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

[jodyjohnson]

Actually a 4e fighter can start with nearly 30 HP. But people who freak when they look at the number, do so because their expectations are grounded in prior edition math.

HP in a vacuum are meaningless.

Which is it?

I think the fact that a lot of people freak when they see 4e HP is that it 'feels' wrong to them.

If they can look at a number and freak then it is not 'meaningless'.

Start with getting the 'feel' right and then build the math to support it.

 

[Kzach]

Every character, regardless of class or Constitution score, and every monster, can only take ONE hit: every other attack against it that reduces 'hit' points is a near-miss, graze, etc.

 

[GM Dave]

Actually a 4e fighter can start with nearly 30 HP. But people who freak when they look at the number, do so because their expectations are grounded in prior edition math.

HP in a vacuum are meaningless. If I have 30 HP, but a kobold can do 50 HP of damage on a hit, then I'm playing a game more lethal than 1e AD&D. What HP do is give you a number that work in tandem with hit percentage and avg. damage output that you can use to set the lethality and playability of your game.

People are getting way too caught up in fiddly verisimilitude and simulationist notions of how many HP a human should have or be able to do, but none of that matters.

You have to look at the big picture first. How durable should the party be as a whole? How many encounters should they be able to overcome before resting? Then start breaking that down into smaller elements. How durable should the Fighter be, the Rogue, the Wizard and so on. How much damage should a monster output? How much can it take? Some of these decisions are already partially set simply by virtue of using d4, d6, d8, d10, and d12 dice for weapons.

Then what hit percentage feels fun, without being automatic, and without leading to frustration after successive misses. Also you have to consider that missing or hitting too often also has an effect on durability when considered with HP totals, damage output and combat length.

Then once you have baselines, you can go back and forth from micro (individual PC damage and HP) to macro (party durability and recoverability as a whole), fine tuning and tweaking as needed for balance, fun, and yes a bit of verisimilitude.

This is also why I also firmly believe that randomness has a place in adding variability, unpredictably, and tension to say combat, or any scenario where success is in doubt, but has no place in character creation. Rolling too high, or too low for stats, or HP can completely screw with the expectations of one's game. Over my 25 years of playing D&D, I have seen many DM's and/or players get frustrated because PCs are too effective, or not effective enough, all as a direct result of randomness in character creation throwing off the underlying balance expectations of the game.

I agree the question of HP is really more complex then what is being presented.

I've already pointed out length in rounds of combat which affects the length of game playing time is more important for consideration.

There is also the consideration of how much the HP change from one level to the next.

In 3e and earlier versions, the reaching of level 2 almost doubled your available hit points (depending on how much you use random roll, average amount, or maximum amount).

If the bar is set at level 1 that a fighter can take 2 to 4 hits at level 1 and the amount of HP that is awarded at level 2 is the exact same then you've gone to 4 to 8 to being taken down by the same things that were a challenge at first level.

If you use the same progression for each level then you are rapidly going to 6 to 12 hits at third and 8 to 16 hits at level 4.

If you have any sort of magics that increase the Con of the fighter than this is going to be magnified more as you go up in level.

To compensate then you are going to have to start arming your kobolds and goblins with catapults to have a chance of taking down your fighters and orcs will need great axes to 'scratch' your other classes.

You will also find rapidly with the increase in hit points that it takes many rounds of combat to deplete any character of their health which means evenings devoted to only a few fights (or one fight since the set up time for multiple fights is so much).

 

[JonWake]

I actually *cough* built a spreadsheet *cough* to model how many hits I wanted characters to survive over their lifespan in my house rules. I ended up with a 1st level fighter surviving 3, maybe 4 hits before unconsciousness, but having a damage bonus as monsters increase level. I also cap HP progression at 10th level, so people's survivability steadies at that level. A fighter, getting hit with an average attack (1d8) at 11th level can take about 11 hits. This works out well, because AC doesn't scale at the same rate as BAB, so a fight between two equal opponents at low level and two at high level are roughly the same length.

Interestingly, this has also made Sneak Attacks the great equalizer: the damage scales with level at a rate that a 5th level thief can kill a 5th level fighter in about 2.5 hits, while a 10th level thief can kill a 10th level fighter in almost the same number of attacks. This I like.

 

[was]

Fighter: drop on third hit
Wizard: drop on second hit

 

[Invisible Stalker]

I asked Mr. Owl and he said three.

CON score = initial hit points regardless of class/ race?

 

[RangerWickett]

Why not have low hit points, and fewer modifiers to the dice? I'd rather roll 1d8 damage against an orc with 8 hit points than roll 1d8+5 (+1d6 on a crit) against an orc with 15 hit points. It's just easier.

 

[Viking Bastard]

Why not have low hit points, and fewer modifiers to the dice? I'd rather roll 1d8 damage against an orc with 8 hit points than roll 1d8+5 (+1d6 on a crit) against an orc with 15 hit points. It's just easier.

Last session we switched out the ability modifier to damage for a base damage die, based on ability score. It's swingier, of course, but it does seem to improve the game's flow.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

I have several, conflicting thoughts on the subject.

I answered three hits, but I've been convinced by others that three should be the number for most classes, and that the fighter should be tougher and get four, while the wizard should be weaker and get two.

I like the idea that everyone starts with the Constitution Score in hit points, then gets a static class based bonus, even if that means that Con can be a more significant factor than class at first level.

After first level, class should have more of an effect on hit points, possibly ignoring Con entirely.

I want hit point scaling to be low. Perhaps even as low as two hit point for wizards, three for most classes, and four for barbarians and fighters. It helps keep the Hit Point abstraction from feeling absurd and prevents the need for significant scaling of damage output.

 

[TrippyHippy]

I like the idea that everyone starts with the Constitution Score in hit points, then gets a static class based bonus, even if that means that Con can be a more significant factor than class at first level.

I don't.

The reason being that I like the idea of lethal weapons being potentially lethal for ordinary (AKA 1st Level) characters.

If a sword hits for maximum damage on the roll, I think it should be potentially lethal for most beginning characters. That is, if a sword does 8 damage on a D8, adjusted for ability scores, then this should equate to a lethal blow. You could argue that the default damage type of a sword should be D10, to tie in with a fighter (and thus stretching out the scores a little), but the principle should remain.

You could argue that PCs are heroic, and be allowed maximum HP per HD at 1st level, and that would be fine by me. But basining it on Con at starting level is just too high, if you are then only rolling damage against it. If a sword has a damage of D8, then on average, a starting character on [CON+Class Bonus] HP is going to need to take more than 3 blows before he/she goes down. Moreover, it's impossible to fell them in one blow, regardless how good the strike is (unless 'Powers' are added, which I don't like either).