[Playtest 2] Player HP needs to be adjustable for each group

[Ellington]

People have differing ideas on how beefy PCs should be. Some peope like them to be somewhat fragile to make things less predictable and more dangerous, while others like them to be beefy and durable to avoid random character death. Both opinions are very valid, and I'm personally somewhere in between the two. However, by forcing either of the two extremes, there's a risk of alienating a large portion of the playerbase, since player HP is a big part of the system mechanically. Since the decision is largely subjective, I think 5E needs some sort of sliding HP option so each group can decide for themselves what fits their group.

I think that the HP of characters in 5E right now is too low, at least early on. While it's the same as it was in 3.X, player damage as increased a lot. A level 1 wizard casting burning hands doesn't deal 1d4 damage, he deals 4d4, and his magic missiles don't take up spell slots any more. A dwarf fighter with a greataxe using deadly strike deals 3d6+strength modifier on an attack. Sneak attack damage is up as well. All this makes early game very lethal which some people prefer, but something that I personally know put players off in 3.X, and is even more likely to do so now with all the added damage.

I'd like to propose three scales of HP:

1: HD+Con modifier at first level, 1/2 HD + Con modifier at every level after that.

The rules as currently written. A level 1 fighter with 14 CON has 12 HP. A level 1 wizard with 14 con has 6 HP.

2: Double HD + Con modifier at first level, 1/2 HD + Con modifier at every level after that.

Higher initial HP but evens out in the long run when compared to option 1. A level 1 fighter with 14 CON has 22 HP and a level 1 wizard with 14 CON has 10. This would be my preferable method.

3: HD + Con score at first level, full HD + Con score after that.

For beefier games. A level 1 fighter with 14 CON has 24 HP and a level 1 wizard with 14 CON has 18. Players would need to do some drastic mistakes to die early on, and would get a bunch of HP into the higher levels.


I know this might be a bit tricky with HP threshold spells, but I personally think this is more important. And before you tell me just to houserule it, I'd like to point out that to a lot of groups the amount of stuff you need to houserule can be a large deciding factor when choosing a system. Especially important stuff like this.

Anyways, thoughts

 

[Ahnehnois]

I'd go farther. I'd say that since this is the edition of options, we need a variety of health systems presented from the start, including non-hp approaches.

 

[ferratus]

I want a system where weapon blows are counted, with greater and lesser blows, where only the last couple of blows are considered to injure or kill you. For example, a fighter can take 6 hits in a combat, armour adds 4 hits for a total of ten. The fighter is considered lightly wounded after 5 hits, greviously wounded at 8 hits, and dead at 10 hits.

The first 4 hits are freebies that refresh with rest and repairing armour. The light wounds can be healed, and the grevious wounds require extraordinary healing.

But I doubt if I'll get it, even as a module.

 

[Salamandyr]

You missed my preferred version. Con Score + 1 Hit Die per level. No need to max hit die at first level. Con modifier only applies to healing not to hit points gained each level.

(this was the version used in the first playtest).

The benefit to this method is you get higher hp at first level, leading to early game survivability, but hp overall is less inflated, and Con is nice but not a god stat.

 

[Ellington]

You missed my preferred version. Con Score + 1 Hit Die per level. No need to max hit die at first level. Con modifier only applies to healing not to hit points gained each level.

(this was the version used in the first playtest).

The benefit to this method is you get higher hp at first level, leading to early game survivability, but hp overall is less inflated, and Con is nice but not a god stat.

Yeah, this also seems pretty good.