D&D 5E (2014) First Level Hit Points Need to Increase

[keterys]

The argument is to add Con once, instead of every level. There are benefits and penalties to each method, afaict.

 

[Gorgoroth]

Yeah, exactly. You will never attack a monster using your constitution in DDN, so I don't see why it's unbalanced to let the stat serve its intended purpose, it's raison d'etre, which is to boost your hp per level. Useless stats will get dump statted. Front-line fighters should cherish it, and rightfully so.

I'm all for dialing up and down the survivability at early levels, but the default has to be, that adventuring is a risky business and each time you leave town to try and go kill that dragon and steal his loot, you should have your coffin dimensions and your affairs in order. If I play another game where my survival is assured because my PC has plot immunity, I'm not gonna be happy. Even with the dials and knobs, optional rules are just that, optional. The default should give a decent middle ground that leaves the proponents of either extreme unhappy but leaves the game working as intended. We already have an edition where PCs are basically immortal, we don't need another one.

 

[3catcircus]

I'll just stick to Twilight:2013 style hit point mechanics.

"Base hp" = (10 + STR + 2 x CON) / 4. The only thing that increases it is anything that directly or indirectly increases those two attributes.

Now - Twilight:2013's system uses multiples of the base hp as trip points for different levels of wounding (each of which impacts your ability to act to various degrees - from a minor -1 penalty all the way up to instant unconsciousness, with an option for an additional wound level simulating an instant death), but you could modify as you see fit; some variation on the theme, such as the VP/WP option, various other options in the 3.5 Unearthed Arcana, etc.

 

[Obryn]

If HP gain is fixed(either a flat value or HD per level, or some combination thereof), and Con serves no role other than to determine fortitude defense/saves, then why not simply eliminate it entirely? Giving players some tangible benefit beyond their fort save though choosing to buff their con at the expense of another score is a good thing IMO, at least as long as we're intending to keep the 6-stat system and con being a part of that.

Otherwise if all Con does is modify the fort save, we might as well just use some other score that's more relevant to the overall game(like strength) and eliminate con entirely.

I think that "use this score for some skills, checks, and saves/defenses" is how most classes treat 2/3 of their ability scores anyways. Getting a perk of some extra HP at 1st level is an added bonus. It'll still be more useful than Charisma to almost every character if it's reduced down to that level.

Anyway, there's other options in between. You're excluding a pretty substantial middle here. For example, only getting the Con modifier for some levels, constitution affecting healing effects in some way, some classes' special abilities, etc.

 

[keterys]

Yeah, exactly. You will never attack a monster using your constitution in DDN, so I don't see why it's unbalanced to let the stat serve its intended purpose, it's raison d'etre, which is to boost your hp per level. Useless stats will get dump statted. Front-line fighters should cherish it, and rightfully so.

Does str add its damage per level? Or Dex add to initiative per level? Con should certainly add to hit points, but that doesn't say anything about per level being the correct answer.

I personally wouldn't mind if there was a better connection between number of hits to drop a PC at 1st and number at 12th, and between amount of damage dealt by said PC. Which is not very D&Dish at all, which tends to overemphasize damage at 1st level and de-emphasize hit points.

Ex: 13 damage at 1st level when people have 10 hit points, and 29 hp at 13th when people have 130.

 

[JamesonCourage]

The particular issue with wasps has do with if a 1HD creature can represent a hero (the PC's), then there isn't a lot of room beneath that of a PC to provide graduated distinctions between other creatures without resorting to fractions. For example, you could concievably have a situation where an adult (1 HD), a child (1/2 HD), a rat (1/2 HD??), a mouse (1/4HD), and a wasp (1/8 HD) all had the same hit points - '1'. Worse, they could all do the same amount of damage on an attack - '1'. So, now the adult farmer, the child, the rat, the mouse, and the wasp all are capable of killing each other with a single blow. Clearly the wasp ought to be represented by values much less than '1', but without doing some sort of fractional accounting - "Take 1/10th of a hit point in damage" - that's hard to represent. Also, even if you could find a way to represent it, describing what happens when the wasp is the target of an 'Enlarge Creature' spell isn't easy. That later sort of problem, trying to come up with rules that described changes in strength or HD, is what wrecked my attempts at a resolution to this in 1e (it involved treating numbers like 1d2-3 as representing a percentage chance to do 1 damage, rather than a 0 or a 1). Now that I've got more tools, I might come back to it.

For the moment though, the 'house cat problem' (what to do with numbers smaller than 1) isn't my big problem. Given creatures hit points as a result of size means that the wasp can't easily kill the mouse, the mouse can't easily kill the cat, and the cat can't easily kill the farmer with his hoe because they have steadily increasing hit points guaranteed. It's good enough for the moment.

Yeah, that works well enough for playing the game, agreed.

I basically did it by giving things more hit points -a wasp might have 8-10, or whatever. Though, if he gets hit by a medium-sized creature, he'll take +16 damage, killing it (or basically doing so). Cats would do +8 damage, so take them down easily enough, too. And, if wasps get into a fight, they'll wear each other down like normal, whittling down that 8-10 HP they each have.

So, that was my way of avoiding 1/4 or 1/8 hit die creatures. A human and a wasp might both be HD 1, but they'll have very different abilities, and humans can, predictably, swat wasps easily enough, if they can hit them. And, if humans have that DR against smaller creatures, then wasps may be dangerous only in groups or potentially on crits. Which has worked out well enough for me, too.

Always interesting to see how other people handle similar problems, though. Plus, you get some added survivability to your PCs with your method (assuming damage at level 1 is similar to 3.X), which you may also want in your game. Anyways, thanks for sharing. Always like hearing about how you handle things mechanically. As always, play what you like

 

[Falling Icicle]

To those who say they want a gritty game and don't want 1st level characters to be "heroes," I want to point out that even with (Con score + HD) hit points at first level, the game is still very deadly. A character under that formula will have anywhere from 14 to 32 hit points (an 8 Con wizard on one end, a 20 Con barbarian on the other). A typical character will have HP in the high teens or low 20s, and even the 32 HP monstrous barbarian can be brought down in 2-3 hits. Is that really not "gritty" enough?

 

[Falling Icicle]

[MENTION=17077]Falling Icicle[/MENTION] - There's nothing that says you can't do that in your own games.

Just because I can fix things with house rules at my own table doesn't mean I shouldn't talk about what I think is better for the game. Providing feedback is, after all, the entire point of the playtest.

 

[Jackinthegreen]

HP is always a balancing act, especially at first level. Obviously a character should be able to survive one or two normal hits, but what about crits? Using 3.X terminology, should a first level character be expected to survive a crit from a x2 weapon, but not a x3 or x4 unless it's a tough character like barbarian, fighter, or paladin?

32 HP to dying in two or three hits? I can see that happening for three consistently, but maybe not two. If it's a 2d6 weapon with a +6 damage (should be doable by a monster worthy of a party challenge at 1st) then the chance to do that in two hits is 5.4% by adding up the numbers via http://anydice.com/, if crits are excluded. Including crits takes that up to 7% or so.

So if one describes gritty as being able to go down in two hits then 32 HP seems like a lot at first level. If it's described as going down in three then it's pretty decent, assuming worst case scenario for larger hits. Multiple smaller hits from several enemies would of course whittle down at health too.

 

[Li Shenron]

Does str add its damage per level? Or Dex add to initiative per level? Con should certainly add to hit points, but that doesn't say anything about per level being the correct answer.

Let's keep in mind that one of the fixed design points of 5e is bounded accuracy for task rolls (including attacks and initiative) but basically unbounded HP and damage. It's obviously not the only way to design a game, and has its pros and cons, but it's a decision they made early on and one of the least likely to change by now. Just sayin'...