D&D 5E Rolling Hit Points Tweak

[fewilcox]

PC hit points are very important. If you have too few you are likely to be taken out by a single attack from a brute of your CR.

With bounded accuracy and multiattacks from monsters, if you roll low for your hit points, you are in trouble.

Luckily you can just choose to take a set number of hit points to avoid that. Not only that, but that set number is highly than the average you would get from rolling.

Rolling for hit points can be fun though. If you want to keep rolling for hit points but don't want to lose out here is a slight tweak:

d12 = 2d6
d10 = d6 + d4
d8 = 2d4
d6 = 1d4 + 1d2

This weights your rolls toward the middle, has a minimum of 2HP, has the same maximum, and gives you an average equal to what you could choose without rolling.

Any problems you can see with it?

I can always get behind attempts to trade linear dice rolls for curves (even if those curves are simple Vs). GURPS use of 3d6 in its core mechanic is a huge part of why we love it so much. The dice gawds generally hate me, which is why my major complaint about HackMaster is that it requires players to roll their characters' stats.

 

[PeelSeel2]

We always played you rerolled your hit points at every level. If you got higher, they went up. If they where lower, they stayed the same. Helps average them out.

 

[the Jester]

My tweak is "roll but treat any number less than half the die's maximum as half the die's maximum". So, if you're gaining a d8 Hit Die upon leveling up, you can take 5 hp... or roll 1d8 with a minimum result of 4.

So far, nobody has taken the 5 hps.

 

[AriochQ]

I run a campaign where most combats are pretty challenging. I allow my players to roll, but if they roll less than the average, they are allowed to take the average (rounded down). It is pretty lenient, but it is no fun gaining a level and rolling really low for HP's. And the extra few HP's allow me more leeway in making the encounters tougher.

The way I see it, the average for a d10 is 5.5 The average for my method would be 7.5. It inflates HP's a little bit, but avoids those low HP rolls.

 

[bgbarcus]

I run a campaign where most combats are pretty challenging. I allow my players to roll, but if they roll less than the average, they are allowed to take the average (rounded down). It is pretty lenient, but it is no fun gaining a level and rolling really low for HP's. And the extra few HP's allow me more leeway in making the encounters tougher.

The way I see it, the average for a d10 is 5.5 The average for my method would be 7.5. It inflates HP's a little bit, but avoids those low HP rolls.

That matches my thinking. Using the best if three rolls means most characters get high hit points for each level. But gambling on the dice is also fun. One character had a two really bad rolls (three 1's at second level and highest roll was 2 at third for a rogue). His low hit points became a fun part of role playing the character as he became very good at hiding.

That was in the final play test when rogues had d6. When the PHB came out and they were bumped to d8 I let him reroll all levels.

 

[ad_hoc]

We always played you rerolled your hit points at every level. If you got higher, they went up. If they where lower, they stayed the same. Helps average them out.

What does that typically look like?

What extremes have you seen?

Good to know that other people are taking measures to ensure HP are high.

 

[Mercule]

I don't see anything wrong with the OP's method.

Another option is to roll two dice each level, and literally take the average of them. It sounds odd, but the math is pretty close. Take the cleric rolling d8. You can simulate a d4 by halving a d8 and rounding up. Do that twice and call it a day. That actually gives 3/64 (8, 8; 7, 8; 8, 7) chance of an 8 and only 1/64 of a 2 (1, 1). I'm not going to check the math on the rest of the curve.

If you want to up the average while retaining an even distribution, you could roll the next smaller die and add 2 to the result. The above Cleric has a range of 3-8 hp, with a flat distribution. If the desire is to eliminate the extremes, add just 1 instead of 2. The Cleric now has a range of 2-7.

If you want a bell curve that centers high, do both: roll two dice of the next size down, halve that, and add 2. The Cleric gets 2d6/2 + 2 for a range of 4-8 and an average of just above 5.5 (functionally 6). Really, though, all classes average around 75% of their hit points (d4=>5, d8=>6, d10=>8, d12=>9) with a minimum of 3 and the same maximum they have, now. A small tweak can scale the minimum, too.

 

[pming]

Hiya.

In my games, if a player rolls for HP's upon gaining a level and doesn't like his result, he can opt to have me roll it for him...but he keeps it, even if it was lower. This usually works out better for the player, as a fighter rolling a "3" has a much better chance of me rolling a 4 or higher than a 1 or 2. That said, just yesterday the Sorcerer rolled HP and got a 1. Obviously he had me reroll... and I got a 1. But, as I said, that almost never happens.

This keeps the players honest in their rolling, knowing that if they get a sucky dice roll they can just have me do it in stead of trying to 'cheat' and then feel bad for doing so (or risk getting caught).

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Staffan]

In the past, my group has used a rule that if you're unhappy with your hp roll, you can reroll it with a die one step smaller, and you can invoke the rule multiple times. So if a fighter rolls 2 on his d10, he can reroll with a d8. If he then rolls a 1, he can reroll with a d6. This gives some cushion against super-low rolls without raising the average too much.

 

[Larac]

I have always had them Take AVG. if the roll was low.

If a player rolls badly two times at low levels the Char. becomes a hindrance for the GM and the player.
Just not worth it.