How do you like your HP to increase?

[Chris_Nightwing]

This is a general poll. I'm interested in how you prefer hitpoints to increase as characters increase in level. I've laid out options from previous editions and tried to include other possible ideas that might be common. This is independent of whether Constitution plays a role in HP, of what HP you start out with and of the spread across classes.

Now with poll!

 

[Li Shenron]

Random, optionally with a safety rule (i.e. default to a minimum higher than 1).

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Roll a dice to level 9(ish), a set small amount per level after that. I.E., AD&D rules.

 

[marelion]

I`m all in favour of a fixed amount of hit points., otherwweise bad luck can really screw a well-planned character. Imagine you are a Level 3-Barbarian with 23 Hitpoints. Not too much fun, let me tell you.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

To provoke some discussion: I am wondering about this because of the recent discussions on damage/hp scaling. Damage seems to scale quite quickly, probably because HP also scale quite quickly since you get a dice every level. I wondered what the best way might be to slow HP progression that isn't hated by all. For my mind, there needs to be a little randomness in there, but perhaps with significantly scaled down dice, say d2/d3/d4/d6.

 

[Sadrik]

I have always though 3e done 1/2 HD +2. It made the crappy, "I rolled a 1" go away. In 2e I did rolling. We had a bard who was 6th level with 12 HP, it was brutal. That is why I did away with the rolling.

That said I am intrigued by your:
"Dissociate HP from level increase (including no HP gain)"

We have not seen this really in D&D, at least any WOTC creations. I think this is interesting, albeit removes the heroic-ness from the game. I think the closest thing would be the wound vitality system (or tangent systems) which you did not list. That is my preferred mode. As it is the most realistic, while still maintaining the heroism of bunches of HP.

 

[gamerprinter]

I give the max hit points for 1st level on our PCs, anything after that is rolled. To hell with well planned characters, life is random and unfair, so it should be with a chance roll of the dice. Giving fixed HP on every level feels more like a video game, than the life of a fantasy character.

1st level is tough anyway - so I throw them a bone. And I usually let them reroll any 1's on a HP roll.

 

[howandwhy99]

I like rolling dice because it both defines monsters and grants them variation. Not every Kobold has 1 hit point. Some have 2. PCs roll dice because they're monsters too.

 

[Kinak]

I don't see much point in rolling HP. It always seemed needlessly arbitrary to me, because you're only rolling one thing.

If there was a table that was like this for each class:

1) You gain 1 HP and learn three spells
2) You gain 2 HP and learn two spells
3) You gain 3 HP and learn one spell
4) You gain 4 HP

I might be able to buy it. Fate is a fickle mistress, but singling out how much sturdy your character is as the only random factor seems really weird.

If it's going to be random, I do appreciate Iron Heroes' approach. You end up with 1d4+X where X is a bonus based on your class. So the least combat-worthy got 1d4+2 and the most got 1d4+8. Seemed like a nice mixed approach.

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[Sunseeker]

I personally prefer using Hit Dice as a measurement of how much health you have, as opposed to how much health you might have. I've never seen a game that benefited from characters rolling low health scores.

I'm fine with rolling HD though if you really want to, but I think the "minimum" you could get should be 1/2 your HD. And I always allow adding +con mod to it because otherwise con is the most ridiculously pointless stat in the game.

So that is to say, I personally prefer to get full HD+con mod of health.