How does your group handle a character's Hit Points?

[Orius]

You get one roll, and if it's a 1, you're screwed.

Being a nasty DM however, I reroll for the "bosses" the PCs face. Generally for them anything under a 3 gets a reroll.

 

[moticon]

HD Method

At each level the PC may either take 1/2 of the die size, or they may roll it. If they roll it they must live with what they roll.

On even levels if they roll it and don't like the result, they may ask the DM to re-roll it, but they must live with the final result. This generally means that every other level the PC's get a decent roll (although a couple of times it has backfired). Most PC's will not reroll it unless they roll a 1 or a 2, and d4 based characters usually only reroll on a 1.

The process adds a lot of excitement to the roll, as well as some fun pushing from the DM when there is a mediocre roll on an even level...

Moticon

 

[Caspiar]

Maximum At first two levels..........

then let the Dice fall where they may.......This seems to give everyone a leg up....and still keep the purity of the die rolls

 

[DmQ]

Max HP to level 3, and roll from then on. Reroll 1's.

 

[Emiricol]

Max HP for level 1 and 2, then 75% of max for additional levels (rounding up on odd levels, down on even ones). Add CON bonus.

 

[Silver Moon]

Best of three - but to be fair that is also what is used to roll up the monsters hit points.

 

[Aaron L]

You get what you roll, one reroll during the existence of your character.

We're generous with abilitiy scores, but with hit points your'e stuck with what you get.

 

[Ao the Overkitty]

We just do full first level hp, then half plus one for each additional level (d4=3, d6=4, d8=5, d10=6, d12=7).

We had a couple of suspisciously high hit point totals, one of which came from a rather tall & burly guy (very intimidating guy). Not wanting to point fingers, we just quickly settled on this method as a fair way to make sure cheating stayed out of the game. Same reason we switched to point buy.

 

[S'mon]

I do it by-the-book. Max at 1st, then players can take average-low - good idea for low level Barbarians! - or roll.

My Midnight GM does the same, except our first PCs got max hd at first 2 levels. I always take average-low in that game.

My other GM (swashbuckling D&D game) makes us roll. It fits the light & chaotic tone of the game.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I have 'em re-roll 1's, but they subtract 1 from this new roll (minimum 1). So the margin for a lower hp is increased, but they get a chance to do better.