D&D 4E Should hit points continue to be generated randomly in 4e?

[sjmiller]

I'd even like to someday get the chance to play under a DM that doesn't feel the need to soften it with a house rule.

Then you would like the way I run rolling hit points for my 3.0 game. For first level, you get the max hit points for your class, modified by CON. For second level and higher, you roll the appropriate hit die and modify it by CON. That's it. In other words, we follow the rules in the PH, and everyone is very happy. Sometimes you roll high, sometimes you roll low, most of the time it is average. Such is the life of a PC.

 

[outsider]

Associating "cookie cutter" with non random character generation doesn't make much sense in modern D&D. I can see it making sense in the older editions, as attributes were basically the only mechanical difference between one dwarven fighter and the next dwarven fighter, and which attributes were best tended to be pretty obvious. Attributes aren't the only form of customization now though. With the large collection of feats, highly flexible multiclassing, and apparently talents(if you believe the rumors) in the new edition, there's no reason that two characters will have to play the same, even if they have the exact same attributes.

Attributes don't neccessarily have the importance in character definition that they once did.

 

[Delta]

Taking 1E as an example, I liked random rolls for:

- Abilities
- Hit points
- Money
- Starting spells
- Spells known per level
- Psionics
- Social class

It seemed like a pretty good balance of player choice versus compensating for uncontrolled advantages/ disadvantages. I think it contributed to greater team cohesion. It was more interesting to me as a player than poring through lists of skills and feats.

I had a cleric originally in 2E with 1 hp and he was my favorite PC ever, partly due to his being half-nuts from having to compensate for that with ever-heavier armor. Just yesterday I broke into a quote from him, laughing, and I haven't played him in ~5 years now. Such was the D&D I enjoyed.

 

[DarkKestral]

Except that I'm all for fixed, and I'm chaotic!

Same. I think it is the chaotic streak. I can't let things be. But I also don't like the idea that someone else who makes the same choices can be permanently better than me. Which is perhaps a chaotic trait in and of itself.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

I think it contributed to greater team cohesion.

Huh? All I could think is that it would make for bad teams if there was no cleric or no tank or something like that.

I had a cleric originally in 2E with 1 hp and he was my favorite PC ever, partly due to his being half-nuts from having to compensate for that with ever-heavier armor.

How did he survive his first fight? Any lucky hit instantly drops him (and you can't get infinite AC), and if something doesn't use AC, but gives you a save for half damage, you're still toast.

Whenever I hear stories about awesome characters with an extreme disadvantage like 1 hp, I think that this goes beyond "playing characters with faults" and is deep within the realm of "DM wearing kid gloves", keeping you out of any serious harm.

 

[ptolemy18]

I prefer random. The game would start being too cookie-cutter if random hit points (and random ability scores) were taken out.

I agree with Crymson.

Here's an idea: if you don't want randomness in D&D, if you want all characters to be perfectly balanced, why don't you eliminate dice-rolling altogether and have every player roll a 20 ALL THE TIME? With so many people whining about how this or that is too hard or unbalanced or too challenging, I'm surprised I haven't heard someone suggest that yet.

 

[ptolemy18]

Then you would like the way I run rolling hit points for my 3.0 game. For first level, you get the max hit points for your class, modified by CON. For second level and higher, you roll the appropriate hit die and modify it by CON. That's it. In other words, we follow the rules in the PH, and everyone is very happy. Sometimes you roll high, sometimes you roll low, most of the time it is average. Such is the life of a PC.

Preach on! Sounds exactly like the D&D3.x campaign I played in from 1999 to 2005. Hit points were always rolled exactly according to 3.x rules just like you say. I rolled up about 10 characters for that campaign, and I had fun designing and playing every single one of them, even the ones with nothing above a +2 bonus, and fairly sucky hit points.

In 3.x, you already get to reroll your character if they don't have a minimum +2 bonus, after all, so it already has a generous mechanic to prevent REALLY bad characters. Plus it has optional rules for playing with a "32-point build" if you want to do point-based character generation. But random attribute rolling is such a tradition it even exists among most computer RPGs and MMORPGs. (Sure, the player can usually just reroll until they get good stats, but that's the kind of wankerdom that you can get away with when you're playing a solo game, without any other people to balance yourself against.) Basically, under the existing rules, you're never stuck with playing a *really* bad character because you have minimum statistics, and when you *do* roll awesome stats by random luck, it's SOOO GREAT!

I seriously cannot believe all the things people complain about on this forum.

 

[ptolemy18]

Some people like a more "chaotic" game, where a player's inbound idea for a character may well be thrown a curveball by the dice (for good or bad) and many things are generated randomly e.g. hit points, base stats, initial wealth, etc.; and where the DM by and large throws CR/EL and wealth guidelines out the window shortly after puck-drop, and the PCs are pretty much left on their own and had better be ready to run like hell.

Call me chaotic.

Me too.

 

[ptolemy18]

I don't understand how people can ask for major, sweeping rules changes based purely on some apocryphal story about how such-and-such rule made their character weak. Because they didn't have enough hit points, or because their fighter couldn't fly over a cliff, or whatever. I understand on one level, because yes, I was sad when 3.0 changed to 3.5 and my sorcerer's Summon Monster-Haste combo got horribly nerfed (I managed to convince the DM to let me continue using the existing Summon Monster lists for the duration of the character, although not the existing Haste rules)... but come on.

If I come to the table thinking "I wanna play a fighter!" or "I wanna play a wizard!" then it is pretty easy to make the character you want using random stats and hit points. All a fighter needs is decent Strength and Constitution. All a wizard needs is decent Intelligence. They might not be quite as powerful as you want them to be, but that's The Luck of The Dice. If you want to be a fighter/wizard/cleric/rogue, on the other hand, then yes, you might have to have awesome stats to support all the needed core attributes. But if you're planning to play such a ridiculously overpowered and generalist character then you probably couldn't create it with a standard point buy either.

It's randomness, people! D&D is about the conflict between preparation & strategy & RANDOMNESS! It's the thrill of rolling high stats and hit points vs. the "darn it" of rolling low stats and hit points. The thrill is more than worth the "darn it" because, dammit, it's just a roleplaying game and if you can't accept even that much randomness, then you are probably also going to be a sore loser when-slash-if your character fails their saving throw and is absorbed by a chaos beast. (Oh, but of course I forget that lots of people hate save-or-die saving throws too. You know, there's this game called "chess" that has absolutely NO random elements.) @_@ If your character is weak because of low stats, the proper response is "Well, if the DM won't let me reroll, I will play this character awhile and see if I grow to like them, and if not, maaaybe I'll just get a little too reckless and see what happens." If your character dies because of some random event, the proper response is "Well, that sucks, now I will make a new character who will be even better than the old one," not "Oh, curse you, Wizards, I will write a Strongly Worded Letter of Protest so that characters like my perfect, wonderful, one-of-a-kind character will never again be slain in so undignified a fashion."

 

[ptolemy18]

4e shouldn't force the DM to use one method over another, but instead give the DM options to let him pick which one he is most comfortable with for his or her campaign.

I agree, this is probably the best way to handle it in the 4e rulebooks. As long as the statistics generated through the "point buy" system and the random rolling as approximately equal.