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

[Mad Mac]

I used to play at a college gaming club. I was the rules guy, to a certain extent, so I've overseen dozens of people doing character creation. All of them claimed to be familiar with the rules.

Nearly 100% of them had some sort of character creation house rule which they were adamantly convinced was real. I had to get the book out to prove otherwise on innumerable occasions. They all loved rolling up new characters, but they tended to roll 7 stats and discard the lowest, 5d6 discard the two lowest, straight rolling but everything gets automatically increased to at least 10, automatic do-over if you don't get at least one 16, etc, etc, etc.

Yup. That's been my experience as well. I've never met anyone who wanted to roll their stats or HPs so they could experience the joy of roleplaying a gimp character with low HPs. Oh good golly no. I initially ended up converting to Point Buy, because I figured if everyone was going to keep messing with their rolls (either by cheating, or coming up with convulated rolling rules, or both) until they got the character they wanted, I might as well just cut to the chase and get it over with.

 

[Lanefan]

When it comes down to it, I'd rather skip the cheating-to-get-the-character-I-want anyway and just take the fixed number. At least that way no one has a guilty conscience.

Then dare I suggest not cheating, and scale back accordingly the character-I-want expectations.

As for the fighter with the glass jaw, if 4 levels in I find I've got bupkus for hit points then I'm just going to change my focus a bit...instead of ante-ing up for the big splashy weapon I'm going to find me the best defenses money can buy (or the party will let me have when dividing treasury) and wait awhile for the weapon.

One long-time character in a 1e game I was in was a Ranger-Cleric with *awful* h.p. for his level, and no Con. to speak of (he was an elf). But every shred of treasure he'd earned had gone into armour and shield, and he had *by far* the best AC on the team...so he'd wade in, draw fire, and let the rest of us do the damage. Sure, maybe the enemy would get in a lucky hit or two on him but that'd be all...often the high h.p. guys would finish the battle in worse shape than the R-C! I know this 'cause I was sometimes one of them.

What it comes down to is to some extent letting the dice shape your character, instead of going in with a hard-and-fast "this is what I'm gonna play no matter what" mindset.

Lanefan

 

[JiffyPopTart]

I guess there are people who think thats sissy talk.

Very wrong people.

The next time I run a game I'm going to make players roll to see if they even get to roll up a character!

Play a game of Traveller. That way your players have a chance of having their character die during character creation. Makes for easy roleplaying bonuses when you aren't able to make the weekly game.

DS

 

[JiffyPopTart]

What it comes down to is to some extent letting the dice shape your character, instead of going in with a hard-and-fast "this is what I'm gonna play no matter what" mindset.

Lanefan

This is exactly what people DON'T want. They want to shape their character in their minds first and translate it to paper through skill and feat and class choices, not shape it with random die rolls. If all I want to do is play a big strong beefy dumb guy, then why should I change that because big strong beefy dumb guy rolled poorly and now 2 people in the party (including the dwarven wizard) can take more hits?

DS

 

[Lanefan]

This is exactly what people DON'T want. They want to shape their character in their minds first and translate it to paper through skill and feat and class choices, not shape it with random die rolls. If all I want to do is play a big strong beefy dumb guy, then why should I change that because big strong beefy dumb guy rolled poorly and now 2 people in the party (including the dwarven wizard) can take more hits?

You're still big, strong and dumb...you just have to generate the "beef" through good armour and defense rather than intrinsic hit points.

Besides, who allows dwarven wizards anyway?

Lanefan

 

[outsider]

I am sorry that a lot of people online seem to feel that random generation of attributes and hit points "ruins" their game. The hundreds of D&D players I have met over the last 28 years have almost always preferred to roll for these things. Lately, the two groups I have that are playing 3.0 were given the option of rolling for attributes and hit points or following one of the determinist methods in the DMG. Out of the 19 players none of them chose to use a point buy system. They all wanted to roll for everything.

Sadly, in my experience, what this guy is saying is pretty accurate. I can only remember ever gaming with one person other than myself that didn't mind point buy. Even she though would generally pick rolling over point buy when given the option.

I've seen similar things with rolling for hit points. I give them the option of taking exactly half hit points, completely with the .5 remainder (two of them add to 1). The players all want to roll, but the moment someone rolls a 1 or a 2, they give me this puppy dog look and ask if they can roll again.

In my experience, what this guy is saying is also pretty accurate. Rolling is the only way to play, until you roll something substandard.

 

[Aus_Snow]

[. . .] 2/10, all up.


And, on second thoughts, troll gets to be the sole inhabitant of my IL. A better way of doing things, I think.

 

[The Myopic Sniper]

If I were in charge of D&D 4 and Hit Die were still part of the game, I would default to giving Elite Characters (PCs and important NPCS) maximum Hit Die values at every level. PCs are elites, the best of their kind, true heroes. They should get the most Hit Points that they could earn.

It would eliminate cheating on rolls when they level up. It would ensure the durability and special place of the heroes. It would stop unlucky players from getting hosed by a series of bad rolls. It is easier on the game designers and DMS since they know exactly what kinds of HPs the characters will have at any given level. And it might give players an incentive to put a higher attribute score in something other than HP.

As a house rule, if any player claims that it is unrealistic, they are more than welcome to roll instead.

 

[telquessir]

Just make it an option

This is an issue people differ on largely, and rarely is one person swayed from one camp to another.

Why not just make it an option as a standard?

I personally don't care which is standard, fixed or rolled, I'll use fixed.

I dislike rolling for a number of reasons many of which have already been voiced by previous posters.

I think the argument about a lack of variety is incredibly flawed as almost any other argument supporting random hp rolling. The only good argument I've heard is "because I like it" which is perfectly valid. I'm not really into telling someone else how to play their game or have fun. If rolling works for you, or makes your game more enjoyable (for everyone at the table) then have fun.

 

[Hammerhead]

I don't roll for any of my other class abilities. It's not like I have a 50% chance to gain a feat each fighter level. Why should I roll for my hit points?