"Heroes Aren't Special"?

[OchreJelly]

4e PCs don't have triple hit points. They are on the same scale as monsters and NPCs, generally. The system was changed to allow for significant play at 1st level. It's not a change in focus, just a change in mechanics. An orc is still a threat at 1st level, but the room for significant play has been increased. An orc can't kill the wizard with a single shot, the fighter can't kill the orc in one round. You have combats at first level in 4e and without half the party going down every fight.

4e responded, and about time, to the way people played the game (as the changes you talk about came about). I love first level play, starting the PCs from the beginning. I've even ran 0 level play in 2e and 3e. But my players hated starting at 1st level, it's too lethal, too slow, too much stab-heal-rest and too much spell-spell-crossbow to be much fun. Not to mention the extreme limits in quality of opponents you can face at 1st level, 1d3 rats doesn't generally get the gaming blood pumping.
snip!

Or to put this a different way, “triple hit points” is a meaningless statement when looked at in the context of 4E – the OP is making a comparison between editions where the math changes are significant enough that you can’t look at it as triple anything. One simply needs to look at a 1st level PC next to a lowly kobold and compare their hit points to see why.

Now if the OP is coming at this because the players enjoy rolling their own hit points, I can understand that. IMC there was a player who really struggled with that because rolling hit points was a big part of leveling up for him. If you want to go this way, I would suggest an Iron Heroes approach, like a small die roll (like a d4) with a bigger flat modifier. That way you still get some randomness but not huge swings. Otherwise if the players are rolling hps, the DM will likely need to do the extra work of rolling monster hps as well to keep things fair. IME it’s a wash.

Finally, I officially call foul on the organic method. At the risk of being disdainful of the older editions, 3d6 against each stat is not good contemporary game design. You arbitrarily limit player choice (“gee, I rolled a 6 for str – guess I can’t be the fighter I had in mind”). In all the years I gamed in 1E I never saw a player ‘get lucky’ enough to generate a paladin.

 

[Allister]

Getting back to the OP's question.

Unless the players get lucky and roll at least a 14 which can then be upped to a 16 via racial adjustment, they'll be missing more often than they hit...