The HP sweet spot for 5e

CubicsRube · May 6, 2018

I have another question burning in my brain that I've not yet asked the community because it's so highly subjective.

What's your sweet spot HP range? Your goldilocks range? Where it's not so low you fear being made into a paste when the next monster looks at you funny, or so high that you don't let a kobold attacking you interupt your bowl of breakfast cereal?

For me I'd say it's around 20-50 hp. Granted that the highest I've played 5e is level 11 (not a lot of interest for higher), so this changes the weighting. But at that level, a fireball is still a deadly threat, yet I still have a decent chance of surviving. And I have likely have at least a round of attacks in an ambush that I can endure before I can decide whether or not to leg it.

Yaarel · May 6, 2018

CubicsRube said:
What's your sweet spot HP range? Your goldilocks range? Where it's not so low you fear being made into a paste when the next monster looks at you funny, or so high that you don't let a kobold attacking you interupt your bowl of breakfast cereal?

For me I'd say it's around 20-50 hp. Granted that the highest I've played 5e is level 11.

So ... for you, something like?

hit points = Constitution score + (4 x level)

CubicsRube · May 6, 2018

Well as a personal preference as a player.

I generally prefer games where characters progress in abilities, but there's not such a big divide in starting and ending hitpoints.

I like the idea in 5e of starting with con score and then not getting con modifier to hp on level up. In theory it seems fine balance wise, but there'd probably be a lot of more subtle consequences of doing that.

ccs · May 6, 2018

Anything from min. to max for my lv. is fine with me.

The Crimson Binome · May 6, 2018

A good number is thirty. That's the number where I no longer fear somebody with an axe just killing me in one round, but it's not so significant that I can take a standard eight-point hit without worrying about it.

Fanaelialae · May 6, 2018

I don't have a fixed number, but based on gut feeling I'd say most characters hit that range somewhere between levels 3 and 5 (dependent on Hit Die, hit point rolls, and Constitution).

aco175 · May 6, 2018

5th level is when the big boost happens to the PCs. Their power level allows them to do more and survive more. Most of the PCs will fall into the 30-50hp at this level. I like the 30hp over 50hp level. You can survive a few hits and generally have time to pull back if needed. It might be more liking the 3-5th level over a number of HP.

Mercule · May 6, 2018

I use the average from the PHB (6 for Fighter, etc.). Seems to work well enough. My caveat is that I've fully embraced the "3rd is the new 1st" mentality and have never really considered anything above 11th level, or so, to be interesting. So, that's a pretty narrow band of "works for me".

TheCosmicKid · May 7, 2018

CubicsRube said:
Well as a personal preference as a player.

I generally prefer games where characters progress in abilities, but there's not such a big divide in starting and ending hitpoints.

I like the idea in 5e of starting with con score and then not getting con modifier to hp on level up. In theory it seems fine balance wise, but there'd probably be a lot of more subtle consequences of doing that.

You might have to mess with the way damage scales, because in 5e it scales pretty hard.

Tony Vargas · May 7, 2018

CubicsRube said:
What's your sweet spot HP range?
For me I'd say it's around 20-50 hp. Granted that the highest I've played 5e is level 11 (not a lot of interest for higher), so this changes the weighting. But at that level, a fireball is still a deadly threat, yet I still have a decent chance of surviving. And I have likely have at least a round of attacks in an ambush that I can endure before I can decide whether or not to leg it.

Usually when we talk sweet spot, it's about level range, not hps - and, in 5e, hps & damage scale dramatically with level. Hps, really, it's just the more the merrier, no matter how many hps you have, they can be whittled down by persistent or numerous attackers.

The sweet spot for 5e is somewhere in the range of 3-5. 1st & 2nd I've run a lot, and they are a crapshoot, precisely because you can quite easily fall prey to the instant death rule. After that not much an issue, by 5th, no one should be having the problem. On the top end, 15th, because even the official adventures don't much bother trying to go beyond that, it's like they know people weren't going to want to play at those levels, so they're just sorta roughly sketched and not really built to be that useable. The relative speed of level progression is a clear indicator, too: The first few levels go lightning fast, then slow down dramatically, only to speed up again after 11th - the game is /designed/ to have you spend more time in the levels it works best.