Why are hit points generated randomly?

[Thornir Alekeg]

Yeah, there are so incongruencies, but a few are explainable. The rogue doesn't train out-and-out combat, but a more stealthy approach to it. So he learns to attack from ambush, to get out of harm's way and eventually may learn how to roll with a potentially lethal blow. But a Fighter learns how to stand in the thick of combat.

Here's a quote from Jedi Counseling 101, which itself quotes the upcoming Star Wars Saga Edition (which now uses hit points):

[snip]

The article continues to explain what hit points mean to different creatures and objects:

Nice, thanks for posting that. It still doesn't do much in terms of surviving damage from environmental effects such as fire, but trying to make rules to balance that out would probably end up being very clumsy. Of course one could just use vitality and wound points and have things like fire do wound point damage.

 

[tricky_bob]

d4=3, d6=4, d8=5, d10=6, d12=7 here. No problems or complaints, thus far.

Yeah, we use this system (one over half, as it's refered to), although you can choose to roll if you want. Needless to say D4's, D6's and D8's never roll !

To be fair though, you should use the same system on the monster's hit die too !!

 

[Klaus]

Nice, thanks for posting that. It still doesn't do much in terms of surviving damage from environmental effects such as fire, but trying to make rules to balance that out would probably end up being very clumsy. Of course one could just use vitality and wound points and have things like fire do wound point damage.

Or go straight to the attributes and deal Con damage?

 

[Felon]

Ooh, sarcasm because I have a different opinion. Yep, must be ENWorld.

Actually, it does help make carbon clones. If every PC wizard or fighter has the same HP as every other wizard or fighter, theres no variation. Add that to the point buy system for stats, and how the skill rank system works, you can end up with carbon copies.
Thats why I prefer rolled stats and HP. Now, I'm not saying you are wrong for playing different, I'm just stating my opinion.

You seem to be construing a challenge against your assertion as a personal attack. I'm not being sarcastic because you have a different opinion, but rather because your assertion is just so darn weak.

There can certainly be a great deal of variation between two fighters with identical hit points, chiefly their feats, which in turn tend to govern weapon choices as well as their ability scores (or be governed by their ability scores in the case of randomly-generated scores). And feats confer much more of a sense of variety than something passive like hit points. Are you claiming that a spidked-chain Spring-Attacking elven tripster is a "carbon clone" of a Monkey-Gripping dual-oversized-bastard-sword-wielding half-orc tempest just because they wind up with identical hit points (before Con bonus, that is)? How could anybody think that?

And wizards? Their hit points are the farthest thing from being their most definitive trait.

 

[hong]

That might have been necessary in old edition games where the only differences between 2 fighters were their HP and their name, where it took 5 minutes to make another character when one croaked. (I heard people tell about games like this).

Yes, yes.

Real Men Don't Play GURPS (scroll down to "Rulesets")

 

[Silver Moon]

It's an element I've always liked - but our weekly group uses the "best of three rolls" method as our house rule. The only time I've ever used fixed HP's have been for new characters in rather lethal games where I've allowed them to start at maximum hit points up to 2nd level.

 

[Aus_Snow]

OK, well thanks to those who explained the rationale, back a few posts.

I'm still puzzled as to why the percentage/ratio thing even matters in D&D though. After all, weapons, attacks, damage-dealing spells, healing spells, healing abilities, etc. . . all tend to be (the vast majority of the time) in terms of straight numbers (e.g., 100 HP, or 5d6 HP), not a ratio or percentage.

So, gaining .5 of a HP per level over strict average is actually simply that, in my books.

Eh, I think I'll just stick with what's worked so far, regardless.

 

[ThoughtBubble]

So, with this average issue, the only real option is to give exactly half the dice's value in HP. Wizards then get 2.5 hp/level, fighters 5.5, etc. This prevents the wizard from gaining any extra due to the coarse nature of rounding over time, but it also prevents him from losing any.

Now, the only question is, when a wizard has 6.5 hp, do we say that he has 6 funtional HP, or are we nice and round up to 7?

 

[FireLance]

Now, the only question is, when a wizard has 6.5 hp, do we say that he has 6 funtional HP, or are we nice and round up to 7?

The usual rule is to round down fractions. The average hp values of the monsters in the SRD are also rounded down.

 

[Hussar]

Ooh, sarcasm because I have a different opinion. Yep, must be ENWorld.

Actually, it does help make carbon clones. If every PC wizard or fighter has the same HP as every other wizard or fighter, theres no variation. Add that to the point buy system for stats, and how the skill rank system works, you can end up with carbon copies.
Thats why I prefer rolled stats and HP. Now, I'm not saying you are wrong for playing different, I'm just stating my opinion.

Ok, you did say that you "can" end up with carbon copies. Then again, you "can" end up with two characters with exactly the same hp's if you are rolling as well. And, really, does 5 points in either direction make much of a difference? If my fighter has 83 hp and yours has 87, is that a major point of difference between the characters?

Silly me, but I thought things like personality, weapon choices, background and, y'know, role playing actually made the difference between characters. I guess it's just stats though. In order for my character to be different from yours, we must have entirely different stats. Strange though, when you look at something like Heroe's of the Lance, the heroes have pretty similar stats and hit points - compare Sturm, Riverwind and Caramon. I guess they were all carbon copies though.