D&D 5E First Level Hit Points Need to Increase

[Chris_Nightwing]

I liked the idea in the very first packet, where your Con mod allowed you to reroll your HD if you got that score or less - it's in keeping with bounded everything. You have 12 Con, you reroll 1, 20 Con, reroll 5 or less and I would add 8 Con, reroll 10 (the other end of the spectrum).

I also wonder if rolling extra HD per Con mod (taking the best, or worst if there's a penalty) works, but I need to do the math on that one.

 

[Blackwarder]

I think the numbers should be as low as possible. If a 3rd-level Fighter can die to a 1st-level spell, I think that's more a problem with the spell dealing too much damage.

Can you give an examples of 1st level spells than can kill a 3ed-level fighter? the only one I can think of is inflict wounds that deals 4d8 and even that will roll between 16-20 50% of the time and the target got a Con saving throw for half damage.

Even Magic missile, which always hit will deal 12-15 points of damage 50% of the time.

Warder

 

[Blackbrrd]

I would much prefer HP to scale relatively slow like in 4e, and I think it can be done more or less the same way:
HP = con score +(hitdice*level)
(important to note that it's con score, not modifier)

I don't like the idea of adding con mod every level, since the disparity between low and high hp characters will just increase. In 4e having just a bit more hp added up over time though since having higher hp increased your healing surge value. It's one of the mechanics I liked best in 4e.

Let's take a fighter with d10 hp and 14 con:
Level 1: 19.5 hp average (15min 24max)
Level 5: 41.5 hp average (19min 64max)
Level 10: 64 hp average (24min 114max)

If I read a post above correctly, magic missile would do 13hp at level 1 and 29hp at level 10.
Compared to the hp of a fighter, it's, with my suggestion:
13/19.5 = 67% at level 1
29/64 = 45% at level 10.

To me, that works a hell of a lot better than (the current rules?):
13/10 = 130% at level 1
29/130 = 22% at level 10.

 

[Jester David]

To those who say they want a gritty game and don't want 1st level characters to be "heroes," I want to point out that even with (Con score + HD) hit points at first level, the game is still very deadly. A character under that formula will have anywhere from 14 to 32 hit points (an 8 Con wizard on one end, a 20 Con barbarian on the other). A typical character will have HP in the high teens or low 20s, and even the 32 HP monstrous barbarian can be brought down in 2-3 hits. Is that really not "gritty" enough?

How do you figure 2-3 hits?

Average hitpoints would go from 9 (12 Con and d8 HD) to 20.
1st level monster damage hovers in the 3-6 point range with the median seeming to be 4 or so damage. Which is 4 or so hits. Not 4 attacks, but 4 hits. Likely 6 attacks. How many 5e fights last 6 rounds?

More than doubling hitpoints dramatically increases the adventuring day. And really increases how long it takes to threaten a character with death. Especially as many characters might not be attacked every fight.

If the wizard has 18 hitpoints and is hit 75% of the time for 4 damage (with a 5% crit rate) they can survive 6 combat rounds. But as wizards stay out of direct combat they only get attacked once every three round, so that's 18 rounds. With fights lasting 1-3 rounds that's well over none fights and long, long after they've used all their spells and wanting to rest.

More survivability just means the party rests when their attack resources are low but while their hitpoints are high.

 

[Klaus]

I think the easiest way to address this is to give an Optional Rule sidebar.

Optional Rule: Tougher Heroes
Every player character begins hit points equal to twice its hit die, plus its Constitution modifier.

 

[Blackwarder]

I don't like con+HD at first level, it make 1st level characters too resilience to damage I also don't have a big problem with 1st level magic missile being able to down a 1st level fighter (or even, god forbid, barbarian!) considering that reaching 0 HP is not instant death and don't even have big repercussions, it's the wizards option of going nova on one opponent for one round instead of casting other spells like sleep, color spray or shield.

Considering that a 1st level wizard got only two 1st level spell slots I don't think magic missile damage is too much.

Although I can see a situation where a 5th level Wizard who use fly and MM being a challenge to lower level PCs.

Warder

 

[Gorgoroth]

Does str add its damage per level? Or Dex add to initiative per level? Con should certainly add to hit points, but that doesn't say anything about per level being the correct answer.

I personally wouldn't mind if there was a better connection between number of hits to drop a PC at 1st and number at 12th, and between amount of damage dealt by said PC. Which is not very D&Dish at all, which tends to overemphasize damage at 1st level and de-emphasize hit points.

Ex: 13 damage at 1st level when people have 10 hit points, and 29 hp at 13th when people have 130.

I never thought of it that way, good point. But each point of AC benefits you each time you get hit or not, so if you rely on Dex + Con for your AC as barbarians do, or just Dex, you gain a 5% or whatever % damage reduction which definitely does scale well with increasing monster damage at higher levels. So if by, say, level 10, you have 1000 attacks against you, and the ones at higher levels damage more on a hit, then the overall benefit to each point in Dex as opposed to Con, say, for a rogue, are both geometric in progression. I think..I'm sure someone's already done the math on it, but initial eyeball test and my own experience tells me that Dex is valued more in D&D than Con is, or pretty much any other stat, really. There has to be a sound mathematical underpinning for that.

 

[Celebrim]

I basically did it by giving things more hit points -a wasp might have 8-10, or whatever. Though, if he gets hit by a medium-sized creature, he'll take +16 damage, killing it (or basically doing so). Cats would do +8 damage, so take them down easily enough, too. And, if wasps get into a fight, they'll wear each other down like normal, whittling down that 8-10 HP they each have.

Yeah, as I mentioned, I think your approach does some things well mine doesn't.

For example, imagine you want to run a 'Honey I shrunk the party' game where every one is suddenly reduced to being 1 inch high. The typical D&D response to this is to reinvent all the fine sized creatures as medium sized creatures, replacing their stats with the medium sized or larger equivalent. This works ok if you have no investment in the fine sized creatures, but can present problems if you can't find stats for a large sized mouse, or have a fine sized atomie that is a 5th level fighter. I have seen systems that tried to make the game run the same regardless of the scale of the combatants so that there was consistant physics across all scales of the game.

Your system actually allows this somewhat directly, in that if the player suddenly shrinks to be 1" tall, you have no need necessarily to change the stats of either the player or the wasp. And it works the other way around as well. If the wasp grows to 4 feet long, it's stats don't change. You can just run the game directly noting only the change in scale. That's pretty cool. Moreover, you can do things like have fine sized wasps that are 10% stronger than other fine sized wasps. It's not perfect and I see some potential balance problems and some potentially wierd problems between things of nearly the same size, but it does do some really cool things with really minimal mechanical effort.

It definately gives me something to chew on. I've not seen the exact approach used before. Props for the creativity.

 

[Gorgoroth]

Although I can see a situation where a 5th level Wizard who use fly and MM being a challenge to lower level PCs.

If the PCs don't have bows and arrows, yes. But then they deserve what's coming to them! No mercy for the unprepared and foolish. And as a player who's done his fair share of flying his wizard around, you do not stick around, hovering in mid-air, as one round's worth of arrows from your foes down below will likely drop you. You need to play like a skirmisher if you don't want to end up like that duck in Duck Hunt.

Flying draws a big red bullseye on your chest. You'll likely get off one spell before having to flee, if that.

I think our 4e wizard used maybe a handful of surges over the course of a year in real time. Definitely way not squishy enough. He was just as blasé about not feeling threatened as the warden who was nigh unkillable. His auto-HP restore reaction utility power was used ONCE in our three year game. Is this a problem with our DM or 4e? Hmmm, we were playing the standard rules, with the standard monsters. Please, let's make D&D a challenge and dangerous again. PCs are not supposed to win.

 

[keterys]

I think our 4e wizard used maybe a handful of surges over the course of a year in real time. Definitely way not squishy enough. He was just as blasé about not feeling threatened as the warden who was nigh unkillable. His auto-HP restore reaction utility power was used ONCE in our three year game. Is this a problem with our DM or 4e? Hmmm, we were playing the standard rules, with the standard monsters. Please, let's make D&D a challenge and dangerous again.

Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal.

In the 4e adventures I've written, I have to often insert surge recovery methods so that PCs can finish an adventure without having to take extended rests at times inconvenient to the speed of plot. For example, I know a paladin who used 26 surges going through 7 encounters in an adventure. That's a lot of surges.

Similarly, I've dealt over 1000 hit points of damage in one encounter to a group who had a total of 600 hit points.

And had 7 deaths in the course of one (intentionally) particularly violent adventure.

Clearly, I've had a different experience than you did.

My 2nd edition bard made it to ~24th level before dying, through the wonders of things like stoneskin.
My 3rd edition sorcerer died at 8th level to a circle of death he needed a 20 to fail (curse you, red wizards), then never died again til the campaign finished at 19th level because he ensured he was immune to anything that could kill him (immune to death, 5 energy types, crits, stun, etc).

PCs are not supposed to win.

I don't think you'll find tons of agreement on this one, but I'll say that's pretty much a group contract thing. Figure out how tough you want the game to be, and make it so.