D&D General Hit Points. Did 3.0 Or 3.5 Get it Right?

[S'mon]

One of the first things a DM should do before running a sandbox campaign is to decide on their demographics of their world and answer those sorts of questions.

I do find this is quite important to setting the feel of the setting. Eg Primeval Thule has a 'badass planet' vibe where the typical Legionary is 52 hp CR 2 and there are Lomari squadrons of guys with over 100 hp each. Very different from a setting where the 11 hp CR 1/8 Guard represents a skilled professional soldier.

Personally I'd peg the standard 5e Goblin & Orc stat blocks as humanoid equivalents of the NPC Tribal Warrior, rather than Commoner, and the Hobgoblin with its 75gp chainmail armour a step above that. Or maybe hobgoblins are Spartans. But I definitely will use stronger variants; eg I tend to use the Orog stat block for elite orcs, swapping out Plate for Splint or Chain.
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[Vaalingrade]

I3 Pyramid by Tracy Hickman is the first example of this concept I can recall in published D&D. He has a large group of 5HD monsters where most of them have less than 5 hit points, so they are all glass cannons by design.

That said, I'm not a huge fan of this approach and while I know what Tracy was going for in his design I don't find it necessary given the larger toolbox available today.

I do think that 4e encouraged a reevaluation of monster design that was long overdo and which paralleled my discussion of why 1e D&D monster design was bad, and why 3e D&D over relied on backwards compatibility with earlier editions and this resulted in porting problems from early editions such as big single monsters were too easy to focus fire on and burn down without being an interesting encounter.

Also, 3x's idea that monsters should be built like PCs for... reasons... rather than mechanically designed to be parts of a combat encounter or setpiece, which they actually are.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Once I've accepted the narrative concepts of classes, levels, and hit points the rest is easy.

Sure, let's throw out "but hit points!" again every time someone expresses an issue with narrative mechanics. If you use hit points, no other opinions about this concern matter.

And classes (and levels) are easier to find an in-universe explanation for anyway. I like in-universe explanations, and pithy comments about hit points aren't going to change anything.

 

[Voadam]

Sure, provided that you're comfortable with utilizing such blatantly narrative concepts in your D&D.

It is also easy to turn them into templates for 3.5

Elite creature.

Boss creature.

Fairly similar to the Pathfinder 1e core bestiary template for just making things tougher.

 

[Celebrim]

Also, 3x's idea that monsters should be built like PCs for... reasons... rather than mechanically designed to be parts of a combat encounter or setpiece, which they actually are.

3.X's idea is that monsters should be built like PCs because we cannot know exactly what role or purpose an NPC will end up having - encounters aren't foreordained to be combat or set pieces. The goal is to have a single stat block that represents how the NPC can interact with the world regardless of what that interaction may turn out to be or what sort of encounter the DM is designing.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Sure, let's throw out "but hit points!" again every time someone expresses an issue with narrative mechanics. If you use hit points, no other opinions about this concern matter.

D&D is based on narrative mechanics even if you lampshade it. It is not and never has been (despite some efforts of 3.X) remotely a physics sim. Once you have an outright video game mechanic in there (and yes I'm aware that hit points came from D&D) you're complaining about trifles.

And classes (and levels) are easier to find an in-universe explanation for anyway. I like in-universe explanations, and pithy comments about hit points aren't going to change anything.

If you can find an in-universe explanation for classes you can for minions, elites, and solos. Especially when solos are generally things like dragons. And minions are people who are heavily outclassed, hence one hit kills. You can even see minions at work literally in the Princess Bride when Inigo actually fights guards and goes through them in seconds.

Minions/standards/elites/solos are much much easier to justify than classes and levels.

 

[Shardstone]

Sure, provided that you're comfortable with utilizing such blatantly narrative concepts in your D&D.

What? Minions now are too blatantly narrative for dnd?

 

[Neonchameleon]

Also, 3x's idea that monsters should be built like PCs for... reasons... rather than mechanically designed to be parts of a combat encounter or setpiece, which they actually are.

And I have yet to find a single good reason that everyone, whether a dragon or a clerk, should be built like an adventurer.

 

[Celebrim]

What? Minions now are too blatantly narrative for dnd?

No. Special rules or templates to turn an NPC into a minion are potentially too blatantly narrative for D&D depending on what you conceive "D&D" to be. "This NPC is a minion and therefore has 1 h.p. and a few other special rules so that it will serve the purpose of being a minion in my carefully designed story." is a bit to blatantly narrative for me. "This NPC is a relatively weak servitor or a more powerful NPC and therefore is it's "minion"" is closer to what I prefer.

 

[Minigiant]

It occurs to me reading this post that while a portion of why I didn't have the normal problems you hear about with 3.X D&D because I nerfed casters with house rules, the other reason that I didn't have the same issues is that I ran 3.X as entirely an extension of my 1e AD&D campaign and so 8-20 enemies thrown at you in waves or from different directions was entirely the norm. The PC's regularly had to deal with 20+ sahuagin, pirates, beserkers, or zombies as foes. My standard encounter design was often 1-2 foes per PC, so encounters of 6-12 were normal - whether ghouls or hellhounds or perytons or fire drakes or velociraptors. Even "boss" monsters were often accompanied by 2-6 "minions" to provide a meat shield, or else where carefully homebrewed to deal with the action economy in some fashion. Save or suck wasn't just mechanically nerfed in my game but was tactically not a hammer you could use to solve every combat.

1e was really designed around low level play. It got weird if you leveled too high.

3E with it's more favorable HP calculator never adjusted nor reconfigured to go higher level nor to its greater HP threshold.