Talk:Better Hit Points (3.5e Variant Rule)

Problem?

While I agree on your thesis that it IS possible for a barbarian to have less hp than a sorcerer, let's think about this: The sorcerer will have, what, 14 Con? Rarely higher, since most would go for Dex. So, he gets a maximum of six hp. That's half of the HD of the barbarian, who in all means should have much better Constitution, not to mention rage. So, yeah, possible but seriously unlikely. As for the 'one crit from a greataxe' thing. Why don't we want this? I may sound idiotic, but please, tell me why that is illogical? It's a freakin' Greataxe, you can actually hear the capital letter. That means, it's dangerous, big, bad and can leave on nasty wound on ya. I think it's pretty natural that a weapon can kill you in one shot. It's what makes AC important, as well as knowing when to fight and when to run for the hills. So, all in all, this variant just gives you lots of hp at the begining and much less later on. Nothing more, nothing less.--Soulblazer 87 18:49, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

I'll address your points in turn. Firstly, let us deal with the fundamental problem of why random HP are bad. You are clinging to the specific example of the barbarian vs. the sorcerer, and yes, I agree, the fact that one ends up with fewer hitpoints than the other is unlikely. Ok, let me demonstrate something MORE probable: a pair of 5th level sorcerers, one of whom rolls 1, 1, 1, 1 and the other rolls 4, 4, 4, 4 for hit points. This is the class with the narrowest range of possible outcomes for hit point rolls, but yet, we end up with a difference of 12 hit points across only a quarter of the game! If we examine this with respect to characters with bigger hit dice, this problem actually gets worse: picture a pair of 5th level barbarians, one of whom rolls 1, 1, 1, 1 and the other 12, 12, 12, 12 - that's a differential of 44 hit points.

At this point, you would be well entitled to telling me that on average the results even out anyway. However, averages don't mean anything to individual characters - I would hate to be the barbarian with a chain of 1s, regardless of what the 'average' result happened to be. This is only made worse by the fact that hit point rolls are made in isolation more often than not, rather than batches, which means that statistically, all outcomes of the die are equally probable, regardless of what averages may state. My system does away with this problem by, you know, basically forcing an average on this.

tl;dr - My example is illustrative; don't cling to flaws in the example as flaws within the solution.

Now, on the greataxe crits and player kills. People become attached to their characters, and we (or, at least I) want people to actually think through their characters and not fear losing them to random game outcomes. Greataxe crits offing players in one hit is not conducive to these things at all. This is especially true given that the RNG for DnD is flat, allowing for any outcome to be equally likely, and biasing towards no outcome of single numbers. This means that any given roll is as likely to be a 20 as a 1 - except a 1 won't randomly kill you. As we want characters to actually survive lower levels, we have to inflate initial hit points a little bit so that Nameless Orc 1 won't randomly off a character and end their story before it even really begins.

You might respond with 'start at a higher level, then!'. This is a valid statement, but I believe playability across all levels as a desirable thing. Simply saying that 'at 1st level, you could be randomly offed by Joe Orc and there's nothing you can do about it' sucks horribly, and I don't want to support it. If you prefer people dying to essentially bad probability calls, then you're welcome to it, but I feel people should lose to bad choices, not bad rolls.

tl;dr - Yes, greataxes need to be manly, but people dying on bad rolls at 1st level is highly, epically lame, and I don't want to encourage it.

Lastly, the fact that all I do is give more hit points - yes, because funnily enough, this is the simplest solution to the problem. MisterSinister 01:20, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

I suppose you're being cruel to the poor innocent NPCs and not letting them benefit from this rule. --149.169.131.161 01:35, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Let's face it - PCs are special. A PC's death is a serious detriment to the plot, but also to the player, since all that attachment that they have formed with them is now gone, particularly at low levels, when resurrection magic is not available. A dead NPC, however, doesn't cause this problem. Thus, I see no reason to extend this rule to them. MisterSinister 02:24, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

"Oh no, you just critical killed the recurring NPC that was suppose to be the main villain, and killed him! Now what?"

"What do you mean that I survived and my brother did not? We always got a draw in combat!"

Basically, NPCs can be important. Also, it is usually a good idea to make it so that PCs are not too special mechanics-wise. Different HP systems increases DM work. --Havvy 05:26, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

I suppose that's fair enough. I guess key NPCs who have names and actual personalities could also benefit from this rule. I honestly don't believe it's a big deal, but it's a concession I'm quite willing to make. MisterSinister 19:23, 29 October 2010 (UTC)'

Am I missing something here? Isn't it a little too much to give aproximately double the max hp to characters?

Actually, it isn't. If you read what I've said above, people do need some padding in the earlier levels to survive being randomly killed by greataxe criticals, which is not conducive to long-established characters and becoming attached to said characters, which is what we want to encourage. As a result, no, it isn't 'too much' by any stretch of the imagination. - MisterSinister 18:10, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

First of all - I do agree with your arguments, MisterSinister. 44 HP difference at 5th level is serious, and having static hit point gains are probably useful (personally, we have a house rule to reroll 1's on HitDice). On the other note, however, while character death (especially by a random critical Greataxe) is very serious, a good DM doesn't just LET these things happen. Unless the player deserves it (he's being abusive of rules, etc.), a good DM should not let the dice RULE the story; just guide it. If an orc with a Greataxe critically hits (20+ damage) my party's level 1 sorcerer (5 HP), I'd probably say the Orc accidentally screwed up and dealt nonlethal damage, knocking the sorcerer out. Or maybe I'll just reduce the damage to bring the sorcerer to, say, -4 HP. Plenty of time for healing. There are many options to use.TomRyanKindrick 05:59, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Your critique is flawed on the simple basis that you assume that GM fiat is an acceptable way to write a rule system. The fact is - it's not. If you count on the GM to always fix sloppy design work (which frankly the 3E HP system constitutes), you're a bad person and should feel bad, because the GM has enough work to do as it is. Fixing something system-end is ALWAYS preferable to giving the GM more work, including fixing stuff the designers should have fixed when writing the damn rules in the first place. - MisterSinister 10:37, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

While your definition may vary, I define a good DM as an arbiter of the rules and his group's covenant in the most transparent and consistent way possible who also tells entertaining stories, no more and no less. It is difficult to be transparent and consistent with "the rules say you should be dead, but I don't want you to die so I'm going to change things" since it is an entirely arbitrary decision. It changes the threat of death from "if you choose badly or have a stroke of bad luck you could die" to "if you annoy the DM sufficiently, you could die", and that's not a change I particularly want in my games. Your group may want and enjoy that, and that's fine if that's part of your covenant, but saying "any good DM can just fix it" and implying this is selecting a play style that others may not agree with.

This isn't to say that I particularly like this variant. I actually want disposable characters at the bottom levels of the game most of the time and don't care about large hp differences later on (but I also don't care for point buy or other systems that try to put characters on a more even field within the party, so this isn't all that surprising). But if I had a group that had put effort and backgrounds and personality into their level 1s and I had a character based story arc planned I'd probably use it. The point isn't that I couldn't fix any bad stuff under the normal system, but that different systems lend themselves to different styles of game with less DM fiat. And me and my groups are basically over allowing the DM's mood to be a significant contributing factor to a game. YMMV. - Tarkisflux 18:27, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I misspoke. I wasn't meaning to say that any good DM will not let characters die ever. I was just trying to say that a good DM doesn't just LET things that he is against happen. If a DM is against character death, as I am, then he will use the example I used. If a DM isn't against character death, yet he still doesn't WANT them to die, he can probably pretty easily just not have the Greataxe Orc attack the first level party. My only real point was that I don't think this HP variant will be of use, as most DMs that want more survivability can change things (remember that page 30 of the DM guide [under DM's Best Friend] even says that the DM should use favorable and unfavorable circumstances to change results).TomRyanKindrick 07:19, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Ratings

	Leziad favors this article and rated it 4 of 4!
	Simple and elegant take on hit points.

	Havvy favors this article and rated it 4 of 4!
	Reducing rolling for character creation is always a good thing. This does it for hit points, while at the same time leading to less death. Good for those who want the game to be in favor of PCs not dying so randomly.

Different Starting Bonus HPs

This is a good idea, but I wanted to raise a problem I have seen--the different bonus HPs assigned based on hit die. I'll start by talking about skills: You have done away with that pesky 3+level rank system that skills use which is universally considered pretty obnoxious because a Rogue1/Wiz1 has more skill points than a Wiz1/Rogue1, as well as the fact that the +3 isn't there for any imperative reason.

I would apply a similar logical extension to the bonus HPs allocated here. Barbarians should not get HDmax+9 while Wizards get HDmax+5. Every class should have an even boost, that way a Barbarian1/Fighter1 has the same amount of base HP as a Fighter1/Barbarian1. --128.208.152.191 03:10, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Better Better Hit Points :-P

Kinda tongue-in-cheek title, but I always liked how IH did HP. Basically, take max HP, reduce by 4, and add 1d4. So a barbarian would have 8+1d4, a rogue would have 2+1d4, and a wizard would just have 1d4. (In truth I prefer just taking max, but that's for people who still want some randomness in their HP, and it still always has the fighter with more HP than the rogue and no chance of the barbarian having less HP than the wizard.) --Ghostwheel 08:58, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Single Level Dips

I quite like the sound of this, but that last bit just sounds like it encourages one-level dips to gain mad hit points. Why not replace the hit points based on the initial hit die with hit points equal to the character's Constitution score? That is one thing I thought 4th edition sorta did right. --Sulacu (talk) 22:07, 19 September 2015 (UTC)