Hit Dice are re-rolled each level

[tom]

This is why I think that this is the case:

In Men & Magic it says:

"Dice for Accumulative Hits (Hit Dice): This indicates the number of dice which are rolled in order to determine how many hit points a character can take. Pluses are merely the number of pips to add to the total of all dice rolled not to each die. Thus a Superhero gets 8 dice + 2; they are rolled and score 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6/totals 26 + 2 = 28, 28 being the number of points of damage the character could sustain before death. Whether sustaining accumulative hits will otherwise affect a character is left to the discretion of the referee."

But why would a Superhero i.e. 8th Level Fighter be rolling 8 Hit Dice? Would they not already have rolled 7: one at each level as they have progressed? Additionally, 8 dice + 2 pips means all the previous extra pips (1 at 1st level, 1 at 5th level and 1 at 7th level) are being omitted in the example, which will likely result in an unbalanced determination.

It first I thought you could rectify this by having a character roll their hit points before each adventure. But this is contradicted by what it says in Underworld & Wilderness Adventures:

"common wounds can be healed with the passage of time (or the use of magics already explained). On the first day of complete rest no hit points will be regained, but every other day thereafter one hit point will be regained until the character is completely healed. This can take a long time."

So if hit points are re-generated between adventures then the only reasonable conclusion I can come to is that Hit Dice are rolled each time a character gains a level in their specified class.

Anybody else ever drawn this same conclusion?

[Finarvyn]

I've played it that way for decades. My main rationale is that if you don't re-roll every level I can't figure out how to roll HP at all. (And I honestly can't recall how we did it any other way.) For example, if you go from 2+1 hit dice to 3 hit dice what do you roll. A 3rd die, but -1 to offset the earlier +1? The more I thought about it, the more I came to the conclusion that a total re-roll is the only way that makes sense.

Now, when you go to the Greyhawk model (or the AD&D model) where you just add a new die each level I could make the argument either way -- total re-roll or just add a die -- and you'd probably get the same basic result.

[hamurai]

That's how I've played it, too. As Finarvyn says, when you go from 2D+1 to 3D, the +1 would suddenly be "missing". That was my biggest argument when I talked about it with my group.

In addition, I use the rule that you always gain at least 1 HP when you re-roll. That way, you can't suddenly have a worse score than before. Re-rolling the HD each level with this rule will eventually even out HP among characters.

[waysoftheearth]

I've also played around with re-rolling HD/hp at the beginning of each adventure.

This prevents extreme rolls from "sticking" and, in general, means most players will tend toward average hp most of the time, but you occasionally get an outlier. Low hp rolls can really hobble the players, especially in a small party. It matters less in a large party, cos it's unlikely that all fighters will get low hp rolls.

I soon found that some players want to "spend another week in town" for the whole party to get a hp re-roll, until everyone is feeling "buff" enough for adventure. I don't have a problem with this, but it is a bit meta. This could be avoided by not rolling hp until you need to know (i.e., upon first combat, or similar). Overall, it's a bit fiddly, but fun to try

[Finarvyn]

Feb 18, 2024 15:53:27 GMT -6 hamurai said:

I use the rule that you always gain at least 1 HP when you re-roll. That way, you can't suddenly have a worse score than before. Re-rolling the HD each level with this rule will eventually even out HP among characters.

We don't assume that you have to gain anything, but we do have a rule that you can never lose HP due to a bad roll. If you have one amazing outlier roll it might take a couple levels before you get any more HP, but at least you don't go down.

[geoffrey]

Feb 18, 2024 18:59:39 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

We don't assume that you have to gain anything, but we do have a rule that you can never lose HP due to a bad roll. If you have one amazing outlier roll it might take a couple levels before you get any more HP, but at least you don't go down.

That's exactly how we do it.

We also give maximum h.p. at first level. Combining that with the above avoids distorting h.p. at 2nd and higher levels. Only the 1st-level characters have distorted h.p. (which is 100% OK since they need all the help they can get). I like how re-rolling at each level skews h.p. totals towards the average.

Oh, and I should mention that it's not literally re-rolling at each level gained. Instead, it is re-rolling at each hit die gained. Once a character stops gaining HD, he stops re-rolling his h.p.

[Punkrabbitt]

I always thought the chart was cumulative: 1 die rolled at 1st level, another 2 dice rolled 2nd level and added to the first level total, and so on.

Just kidding, of course, but wouldn't that make for some heroic characters and survivable magic-users?

[linebeck]

Feb 18, 2024 11:36:30 GMT -6 tom said:

It first I thought you could rectify this by having a character roll their hit points before each adventure. But this is contradicted by what it says in Underworld & Wilderness Adventures:

"common wounds can be healed with the passage of time (or the use of magics already explained). On the first day of complete rest no hit points will be regained, but every other day thereafter one hit point will be regained until the character is completely healed. This can take a long time."

So if hit points are re-generated between adventures then the only reasonable conclusion I can come to is that Hit Dice are rolled each time a character gains a level in their specified class.

Anybody else ever drawn this same conclusion?

The two passages can be reconciled if you assume that hit points are rerolled at the beginning of each adventure and the regaining of hit points per every other day of rest rule only applies to regaining hit points during an adventure. 

The rule would thus discourage the adventurers from holing up somewhere in the dungeon to regain hit points during play. 

If you read the rules that way it means that there is less record keeping between adventures as your hit points at the end of the adventure do not matter as long as you survive and you get to reroll hit points at the beginning of the next adventure.  

[waysoftheearth]

It is also interesting that "common" wounds can be healed by resting.

Presumably this means the uncommon types of injury cannot be healed by rest alone. So what is included in uncommon wounds? Longer-term conditions like (off the top of my head) lycanthropy, mummy rot, energy drain, being polymorphed or turned to stone, insanity, Shadows added strength drain in GH.... these are likely not considered common wounds, so couldn't be healed by resting.

However, another intriguing possibility is whether regular hit points of damage caused by fantastic sorts are considered "common wounds"... e.g., Frodo's wound from the Nazgul blade comes to mind.

[Starbeard]

I really like rerolling each level, I've done it for over a decade now. That being said, the example of the superhero is easy enough to explain as either not bothering with the further explanation that all dice weren't rolled at the same time, or that the superhero was created new at 8th level.

Now, the Guidon draft also adds some illumination to this. In the section on upper levels, Gary says that every 4 pips should translate into a full HD (so after 8+3, you go to 9HD instead of 8+4). Further, in the notes for Health scores, he makes a special remark that newly rolled HD have minimums and maximum scores based on bonuses to the die. From this one could reason that any pips carry over into the next HD: so say if you went from 4+1 to 5, then you would roll your new die and assume a minimum score of 2.

[Porphyre]

It also makes easier to manage Level loss in case of Life Drain by undead.

[rayotus]

I generally allow players to roll all their HD each level. If the result is lower than the previous HP, you stick with the old total +1. That allows bad rolls to stick for a while, but not forever. For instance, a wizard with 1 hp at level 1 -- if she survives -- will eventually roll their way out of that 1. Regular exercise and all. Ha.

[Starbeard]

Mar 1, 2024 8:42:25 GMT -6 rayotus said:

I generally allow players to roll all their HD each level. If the result is lower than the previous HP, you stick with the old total +1. That allows bad rolls to stick for a while, but not forever. For instance, a wizard with 1 hp at level 1 -- if she survives -- will eventually roll their way out of that 1. Regular exercise and all. Ha.

This is my method. Reroll, take the new total or old total +1, whichever is higher. As a pure house rule, I also allow maxed out demihumans to reroll HD every time they ping their last level, so there is still some fun in continuing to hand them XP.

Level drain just reduces a roll of one level, prorated as sees fit at the time depending on what HD method is in use. Although I can see the merits of simpy rerolling HD at the new level, it's extremely volatile and there is still the factor of whether the character has already sustained hits and how to handle that, so I'm not sure I'd adopt it without some extra thought..

[Malchor]

Mar 1, 2024 8:42:25 GMT -6 rayotus said:

I generally allow players to roll all their HD each level. If the result is lower than the previous HP, you stick with the old total +1. That allows bad rolls to stick for a while, but not forever. For instance, a wizard with 1 hp at level 1 -- if she survives -- will eventually roll their way out of that 1. Regular exercise and all. Ha.

Until recently, I had players roll when they got one more HD, if the last level had a +1, then you dropped that first.

Then I used the above plus a reroll on ones. In this and the earlier version, I had players keep a record of every HD rolled in case of level drain.

Currently, I use the method rayotus described.

[Stormcrow]

Feb 18, 2024 11:36:30 GMT -6 tom said:

But why would a Superhero i.e. 8th Level Fighter be rolling 8 Hit Dice?

Because player characters that start at 1st level aren't the only characters running around out there. Superheroes can be encountered on any dungeon level between 2 and 12, they can be found in castles fairly often, and they can be found in the wilderness occasionally. And when that happens, you roll 8+2 hit dice for their hit points.

Additionally, 8 dice + 2 pips means all the previous extra pips (1 at 1st level, 1 at 5th level and 1 at 7th level) are being omitted in the example,

That's not how it works. As a player-charcter fighting-man, at Veteran level you have 1+1 hit dice, so you roll a die, get 4, add 1 for a total of 5. When you become a Warrior you have two hit dice, and you've already rolled one of them, and you lose the +1, so you have the previous 4, now you roll 3, so you have 7. When you rise in level, you don't add a hit die to your current hit point total; you take your previously rolled hit dice, and you add them to any new hit dice, then include whatever the bonus is.

So for instance, if you're a Champion with 7+1 hit dice, that means you've rolled seven separate dice, each with its own value. When you become a Superhero, you're owed 8+2 hit dice, so you take your seven previously rolled dice, roll one more so that you have eight rolled dice, then add 2. When you become a Lord, you're owed 9+3 hit dice, you already have 8 of those dice, so you roll another one and add 3.

Neither of these points demonstrate rerolling hit points at each level advancement. I know a lot of you like to do it, but this isn't evidence that it's anywhere in the text of the rules.

[tdenmark]

You don't reroll every level, that's just...silly.

Level 1: 1 hd = roll 1d
Level 2: 2+1 hd = roll another die add 1
Level 3: 3 hd = roll another die

Cumulative results could look like this:

Level 1: roll a 3, have 3hp.
Level 2: roll a 4, add 1, have 8hp (4+1+3 hit points)
Level 3: roll a 2, have 10 hp

It's not any more complicated than that.

[Zenopus]

FWIW, in 2012 Gronan said:

Gary used to give us the option of rolling an additional die, or rerolling all your hit dice. However, if you rerolled them all, you took the new number, period.

You could also reroll at the beginning of an adventure, rerolling them all.

c. 1972

Not sure how Dave did it.

From this thread:
odd74.proboards.com/thread/7313/origins-hit-point-roll-level

[geoffrey]

I have long re-rolled hit points with each HD gained. In my campaign you will certainly NOT lose h.p. by gaining a HD, but you might not gain any h.p. either. Your h.p. might just stay the same.

[skydyr]

Running with the ambiguity in the rules as written, I've experimented with changing the rules based on race.

Humans reroll all dice every level and take the higher of the two. Elves reroll each day or adventure, depending in part on which class they are going as (which I have based on the phase of the moon, as determined by looking at the calendar or out the window before we start play). Dwarves roll each die once in their life, rerolling all ones and twos. Halflings roll the current die on level up, and have the option of rerolling only the previous level's die as well. Goblins (a F-M/T hybrid) roll a fixed die (the new one) on gaining a level as a fighting-man only, but can reroll their current total when they gain a level as a thief.

[jamesmishler]

James at Grognardia posted about this the other day, and here's what I was able to dig up by asking Ernie and Luke Gygax...

"I went to as close as possible to the original source as can be found today, and messaged Ernie and Luke Gygax about how this worked when they played with their father as DM back in the day.

From Luke: "I never heard of re-rolling all the dice at each level. It was to roll the new die gained and add it to the running total."

From Ernie: "All I can do is say what we did back in the day and that was we rolled and kept track of our levels and as we added a new level it was either plus a die or plus a die plus one; of course, as a magic user I didn't get to see that sort of thing so much..."

The way it worked then is that when the new level was reached, you simply roll the die and, if any, apply the modifier to the die.

Thus, when you became a Swashbuckler, you rolled d6+1 and added that to your hit points.

When you became a Myrmidon, you simply rolled a d6 and added that to your hit points.

When you became a Champion, you rolled d6+1 and added that to your hit points.

That was the process to "accumulate hit points."

Luke also mentioned, "I like the idea of rerolling and keeping the highest number between current and higher level as you go up."

So, the method of re-rolling all hit dice every level was not Gary's original intent. Of course, many have interpreted it all in their own ways over the years, obviously from the very start with the evidence from EPT.

I'd say whatever the original intent, whatever works well for your group works well for your group..."

[jamesmishler]

Taking the info I got from Ernie and Luke and combining it with Mike Mornard's recollections from 2012, it sounds like Gary tried experimenting with different methods from time to time...

As any good game master is wont to do.

[Malchor]

Mar 26, 2024 19:02:44 GMT -6 Zenopus said:

FWIW, in 2012 Gronan said:

Gary used to give us the option of rolling an additional die, or rerolling all your hit dice. However, if you rerolled them all, you took the new number, period.

You could also reroll at the beginning of an adventure, rerolling them all.

c. 1972

Not sure how Dave did it.

From this thread:
odd74.proboards.com/thread/7313/origins-hit-point-roll-level

Note, that had to be c. 1973. Also, everyone is often off by +/- 1-2 years.

[sennahoi]

I have been rolling each combat, which has had... interesting (mostly lethal) effects. The lethality of any given combat is somewhat balanced out by the lack of sustained hit-point loss.