Have These Basic Questions been answered yet?

[Doug McCrae]

This is exactly why I make my players roll for hit points. It's funny to screw the fighter.

FIFY

 

[Doug McCrae]

Rolling for hit points sucks in all sorts of ways.

It's yet another of D&D's million and one ways to screw the fighter. Fighters (and other melee guys) must have decent hit points to do their job. Wizards don't need em, and rolling a 1 isn't that bad for a wizard anyway as he's only 3 off maximum. A fighter by contrast is 9 off maximum, so he's lost a lot more.

Why roll for hit points and not feats, skills, number of spells known, etc? Oh no, wait, if you rolled for number of spells known there would be a possibility of creating an unplayable wizard. Can't have that.

It's an abstract concept so it tells you nothing about a character anyway. It's useless as a spur to your imagination, unlike random skills or feats would be. So it's precisely the wrong area of the game for randomness to be a benefit.

There are too few rolls for luck to even out*. Too high a chance to get screwed. Most games don't go to level 20, ending at around 10-14, which could mean only nine hit point rolls. And it doesn't have to be 1s all the time. Any melee guy with below average hit points is bad at his job.

*This is the reason why randomness is fine in play but not PC gen.

 

[baradtgnome]

... Also standardized hp is better from a balance perspective. It doesn't have to be max, but it should be a standard number with little variance from player to player and game to game. We just do max HP in our games because we are cool like that.

And by DM proofing the game, I mean that the rules should protect players from bad DMing, not enable them. Show me a DM who forces a player who rolls a 1 five times for hp to keep those rolls, and I'll show you a bad DM.

I can understand the preference for standardized HPs. It does have some advantages. As long as it is understood to be the rule and the game is 'adjusted' to support that I can see that it works and how it would be 'fun'.

However, if another group of gamers maintains the RAW and they roll for HPs, I do not agree that is 'bad' DMing. Rolling that many 1s can be frustrating. If the DM is going to save the players from every bad roll, to me that is bad DMing. The DM in this anecdote gave the player two rerolls. We also don't have context. Afore mentioned player could have rolled max on his other rolls. In which case his HPs would approach average. I can see the point that you believe the rules are a problem. I also agree that it would not be fun for the player to have a level 9 fighter if their HPs per level are significantly under average. The DM & player ought to do something about that.

For me, I let the players decide to take 1/2 the HD value or roll; decide in advance. No whining rule after the roll. If that makes me a bad DM..... :\ Everyone's game is welcome to their preferences for fun, agreed in advance. Personally I wouldn't be so quick to hand out the bad DM awards.

 

[Craw Hammerfist]

Random hit points do have a disproportionate effect on martial characters. I like a small amount of randomness so I had everyone roll a d4. Rogues added 2, clerics 4, fighter 6 etc.

As for always having at least 2 18s? Pure munchkinism. I allow a player to toss an array if there aren't at least 3 12 plus scores. I also make them toss the array if there are more than 3 16s or higher.

 

[Doug McCrae]

And before people start crying powergamer, NPCs and monsters also get max HP and boosted stats.

This is what's wrong with your approach. It forces the DM to either throw out the CR system completely or redo the stats of every monster, which is a major hassle.

I don't think you need anything more than 28pt build to make PCs feel special. Remember the #1 thing they going for them is that 99% of the world's population doesn't have levels in a PC class. And 90% are commoners. So PCs have a huge edge, no matter what their stats.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Why do you expect them to come out and tell you now? Not telling you seems to be successful marketing because you keep coming back to ask the same questions.

You must be reading a different post than the one I wrote. Nowhere did I say I expect them to tell me "now". I'm just not bothering to keep up on the news anymore so every now and then ask some questions to get an update from those who might be paying more attention.

 

[Stogoe]

Rolling that many 1s can be frustrating. If the DM is going to save the players from every bad roll, to me that is bad DMing.

The job of the DM is to make sure everyone is having fun. If your fighter is worthless because of abysmal hp rolls, there's no fun there.

Rolling for hp is yet another way that previous editions screw over the melee classes.

 

[Christoph the Magus]

That's lame.

It might be time to find a new DM. I'm pretty good with accepting DM authority, but there are sometimes when you need to draw a line against bad DMing. If a DM tried to pull that in my group there would be a player revolt.

Seriously, when I hear stuff like that, it just reinforces why I think a certain amount of "DM proofing" the game is a VERY good idea.

Actually, I think that a group of adults whining about the results of a randomized game is lame. If you think your character has gotten hosed by the dice then kamikaze him and roll up a new one. Don't sit around whining about it and trying to get the DM to hand wave the die rolls.

 

[A'koss]

I believe that both systems will be presented, without one of them being a default system.

Actually I do recall them saying point buy is the default (in a podcast IIRC), but the DMG will have other options.

I would bet that hp will be the same as before with two exceptions:

1) Triple maximum hp at 1st level

2) No class uses d4 for hit points

These rules are in use in SWSE, and I think I read that both of these changes had been confirmed by the designers - but I can't remember where, and it's late.

Actually, no they've said D&D uses different HP rules than Saga. There was a discussion not-so-long-ago where they were talking about using Saga characters in D&D and one of the things specifically mentioned was the differences in how they handle HPs...

If the new DDM cards are indicative of PC HPs, they do start off with a fair number of HPs, but only gain a few/level after that. As I mentioned before, the fighter for example seemed to gain ~5 HPs per level after 1st.

 

[HP Dreadnought]

Given that Mearls is the lead designer on 4E. . . I wouldn't be at all surprised to see HPs rolled in the Iron Heroes fashion. . .

d4 + remainder of HD + con

d4 + 8 for d12 HD
d4 + 6 for D10 HD
etc.

Its actually a really good system that allows for a little bit of randomness while preventing people from getting screwed on HPs.