D&D General Rolling HPs

[JiffyPopTart]

The problem is that IME the player who isn't ready to let go of the character if-when it dies often quickly moves on to denying that anything bad* can happen to the character at all, and will raise a holy stink when it does; meaning I-as-DM have to specifically treat that character with kid gloves unless I want a headache. No thanks.

I think there should be a "Session 0" discussion in the game about this and everyone should be operating under the same expectations. If you are running a one-off the expectation of character death would be different than a Basic hack-n-slash campaign, which would be very different from a multi-year narrative story akin to interactive fiction.

My expectations of character death change between when I am plucking the character from a pile of 100 pre-gens versus one that I spent a week with the GM constructing an elaborate backstory with the GM including lots of plothooks to various locations and NPCs in the world.

I will say that, in my own personal opinion, no matter how death adverse the game can get....the opportunity for permanent death (or other major penalty) should exist otherwise there is no joy in overcoming adversity. There are other players at my table who always have an overriding goal of "Never lose a character" at the expense of everything else (including other PCs in danger).

 

[Lanefan]

I think there should be a "Session 0" discussion in the game about this and everyone should be operating under the same expectations. If you are running a one-off the expectation of character death would be different than a Basic hack-n-slash campaign, which would be very different from a multi-year narrative story akin to interactive fiction.

Oh, it's made very clear to all right up front that bad things can and inevitably will happen to your character(s), but there's been times in the past where players only heard what they wanted to hear...

My campaigns might best be described, I suppose, as multi-year hack-n-slashes with some underlying story attached.

My expectations of character death change between when I am plucking the character from a pile of 100 pre-gens versus one that I spent a week with the GM constructing an elaborate backstory with the GM including lots of plothooks to various locations and NPCs in the world.

I've long since learned not to bother worrying about elaborate backstories etc. until the character has established itself as a survivor, because my general track record otherwise is that the more time-effort I put into that stuff the shorter the character's lifespan will be.

I will say that, in my own personal opinion, no matter how death adverse the game can get....the opportunity for permanent death (or other major penalty) should exist otherwise there is no joy in overcoming adversity.

Completely agreed.

There are other players at my table who always have an overriding goal of "Never lose a character" at the expense of everything else (including other PCs in danger).

Yeah, as a player I run with some of those too; and given a choice between playing with those and players who are outright disruptive I'll take the disruptive ones all day long, thanks. At least with the disruptive ones I can fight back...

It's even worse when in-game rewards e.g. xp don't favour those who take the risks.

 

[Charlaquin]

Sure.

The problem is that IME the player who isn't ready to let go of the character if-when it dies often quickly moves on to denying that anything bad* can happen to the character at all, and will raise a holy stink when it does; meaning I-as-DM have to specifically treat that character with kid gloves unless I want a headache. No thanks.

* - in my game this can include level loss, major wealth loss, long-term debilitation e.g. loss of mind, and so forth.

I think this is a problem of misaligned expectations and play style preferences. If a player prefers high character-investment, low lethality style game and comes to your table expecting that, they’re gonna have a bad time. If you make it clear that you prefer a roguelike style where characters come and go frequently and part of the fun is just seeing how long your character survives, some players will choose not to play, but those who do play will know what to expect and have a better time.

 

[Ath'kethin]

In my games it's max HP at every level. No swinginess, no disappointing ones, no half-assing it by rolling but taking the "average" if it's higher. Max at every level just makes things easy and consistent.

 

[CleverNickName]

A friend of mine lets players Mulligan on their hit point rolls, but they take a -1 penalty for the first reroll, a -2 for the second one, etc., all to a minimum of 1.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

In one game, I let my players choose their ability scores and their hit points. No point buy, no rolling, just choose. If someone brought a characters with 18s across the board, I wasn't going to stop him/her.

No one brought an overpowered PC. One guy decided he "rolled" three 3s and three 18s. That was amusing. Players generally took average hit points. One player rolled hit points and chose the result.

It was an interesting experiment.

 

[Quartz]

Do you roll/allow rolling HPs in your game?

I didn't bother. I used Max (HD) - N where N varied from campaign to campaign.

 

[NaturalZero]

In one game, I let my players choose their ability scores and their hit points. No point buy, no rolling, just choose. If someone brought a characters with 18s across the board, I wasn't going to stop him/her.

No one brought an overpowered PC. One guy decided he "rolled" three 3s and three 18s. That was amusing. Players generally took average hit points. One player rolled hit points and chose the result.

It was an interesting experiment.

I see this playing out pretty differently at different tables and it's great that the players decided not to abuse the privilege. I hate showing up at tables where everyone has "rolled" scores and seeing multiple people with no score below 16.

 

[Coroc]

... (We have a 7th-level dwarven barbarian in the same party and due to high rolls and a healthy Con bonus, he's got triple-digit hp already! Guess who we always throw in front of any monster who shows up?)
....

A dragon! A dragon! Quick, someone toss the dwarf!

 

[teitan]

My house rule is roll and if it is less than half the die roll then you take half. So a Fighter for example gets a minimum of 5 hit points per level.