My Hit Point and Dying Rules, are they too easy?

[phoenixgod2000]

Honestly, I'm just trying to figure out if other people do similar things. I've been playing with the same group of people for the better part of my life--15 years or so and sometimes I feel like I game in a bubble since, outside of cons, I get no experience with playing with people other than my group. It has its upsides too, but sometimes I don't know if a rule we've been using is a genuinely good idea or just something that we've always done.

I'm just trying to get a feel for the consensus.

 

[lottrbacchus]

IMG- Everybody lives to negative con. Further, everyone gets a con check (hold over from our 2nd ed house rules) to stay on their feet when in negatives. This actually keeps things pretty lethal, as characters are often still fighting while in negative hps- one decent hit and they are dead dead.

As for hps- d4 characters reroll 1s, d6 rr 1-2, d8 1-3, d10 1-4, d12 1-5. So wizards average 3, rogues 4.5, clerics 6, fighters 7.5, and barbarians 9. I am fine with the characters having very good hit points. I also like this because the player trying to decide, say, between a level of wizard or fighter KNOWS the fighter level will give more hps, just as she knows the wizard level will give more spells.

Regular baddies reroll hps on a 1, while special baddies use the pc system.

Perhaps it is just my players (some of you may recognize my name in association with the group that allowed itself to be engulfed by a gelatinous cube), but the grim reaper is not taken lightly.

 

[shilsen]

While at first it sounds like a good idea, there are a few flaws. Firstly normally the average hp per level is (half max roll + 0.5). ie. 4.5 for a d8 class etc. Rerolling only low rolls means that you're gaurenteed to raise the average hitpoints, as you get rid of all the low rolls, but keep the high ones.

Secondly, this actually benefits the high hp classes far more than the low hp ones. A wizard normally can get 1, 2, 3 or 4 hitpoints per level (+con) for an average of 2.5. Under your system, he can get 2, 2, 3 or 4 for an average of 2.75 hp per level, a gain of 0.25 which is somewhat negligeable.

However then consider the barbarian; instead of equal odds 1 - 12 (avg 6.5), under your system he'll get 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. This works out to an average of 7.75... 1.25 extra hp per level. Likewise its 1hp extra for d10, 0.75 extra for d8 etc.

Why are those flaws? I use precisely the same rule, for the reasons you mentioned. It's not a bug - it's a feature

 

[Pbartender]

Honestly, I'm just trying to figure out if other people do similar things.

Here's the Death and Dying house rule I've been using in my Iron Heroes game, lately:

MORTAL WOUNDS: (Page 185 & 186)

At 0 hit points or lower, a character is disabled and dying.

Healing that raises a character’s hit points to 1 or more makes him fully functional again, just as if he’d never been reduced to 0 or lower, and removes the disabled, dying and stable conditions.

Disabled:
A character with 0 or fewer hit points is disabled. While disabled, he can take only a single move or standard action each round, but not both.

Dying:
A character with 0 or fewer hit points, who is not stable is dying. At the end of each round, she loses 1 hit point and then must make a Fortitude saving throw with a Difficulty Class equal to her negative hit point total.

If the Fortitude save succeeds by 10 or more, she automatically becomes stable without assistance. A character who becomes stable is no longer dying.

If the Fortitude save succeeds by 9 or less, she is still dying. She continues to lose hit points, but survives for a short while longer.

If the Fortitude save fails by 9 or less, she falls unconscious and can take no actions. She continues to lose hit points, but survives for a short while longer.

If the Fortitude save fails by 10 or more, she dies.

Stable:
A character who is not dying but still has 0 or fewer hit points is stable. He may take move actions without further injuring himself, but performing any standard action (or other strenuous activity) will aggravate his injuries. Immediately after performing a standard action, he becomes dying and must immediately make a Fortitude save as if he were dying.

It's designed to keep characters on their feet (but debilitated) for a little longer after they've suffered a mortal wound, and to give them a better fighting chance at surviving a mortal wound. Also, it makes higher level characters more likely to survive and recover from such wounds.

Even so, I've just had two characters die in a single fight, and it could have been avoided by a little better tactics -- "Ignore the Captain, focus on the mooks!" One character drowned while grappling with an animated suit of armor underwater (both had been bullrushed off the ship), and another went down to a critical hit from the Pirate Captain's greataxe. The terrible thing is, I'd actually pre-panned on having the crew surrender as soon as the Captain went down, had they focused on him both deaths would likely have been avoided.

In other words, sometimes the problem isn't the lethality of the rules or the encounters... Sometimes the problem is a cruel DM or reckless players. Each requires a slightly different solution. Make certain you are solving the right problem. It sounds like your players need a primer in basic tactics and resource management. As a current player in a RHoD game, I know first hand that the game will chew up and spit out any PCs who can't learn those lessons quickly.

He had a similar experience at the Skull Gorge bridge... We came upon the bridge sooner than expected and were unprepared. One character died, and two more were close to dying. We retreated. We came back with reinforcements, a battleplan and fully prepared for fighting a green dragon and a bunch of hobgoblin archers, and beat them handily (though our wizard was sorely hurt). With that new point of view, we've had no such similar problems with any subsequent encounters.

 

[Seloryen]

Yeah don't worry about almost killing the party all that it tends to cause is people finding ways around the rules in which case you will find you have your work cut out for you really fast. The way we play is take half of ur hit die every level if u roll below half and almost every week someone in the party gets killed. Typically just because of this style we end up fighting things about 3-5 CR's higher than us. This leads to a highly enjoyable campaign though and all of us enjoy playing in it.

 

[Dragon Snack]

Honestly, I'm just trying to figure out if other people do similar things.

We give PCs full HP at first AND second and then 75% of HD every level after.

I still managed a TPK in RHoD. Had a couple other deaths along the way as well. And I started them at a higher level than recommended...

If your players are having fun, then your rule works great for you.

There's no reason to make combat more deadly, nobody wants their PC to die. As a DM, I don't want to kill off PCs either, it screws up the continuity and creates level disparities (I really do mean that, despite what I posted above).

 

[pallandrome]

What I'm hearing from you is that you dang near had a TPK, and the only reason that you didn't was a lucky shot from a player at 0 hp.

... and you are considering making it MORE deadly?

 

[mvincent]

people don't croak at -10, instead they die at a negative number equal to their con score

That is a reasonable house rule that doesn't really affect balance to much (i.e. you don't usually affect the battle after you fall unconscious anyway).

if a class rolls below half their max hp, then they get half

That is a generous house-rule that will affect balance. Many groups use HP averaging (i.e. 1/2Max+1). Mind you: with 8 players combats are either going to be lethal or not challenging (due to the CR system and expected HP)... so this might be completely justified. I wouldn't change it now.

Anecdote:
RHoD can be a pretty difficult adventure; however this particular encounter overcome much more easily than most for my group (even though we were below the expected level). This was partially due to our cleric animating one of the huge forest giant skeletons found earlier, then casting fly on it to use it as an aerial troop transport.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

In our game we all get Max HP for our levels, and aren't dead until we reach negative CON.

The reasoning is that too many player deaths results in destroying any sort of group synergy in adventure paths. At some point during the Age of Worms we were instructed to go back and see Wizard Y and tell him all you have learned, when none of the party members had ever talked to Wizard Y in the past because they were all replacements.

DS