How much should HP scale?

[Oni]

How many more HP should a 10th level character have than a first level character of the same class?

How important are bigger numbers? How steep should the power curve be? What the advantages or disadvantages to doing it a certain way? Should damage be scaling such that characters become all but immune to low level monsters but they are roughly as effective against 10th level monsters at 10th level as they were against 1st level monsters at 1st level?

[Edit: It appears the end of my question got cut off in my cutting and pasting, but hopefully it should be clear, it's the same question as at the start of this post.]

[Edit 2: Assume 20 levels as the normal progression for a class from beginning to end.]

 

[JamesonCourage]

I voted 4 times. It should vary by class, in my opinion. Some should have more proportionally than others by that point. My ideal warrior progression is around X4 (X5 at the high end) by that point.

 

[Quickleaf]

What about warrior classes scaling HP more than others?

 

[Oni]

What about warrior classes scaling HP more than others?

That's certainly a possibility. Though personally I had sort of considered it subsumed in multiplying from a larger base number at first level. I.e. 10x4 and 6x4 get you some differentiation.

Anyway, if you're not happy with the options presented, that's what the last one is for, tell me why my poll is rubbish for leaving out option X.

 

[Minigiant]

Lets' see

I believe a 1st level fighter should be to take 3 short sword hits by a low STR mod warrior or 2 burning hands from a low level wizard. So that's 10-15 HP in most editions.

I believe a 1st level fighter should be to take 6 hits from a ogre or 5 breath attacks from a dragon. So that's 70-85 HP

so 6 or 7 times more HP.

Wizard. Two hits from a goblin equals death for a level 1 wizard. 6-8 HP
A wizard should almost kill himself if caught in his strongest blast spell. (or 2 dailies for 4E). So that is ~50HP.

so 6 to 7 times more HP.

so X6 for the lower value.

 

[howandwhy99]

The question's a little unclear for me. I said x8 as that's 8 Hit Dice more than 1st level at level 9. After that is usually +1 or similar bonuses. It depends upon the class and progressions for 10th.

 

[Jiggawatts]

Fighters should get 1d10 + Con Hit Points from levels 1-10 (max at 1st), thereafter receiving 4 HP per level (no con modifier). Hit Point bloat (for PC's and monsters both) was one of the few things I didnt like about the changes in 3.X.

 

[Hassassin]

My intuition says something between 3x and 7x. I would have to work through some math to determine which would have the best characteristics.

The most important thing is that both AC and hp not increase (linearly). If AC pretty much caps off around third level (after the fighter has acquired at least a half plate) hp can have almost linear growth and the game still won't get exponential. OTOH, if AC continues to increase, hp increases should be much slower or cap off.

So the actual hp progression doesn't matter much to me. The numbers matter to the degree that I would prefer hp not go over 100 any time soon. We don't need that much granularity and large numbers are just more tedious to work with.

 

[trancejeremy]

Yeah, I think that's the big thing , once you get into triple digits, it starts to get unwieldy.

 

[Oni]

The question's a little unclear for me. I said x8 as that's 8 Hit Dice more than 1st level at level 9. After that is usually +1 or similar bonuses. It depends upon the class and progressions for 10th.

Take the average HP you think a character at level 10 should have and divide by the average HP that you believe the same character should have at 1st level and then round to the nearest whole number.

If you can't get a fairly consistent result from class to class for whatever reason then take the last option and tell me why my poll sucks.