D&D 5E (2014) On Die Averages and Hit Points in 5e

[aco175]

I allow players to roll HP each level and they can choose average rounded down after. So, if you roll a d8 the lowest you can get is 4. I also just give the monsters roughly 3/4 HP instead of half. This mostly started with 4e in that a typical monster started to get better versions instead of just saying that there is a leader with max HP like in 1e/2e. So instead of having 10 orcs and one has max HP so he is the leader, we now have basic orcs and a orc shooter and a orc sergeant, and an orc...

 

[Charlaquin]

Hmm, making a mistake isn't new to me but I don't see it from what you described here. I mention in the post that there aren't any 0.5 increments on a die and they roll up for players. The to examples I give have those values (bugbear at 27 hp).

I see. I misread you, I thought you were saying they round up in general, not that they only round up for the players, and your explanation of how monster HP are calculated didn’t specifically say they are t rounded up there. I also misunderstood the way you wrote the formula - it looked like you were saying the d8 average was 5.0 rather than that you were multiplying the average by 5.0

My mistake, sorry.

 

[DemoMonkey]

"Take the set amount or roll. Decide before rolling. If you decide to roll, you must reroll ones." is absolutely going to become my standard for rolling HP.

Thanks NotAYakk!

 

[Umbran]

1d8 reroll1s has an average of 5, identical to the "take the average" choice. And it lets people who want to have fun rolling HD not be worse off, on average.

Except, for any particular character, you're probably going to roll maybe a dozen of them, and a maximum of 20. The "on average" holds when you consider statistically relevant numbers of characters. Any one individual character, with only a handful of hit dice, has a pretty high likelihood of being far from average.

 

[NotAYakk]

Except, for any particular character, you're probably going to roll maybe a dozen of them, and a maximum of 20. The "on average" holds when you consider statistically relevant numbers of characters. Any one individual character, with only a handful of hit dice, has a pretty high likelihood of being far from average.

Yes, I covered that. Did you see the bit where I talked about variance? That is a measure of how likely extreme rolls are.

The 95% confidence interval (ie, 95% of characters) will be within about 80% to 120% of the "take the average" PC's HP at level 10.

By the time you roll even 3 dice and add them up, the central limit theorem's implied cheat works pretty damn well.

At level 5, with 14 con, a d8 HD PC who takes the average has 43 HP. The variance of the d8 drop 1s is 20, so +/-8.76 HP. So about 80% to 120% of HP even by level 5, 19 times out of 20.

Now, the extremes exist. As the option is level by level, a PC who rolls minimum 2 times in a row could just start taking average if they wanted to.

 

[OptionalRule]

There's confusion on this?

Also, if there wasn't confusion on die mechanics in general, Great Weapon Fighter wouldn't be a thing. Clearly there is, and people are designing rules in that confusion.

 

[Charlaquin]

Except, for any particular character, you're probably going to roll maybe a dozen of them, and a maximum of 20. The "on average" holds when you consider statistically relevant numbers of characters. Any one individual character, with only a handful of hit dice, has a pretty high likelihood of being far from average.

True, but you’re still more likely to get a lower result than the fixed value when you roll than you are to get a higher result.

 

[Charlaquin]

Also, if there wasn't confusion on die mechanics in general, Great Weapon Fighter wouldn't be a thing.

…huh?

 

[OptionalRule]

…huh?

I mention this later in the article when it comes to a house rule to reroll HP. Basically, replacing a 1 or 2 makes almost no difference with Great Weapon Fighter. There have been a number of articles about this, I wrote a thing about it awhile back too.

 

[Charlaquin]

I mention this later in the article when it comes to a house rule to reroll HP. Basically, replacing a 1 or 2 makes almost no difference with Great Weapon Fighter. There have been a number of articles about this, I wrote a thing about it awhile back too.

It makes a pretty small difference on each attack, sure. The reason you’d take it is because you’re planning to use two-handed melee weapons (so you won’t benefit from archery, dueling, two-weapon fighting, or protection) and you want an offensive fighting style (so defense won’t be satisfying.) The benefit, while small, also compounds the more attacks you make, so it works best with Polearm Master and Sentinel.

It’s definitely the weakest fighting style (well… maybe second weakest after protection), but since it’s the only one that boosts the damage of two-handed weapon users, which is an extremely strong build, it still has its niche.