Why are hit points generated randomly?

[D.Shaffer]

I go with rounded average up. If only because I dont have to worry about watching people roll dice when they level up. I also play with several newbie players, and having had more then a couple times where they've accidentally erased their total HP, it makes it easier to figure out what it should be.

 

[MrFilthyIke]

I like the way Iron Heroes handled it...

2+1d4, 4+1d4, 6+1d4, 8+1d4

--sam

Really? That's how it is in Iron Heroes?

That's funny, because no one in my group owns those books, and we've been using that system for about 1 1/2 years now.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Buggy legacy code in need of a fix.

 

[shilsen]

I do a few things to take away the rather permanent sting of a bad roll, though---I say you can roll twice and take the better of the two rolls.

That's what I used to use in my Eberron game, but then I switched to just the one roll with PCs getting the half score on their HD (3 on d6, 5 on d10, etc) if they rolled lower. It's worked out well. I'd originally had them getting a flat 75% of the HD, rounded up, but players wanted to roll (and then complained about low rolls, of course ). Evidently lots of people have issues with giving up this sacred cow. Personally, having been born Indian and Hindu, I slaughter them wherever I go. Steak good

 

[Kae'Yoss]

I abandoned rolling HP long ago, like I abandoned rolling Stats. I have seen too many people with ridiculously lucky rolls with characters that just dominated, or people with bad luck whose characters were more fragile than a wizard with egg-timers for eyes!

Besides, now we don't have to have the DM sit by while we roll these things, and we can do character creation at home.

For those who want random ability scores without luck playing too much of a role, there's the Three Dragon Reading technique from Dragon mag.

I let my players roll their hit die 3 times and pick the best one.
You can be surprised how many times a d4 doesn't turn up with a 4 even after 3 tries...

The answer is a bit more than 42% of the time. Which is surprising, 42 being the answer to the question of life, the universe and anything.

 

[FreeXenon]

In general we use half or better. Sometimes if the DM feels like a major bastage he will make the game 'take what you roll'.

In our first 3E campaign we had, our barabarian rolled one for like two levels. It was horrible for him, but oh so memorable.

 

[Umbran]

Rolling low hit points, to me, is the kind of thing that can potentially make organic character-building fun and in-character. I mean, if you have low hit points, whether that represents frailty, a weak point, a certain lack of skill in combat, then you have to figure out what, if anything you are going to do about it with the aspects of your character you *do* control - for example by taking feats, crafting/finding a particular magical item, or just changing your overall approach to combat.

Yeah, and verily!

I like having a few things in the rules that make the player and character adapt to developing conditions over time.

There's also a bit of slippery-slope of rules development to consider. Assume, for the moment, that hit points by level are fixed per class. Well, might as well do that for monsters, too, right? Then, there will be the pressure to make damage a fixed thing as well (since it is measured against known hit points, this leads to more mathematically sound balancing). And, of course, there's already point-buy stats. So, now we have standardized stats, hit points, and damage. Why, precisely, would we want to keep random to-hit, saves, and skill checks? Why not just go diceless and be done with it?

At some point along the way, you realize that there is some point to randomness in the game. All that remains is a decision as to where to draw the line between fixed progressions and randomness.

 

[hong]

I no longer bother to roll damage dice when it gets to 15d6 or more....


Hong "small hands" Ooi

 

[TheYeti1775]

Players have a choice in mine of a solid 80% max (that's after Con is included) or roll it.

 

[shilsen]

There's also a bit of slippery-slope of rules development to consider. Assume, for the moment, that hit points by level are fixed per class. Well, might as well do that for monsters, too, right? Then, there will be the pressure to make damage a fixed thing as well (since it is measured against known hit points, this leads to more mathematically sound balancing). And, of course, there's already point-buy stats. So, now we have standardized stats, hit points, and damage. Why, precisely, would we want to keep random to-hit, saves, and skill checks? Why not just go diceless and be done with it?

At some point along the way, you realize that there is some point to randomness in the game. All that remains is a decision as to where to draw the line between fixed progressions and randomness.

True.

For me it's an easy (and I'd argue, reasonably intuitive) choice. I draw the line between character abilities and the actual use of those abilities in the game, preferring the first to be fixed and the latter to be randomized (and modified by the first). So things like BAB, skill pts, base saves, class abilities, etc. (and HD) are things I prefer to have fixed. Whereas attack rolls, skill checks, save attempts, etc. are random.