D&D 5E A Compromise on Hit Points

[Jeff Carlsen]

I prefer first level hit points to be:

Hit die (rolled) + Con modifier + X

Where X is the adjustable dial that represents the natural ability people have to stay alive, regardless of con. I suggest a default value of 5, with 0 and 10 being the provided as the gritty and high fantasy options.

 

[Hussar]

I think the point is very important - you need to know how much damage the monsters are expected to do before you can meaningfully talk about PC HP. How often are the monsters expected to hit and how hard. Before you have those numbers, it doesn't mean anything to set HP.

I mean, people still talk about how 4e inflated the starting HP so much without spending any time actually looking at how those HP are used. Heck, people bitch the same thing about 3e, saying that 3e characters are unstoppable jugernauts with buckets of hp and we're playing D&D on easy mode.

Of course, they ignore the fact that going from 2e to 3e, monsters effectively tripled their average damage per round. If we bring that up, then suddenly all the criticisms fall apart. Same with the 4e criticisms.

Until you figure out how much damage monsters should be doing (at least as a rough estimate) you cannot have any meaningful conversation about starting HP.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Hussar is correct - hit points for 1st level and low-level PC's only needs to be sufficient to keep melee-oriented classes alive for a few rounds even while being hit by the monsters that are appropriate encounters for that level. Less melee-oriented classes need fewer hit points than that. The enemies appropriate for 1st level characters varies not just with edition but from one game to another.

 

[the Jester]

Multiple choices? Agreed.

This is one of the rare places where the different play styles and assumptions leads to mutually incompatible design. We cannot have experienced and tough level 1 heroes and rookie Everyman level 1 heroes with the same rules. Reflavouring can do a lot but only goes so far. If the "Everyman" are killing dozens of orcs without pause or the "natural heroes" are getting slapped around by goblins then no amount of reflavouring will help.
WotC does have to make the call.

Ehh, I don't think it matters much, so long as all the 1st level characters in the same campaign are "everymen" or they're all "natural heroes"- the campaign's flavor is influenced by this in a consistent way.

 

[VinylTap]

I agree with the last two posters. I think its a lot more useful to talk about classes in "# of average hits till unconscious", when talking about starting HP.

I like the tensions to be around 'a wizard should take two hits. A fighter 3-4'.

If monsters are dishing out hits at about 1d6 per round at the first level, that's 3.5 per round on average, so a wizard should be suitably frail with 7 hit points. That would be at a base level of CON 10. But if a monsters damage is going to be more than this on average, HPs should increase as well.

A fighter at 3.5 per hit should be at about 10.5 to 14 HP before con mods.

It all sort of depends on what they do with crits as well. People like extra damage on a crits because big number are exciting, but that's leads to a lot of problems. I'm not a huge fan of an orc being able to drop a wizard in one hit, however low the odds, but it should be very close...

Has anyone ever played around with crits causing temporary stat damage? Say a broken wrist or a concussions (loss of Int)? Horrible scars modifying char? Anyway, probably the wrong thread for this sort of thing... but I wonder if there's a fun mechanic that doesn't mean doubling damage dice.

 

[billd91]

I prefer first level hit points to be:

Hit die (rolled) + Con modifier + X

Where X is the adjustable dial that represents the natural ability people have to stay alive, regardless of con. I suggest a default value of 5, with 0 and 10 being the provided as the gritty and high fantasy options.

IF you want to start PCs off with more hit points, I think this is a better option than using a character's constitution. A lot of people are focusing on using the character's constitution stat, but you're already using it when you use the Con modifier to add to the hit points. Do you want to emphasize its importance even more by directly adding the score as well?

Adding a flat amount to everybody's hit points, I think, does a better job of spotting the PCs a certain amount of grace in a fair way. Values of 0, 5, and 10 are convenient figures, but if you wanted to get a bit more designy (perhaps over-designy) you could use a value derived from an average 1st level opponent's expected damage value. Then it becomes a question of spotting the PCs 0, 1, or 2 free average hits.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Or, the default could be hd + con mod, and add a sidebar that says "for a wimpier play experience, give characters max hd + con."

Needlessly antagonistic here, please avoid casting aspersions on other play styles. Thanks.

 

[nightwalker450]

I'll throw my idea into this list...

I'm for Con Score + Rolled Hit Dice
Each Level is Rolled Hit Dice
Any hit dice that rolls less than or equal to your Con Mod is rerolled.
-- No retroactive hit point rolling. If your Con Score increases by 1, you just gain 1 hit point.

If your Con Mod is greater than or equal to your hit dice, than you just gain Con Mod+1 hit points per level.

I'm more a fan of front loaded hit points, than characters one-shotted. But I really dislike the Con Mod per level, since that puts too much variance between what to expect from characters. This way allows for Constitution to be continually important to the character, without causing the massive discrepancies.

 

[Steely_Dan]

I'll throw my idea into this list...

I'm for Con Score + Rolled Hit Dice
Each Level is Rolled Hit Dice
Any hit dice that rolls less than or equal to your Con Mod is rerolled.

Similar to the 1st playtest packet, roll HD or take Con modifier.

So with 5th Ed we already have two HP systems right there (and as people have shown, so many variants).

 

[jeffh]

IF you want to start PCs off with more hit points, I think this is a better option than using a character's constitution. A lot of people are focusing on using the character's constitution stat, but you're already using it when you use the Con modifier to add to the hit points. Do you want to emphasize its importance even more by directly adding the score as well?

Adding a flat amount to everybody's hit points, I think, does a better job of spotting the PCs a certain amount of grace in a fair way. Values of 0, 5, and 10 are convenient figures, but if you wanted to get a bit more designy (perhaps over-designy) you could use a value derived from an average 1st level opponent's expected damage value. Then it becomes a question of spotting the PCs 0, 1, or 2 free average hits.

As I observed earlier, adding a flat 5 to the number given by the existing system is exactly the same as using HD + half Con. (You're already adding your con mod, which is just (Con/2 -5); add another 5 to that and you're left with just Con/2). So an added bonus of using this suggestion is that there's a way to express it that makes the "it's all about Con" camp happy.