If you roll dice for stats and HPs...

[Herremann the Wise]

Hypersmurf,

Hit Point advancement is always a contentious issue and there are numerous systems to deal with it. Unfortunately, this is the one area where randomness - the HP roll - does not make sense.
There is nothing more annoying than being the beefy Barbarian and getting a 1 on your HP roll, particularly when it does not fit in with the actions of the character over their previous level. In this case, you normally try to take the immediate variability out of it.

The HP advancement system I use is as follows:

The character rolls their HP die. If they are happy with it, that's fine, if not, they get a re-roll but with the next die down (1d12 to 1d10 to 1d8 to 1d6 to 1d4). This process gets repeated until they are either happy with the roll or get down to a 1d4, in which case, they must accept it.

In this way, you are giving them a reasonable chance to not have to scrape the bottom of the barrel. Particularly with fighter types, you will find that they will be satisfied with what they roll. Effectively, this method skews the results up.

However, for my next campaign, I'm thinking of developing the following. But first, a quick recap on what HP's are.

HP's represent not only represent the amount of damage a character can take but how well they can avoid dangerous and life-threatening blows. For example 16 hit points of damage against a 1st level Rogue is pretty much a head to toe carving in two where as the same blow against a 13th level Rogue is a flesh wound. The quality of the shot depends more upon the Max HP of the wounded more so than the skill of the woundee.

As such, what makes a Character more difficult to hit? As they gain in experience, they learn better techniques of avoiding damage or in some cases, they "play with pain" to coin a footballing phrase. What I'm thinking is to keep track of how they go from level to level in regards to their abilities that "make up" their HP's. If you like, keep a piece of paper tracking certain things with a +1 for something good (making a fortiude save on a lethal poison, or using their expertise skill to save them from a deadly strike) or a -1 for something bad (going to -ve hit points). Add these up and when they go up a level get them to roll their HP's by the book and give them their bonus on top of the roll (maxing out at the most possible for the actual roll).
In this way, you try to give them a little extra reward for making the rolls that really count - thus following the maxim of "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger".
I have not tried this system yet so I'm still working out the wrinkles in it. You may have some suggestions in this regard?

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Zhure]

I like set points per level on hit points instead of die rolling, no matter what system is used. In the one 3e game I'm in with random rolls, my high CON sorcerer has more hit points than the middling CON fighter does. Each level I gain 1d4+4 and he gains 1d10+1. On the average, I should be getting 6.5 just like he should, except he keeps rolling '1's and I keep rolling '4's.

While I appreciate having more hit points, I feel sorry for him when the sorcerer outperforms him in combat except with regards to BAB (I have a better AC, too, thanks to buff spells).

Part of the flaw occurs because the characteristic generation was done randomly, also, and my character has the best stats I've ever seen rolled (13, 15, 17, 17, 18, 18, roll 4, drop low).

On the other hand, I do see point-buy as stealing the random spread of characters and makes for the occasional carbon-copy character problem. The only way I can see to overcome this problem is using a different random generation method, which guarantees randomness within a very tight window, like after point-buy, granting a +1 to 1d4 stats chosen at random. Even then, it could yield a huge difference in characters depending on how the original stats were arrayed.

<shrug>
Greg