| Post/Author/DateTime | Post |
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| #1EinlanzerAug 18, 2015 13:20:23 | Frankly, I think WotC made a big mistake in going straight back to the 3e days for HP calculation without finding a happy medium between it and 4th. Starting with under 10 HP and having it practically double going to 2nd level and then triple going to 3rd level is and always has been stupid. Proficiency bonus and other features don't work this way, why should HP?
Additionally, HP scaling is arguably a bit too high in the higher levels and leaves a bit of a power gap favoring PCs.
Anyway - I propose the following two changes:
1st level HP becomes Con score + fixed bonus (3, 4, or 5). Average PC starting HP will go from around 10 or 11 to around 17 or 18, which I think is just about right.
There should be no need to modify monsters. The result will mean that starting PCs at 1st have around 6-7 more HP than in RAW, will catch up around 7th or 8th level, then gradually fall slightly behind raw as they approach 20th. |
| #2EinlanzerAug 18, 2015 13:24:14 | There is one other alternative I'm considering, and that's to replace the negative HP system with a 10 point injury system, where it's possible to continue fighting to some extent after you're knocked below 0 HP. |
| #3ReinhartAug 18, 2015 13:33:12 | Or just take the common 3e solution to this old problem: Start everyone at 3rd level and skip over most of the really wonky fractional CR monsters.
I appreciate the problem you're trying to solve, but I doubt you're going to get much useful feedback here, sadly. |
| #4ankiyavonAug 18, 2015 13:34:08 | They did find the happy medium by utilizing apprentice levels.
A 1st level character in 4E is, by design, roughly equivalent to a 3rd level character in 5E. That is to say, the challenges appropriate for them, their ability to survive being hit with swords, the powers available to them, all these things are fairly comparable.
If you want starting PCs to have more HP, simply start above first level, or wait a session or two. (Literally a single day of average adventuring XP is sufficient to take a party of 4 from 1st level to 2nd level.) |
| #5JodyJohnsonAug 18, 2015 13:41:23 | Your house rule will work fine.
It's not exactly what I would do, but only because I wouldn't allow rolling at all. |
| #6Cyber-DaveAug 18, 2015 13:41:57 | Yea, they kind of made levels 1-3 "apprentice" levels, or a tutorial. You are pretty much supposed to be fighting the D&D analog of videogame "rats" at that level (and one of these days, I totally want to run a game where the PCs start as rat catchers). Just start at level 3 if those levels bother you so much. It should work out just fine. For the records, I don't think your "round down" method is such a great idea. For starters, I hate anything that favors randomizing PC power, but that is a subjective pre-positional value, so whatever. To continue, your mechanic, at high levels, has less of an effect on characters that try to avoid combat and rely on tricks at high levels (such as a wizard) and more of an effect on characters that previously relies on flat out survivability through HP (barbarian/fighter). Tricks, however, already have a mild advantage at high levels. You are thus making the strong stronger and the weak weaker. You create a similar problem at low levels, though in reverse, and to a lesser degree. Right now the game is balanced enough to work. I wouldn't play with that too much. |
| #7MazzyAug 18, 2015 13:49:09 | I agree that the easiest solution is to just make the first adventure of the campaign always award 300 XP. HP scaling is only a serious problem in the jump from first to second. I think starting at second and third rubs people the wrong way, but just making level one really short I think feels more earned while still minimizing that lame one-hit-and-your-down period.
My beef with HP is the return of con being a great stat for everybody. It would be nice to sometimes see a number under 14 in that slot. I think 4e handled it perfectly where it increased your out of combat healing so it was more about lasting longer in a day than directly affecting your survival. But I don't know how to go back to that without serious rules changes so I guess I better get used to every character having five varried stats and con. |
| #8ankiyavonAug 18, 2015 14:15:45 |
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| #9EinlanzerAug 19, 2015 6:26:41 |
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| #10KarnosAug 19, 2015 8:28:29 | This has been discussed a million times.
Con isn't everyone's second most important stat, although it is almost always second or thirth most important- this is counterbalanced by the fact that Con is not the primary stat of ANY class or subclass, while every other ability score is most important for at least one class.
HP being low at level 1 is a feature. If you don't like it, start at level 2. Some people like the danger and excitement of level 1, and the game works with integer levels. It's easier to tell you to start at level 2 or 3 than it is to have a system where level 1 characters have 15+ hp and the people who like oldschool danger have to start at level 1/3 or 1/2.
If you want to houserule it all, fine- go for it. |
| (Reply to #9)crimfan07 |
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| #12NoonAug 19, 2015 20:31:01 | Always wonder why somehow 'start the campaign at level 2' is somehow the unprefered option in these kind of threads.
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| #13arnwolf666Aug 19, 2015 22:28:43 | Since everyone has to start out at first level I propose the following changes:
Beginning hp Fighter 3d10 + (con x 3) Wizard 3d6 + (con x3) Rogue 3d8 + (con x3) Cleric 3d8 + (con x3)
Starting spells for first level full caster 4 1st level spells and 1 2nd level spells Fighters can begin with Action Surge and Second Wind immediately and choose their archetype I'll think more about the Cleric and Rogue later.
I think it is very important that we all start out at first level so changes like these re neccessary. |
| #14Cyber-DaveAug 19, 2015 22:35:28 |
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| #15EinlanzerAug 20, 2015 7:05:04 |
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| #16LordCorwinAug 20, 2015 7:26:16 | Because of bounded accuracy. We have HP inflation as the chosen method of scaling up in lieu of AC/to-hit numbers.
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| #17HorwathAug 20, 2015 7:35:14 | Low 1st level HP describes your "relative" inexperience in combat. That means one misstep, you'll get your head cut off.
because HP's are abstraction.
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| (Reply to #15)AaronOfBarbaria |
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| #19FFSAAAug 20, 2015 10:40:25 | As lots of others in this thread said, you're best to skip the first few levels, they're bad and this is exacerbated by some of the published adventures being TPK fests for beginners.
That is fine for low levels, but there is a mirror problem at high level with HP being too high. This is particularly apparant in barbarians who also have damage resistance and evasion and are effectively unkillable in anything short of deadly+++ encounters.
To maybe reduce both problems simultaneously you might consider something like giving CON to HP at 1st level and only give CON BONUS hp every 4rth level. This would wipe as much as 81 HP off a level 20 barbarian but give 10 CON characters an extra 10 HP. I think with the lethality of level 1 and 2 play you won't really have to do much to compensate for the front loading of HPs either. |
| #20shintashiAug 20, 2015 10:43:57 | hit point scaling is highly abstract, just like hit points. D&D mechanics aren't remotely realistic, but they have a pseudo realism about them. AD&D was more realistic than D&D for instance, but people complained about too many rules and complexity. Two noob fighters entering the ring for the first time. No skills at all, former peasants.
"duck" is the piece of advice taught to one of them, in response to 'what do i do if he punches me in the face?" while the other trainer shrugs to his student.
shockingly, the guy taught to duck has like, twice the hit points. Yes, it really is that bad.
One of our fighters recently discovered he the ability to recover 1d10+1 hit points in the middle of battle. That means fighters start off with roughly twice the hit points of other classes. So when they gain new hit points, it isn't scaling from 1 to 2, it is scaling from 2 to 3. Gradual progress would be granular. Constitution bonuses are granular. Sudden advantages, like a night of intense mister miyagi training might be far more than a gradual bonus. You might think of these as level.
There's really no point in going into the details of how shock works, how trained fighters and athletes have a lower heart rate and take longer to bleed out because of vasoconstriction variances. That's way too much realism for a game where Dexterity governs damage bonuses for bows and two handed swords don't have greater range than brass knuckles.
Instead, focus on the fact that there are both gradual improvements, and there are sudden leaps. Sudden 'aha!" moments where everything makes sense and you do things differently. Think of levels that way. Or when thinking of hit points, imagine you are only allowed to change classes each time. Now imagine how long that would take in real life, to go from being a barbarian, to a warlock, from a warlock, to a bard, from a bard, to a druid, and so on. Think of all those hours of training, studying religious or magical concepts, etc. Theretically, 1 feat is worth something like 2 stat points, or about 250 days of training, and one level can provide both hit point bonuses a few side advantages, and an attribute bonus. That means 1 level is an average equivalent of like a year's training or so. Nothing sudden about that. I remember a story of a guy who went from scrawny to body builder in about 2 and 1/2 years. |
| #21FFSAAAug 20, 2015 10:46:31 |
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| #22Xeviat-DMAug 20, 2015 11:11:36 | I, too, found level 1 to be too lethal. I tpked a group in the first fight in Lost Mines, we ignored it, kept playing, then tpked against the thugs outside the taphouse. I can easily imagine killing everyone in the dragon fight in Horde of the Dragon Queen.
So, when I ran my own campaign, I gave everyone Con score to HP. And guess what? I still dropped players; the party paladin dropped to 0 3 times in 5 sessions, and everyone else fell at least once (even the circle of the moon druid if you count knocking her out of her animal form).
I get it, there was a desire to make 1st level PCs opperate like normal people. An executioner's axe tends to kill in one hit, so a critical hit from a great axe needs to kill a 1st level character in one hit. I get that. That's not the heroic game I want to play. Had we not used Con score to HP at 1st level, I would have actually killed PCs outside of the encounters designed to really test them. |
| #23EinlanzerAug 20, 2015 14:27:38 |
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| #24EinlanzerAug 20, 2015 14:27:06 |
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| #25pauln6Aug 20, 2015 14:57:58 | Simplest thing is to give 2HD at level 1 (eg 1 max and one rolled) and then if worried about con modifier snowball effect, adopt static hp progression with no Con bonuses above a certain level e.g. above level 11, similar to 1e. However the Con score and related feats might need some extra benefits to compete with Dex if you do this and be warned that higher level monsters dish out a lot of damage. |
| (Reply to #21)AaronOfBarbaria |
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| #27MechaPilotAug 20, 2015 16:10:59 |
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| (Reply to #27)AaronOfBarbaria |
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| #29MechaPilotAug 20, 2015 16:46:22 |
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| #30NoonAug 20, 2015 20:21:49 |
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| #31EinlanzerAug 20, 2015 20:43:58 |
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| #32cbwjmAug 20, 2015 20:46:17 |
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| (Reply to #9)Macv12 |
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| #34BrimleydowerAug 20, 2015 21:36:41 | This is just a byproduct of everything can't be core. They tried things beyond the current model in the playtest and it was not the favored option during polling. A lot of personal complaints about the rules fall under this umbrella, honestly. |
| (Reply to #31)AaronOfBarbaria |
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| #36Rya.ReisenderAug 20, 2015 23:54:56 | What bothers me the most about HP growth in D&D is that at early levels it's super strong and it gets continuously more useless the higher your level is. Your HP going from 10 to 17 is a huge difference, but your HP going from 143 to 150 doesn't mean much. |
| #37Xeviat-DMAug 21, 2015 0:45:36 | I think 4E got Con right; I can see an arguement for the lower HP of other editions. In 4E, your con score added to your HP, but your con modifier only added to your number of healing surges. So, Con did affect your staying power for the whole day, but it had a minor effect on your staying power in a single fight.
I played a character with a Con 8 in a 4E game once, and didn't feel like I was entirely killing my character from the getgo. My recovery stank, but that just meant I had to play the character very cautiously (helped that he was a psudo lazy-lord). |
| (Reply to #36)CCS |
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| #39NoonAug 21, 2015 1:30:39 |
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| #40EinlanzerAug 27, 2015 11:24:27 |
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| (Reply to #40)Xeviat-DM | Einlanzer, your spread sounds very interesting. I'm curious to know more about the differences. Would you be willing to start a thread?
I was just about to sit down and do a similar thing. I, for one, am ignoring the attac/damage/save dc side of certain ability scores when looking at balancing them; this only matters to the characters that use them, as a barbarian couldn't care less that Int is used for Wizard spells. Most skills, similarly, only matter to the people that are proficient in them, except for a few that come up whether you want them to or not (athletics, stealth, acrobatics, perception, insight mostly). I'd rather see saves in the same block, where each save type is used frequently; as it stands now, Int and Cha saves are pretty lacking, but that can be easily changed (as it seems like you have).
That leaves very little for each stat, but I'd like to make sure each stat has something:
Str: carrying capacity/encumbrance/qualifications for armor Dex: AC/Initiative Con: HP Int: ? Wis: ? (Perception is so important that I'd guess it is almost enough on its own) Cha: ?
So, I'd really like to know how your Tactics, Sanity, and Leadership abilities work. Those sound great.
Long ago, I also considered doing 8 scores, with the physicals matching yours. Str would be for all damage (though bows and crossbows need to be designed for the strength in mind), Dex would be for all to hit (aim), Con for HP, and Agility for AC, that way all 4 are important to everyone. This was before the advent of no Dex to AC in heavy armor, though. |