D&D 5E D&D Should Have Less HP Bloat

[Jahydin]

I agree the hit point bloat is pretty painful at higher levels. For me, it begins to feel like an hour long shin kicking contest.

I really like the Hackmaster Threshold of Pain system where if you take enough points of damage (determined by CON, total HP, and Class) in one turn you drop to the ground and are susceptible to coup de graces till you recover.

Between that, exploding damage dice, and fluctuating turn order, combats feel pretty intense no matter how high the HPs are!

 

[Argyle King]

Yes... im aware.

Granularity is not the problem. Using only percentages is.

Do you think some sort of logarithmic scale might be a better progression?

I chose 1/4 and 3/4 as steps that I felt could add to the current 2/4 (half) resistance found in 5E. My thinking at the time I made the post was that it would be easy to modify spells and such by sliding things that have normal resistance up a few levels; having minor resistance more common in the heroic tier, and having 3/4 available later. I also felt like it was an easy math adjustment to do on the fly from currently available content: 1/4 and 3/4 only require figuring out what half of half is -just in different directions.

I'm open to more of an overhaul if we're talking a completely different system.

 

[Argyle King]

I agree the hit point bloat is pretty painful at higher levels. For me, it begins to feel like an hour long shin kicking contest.

I really like the Hackmaster Threshold of Pain system where if you take enough points of damage (determined by CON, total HP, and Class) in one turn you drop to the ground and are susceptible to coup de graces till you recover.

Between that, exploding damage dice, and fluctuating turn order, combats feel pretty intense no matter how high the HPs are!

I have one of the Hackmaster books, but I've never gotten around to playing it. I'd be interested in seeing how things work out in actual play.

5E does have the massive damage alternate rule in the DMG. I have considered using that.

Other games I play have things like "soak" or armor as damage reduction. While I like those systems, I'm inclined to believe that building an edition of D&D which functioned like they do would effectively cease to still be D&D in the eyes of many people.

 

[tetrasodium]

Do you think some sort of logarithmic scale might be a better progression?

I chose 1/4 and 3/4 as steps that I felt could add to the current 2/4 (half) resistance found in 5E. My thinking at the time I made the post was that it would be easy to modify spells and such by sliding things that have normal resistance up a few levels; having minor resistance more common in the heroic tier, and having 3/4 available later. I also felt like it was an easy math adjustment to do on the fly from currently available content: 1/4 and 3/4 only require figuring out what half of half is -just in different directions.

I'm open to more of an overhaul if we're talking a completely different system.

a logarithmic scale would likely be getting into the realm of being too difficult to mentally handle on the fly. or just have too many graduations. You could use percentages like 50%(5) 50%(10) 50%(15) that cap at the number in ()'s & allow everything beyond to be full, but at that point you might as well just use the flat value. Any solution that treats one big attack with a larger reduction than multiple smaller attacks each get in terms of raw numbers avoids the only situation where more weaker attacks could be at a disadvantage to fewer but larger attacks. It's not surprising wotc ignored this given how near-unfixably bonkers the math of 5e is once you start looking at it in depth

 

[Argyle King]

a logarithmic scale would likely be getting into the realm of being too difficult to mentally handle on the fly. or just have too many graduations. You could use percentages like 50%(5) 50%(10) 50%(15) that cap at the number in ()'s & allow everything beyond to be full, but at that point you might as well just use the flat value. Any solution that treats one big attack with a larger reduction than multiple smaller attacks each get in terms of raw numbers avoids the only situation where more weaker attacks could be at a disadvantage to fewer but larger attacks. It's not surprising wotc ignored this given how near-unfixably bonkers the math of 5e is once you start looking at it in depth

I'm not as familiar with the deeper nuts and bolts of 5E as I am with other editions.

Do you think that using static resistance numbers (rather than percentages) would mean building monsters differently?

My current view is that monsters should be built differently, but I am not clear on what that difference looks like in terms of 5E if a solid number (such as "resist 5") is used rather than a percentage ("take half").

 

[tetrasodium]

I'm not as familiar with the deeper nuts and bolts of 5E as I am with other editions.

Do you think that using static resistance numbers (rather than percentages) would mean building monsters differently?

My current view is that monsters should be built differently, but I am not clear on what that difference looks like in terms of 5E if a solid number (such as "resist 5") is used rather than a percentage ("take half").

Yes & no. here is some good advice from the old mm

Spoiler

so you might have dr5/bludgeoning or dr5/holy & resist cold 5 on different monsters. but both pretty much work the same. DR was for physical damage )b/p/s) with it affecting all but the type being the thing that makes the attack bypass it. Resistance was the other way around with the energy types listed being the ones that suffered reduction. Monsters tended to have higher AC's & lower HP, you can kinda sorta hit that by adding like 4-5ac & cutting hp in half. Resists were typically one great one soso save & one horrible save.

The biggest problem is that wotc slapped resist on anything with any level of resistance and resist nonmagic b/p/s on almost everything else because it goes away.

SR is mentioned in that sidebar, it's different from resistance & was more like AC for spells. Other than a few monsters that were build to give casters the middle finger it was generally not very high (there were monsters that did the same to martials) Pretty much the caster or person activating a spell like ability (there were lots of them) would roll 1d20 & add their caster level, 5e doesn't really have that. If the result was higher than the SR value the spell went through & did the normal save/touch attack process.

 

[Argyle King]

Yes & no. here is some good advice from the old mm

Spoiler

View attachment 136902

so you might have dr5/bludgeoning or dr5/holy & resist cold 5 on different monsters. but both pretty much work the same. DR was for physical damage )b/p/s) with it affecting all but the type being the thing that makes the attack bypass it. Resistance was the other way around with the energy types listed being the ones that suffered reduction. Monsters tended to have higher AC's & lower HP, you can kinda sorta hit that by adding like 4-5ac & cutting hp in half. Resists were typically one great one soso save & one horrible save.

The biggest problem is that wotc slapped resist on anything with any level of resistance and resist nonmagic b/p/s on almost everything else because it goes away.

SR is mentioned in that sidebar, it's different from resistance & was more like AC for spells. Other than a few monsters that were build to give casters the middle finger it was generally not very high (there were monsters that did the same to martials) Pretty much the caster or person activating a spell like ability (there were lots of them) would roll 1d20 & add their caster level, 5e doesn't really have that. If the result was higher than the SR value the spell went through & did the normal save/touch attack process.

I have familiarity with 3rd Edition, but it's been quite a while. I do remember the general idea behind DR and resistance. If I were writing a new MM, I think just calling it all "resistance" is easier in terms of terminology.

In all editions of D&D, I find it somewhat odd that magic weapons seem to bypass all resistances to damage types. I get the idea that it's a magic weapon and should be better than a non-magic weapon, but something about the interaction always seems odd to me. This is especially true in the case of contemporary D&D, in which magic items are supposedly rare, but many creatures require* magic weapons to harm them.

*While technically not absolutely required, not having them means hacking away at something for ages. That leads back to the HP discussion and why I feel that the topic of HP is somewhat linked with resistances to damage.

 

[tetrasodium]

*While technically not absolutely required, not having them means hacking away at something for ages. That leads back to the HP discussion and why I feel that the topic of HP is somewhat linked with resistances to damage.

Thst requirement is s choice a choice made all the more strange by wotc's choice to peg caster & spell efficacy against the idea of martial not having magic weapons while making the bar to get them trivially low and even urging GMs to be "generous" if they use monsters with thst ninmagic bps resistance.

On the other point, I dont know if it was 4e or 5e thst did magic weapons for all dr but it was different in both 2e and 3.x. back in 2e there were some monsters that were just immune to attacks if you didn't have a magic weapon. And it wasn't very developed beyond that . In 3.x there were some things with dr/magic but dr/material type dr/good evil lawful chaotic and dr/- or dr/damage type were much more common by far

 

[Stalker0]

So I've been curious where this notion of "PCs have too many hitpoints" in 5e comes from.

4e had you start with basically double the hitpoints, though it did start to scale down without your con mod in the later levels.
3e you had way more hitpoints due to con boosting items and other magical buffs.

In comparison 5e spellcasters and rogues get 2 more starting HP and 1 per level....a drop in the bucket. I would say 5e characters have the least hitpoints of the last two editions.

Now monsters I could respect, as the "nothing but a bag of hitpoints" is a problem in 5e monster design. But PCs? ..... nah.

 

[tetrasodium]

So I've been curious where this notion of "PCs have too many hitpoints" in 5e comes from.

4e had you start with basically double the hitpoints, though it did start to scale down without your con mod in the later levels.
3e you had way more hitpoints due to con boosting items and other magical buffs.

In comparison 5e spellcasters and rogues get 2 more starting HP and 1 per level....a drop in the bucket. I would say 5e characters have the least hitpoints of the last two editions.

Now monsters I could respect, as the "nothing but a bag of hitpoints" is a problem in 5e monster design. But PCs? ..... nah.

It's not just hit points but every PC has a giant absorb shield built in so a 1hp heal on a downed PC can take a hit up to max hp & be nullified by a second 1hp heal. Then a short rest & hit dice spending can generally restore full or close to full hp at least once with no real need to worry about how/if your going to get more like when burning potions & heal wands