[AU] a new kind of toughness?

[Negative Zero]

Varianor,it seems to me that you misunderstood what i meant. you do not get you hit die plus your CON plus half your hit die. you get half your hit die automatically, and you roll for the rest of it. see the example in the first post.

the feat changes the way you roll for hit points. in and of itself, it does not grant you extra hitpoints, above what you are entitled to. what it will do is change your average hit points per level.

as for what i'm trying to do, yes i do want to allow characters a way to get more than average hit points. however, as i set about designingthe feats i realised that i like the idea of accomplishing that goal without actually giving out more hit points.

Velmont, while your math is a little off, the end result is correct, it will yield a net of +3/lvl on the average. however while this may seem strong, the feat really doesn't givethe character anything more than he is otherwise entitled to.

if a player rolls consistently well for his character, then he would very well end up with the same result. this just puts the control in the player's hands. this way, if that is part of your character concept, you can accomplish it without depending too heavily on the dice and it does require some investment (and cost), i.e. two feats.

are the feats overpowered? i've always assumed that the measure of that is whether it becomes a no brainer to take or not. and in this case, i don't think that it is. over time, the benefit can be great, but you have to really wait for it. and you have to really want it.

~NegZ

<EDIT>
something i just thought of, should either of these be a General, or Ceremonial feat, or a Talent?

 

[Velmont]

Yeah, the maximum won't change, it just upper the average, but propabilties have a tendency to go for the average on long run, so at low level, it may not make a big difference if the player would have rolled good HP, but in long run, probabilty say he will roll average and you can easily tell it will surely give him at least 15 more hp than what he have roll, or maybe even more than 30... you should have something more like Improved Toughness: +1 HP/level. I think it would be more reasonnable.

 

[Varianor Abroad]

Varianor,it seems to me that you misunderstood what i meant. you do not get you hit die plus your CON plus half your hit die. you get half your hit die automatically, and you roll for the rest of it. see the example in the first post.

the feat changes the way you roll for hit points. in and of itself, it does not grant you extra hitpoints, above what you are entitled to. what it will do is change your average hit points per level.

as for what i'm trying to do, yes i do want to allow characters a way to get more than average hit points. however, as i set about designingthe feats i realised that i like the idea of accomplishing that goal without actually giving out more hit points.

Thanks for the clarifications. I did get the math wrong there on the second one. Let's look at the class averages (ruling out Con bonuses):

d6 = 3+1d3 = 5
d8 = 4+1d4 = 6.5
d10 = 5+1d5 = 8
d12 = 6+1d6 = 9.5

Over 10 levels, for those who take the second level of the feat, this nets to

1.5X10=15 hp d6 classes
2x10=20 hp d8 classes
2.5x10=25 hp d10 classes
3x10=30 hp d12 classes (warmain)

So again it's rewarding those with larger hit dice to begin with, like the entry feat. I don't think that scales well. YMMV.

Disclaimer: I'm an English major, not a math major, I could have done something wrong in there.

 

[Negative Zero]

not to be obtuse or anything but ...
you guys think that granting a greater benefit to those with a bigger hit-die is a bad thing? why?

~NegZ

 

[Ubermeister Kevguy]

not to be obtuse or anything but ...
you guys think that granting a greater benefit to those with a bigger hit-die is a bad thing? why?

I don't think it balances as well, but haven't had a lot of examples from playtesting. One of main playtesters/DMs is trying it out as a role as per standard, but default to 1/2 if you roll under that. Sort of garuntees not
doing too badly, without inflating to an average of 3/4 of the HD max...
some concern has been expressed about that being excessive.

I'm still playtesting my 3+Con Mod., which keeps it a relative thing - 3HP
to a Mage with no Constitution mod. is significant, whereas 8HP to the
Con20 Barbarian is maybe about on par.

Thanks for starting this post, by the way. Very productive.

 

[Negative Zero]

... One of main playtesters/DMs is trying it out as a role as per standard, but default to 1/2 if you roll under that. Sort of garuntees not doing too badly, without inflating to an average of 3/4 of the HD max... some concern has been expressed about that being excessive....

Kev, seems to me that that that would in fact still mess with the average since average pretty my depends on the crappy rolls.

~NegZ

 

[Varianor Abroad]

not to be obtuse or anything but ...
you guys think that granting a greater benefit to those with a bigger hit-die is a bad thing? why?

~NegZ

If I get a larger plate at the dinner table than everyone else, should I automatically be entitled to a bigger slice of pie for dessert?

An in-game corollary would be introducing a feat that granted extra spells - it gives you more if you're a magister than a runethane. How is that fair? That benefit is making the strong stronger. Players often complain about perceived inequalities. Let's not give them a real one.

 

[Staffan]

Kev, seems to me that that that would in fact still mess with the average since average pretty my depends on the crappy rolls.

The averages for "roll die normally but the minimum result is half max" would be:

d4: (2+2+3+4)/4=2.75 (0.25 over regular average)
d6: (3+3+3+4+5+6)/6=4 (0.5 over)
d8: (4+4+4+4+5+6+7+8)/8=5.25 (0.75 over)
d10: (5+5+5+5+5+6+7+8+9+10)/10= 6.5 (1.0 over)
d12: (6+6+6+6+6+6+7+8+9+10+11+12)/12=7.75 (1.25 over)

So, it won't inflate the hp average all that much. By comparison, the "half max plus half a die" method (d3+3 instead of d6) increases the average by 1 to 3 instead, double this method plus 0.5.

Edit: That said, these alternate Toughness rules seem to be missing part of what Toughness is for. It's not there so the fighters and barbarians can boost their already significant hit points. It's there for classes with wussy hp who can use it to gain some survivability, especially at low levels, at the expense of other nifties.

 

[Nifft]

I don't like "stateful" effects -- that is, effects that have a variable benefit which depends not on where you are, but on how you got here. Thus, I dislike the "current HD" idea.

Here's the Toughness that I use IMC:

Toughness adds your Base Fort Save +1 to your HP total. As your Base Fort Save increases, so does the bonus to your HP total. You may take this Feat multiple times, and its effects stack.

-- N

PS: I designed it this way to capture the fact that higher HD classes tend to have higher Fort saves. Multi-classing messes it up a little. Overall, though, it's worked okay.

 

[Negative Zero]

Varianor,
i'm not sure i agree with your way of thinking. that's like saying that since the tracking feat is more useful to someone with survival as a class skill, it's designed badly. the way i see it, all feats are designed to help a certain situation/class/ability more than others. it then becomes the player's/character's choice whether it's worth it to them to take the feat.

by the same token, giving a flat bonus, in fact, does the same thing you're saying this feat does, just in the opposite way. while this feat might have a greater numerical value to larger hit die classes, the actual effect is the same for all classes. the original Toughness feat, while it gives a static numeric bonus, the actual effect varies according to the class.

classes with a smaller hit die gain more from the static bonus than those with a bigger hit die. i.e. 3 hit points is more valuable to someone who is limited to a maximum of 4 hit points (75% of their total) than it is to someone with a max of 12 (25% - one third the bonus). all i mean by this comparison is that the argument works both ways, and as such isn't really valid (IMO).

... That said, these alternate Toughness rules seem to be missing part of what Toughness is for. ...

personally i don't like this philosophy; that game features are meant for "x" and "x" only. it's the rationale behind change to power attack in 3.5: "we meant for you to do this with it, and if you're not then you're wrong." i disagree. if you're tougher than average then you should be tougher than average. i guess my way of thinking adds "... for your class" to that statement.


Nifft,
so you're basically saing that because "you get more use out of the feat by taking it earlier rather than later", then you don't like it, right? assuming that i interpretted that correctly, then i suppose i can see your point. however, your method also rewards those with larger hit dice as those are usually the classes with good fort saves (which seems to be criticized as a design flaw here). also, it runs the risk of providing a HUGE benefit all at once if taken at later levels, which doesn't sit well with me.

~NegZ