D&D General Adjusting Constitution

[Xeviat]

In my 24 years of D&D, I've rarely seen characters built with anything but a 14 Constitution. In 3E and 5E, I've seen a few 16s on Barbarians and Fighters, and I've seen two 12s on ranged characters, but never 8, 10, or 18. Back in 4E, though, there was a lot more variety, since Constitution only affected level 1 HP and your number of healing surges. I've also wanted to strengthen 1st level characters for my own preferences.

So, here's my pitch for a Constitution house rule:

Hit Points​

Hit Dice: 1d6 + your Constitution modifier (or 1d8, 1d10, or 1d12 per class)
Hit Points at 1st Level: 6 (or 8, 10, or 12 per HD) + your Constitution score.
Hit Points at Higher Levels: 6 (or 8, 10, or 12 per HD) per class level above 1st.

This effectively treats d6 classes as having a 14 Con, d8 as 16, d10 as 18, and d12 as 20 (so it's a bigger buff for the martials, and no one is losing typically). The extra HP at first level smooths out as you gain levels.

Higher Con boosts your starting HP and it increases your Hit Die healing, but it doesn't have as much of an effect on HP during an encounter.

The Con score HP can also serve as Wound points; a character is "Wounded" when their HP drops to their Con score, which can give me some room to play with gritty conditions even when I'm padding HP.

Low CR monsters will be adjusted to have appropriate HP. This will let me reduce their number of HD, which is really high for some creatures relative to their CR.

What do you think? Would you play in a game with these rules? Are there any pitfalls you see?

 

[Hawk Diesel]

I actually really dig this idea, and I may use it in my future games. I'll mull over the mechanic and let you know if I see any particular flaws. The one thing I may do differently is HP at higher levels. HP bloat can really impact fights at higher levels. I like the introduction of randomness in HP, but also recognize that it doesn't feel good when you roll low on HP. This is especially true in the cases where a martial character rolls lower than a caster. How I've handled it is giving advantage on HP rolls. But maybe a good idea would be a static base and a roll. Like for classes with a d6 HD, instead when they roll new hit points its 2 + 1d4 whereas a class with a d12 HD would roll 8 + 1d6. It allows for randomness, but also ensures that the gap in HP between casters and martials remains significant.

 

[el-remmen]

I'd play with these rules because I am pretty open to DM homebrew/houserules and because there is nothing about them that I'd consider game breaking or unfun. That said, I don't personally find the change necessary as I have seen Cons that run the gamut from an 8 to a 20. No one has ever wanted to go below 8 and that's fine (though in 2E there was a PC in one game who started with an 8 and went down to 6 because of being Raised twice - but modifiers were different back then).

 

[Pauln6]

I think this sort of front loading is better that the hit point bloat that can result from higher con scores, especially for Barbarians.

You could also adopt something akin to 1e, adding half the con bonus rounded up (+1 to +3) up to level 10.

 

[Theory of Games]

In the old Arcanum rpg for the Atlantis trilogy, that was exactly how 1st-level HP worked (CON score + 1d6). Easy and fun!

 

[Horwath]

1. Delete Con from the game
2. Give all classes +2 HP per level(as you said 80-90% of characters have 14 Con)
3, Move Con saves to Str saves. Helps with Dex being stronger than Str

 

[Ferrousbones]

Perhaps instead of a fixed HP per level, it could be rolling Con mod number of hit dice, then choosing the highest 1. Edit: specifically when adding more HP upon level up.

In that way, there is still randomness involved, and Con mod has an impact, but HP bloat is reduced, and Con mod just adds options.

 

[Xeviat]

Perhaps instead of a fixed HP per level, it could be rolling Con mod number of hit dice, then choosing the highest 1. Edit: specifically when adding more HP upon level up.

In that way, there is still randomness involved, and Con mod has an impact, but HP bloat is reduced, and Con mod just adds options.

I would only ever go back to rolled HP if I was running a very simulationist game and it had you roll your HP after every long rest to see how you're feeling today.

 

[Xeviat]

1. Delete Con from the game
2. Give all classes +2 HP per level(as you said 80-90% of characters have 14 Con)
3, Move Con saves to Str saves. Helps with Dex being stronger than Str

Now that's the nuclear option!

I did once consider moving HP to strength (archetypically, strong characters are big and have more meat and are tougher) and having con only apply to HD healing.

 

[mellored]

I don't see this as changing people taking 14 Con.

Maybe a few more will take 12 Con and 14 Wis, but minimally.

1. Delete Con from the game
2. Give all classes +2 HP per level(as you said 80-90% of characters have 14 Con)
3, Move Con saves to Str saves. Helps with Dex being stronger than Str

I feel like if you do this, you should nuke one of the mental stats too.

Physique
Exactitude
Ratiocination
Determination