D&D 5E [Hit Points] What method do you use to determine HP after level 1?

[MarkB]

We use roll or take average if it's a low roll. To bad they don't make HP dice with, for example, only 5 to 8 on a d8.

1d4+4?

 

[OptionalRule]

Personally, I like rolling for HP...

This is probably all you need to say really. You want to catch a misalignment between what you expect and what you're going to get but otherwise, do what's fun.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

I've been trying to incentivize rolling for hit points by giving a flat +2 to any who choose to roll rather than take the "average".

 

[Jacob Lewis]

I'd like to give players max hit points every level so I could throw more damage at them. Bonus: they'd still roll hit dice during rests, so they would spend additional resources healing back up to full (i.e. gold, potions, spell slots).

And that's one way to play with grit.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Voted Other. Max HP at each level. It gets players more likely to play the squishier classes and get more variety in the PC party. Also, less stress for me about making an encounter tougher than I meant it to be.

 

[delericho]

We use class average, with no option to reroll.

In the dying days of 3e we actually used class average at every level (including 1st), but everyone got a 5hp boost at 1st level.

I will no longer play in a campaign where the DM insists on random rolls only for hit points.

 

[clearstream]

I was discussing this elsewhere and it seems not everyone is using the same method. Which is yours? This is not a discussion about what BTB is. It's a discussion about what methods individual groups have adopted.

Edit: I've added two more choices in the poll.

For my OOTA and ToA campaigns, players have chosen between roll, rerolling 1s, and take rounded up average. OOTA capped out at 15. ToA is currently at 9. The party size has been six with some rotation of players and characters. So I guess we've seen on the order of 200 rolls for HP. Of those, maybe 2-3% have been rolled. All the rest took average.

For my next campaign, players will take max as usual at 1st, and thereafter reroll all their hit dice each level, making their max HP equal to the higher of the new role, or current max +1.

 

[clearstream]

I've been trying to incentivize rolling for hit points by giving a flat +2 to any who choose to roll rather than take the "average".

An option I've considered offering my players is reroll 1s and 2s. Even against reroll 1s it is better to just lock in the rounded up average. One issue I have is balancing d6s against d12s (2 is 1/3rd of the smaller die, only 1/6 of the larger.)

Possibly roll with advantage and reroll all 1s would hit the sweet spot?

 

[teitan]

I allow them to roll and if it is less than half then I give them the half plus Con. So on a D8, if it is a 4 or less they get 5.

 

[Voadam]

n the dying days of 3e we actually used class average at every level (including 1st), but everyone got a 5hp boost at 1st level.

Same. I was inspired by Hackmaster 4e which gave everyone but 1HD monsters a 20 hp kicker for more hacking.

I started by experimenting with giving a full con score bonus with averages at 1st (too much for my taste and too much variability), then a flat 10 hp kicker with averages (still a little higher hp inflation than I wanted), and finally felt that a 5 hp kicker was a fairly sweet spot for my tastes, which is a bonus buffer for weak classes at low levels (which I wanted) and a slight boost for fighters (11 + con instead of the default 10+con) compared to barbarians (12 + Con under either) .

Going with average hp plus a kicker at 1st and pathfinder style skill points meant 1st level choice of classes was less of a numbers gaming angle and more a choice of style preference.