How many hits should a 1st level Fighter be able to take?

[dkyle]

I think the more important question is how many attacks he can take. If we assume a 50% hit chance against him, that would be twice the number of "hits". But 50% isn't always typical, at least not for a Fighter.

So, if the Fighter is designed to be fulfill a Defender niche, it should be something like 8 to 10 attacks before getting dropped, I think.

 

[frankthedm]

On the average, 3 hits before death for the main combatants seems reasonable. This way semi combatants can take 2 and squishy characters squish with one hit.

Wounded: Ouch! Don't let that happen again! Save Vs infection.
Crippled: Now That hurts! Major Penalty time.
Killed: He's Dead Jim. Reach for a new sheet.

 

[RangerWickett]

I want first level to represent a normal human being. I'm going to figure a low roll on a die is a graze along a limb. A medium roll is a torso or head graze, or a solid strike to a limb. A high roll is a solid strike to the torso or head, but doesn't get through the ribs or skull. A critical hit does max normal damage, plus an extra die, and ought to kill someone.

Being stabbed in the gut by a knife won't kill you, so you might still be able to fight. But a stab through the ribs should take you out. Assuming 1d4 for a dagger, and that a chest stab is a crit that does double damage, that's 8 HP max at 1st level.

If we assume a longsword is 1d8, a high roll could disembowel you (8 damage), while a crit would chop through your ribs or decapitate you.

So I'd say 4 HP for a typical human. 8 HP for a really tough human. Then as you gain levels, extra HP help you avoid these killing blows.

I answered two hits.

 

[Mengu]

I don't see orcs as "run of the mill" for first level, I see them as dangerous foes. Goblins and skeletons I'll consider run of the mill.

For Fighter, I went with 4 hits. I'm imagining around 25 hitpoints with each goblin doing 1d6+2. He might go down in 4 hits if the goblins roll slightly above average, but he will not go down in 3 hits even if all damage is max, and he will most likely go down in 5 hits unless he gets very lucky.

Wizard I'd say should survive 3 hits, so about 18 hit points. He might go down in 3 hits if the goblins roll well on damage. He will not go down in 2 hits even if damage is max. There does not need to be too much discrepancy between the high hit point classes and low hit point classes. I'm fine with there being 2 degrees, high and low. Classes like Fighter, Barbarian, Paladin would take the high hit point formula, and classes like Wizard, Rogue, Cleric would take the low hit point formula.

This setup leaves a margin for not being "fresh" going into the fight, and still being able to survive it. A wizard who is down 4 hit points from a previous skirmish can still press on for another fight, knowing he will survive a couple hits, instead of having to go home after his 5 minutes of adventuring.

A more difficult opponent like an orc might do 1d8+4 damage with maybe a bonus for charge, possibly taking down the fighter in 3 hits, and the wizard down in 2 hits with some decent damage rolls.

The system could be normalized around lower hit points by changing the goblin's damage to 1d6 (instead of 1d6+2), and fighter's hit points to something like 15 (still allowing him to survive 4 average hits). However, I don't like damage that doesn't add a static value. The problem is the amount of swing. I can (theoretically) hit that fighter 14 times, and still not take him down, because I rolled a 1 each time. But if the goblin is doing 1d6+2, the minimum damage doesn't feel like a waste of a hit. And on the high end, maxing damage on 3 hits would take the fighter down in the 1d6 damage scenario, but it takes 4x max damage to take down the fighter in the 1d6+2 scenario. I'd rather see the fighter go down in 4-9 hits, than 3-15 hits.

I also don't like this 50% hit rate business that's being assumed. It's boring. I want an average hit rate of 67% or so. Interesting things happen on a hit, not on a miss. And I want to keep the fight interesting. So I want PC's and Monsters alike, to hit at about this rate, give or take 15% based on who is attacking who. Alternatively a bunch of miss effects could be added to the game, to keep things interesting, but that could swing in the monsters' favor rather quickly.

I think 4e did a pretty good job with 1st level hit points, hit rates, etc. I just think they went overboard with the scaling after that. Giving PC's and monsters about 3-4 hit points per level would have been a better model (instead of the 4-7 PC's get, and 6-10 monsters get which just leads to bloated hit points and damage).

 

[KidSnide]

A low h.p. Fighter might not last through one good hit from anything.

I don't think anyone should be made to play a character who is designed to fight in melee and can't take one good hit from anything.

That said, a 1st-level Fighter vs. an Orc one-on-one should be pretty much a coin flip as to who wins, in my view.

Unless you're view of orcs is more bad-ass than usual, I disagree. I think fighter PCs should start out more powerful than the average humanoid warrior. I think playing a character that starts out as a true "farm hand with a spear" is a fun variant of the game, but I think it generates too much early PC death (or too many PCs who can't figure out why on earth they would want to adventure) for the default experience.

-KS

 

[dkyle]

I also don't like this 50% hit rate business that's being assumed. It's boring. I want an average hit rate of 67% or so. Interesting things happen on a hit, not on a miss. And I want to keep the fight interesting. So I want PC's and Monsters alike, to hit at about this rate, give or take 15% based on who is attacking who. Alternatively a bunch of miss effects could be added to the game, to keep things interesting, but that could swing in the monsters' favor rather quickly.

Yeah, I agree. I'd rather 5E have an assumption that if you attack, you will hit, unless some sort of special ability (an Encounter or Daily) is used by the defender to avoid it. The big variable would be how much damage gets dealt. But I doubt it's likely to happen given their nostalgia bent.

 

[grimslade]

3-4 hits feels right to me. A fighter can take more hits than most people. It depends on crit ranges and indeed crits at all. A 3E Greataxe crit would decimate most 2nd level 3E characters let alone 1st level. If there is no crit or just max damage on crit, the fighter should be closer to 3 hits, bigger crits mean more hits.

 

[kitsune9]

[MENTION=380]Oni[/MENTION]

I have a fairly flexible viewpoint about hp. I can easily play in a game where a fighter has 6 hp or a fighter has 50 hp at 1st level. Hp for me was never a hangup.

Even when I play "gritty" I can swing across the spectrum because there are other ways to express grittiness in a campaign aside from hp.

Anyways, I think at 1st level, taking 2-4 hits probably feels right.

 

[gideonpepys]

Forgive me if this point has already been made, but that hit point poll was totally skewed.

Two potential reponses - 12 and 14 - were exceptionally close together, with the highest option -29 - being much, much higher.

I think the designers want a figure somewhere around the 12-14 mark, so they create a poll that makes that happen. Why not have <20> in there?

Still, the question made no sense out of context anyway - as everyone has already pointed out.

To add my preference on the subject of hits: I do not want anything like verisimilitude in my D&D game. Hit points are an abstract system, and do not lend themselves to 'realism'. Nor do I want my 1st level characters do be normal people. I want them to survive past 1st level unless they get really unlucky or make a huge mistake. If the odds were as heavily stacked against them as they were in 1E, only a lunatic would become an adventurer. And don't pretend you didn't fudge the dice rolls back in those days to save having to wait for another character to be generated!

 

[jodyjohnson]

I'd rather have opponent damage be a dial than PC hit points.

Get the 'feel' of the hit points right and then let the individual campaigns dial the damage/number of hits.

Currently the survey says most are between 10-29 for feel with the mean as 14.

If hit points and damage are always integers and partially determined by dice, the feel of hit points needs to be at least multiples of d4 damage (2.5) to have much of a dial at all.

I suspect 4e started in the order you're suggesting: number of hits, then did creature damage, and ended with PC hit points which for most non-4e adopters and some adopters the hit point amounts feel wrong.