee]

Normally we roll, but we can request a reroll, if we do not like our roll, which is done by the DM (usually without fudging, unless someone is on a streak of bad roll, then it might happen, that the DM announces a pretty high roll without showing the dice ).

In my campaign I use a straight roll with a minimum of HD/2 (i.e. 3 for a d6). If you roll less you get that instead, that is.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Thanee]

I wouldn't go max hp unless your campaign was incredibly tough. Max hps increase the "level" of the PCs or monsters, so the CR system doesn't work as well (if it even does ) anymore.

Rather use the rules in the DMG for fixed hps, which give accurate averages, or the simpler HP/2+1 at each level.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Liquidsabre]

I had a poll up a while back that had soem realy nifty answers about rolling for HD. Myself I have players roll as normal for HD, if they don't like the roll or thik it is too low, I roll the same HD behind the DM screen. Ultimately, the player makes a decision, their roll or mine, for better or for worse heh.

We've gotten very good results as rarely do we does a bad roll result, and if a low roll comes up twice...everyone shakes there heads and say "...it was just meant to be."

 

[Treebore]

I do it two ways, both of which give high HP's. Most of the time they choose to roll with me making a roll secretly. They then choose to keep their roll or to take my unknown, to them, roll. Sometimes i fudge in their favor, but most of the time i do not.

My second method is a fixed and roughly 70% of the dice's value per level. Mening a d4 character gets 3 HP every level, a d6 gets 4 HP every level, a d8 gets 6 HP, d10 gets 7 HP, and a d12 gets 8 HP.

Which method a player uses is determined at first level and they must stick with it for the life of the character.

Thanee is essentially right. If you go with the higher HP you will need to adjust the monsters/NPC's a bit to keep the CR system close to being useful.

Generally I give the monsters/NPC's 50, 75, or 90% of max HP's depending on how tough I want a particular encounter to be. This is in addition to the fact that I run a "heroic" game, meaning the characters have above average stats, they are the creme de la creme of thier respective races/species. So if you run games with characters abilities closer to average/normal you will probably have to make even more of an adjustment than I do.

 

[Yair]

I recommend giving average hp, as otherwise you mess up the CR system. This is actually not the DMG-recommended totals, as they don't add the 0.5 to each (I do, and ignore fractions). The average of a d4 is 2.5, not 2.
Then again, I always let the players either take the average or roll the dice. And for some reason, they always roll...

 

[Vrecknidj]

Here's my system, the players like it. Whatever your die type for your current class, roll that die, and each lower die type, down to the minimum of one-half per level. Here's what I mean.

d12 = roll d12, d10, d8, take best roll, your minimum is 6.
d10 = roll d10, d8, d6, take best roll, your minimun is 5.
d8 = roll d8, d6, take best roll, your minimum is 4.
d6 = roll d6, d4, take best roll, your minimum is 3.
d4 = roll d4, d3, take best roll, your minimum is 2.

We've always used some random method for generating hit points, and everyone hates it when they get really low rolls (especially for 2 levels in a row). So, I use this one and my players think they're getting a great deal. Of course, I use it for the monsters too . . . .

Dave

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

I give maximum at first level, and one-half maximum at each proceeding level. One of my players constantly bitches about this, but the others don't seem to mind.

 

[Jondor_Battlehammer]

I came up with an idea after the last thread on HPs.

d4 (1-4) = d3+1 (2-4)

d6 (1-6) = d4+2 (3-6)

d8 (1-8) = d6+2 (3-8)

d10 (1-10) = d6+4 (5-10)

d12 (1-12) = d8+4 (5-12)

Same maximum HP as the core, but each dice is loaded with a minimum that fits with the class. Fighters and Barbarians will always have the highest HPs, with the barbarian always averaging a little more, especially when raging. Wizards will always be the weakest, with Rogues slightly but consistantly stronger. Clerics will be more robust on average than both these, but could be a little low, representing the potential scholarly Cleric. With Fighters having a 2 point higher min and max, the won't likely be outshined by the Cleric, as could occasionaly happen as the rules stand.

 

[atom crash]

When a PC rolls for HP, I also roll the appropriate die and we take the higher of the two. If they roll a 1 and I roll a 1, I'll re-roll once. If that also comes up a 1, then I guess it was meant to be.