How many Hit points does a sacred cow have?

[UngeheuerLich]

1/2 level advancement is not enough. In 4e the weakes NAD still fall way behind...

 

[Dour-n-Taciturn]

1/2 level advancement is not enough. In 4e the weakes NAD still fall way behind...

True, but both 3rd and 4th ED provide feats to improve weaker defenses/saves. Now, if 5E allowed for ability enhancements, such discrepancies may be mitigated, as least to an acceptable level.

 

[Zustiur]

If you apply touch-AC, it has to scale, the problem in 3rd ED was incorporeal undead or large grapplers that effectively always hit and proceeded to drain ability scores or pin their opponents.

Or alternately; Have attack ratings not scale. Which seems to be where 5E is headed. If defense doesn't spiral forever upwards, attack ratings don't need to either.
Thinking about this... I wouldn't be too surprised if we see STR removed from attack rating. Having a potential +5 to hit due to your starting stats sounds too powerful if defenses don't scale upwards.

Interestingly; This would also solve the issue of wanting to use DEX for attack ratings when you're a rogue or a swashbuckling fighter. If no stat is calculated into your attack bonus, then it doesn't matter which way you build your character.

With that said, I expect STR will still apply a damage modifier.

With regard to the thread topic; I'm in the "HP must not change" camp. If 5E were to be a complete revamp of the system, then I could see arguments for those sorts of changes. However, 5E is supposed to be the unity edition. You do not unify game/audience by changing one of the mechanics which has been the same in every edition thus far.

HP will stay as they are. Healing mechanics may change to a degree, but even those will stay much the same. That's the nature of the game we're discussing.

 

[Minigiant]

I don't agree with the first statement here, not with all weapons. There's a reason hammers and maces were considered formidable weapons on the battlefield. Even if they hit armor, force still gets transmitted to the wearer and can injure. Some kinds of weapons may be completely neutralized by a type of armor, others not.

This, interestingly enough, was handled by 4E by having hammers and maces deal CON mod damage on miss. Same with scimatars and DEX... for some reason.

 

[Dour-n-Taciturn]

I am a fan of keeping HP and keeping them lower; HP bloat necessitates damage bloat. Therefore, I would like to see HP remain more along the lines of 2nd ED. Thus:

Allowing a 10d6 Fireball can significantly alter the tide of a battle as opposed to having to lob (or be able to lob) 5 of them to make a dent in even a tough encounter. The same would apply to a Backstab/Sneak-Attack that improves with x levels as a class feature, or at least a feat tree with class pre-requisites.

Eliminating standard attacks that do 1d4+40 damage (x4 if you charge with "death strike/rage whirling blades of doom").