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

[Evenglare]

I think it's pretty much agreed upon that 4th edition characters can withstand MUCH more than any character of previous editions. I don't think it's anecdotal at all especially since he stipulated that he was playing rules as written with standard characters and standard monsters. I have come to rely on actual play testimony rather than theoretical mathematics of a system (despite being a theoretical astrophysicist). If D&D were run by a computer that's one thing, but it's run by humans. I like to take the average play experiences of the people that run the games. This is the reason why I can play 3rd edition just fine yet everyone seems to think the system is broken beyond repair. In actual play I have NEVER had a problem. But that is neither here nor there, just pointing out anecdotal evidence is normally worth noting since D&D caters to many playstyles.

 

[keterys]

Healing surges definitely let you heal more easily than in previous editions. At least, prior to Heal and Mass Heal. You wouldn't believe the healing in the epic 3e game I ran.

Lack of save or dies is definitely a thing, with its proponents and opponents. It's pretty hard to fail a single save and die in 4e, most certainly.

That said, Irontooth has a few hundred heads of dead PCs that indicate deaths can happen.

And none of that has anything that matters for how many hit points are good to start at 1st level with, or how many hit points to have at higher level. The most hit points I've ever seen on a PC are in 3rd edition, because Con adds to hit points for every level. In older editions, I'm not sure each had a rule protected a PC with a 6 Con from rolling a 1 for hit die and dying in character creation. There's a lot of very useful math that can be done without bad-mouthing any edition needlessly.

Cause, yeah, if an ogre swings for 4d10 + 4 (Monster Vault Ogre), half damage on miss in 4e, we should be careful about comparing it to an adnd ogre swinging for 1d10 when we talk about starting hit points. We should instead look at the system we're actually discussing and figure out what's appropriate for it.

 

[Jester David]

That said, Irontooth has a few hundred heads of dead PCs that indicate deaths can happen.

I wouldn't hold that fight as indicative of the average 4e experience, given it was pretty darn broken.

Cause, yeah, if an ogre swings for 4d10 + 4 (Monster Vault Ogre), half damage on miss in 4e, we should be careful about comparing it to an adnd ogre swinging for 1d10 when we talk about starting hit points. We should instead look at the system we're actually discussing and figure out what's appropriate for it.

This is the catch. If you inflate PC hitpoints then monsters feel less threatening, and monsters that are meant to be menacing see their damage jump by a proportional amount. So the end result is PCs die just as fast (eventually) but all the numbers are bigger. Just number inflation.

 

[Gorgoroth]

Re: Various editions tricks to survive : I played an AD&D evoker who used stoneskin quite a bit, and it's probably the ONLY reason I lasted until 14th level. It didn't feel like cheating, since a single arrow or swing, hit or miss, would remove one layer. That said, it was a massive buff to my melee companions, and I doled it out in return for favours and protection. But that's a good thing. I know 3e had tons of issues too, with massively broken combos and unbalanced classes. On the other hand, not only did I play a 4e campaign for three years, I also played several side adventures with various other DMs, and by and large we felt like we had death immunity. It was kind of cool for a while, thinking, ok, my character is tough and not gonna whiff as a result of a single unlucky roll, but it was too much molly-coddling, all those things combined, the self-healing to full every 5 minutes like the cat that came back (the very next day), it was almost comical how little we needed a cleric in any of those games. When we did have a warlord or cleric, we totally p0wned the monsters. Then to try and challenge it up at paragon levels, we did the whole "double enemy damage but halve their HP", and while it made things more swingy, we still made it though, it just meant I actually had to USE my inspiring word. 1/2 the time the other players didn't even really care about the extra 1d6. Case in point, using a standard action for your second wind. Nobody ever used that, because they rarely came close to dying. Running out of surges was also an annoying chore, because as a paladin, I did burn through a ton of surges, while the wizard never came close, and the warden always had 3-4 left at the end of the day. So when you have unneccessary surges silo'ed in support classes back pockets, what to do you? Comrades Succor! Then things got really ridiculous, because we just tore through enemies, even a couple levels higher than us, like nothing. Part of it was the asymmetry of tactics, we the players had just much more time to hone our battle grid tactics, and the DM was more interested in story than becoming a master chess player. Aside from all those issues, even if there are broken stuff in other editions, you can and should house rule a few things to fix them, but in 4e, you had to basically fudge so many things to make it believable and a challenge, using CR +6 monsters, drastically reducing party magic item budgets (leading to combats that dragged on and on...something I've never seen in other games. in a PF final battle that lasted 3 hours, we fought and killed DOZENS of enemies, flew through an underground drow city, controlled armies, and chased a demon out a portal into another dimension. In 4e that would have taken us probably two days of real time combat to do the same thing. It was just too much micromanagement of every little action you can do, and at the end of it what was the reward? Woo, some magic items that you're not interested in because by Paragon you're already "locked in" to your build and favorite items and don't care that much. And the thrill goes down because, hey, it's just another demon, right? Maybe other 4e DMs were more capable of challenging the PCs, but Irontooth was probably the only real deadly encounter of 4e. It's too bad, because that I remember, was actually fun. Sure we had fun other times, but not as much as other systems, in the same amount of time. Just the narrative options is like having a comic book vs an actual book. When I'm playing with my friends, I like having a comic book pace, I don't need the fine play by play.

And no matter what the edition, once the PCs are too tough to be threatened, it's time to start adding in some house rules to compensate. At least we can all agree it's better if they get it right, level 1-20, from the start. Beacause then "house rules" become more like tweaks, and less like plug in gaping holes in the math-fixes. IMO the problem with Expertise in 4e wasn't that without it you were "gimped", it's that combat dragged on and that's no fun for either side of the table. The trick is, to make PCs reasonably killable without being paper tigers, and yet have challenge not be synonymous with grind.

 

[El Mahdi]

deleted

 

[hbarsquared]

Just chiming in.

The more I think about it, the more I like the Constitution Score + HD at 1st-level, and just HD (not + Con mod) each level gain.

I also like the idea of the Con modifier having more of role in the game besides saves and checks. My thought was you could add the mod to every HD healing. Specifically, Constitution bonus (not modifier), whenever you spend a HD to heal.

 

[keterys]

This is the catch. If you inflate PC hitpoints then monsters feel less threatening, and monsters that are meant to be menacing see their damage jump by a proportional amount. So the end result is PCs die just as fast (eventually) but all the numbers are bigger. Just number inflation.

You can inflate 1st-level hit points without inflating overall hit points, though.

For example, if a PC gets 1d8 hit points per level, starting at Con 14 and increasing Con every 4 levels.
A (d8+Con mod per level): 1st = 7, 6th = 39, 12th = 90, 18th = 153
B (Con score + d8/lvl): 1st = 19, 6th = 42, 12th = 71, 18th = 99

So, B is much higher at 1st, much lower at 18th.

A fighter can do 13 average damage at 1st level, if that's his goal, with an upper range of about 20. A rogue more like 11. A 1st level spell deals 13.5 - 18 damage. What can we extrapolate PC hit points from that? They should probably start with more average hit points than many of those options, though it's fine if a good roll or crit drops them.

Alternatively, you reduce damage. How far down can you go? 1d12 + 4 damage for a two-handed sword with 18 Str (not hard to get) assumes no damage added by class, magic, feat, etc. Are people willing to allow below that? Cause that's still 10.5, 16 high.

 

[babomb]

The most hit points I've ever seen on a PC are in 3rd edition, because Con adds to hit points for every level. In older editions, I'm not sure each had a rule protected a PC with a 6 Con from rolling a 1 for hit die and dying in character creation. There's a lot of very useful math that can be done without bad-mouthing any edition needlessly.

In 2e, you got a bonus from Con every level (up to a certain level), but the bonuses were smaller. A 15 gave you +1/level, 16 gave you +2, and only fighters, paladins, and rangers could more than +2 from Con higher than 16. Similarly, a 2 Con only gave you only -2 HP/level (but, yes, there is a rule that each HD gives you at least 1 HP). After level 9 or 10, you didn't get the Con bonus OR a hit die, just a flat +1 to +3, depending on your class. And, of course, you didn't get max HP at first level.

1e is similar, except that the maximum hit dice varies more between classes, and rangers and monks start with 2 HD.

So yes, 3e characters nearly always have more HP than their equivalents in previous editions.

 

[Falling Icicle]

How do you figure 2-3 hits?

I was talking about upper-end weapon attacks and 1st level spells (which do an average of 13.5-18 damage). I'm not saying that every weapon will reliably kill a character that easily, just that some can. A 2h weapon does d12, and assuming just a 14 str that's an average of 8.5 damage. It can do up to 14 damage. That has the potential to kill characters even with the HP totals I am proposing in 2 non-critical hits, maybe 3. Keep in mind, the 32 HP barbarian with 20 Con is the extreme end. Most characters would have HP in the high teens to low 20s. Obviously, not everything is going to do that much damage, but even the weak 1st level monsters in the bestiary (doing 3 or 4 damage) could bring down most characters in a few hits. But I also think they made many of the 1st level monsters really weak because they expect characters to have such extremely low HP totals right now.

 

[Falling Icicle]

Yes, I know providing feedback is the point of the playtest. That's why the rest of my post was about providing feedback, and how to best do that.

Did you stop reading after the first sentence of my post...?

I did read your whole post; sorry if my reply was curt. It just seemed like you were telling me that I should just keep my opinions to myself because the designers know what's best, that I can't possibly know what's best for everyone, that these forums aren't the official feedback channels, that my analysis is just my opinion and not really objective, and if I don't like it I can just fix it in my own games. I'm sorry if I got the wrong impression from your post.

[Edit] I'm fully aware that posting here isn't "the best way to provide feedback" to the developers, but that isn't the point. I fill out every survey they send me, and I post on their own messageboards too. But what is wrong with bringing things up for discussion here? Not only is that what these forums are here for, but maybe I want to hear what other people think. After all, they may very well convince me that I'm wrong. Sometimes people bring up insights that I hadn't thought of. And, I just like talking about the game. It's kind of like people in their living rooms talking about football. None of the coaches or players are going to hear them, but they do it because they enjoy talking about it. Of course, some of the WotC people might read these boards, so it's not like these discussions happen in private.