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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 9767104" data-attributes="member: 6779196">So, let’s just assume for the sake of the thought experiment that we’re able to work out the math and find exactly how much HP the average PC loses over the course of X levels, and give the PCs that much HP at the start of the campaign. We can even assume we have a formula, so we can just plug in the level we want the campaign to go to, and it’ll spit out how much HP they’ll lose by then, and we can just give the PCs that many hit points (or maybe slightly more or fewer if we want to adjust the difficulty up or down from the baseline). What would the result be?Well, my first thought is that this would flip the normal feeling of progression on its head. Instead of feeling like you could die to any random crit or hot streak from the monsters at level 1-2 and growing to the point where nothing really meaningfully threatens you, you would start out feeling invincible, but the closer you got to the planned end level, the more fragile you’d feel. I suppose there’s something kind of interesting about the idea that you’re at your most defensively effective when you’re at your weakest offensively, and as your offense gets stronger your defense gets weaker. But I don’t think this would make for very good play patterns, as it would make characters that should feel in over their heads invincible and make characters that should feel like powerful heroes feel the need to minimize any possible risk of harm.Another effect I think this would have is making a huge potential for disparity between the expected outcomes and actual in-play experience. Yes, on average the PCs’ should last to somewhere around the expected level, maybe a bit higher if they’re lucky or a bit lower if they’re unlucky. But, sometimes you’re going to have a character who dies way sooner than that, or one who lives way longer. Over enough campaigns played this way the number of outliers will be small compared to the number of cases that fit the expectations, but that’s not much consolation to the players whose characters died way early. And this is all ignoring the psychological impact of having a pool of HP that feels inexhaustible until it doesn’t. I think campaigns would be very likely to end at much lower levels than the formula expects, because the players just aren’t likely to think about it in terms of how many HP they can afford to lose per level.Another thing to consider is that current CR math is based on assumptions about how much damage the monsters can output in the time they’re alive, which is in turn dependent on the PCs’ damage output. So, if the players are punching above their weight class because they have the HP to absorb it now, those higher-DPR enemies will last a lot more rounds than expected against these lower-DPR PCs, which means they’re likely to output significantly more damage than expected in total. So the PCs will lose more HP than expected in those early levels.Another thing to consider is, what will happen when a PC does die? Do they start their new character at the same level as the rest of the party? If so, you’ll also need to figure out how much HP they should have lost before reaching that level to stat them off with the appropriate amount.I think if you want to play with this idea, I would be more inclined to give PCs all the HP they’re expected to need for their level instead of for their entire career. So, let’s just say a 1st level PC is expected to go through about 100 HP by the time they reach 2nd level. Give them all of that HP up front, and then when/if they make it to 2nd level, they gain another 200 HP (or whatever it is a 2nd level PC is expected to go through by the time they get to 3rd). Then you’ve still got some of that dwindling plot armor feel, but your plot armor refreshes on level up instead of being one giant pool. Instead of having a pool of 1,000 HP at a time when everything hits for 5-7 damage and dwindling down to a few dozen when everything makes 2 or 3 attacks per turn for 20 or 30 damage each, you’d have a pool of HP that you know you have to make last through about 6 3-round combatants against monsters that hit for about an 18th of that pool each round. Thats something you can more reasonably budget. And, you’re going to be more inclined to push through that risky stage when your HP pool is almost out if you know that if you can just get through a few more fights you’ll get that HP pool not only filled back up, but filled even higher than it’s ever been before. That, I think, would create a really nice tension sine wave, where there are peaks and valleys of feeling powerful and feeling vulnerable, instead of a steady, inexorable descent from security to vulnerability.</blockquote>

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