Hit points: High side, average, straight roll, what?

[Creamsteak]

I "prefer" average hps like the monster manual, but my players insist on rolling and taking what they get.

 

[haiiro]

Has there been a lot of success with people taking max HP for all levels? I have been toying with the idea for a while.

A few months back there was a really good discussion in the House Rules forum on this subject. In a nutshell, the conclusion was that max HP on every level looks good on the surface, but seriously imbalances the classes when compared with one another.

Taking 1/2 HP by die type, you have: 2 (d4), 3 (d6), 4 (d8), 5 (d10), 6 (d12). Each die is only 1 HP away from the next lowest/highest, and the lowest and highest are only 4 points apart.

With max HP, you get: 4, 6, 8, 10, 12. Now the difference between dice is proportionally greater -- and the difference between lowest and highest is now 8 points.

This means max HP/level is good for the wizard, really good for the cleric, and really, really good for the barbarian -- a major boost for the martial classes. The only fixed HP house rules I've seen that I like involve percentages: everyone gets roughly the same percentage of their maximum HP/level. Because of the nature of the die types, this makes for some odd numbers, and the result is a bit messier than I care for. (That's why I wound up going with 1/2 or your roll, whatever's higher).

 

[Zaustus]

We can either take average, or roll. Rerolling really bad rolls, i.e. 1s for d4 & d6, and 2s for d8, d10 & d12.

 

[Creamsteak]

75% works fairly well if average is a bit low in your game.
d4 = 3
d6 = 4.5
d8 = 6
d10 = 7.5
d12 = 9

 

[Herremann the Wise]

In most of our games we just get what we roll.

However, in my game, we do something slightly different.
You roll the die, if you don't like it you can roll the next die down. You keep doing this until you get a result that you like or you roll a d4.

In this way, you give the fighter types a few chances to get a good roll while the wizards and rogues pretty much live with what they get.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

PS: And the funniest thing I have seen is a Barbarian getting a 1 with this method - d12 to d10 to d8 to d6 to d4 with 1's on the 8, 6 and 4. He should have taken his original 4 in hindsight.

 

[RichCsigs]

In most of the games I play in, we do max at first level, then both the player & the DM roll, but the DM keeps his roll secret. Then the player has the option of keeping his roll, or going with whatever the DM got.

 

[thalmin]

However, in my game, we do something slightly different.
You roll the die, if you don't like it you can roll the next die down. You keep doing this until you get a result that you like or you roll a d4.

We also use this method, although I also have a d2 (it's a coin )

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Since I started playing Living Greyhawk and was introduced to the 50%+1 rule (d4=3hp, d6=4hp, d8=5hp, d10=6hp, d12=7hp, etc), I've been a big fan. It has all of the advantages of average without having to keep track of the even level half hit point.

In the game I ran for a few years, that was the rule I used. (I also let players roll if they so chose--only the barbarian did and he rolled twelve for his first two levels--then he died).

In the home game I currently play in, we use 75% for hit points. We also use 36 point buy so we get some rather dramatically powerful characters.

 

[adembroski3]

In most of the games I play in, we do max at first level, then both the player & the DM roll, but the DM keeps his roll secret. Then the player has the option of keeping his roll, or going with whatever the DM got.

We started doing this for our more recent campaign, but we may be switching to the Vitality/wound system in the future, and if we do, I think we'll do average +1

 

[Kyamsil]

In all our d&d campaigns we use what we call the "greed dice" method for rolling hp.

You get 3 rolls of your hit die, but if you reroll you lose your previous results and have to keep the latest. The only exception we make is that 1s are always rerolled and they don't count against the number of rolls.

We call the method the "greed dice" because we have seen our share of fighter types rolling their d10 and having results like 5, 6 and reroll a third time only to get a 2.