D&D General Why do we Round Down???

[77IM]

I'm mostly curious about 5e but tagging this General because "always round down" is such a longstanding tradition in D&D.

What's the point? Why not "always round the way your 3rd-grade math teacher taught you?"

As far as I can tell, the main effect that "always round down" has on the game is that dealing half damage benefits the defender... to the tune of 1 point of damage, 50% of the time. Well, that, plus an annoying amount of "(round up)" exceptions throughout the text.

Thoughts?

 

[Yora]

since half the time, the defenders are the PCs and the other half it's their enemies, it cancels itself out and nobody benefits from it.

 

[commandercrud]

Because most people are bad at math and can't do it the way their 3rd grade teacher taught them anyway. It should always just be round up or down, but without any exceptions.

 

[Morrus]

I guess it just ensures we everybody is doing the same thing.

 

[Nefermandias]

Why rounding at all? Let's just start tracking fractions of hit points and we're good!

 

[Bolares]

When I get up on my scales.... I always round down too. I guess the system WAS made for me!

 

[Lyxen]

I'm mostly curious about 5e but tagging this General because "always round down" is such a longstanding tradition in D&D.

Actually, it's not that "long standing", it was just part of the general improvements made by 3e to harmonise behaviour across the system, as before that there were almost as many ways of rounding as there were rules.

What's the point? Why not "always round the way your 3rd-grade math teacher taught you?"

I don't think I've ever seen the reason actually written down, but I think it's because of the bonus to the ability scores. They wanted only even ability scores to give you a bonus (because it's much simpler to center the curve around the number 10 than 11), and that meant rounding down. Since (as explained above), they wanted only one method for the whole game system, it's the one that was chosen.

As far as I can tell, the main effect that "always round down" has on the game is that dealing half damage benefits the defender... to the tune of 1 point of damage, 50% of the time. Well, that, plus an annoying amount of "(round up)" exceptions throughout the text.

Are there really that many ? I honestly cannot recall even one, but I'm sure you'll let us know.

 

[billd91]

Actually, it's not that "long standing", it was just part of the general improvements made by 3e to harmonise behaviour across the system, as before that there were almost as many ways of rounding as there were rules.

As much as it pains me to admit my age, 20 years is long enough to qualify as "long standing".

 

[Blue Orange]

I always figured HP rounds up since you have 5.5 hitpoints and you take 5 points of damage, you still have >0 hitpoints and thus are still alive. Damage rounds down for the same reason.

In the sciences you're supposed to round to evens (1.5 and 2.5 both round to 2) to average out those effects.

 

[Lyxen]

As much as it pains me to admit my age, 20 years is long enough to qualify as "long standing".

You're right, for me, it's still below half of the time I've been playing D&D, so it qualifies as "rather new", but I can see your point and it makes it probably even harder to admit.