A New Version of Toughness - More Worthwhile?

[airwalkrr]

I was toying around with the rules today and wondering what I could do to make Toughness more attractive. What I came up with was quite simple and rather ingenious, if I do say so myself. Of course, it is only useful for those who roll hit points, but since that is the default rule, I imagine it could find use at many tables.

TOUGHNESS [GENERAL]
Benefit: Whenever you roll hit points for a new level of experience, you may reroll any roll of 1.
Special: A character may gain this feat multiple times. Its effects stack. Each time a character takes this feat, the value at which hit points may be rerolled increases by 1. This feat does not allow a character to reroll hit points for levels already earned.

What do you think? A wizard who takes this feat three times will always receive maximum hit points (not too unbalancing IMHO) while a fighter would have to take it nine times to always get maximum. At any rate, it is now useful for virtually all classes and helps eliminate some randomness, which always favors the players. If it is too powerful, perhaps the special section could be reworded to read, "Each time a character takes this feat, the value at which hit points may be rerolled increases by 1, to a maximum of half your hit die."

 

[Rystil Arden]

On average, this will be less than half as powerful as Improved Toughness. It increases hit points by .5 per level per time you select it, but only for levels after you select it and never for level 1 in any case. So on average, it will take until level 7 to be equal to the Toughness feat.

 

[airwalkrr]

So what you are saying is that it's too weak?

It certainly isn't as good as Improved Toughness, but Improved Toughness is already better than Toughness in 6 out of 7 feat opportunities (1st being the only one where Toughness has the upper hand).

 

[Rystil Arden]

So what you are saying is that it's too weak?

It certainly isn't as good as Improved Toughness, but Improved Toughness is already better than Toughness in 6 out of 7 feat opportunities (1st being the only one where Toughness has the upper hand).

I didn't say it was too weak, just giving you the analysis in exact numbers to decide that on your own. Personally, I wouldn't take your feat--there's a reason why Improved Toughness is better than Toughness: Toughness is a badly designed feat because it doesn't scale. Even feats like Acrobatic scale as long as they add to a d20 roll (a +2 bonus at level 1 or level 20 still amounts to a +10% chance to succeed), but a flat number of HP does not scale. Your feat does scale, which is good, but it gives a very low benefit overall, and some characters could actually take this feat and get nothing.

 

[Hawken]

Just offer the feat with the benefit of automatically earning 1/2 the hit die value rolled if your roll comes up less.

It seems odd that a warrior (D10HD) would have to take your feat 3X more than a wizard (D4HD) to get the same benefit (max HP/HD)--Wiz would only take 3 times to get max HP/HD, while a Fighter, Paladin, or Ranger (heaven forbid you consider Barbarian), would have to take it 9 times to get max HP/HD.

If you want to deal with numbers, then have the feat assign +1hp for D4 HD rolled, +2 for D6, +3 for D8, +4 for D10, and +5 for D12. That will give you a result of 1/2 to full hp per HD rolled. It may be extra bookkeeping, but you could even rule that any extra hp over your HD are carried over as a bonus for the next level. For example, Joe the Fighter is 5th level, 40hp, advances to 6th and has had this Toughness feat. He rolls D10 for his hp and comes up with 3, add the +4 bonus in for the feat and he gets 7hp this level (+ Con bonus). If he had rolled an 8, he would have got 10hp this level (8 +4 for feat, total 12, max 10 on D10), and 2hp would carry over to his next D10 roll when he reaches 7th.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Just offer the feat with the benefit of automatically earning 1/2 the hit die value rolled if your roll comes up less.

It seems odd that a warrior (D10HD) would have to take your feat 3X more than a wizard (D4HD) to get the same benefit (max HP/HD)--Wiz would only take 3 times to get max HP/HD, while a Fighter, Paladin, or Ranger (heaven forbid you consider Barbarian), would have to take it 9 times to get max HP/HD.

If you want to deal with numbers, then have the feat assign +1hp for D4 HD rolled, +2 for D6, +3 for D8, +4 for D10, and +5 for D12. That will give you a result of 1/2 to full hp per HD rolled. It may be extra bookkeeping, but you could even rule that any extra hp over your HD are carried over as a bonus for the next level. For example, Joe the Fighter is 5th level, 40hp, advances to 6th and has had this Toughness feat. He rolls D10 for his hp and comes up with 3, add the +4 bonus in for the feat and he gets 7hp this level (+ Con bonus). If he had rolled an 8, he would have got 10hp this level (8 +4 for feat, total 12, max 10 on D10), and 2hp would carry over to his next D10 roll when he reaches 7th.

Your suggested feat at the bottom gives Wizards an average of +.75 HP per level, Rogues an average of +1.5 HP per level, Clerics an average of +2.25 HP per level, Fighters an average of +3 HP per level, and Barbarians an average of +3.75 HP per level. This is markedly stronger than Improved Toughness for some characters, though not for Wizards.

 

[Hawken]

Your suggested feat at the bottom gives Wizards an average of +.75 HP per level, Rogues an average of +1.5 HP per level, Clerics an average of +2.25 HP per level, Fighters an average of +3 HP per level, and Barbarians an average of +3.75 HP per level.

Actually, it gives them exactly what I said it gives them per level; at least 1/2 the HD value they are rolling for, if not higher. There is no 'average' to it. Wizards get +1hp per level because of their HD (D4), not +.75hp., etc., etc.,.

By rolling a 1 when rolling for HP, regardless of your class, this feat would give you at least 1/2 your HD value (1+1 = 2 for D4 HD; 1+2 = 3 for D6; 1+4 = 5 for D10; 1+5 = 6 for D12). The feat is not any more or less powerful for one class over another as HD is a feature of the class not the feat itself.

There are so many feats out there and so few that characters actually get over the span of 20 levels (without house ruling for more), that if a player wants a feat for more HP, he should only have to spend 1 feat, regardless of his past, present or future class(es), and not have to worry about spending more feats to get more hp.

This is markedly stronger than Improved Toughness for some characters, though not for Wizards.

That's not entirely true. If the option I suggested, to allow hp over the HD value of the die to carry over to the next experience level, then even wizards are looking at a 25% bonus to their hp total on their next roll if they roll a 4. That is pretty significant.


Another alternative Toughness style feat would be to allow the character to add his Con modifier to the die roll with the maximum still being the HD value. So, a character with a 16 Con (+3) would not even need to roll for D4 HP, but if he were a Fighter, his roll would get him a result of 4-10 (min 1 + 3 (con mod) = 4; max 10 with a roll of 7-10, no carry over).

 

[Quartz]

I don't think that Toughness not scaling is itself an issue: there are other feats which don't scale.

How about making Toughness give you 3HP and DR 1/-?

 

[Nifft]

IMC, I already give all PCs half their Hit Die as the minimum. (So, a Rogue effectively rolls a hit die with possible values = 3,3,3,4,5,6.)

This gives a d4 guy +.25 hp per level, a d6 guy +.5 hp per level, and the rest are easily calculated -- d12 yields +1.25 hp per level on average, but that's just fine with me.

- - - -

My version of Toughness is: you get 1 + your base Fort save in hp. When your base Fort save goes up, you get more HP. This benefits Monks and Clerics the most, but it also benefits Fighters and Barbarians greatly.

At 1st level, good fort save guys get +3 hp. At 20th level, they get +13 hp.
At 1st level, bad fort save guys get +1 hp. At 20th level, they get +8 hp.

It scales, but slower than the version in CW, and it scales differently for good/bad fort classes (which is one way of deciding who's a front-liner). It's worked pretty well so far (up to level 14).

- - - -

A single re-roll on a 1 for a Wizard gives this result: ((1/4)*[1,2,3,4] + [2,3,4])/4 = 2.875, which is only 0.375 greater than 2.5 (normal expected value of a d4). It's better than +.25 hp/level, but worse than +.5 hp/level.

Cheers, -- N

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

I don't think that Toughness not scaling is itself an issue: there are other feats which don't scale.

How about making Toughness give you 3HP and DR 1/-?

I'd say too strong. There's already a feat that let's you add DR 1/- to an existing DR/-, which of course has DR as a prerequisite. Your feat would give the same benefit, plus 3 hp, and not have any restriction. If the DR 1/- specifically did not stack with ANYTHING else, it'd probably be ok.

As to the OP, it's different than the direction you're going in, but if you have Arcana Unearthed/Evolved, there's a feat in there called Sturdy. Much closer to the effect of Toughness, and more powerful.