Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Rolling HPs
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 7970135" data-attributes="member: 18"><p>That's definitely not the whole point, it's actually been an issue D&D has struggled with for decades, and makes no actual sense at all in the modern framework of the rules (5E). It's fine in disposable-character-type OSR games, but anything that pretends to any kind of balance, it's absolute the worst design element in D&D. I think in one of the very first issues of Dragon I read they were talking about alternatives to rolling HP (so late 1980s early 1990s). And in 5E, RAW, it's a <em>player </em>choice. Any DM overriding it is going into house-rules territory and breaking a fairly fundamental RAW/RAI point.</p><p></p><p>Your suggestion is an outright bad suggestion in 5E, because it's too late at that point. You can't "become an archer" suddenly, because at L1, you don't roll HP (unless you're playing a serious homebrew), and you have to decide whether to focus on STR or DEX then, when you choose what stat goes where, and pick your Fighting Style. Most Fighters will choose STR, because the player wants to play a brave warrior who fights from the front. And everything about his character will say that. Except this weird random roll, that is at odds with the entire game design (which again is why it's optional and player-chosen, not DM-chosen, RAW). It would be even worse if say, you started rolling really poorly after L3, because then you'd be locked into a subclass as well, and if it wasn't a ranged one, you'd be stuffed, and just have an ineffective character, through literally no fault of your own.</p><p></p><p>It also disproportionately impacts certain classes - specifically those with a larger HD. Wizards, for example, are designed around 1d6. If the roll low, it's bad, but it's not a total disaster for the character because they're balanced around pretty low HP. But if a Barbarian rolls low, that cripples his character. And because this is a matter of a single dice roll per level, with no possibility to correct or recover, that's it.</p><p></p><p>At least RAW, in 5E, you as the player can go "Okay, wow, last two levels I rolled a 1 for HP, I'm going to go with fixed HP from now on!" and somewhat rescue yourself that way.</p><p></p><p>Anyway, rolling HP is a sacred cow long past it's meeting with the burger plant. It's literally only still there as a sacred cow.</p><p></p><p></p><p>(Also, I have to say, personal experience, but I'm always suspicious of people who push it as "essential" or whatever, because when I've seen the non-OSR melee characters that belong to those people, they universally have waaaaay above-average HP, or they're casters with at least average HP, and I never see "Wow that guy clearly rolled a bunch of 1s for HP!" characters belonging to them. So I'm not saying they definitely don't practice what they preach, or just cheat or fudge, but mathematically, it's likely one of those is happening... The only guy I ever called on it online, got all hoity-toity and say that his DM had "forced" him to re-roll some bad rolls, but he still preferred rolling... Yeah okay buddy sure that definitely was how that went down, and you preaching the virtues of rolling a 1 for HP is not at all hypocritical...</p><p></p><p>OSR is a different kettle of fish, of course. I've seen plenty of "honest men" who roll their HP there.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ruin Explorer, post: 7970135, member: 18"] That's definitely not the whole point, it's actually been an issue D&D has struggled with for decades, and makes no actual sense at all in the modern framework of the rules (5E). It's fine in disposable-character-type OSR games, but anything that pretends to any kind of balance, it's absolute the worst design element in D&D. I think in one of the very first issues of Dragon I read they were talking about alternatives to rolling HP (so late 1980s early 1990s). And in 5E, RAW, it's a [I]player [/I]choice. Any DM overriding it is going into house-rules territory and breaking a fairly fundamental RAW/RAI point. Your suggestion is an outright bad suggestion in 5E, because it's too late at that point. You can't "become an archer" suddenly, because at L1, you don't roll HP (unless you're playing a serious homebrew), and you have to decide whether to focus on STR or DEX then, when you choose what stat goes where, and pick your Fighting Style. Most Fighters will choose STR, because the player wants to play a brave warrior who fights from the front. And everything about his character will say that. Except this weird random roll, that is at odds with the entire game design (which again is why it's optional and player-chosen, not DM-chosen, RAW). It would be even worse if say, you started rolling really poorly after L3, because then you'd be locked into a subclass as well, and if it wasn't a ranged one, you'd be stuffed, and just have an ineffective character, through literally no fault of your own. It also disproportionately impacts certain classes - specifically those with a larger HD. Wizards, for example, are designed around 1d6. If the roll low, it's bad, but it's not a total disaster for the character because they're balanced around pretty low HP. But if a Barbarian rolls low, that cripples his character. And because this is a matter of a single dice roll per level, with no possibility to correct or recover, that's it. At least RAW, in 5E, you as the player can go "Okay, wow, last two levels I rolled a 1 for HP, I'm going to go with fixed HP from now on!" and somewhat rescue yourself that way. Anyway, rolling HP is a sacred cow long past it's meeting with the burger plant. It's literally only still there as a sacred cow. (Also, I have to say, personal experience, but I'm always suspicious of people who push it as "essential" or whatever, because when I've seen the non-OSR melee characters that belong to those people, they universally have waaaaay above-average HP, or they're casters with at least average HP, and I never see "Wow that guy clearly rolled a bunch of 1s for HP!" characters belonging to them. So I'm not saying they definitely don't practice what they preach, or just cheat or fudge, but mathematically, it's likely one of those is happening... The only guy I ever called on it online, got all hoity-toity and say that his DM had "forced" him to re-roll some bad rolls, but he still preferred rolling... Yeah okay buddy sure that definitely was how that went down, and you preaching the virtues of rolling a 1 for HP is not at all hypocritical... OSR is a different kettle of fish, of course. I've seen plenty of "honest men" who roll their HP there.) [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Rolling HPs
Top