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)