Hit Point and Damage Dice Attrition

[ren1999]

We've seen Fighter and Rogue progression to be an increase in hit dice hit points coupled with an increase in damage dice.

A 20th level fighter will have HD20 and do 20d[w] damage.
Do players really want to roll a bucket of damage dice and add all that up every single turn?

Heh'nah! Here is one possible solution.
All players get static hit points every level.
Everybody starts with their constitution score + 6, 5, 4, or 3 hit points.
Fighter types get +6hp
Rogue types get +5hp
Cleric types get +4hp
Wizard types get +3hp per level.
This cuts the hit points of all characters and monsters in half.

Don't increase the damage dice at all.
Increase the damage bonus between +1 and +5 based on the improved ability score including all feat bonuses to the ability score. +6 to +10 if there is magic.

Now though damage dice won't increase, standard actions will increase every 5 levels.

Two 5th level fighters could go toe to toe with 20 from con+30 from +6 per level=50hit points. Each could take 2 attacks doing 1d12+5 damage. If they do maximum damage, combat could end in as few as 2 to 3 rounds. 5 rounds is what a majority of players want. Though some want longer combat, the fact that the evenly matched opponents will not roll the maximum means that combat will take a little longer.

I think that hit points need to progress faster than damage so that when 2 or more enemies have advantage over a character in the first round, that character won't necessarily die.

Even if hit points progressed at +12 per level for fighters -- the game play would still be enjoyable if they only got 2 1d12+5 attacks per turn.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

You've got a few false assumptions. The Fighter's damage doesn't go up like that for one, and I don't see how you're getting "Fighter types' constitution + 6" will "cut hit points in half". A fighter gets constitution +1d10 (5.5 average). Basically the same thing you said, not "half".

Also, I have no idea what you mean in your third-to-last paragraph. Two 5th level fighters can go toe to toe with 20... what?

 

[ren1999]

Yes. I'm not making much sense here.

I'm saying a fighter should get 6 more hit points every level.
A fighter should not get 2 damage dice when leveling-up but get 1 additional action every 5 levels.

 

[Fifth Element]

Yes. I'm not making much sense here.

I'm saying a fighter should get 6 more hit points every level.
A fighter should not get 2 damage dice when leveling-up but get 1 additional action every 5 levels.

More importantly, it seems you're proceeding based on a false premise, that fighters would be rolling 20 dice for damage at level 20.

But even if that were true, I think I would prefer it to fighters having five standard actions each round at 20th level, as I understand your idea.

 

[ren1999]

It's not a false premise if we don't know how damage dice and hit points will progress to 20th level. It's just a guess.

You don't know if fighters will roll 20d or not.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

... He's not rolling 2d[W] at Level 2 or 3d[W] at level 3, so why on Earth would you assume that he's doing 20d[W] at Level 20?

 

[mlund]

It's not a false premise if we don't know how damage dice and hit points will progress to 20th level. It's just a guess.

It's a bad idea to bandy around "It's just a guess" and "It's just an opinion" like there's no way to qualify any sort of quality between expressed opinions and speculative theory.

Throwing a bucket of dice would be cumbersome (observable physical reality). We've seen a fighter specialized in Damage from levels 1-3, and we've had some additional talk about fighters leveling into extra attacks. We haven't seen fighters acquiring extra weapon damage dice yet. In fact, all we've seen is the Fighter acquire fixed bonus damage and that the designers want to give him extra attacks - nothing about bigger handfuls of dice per attack.

The future isn't fixed, so 20dX damage isn't impossible. Heck, 5E could be scrapped tomorrow. It could happen. However it is generally less than productive to discuss worries over things that improbable when you already have evidence of mechanics going in another direction.

The fighter might very well do the equivalent of 20dX damage at 20th level between multi-attack and bonus damage. I seriously doubt you'll be throwing twenty dice in a go for a damage roll.

- Marty Lund

 

[keterys]

Based on the material we have, we know it doesn't work that way. It may be that changes in a future set of playtest rules. After all, 13th Age did use a die per level scheme for damage. It also capped at 10th level. Certainly, D&D spellcasters have basically always worked that way so it's possible that non-spellcasters could be changed to follow that design principle.

But, that's not how it works now, nor how it's worked ever, and there's little to no indication it will work that way.

Similarly, there's no indication that PCs will gain extra standard actions every 5 levels.

At the end of the day, we're better off looking at what material we do have: the playtest packet, the things the designers have said, an amazing wealth of previous books, and talk about what we'd like to see from that in more general tones. There's no point to discussing how a point of math here or there works: focus instead of the theory and effect of making game decisions.

There's also really no point to extrapolating out to level 20 formulae based on faulty or non-existent premises, and posting that without framing a full argument, hypothesis, or real means for others to get in on a fun discussion. At a minimum, give a disclaimer that it's just an info dump of rambling thoughts not based on actual news or theories posted about D&D Next, to allay confusion.

 

[Mengu]

there's no indication that PCs will gain extra standard actions every 5 levels.

Not sure about standard actions (that terminology hasn't been used so far), but there kind of is a hint that high levels PC's may gain extra actions. Like a Cleric of Moradin may be able to cast a spell *and* swing his weapon. A Cleric of Pelor may be able to use Radiant Lance in addition to another action (Rule of Three [URL=http://www.enworld.org/forum/usertag.php?do=list&action=hash&hash=1]#1 [/URL]). We will have to wait and see how this impacts play. If the Cleric of Pelor can triple strike with Spiritual Hammer, Radiant Lance, *insert other spell*, he might end up to be quite the striker, but this may be no different than the fighter taking three swings. Obviously "high level" is not defined in the RoT.

 

[ren1999]

No indication that characters will get additional actions at higher levels?

The Fighter's Surge Feat at 2nd level gives him 2 actions during his or her turn twice per day.

At 3rd level, the Cleave Feat means he or she gets 2 attacks per turn every turn.

I'm against rolling lots of dice. I think that more than 1 standard action every 5 levels is better than rolling lots of damage dice.