Max HP Debate for PC's and Monsters

[anr3]

I am DMing a high level campaign (they started 15th, and are about 20th now.)

I wanted them to have a decent amount of hitpoints, but not necessarily maximum.

If anyone rolled less than half hitpoints, I rounded it to halfway.

For instance, a barbarian rolling a 3 gets 6 hitpoints at that level.
A fighter who rolls a 1 actually gets 5.

A mage who rolls a 1 gets a 2.

Chance still plays a role in determining PC toughness, but the fighting classes aren't going to be pathetic.

I don't think handing out maximum hitpoints as a blanket rule to apply to monsters is necessarily a good idea.
Having a bit of variation works quite nicely, especially with groups of similar creatures.
It helps the PCs feel that they aren't just fighting clones...
Of course, the occasional big, tough looking monster with max hit points is a nice change too.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Thanks for the reply, Elder-Basilisk.

In a party situation though, using your "tank" as a AC decoy, while your spellcasters behind you are busy, knowing that it'll take you even longer to get taken down, allows them to get off twice the spells would counteract that, wouldn't it?

My hope is that at low levels, spells would be seen as more useful, balancing out the melee-centric focus of encounters, and at high-levels, the high hit points, and bigger discrepency between meleers and spellcasters would help out the melee players from playing in a caster centric game.

This could work but the problem is that half of the spells aren't more useful.

At low levels, there are only a few spells that would retain their effectiveness--the disabling/incapacitating spells. Spells like Magic Missile, Acid Arrow, fireball, etc. would be less useful because of the enemies' high hit points. The spells I can see fitting into that category are: Sleep, Color Spray, Blindness/Deafness, Glitterdust, Hold Person, Halt Undead. That's a pretty limited range for spellcasters compared to the range that low level spellcasters have at the moment.

The other thing is that that tactic and those spells are already quite prevalent and effective without max hp for monsters. The reason that those levels aren't caster-centric isn't because what casters can do doesn't work but because they're very limited in the number of things they can do per day. The max HP suggestion doesn't alter that.

At high levels, the massive hit point imbalance doesn't really tip the balance in favor of melee characters. (Although it does make ultrapowerful melee monsters like Purple Worms and the Tarrasque more effective vis a vis casters). It does reduce the effectiveness of evokers, but it equally reduces the impact of what melee characters can do. A Charging, smiting paladin with Holy Sword on his Heavy Lance, Power Critical, and all the Mounted combat feats is now survivable due to the massive amounts of hit points bad guys have. Vorpal sword meleers are as effective as always but ones who rely upon damage are now less effective just like wizards and clerics who rely on damage are less effective. However, the more common kind of wizard or cleric who doesn't rely upon fixed damage effects is unaffected. Harm+Quickened Inflict Light Wounds works just fine. A hasted wizard casting Energy Drain, a Quickened Enervation, and following up with Wierd or Wail of the Banshee (now that the PCs' saves are hosed by negative levels) is just as effective as he was before. Summoners are even more effective since their summons have max hp. (And often rely upon special abilities rather than straight up damage potential for their effectiveness--A Solar's Arrows of Slaying and Vorpal Sword are examples of this).

 

[Deset Gled]

Do you find that your spellcasters use more spells like sleep and charm rather than direct damage spells?

Direct damage spells are still used on a regular basis, but are only a part of the casters repetoire. As far as I've been able to tell, both the supportive/utility type and artillery type casters still have as much merit as before. It is worth noting, though, that I strongly discourage my characters from using save-or-die spells. If I didn't, I do see a lot of room for them to be unbalanced. The clerics turning ability got to be a real pain before I starting altering a few things (I changed the Hit-Die rating of the undead. Instead of 1d12, call it 2d6 or 3d4, etc.)

Do you feel at mid to upper levels it makes spellcasters more powerful or less powerful?

Right now, we're still around the lower levels (4-6ish), so I'm probably not the best person to ask. So far, it doesn't seem to push things in the favor of any one class. The only way that I've really seen it alter balance is that the bonus hitpoints from Constitution are not quite as important as they were before. This can make it easier on monks or rogues who want to put their higher stats in other areas.

How does this change usually affect the way you build encounters for first and second level parties?

It wasn't as much of a change as I thought it would be. Since I use a lot of monster's with character classes, it really didn't change things much at all from what I normally do. I'm also a big fan of changing any stat or bonus that I feel like changing on a enemy before I put it into battle. The main thing is to be flexible (which I think is good advice for any DM), and keep in mind that pulling things straight out of a book may not be the best idea.