Post/Author/DateTime	Post
FoxmanFX 01-26-07, 03:28 PM	Ok. There are a few times in a characters life where they have to make a roll and live with the results (or not live) for the rest of their careers. 1) Save or Die spells. You live. You Die. 1 roll to rule them all and 1 roll to kill them. One aspect about this is your character either is alive or you die, if you die you might get resurrected (losing levels usually) or you make up a new character. 2) Rolling base stat’s (Str/Dex/Con/etc.) What you roll there affects the rest of your characters career. A lot of variability involved! Characters can live or die (or suck) based on just a few rolls at the start of the game. This is why point based systems of character creation are more fair (though less fun… Woot! I rolled 3 18’s!). Heck all creatures in the monster manual (or npcs) are either all 10’s, or use the elite/non-elite scores. 3) Hit points – Sucky rolls at HP’s can haunt your characters careers! All monsters and NPC’s are presented with 75% hit points in the books. That’s right BETTER than average (50%) (all wizards get 3hp per dice, +4 at first!). Using the default method in the PHB your character should be at average HP’s. So what happens if you give all the PC’s max HP’s then? Well sneak attacks are less dangerous, 10d6 fireballs are less scary… So you up your Monsters HP to max too…. Now battle slug out forever! So what’s the choice? the solution? One thing I came up with that I will be play testing in my up and coming campaign is… PC’s get max HP at 1st (same as always), and roll normally for HP. If they roll less than 75% then they get 75% of the HD (round down). So at 75% the numbers are as follows: d12 = 9hp d10 = 7.5hp (round to 7) d8 = 6hp d6 = 4.5hp (round to 4) d4 = 3 hp So why round down? Well they are getting max HP at first level after all, and they do have a possibility of rolling even higher… What does that mean? – The players *should* roughly be at the same aprox hp/HD as the monsters….
IronMouse 01-27-07, 08:07 AM	I like (and use) the Iron Heroes variant. All classes roll a d4 for their HP. If their HD is greater, the rest is just added as a bonus. So a wizard gets 1d4, a rogue gets 1d4+2 and a barbarian gets 1d4+8.