In defense of the original HD system

[cooper]

Nov 29, 2011 19:33:49 GMT -6 Stormcrow said:

Why all the love for this newly invented interpretation that has you reroll all your hit dice every time you achieve a new level? That's obviously not what was intended. I don't care if you like the idea and use it, I just don't understand the appeal.

Luckily 0d&d doesn't have "official" league sanctioned rules like ad&d, so it's not terribly important what was or was not intended--though I think it's a perfectly reasonable interpretation of what was written. As to it's appeal, it's quite clear in that rerolling each level achieves hit points on the higher side and players who roll 1 hit point at first level aren't punished unduely as that 1 may be erassed at level 2, so there is less of a fetish and obsession for "rolling well" for hit points as they will tend to average out.

[tombowings]

Also, to follow up Cooper above, , I find it a pain to go from 1+1 to 2 hit dice without just rerolling. I have to subtract 1 from my total and roll an additional die. Personally, it's easy for my to understand just rerolling all of them, it also makes things like level drain much easier.

[Deleted]

For what it's worth, Gary gave you a choice when you leveled up... you could either roll JUST the new die, or you could reroll them all. If you rolled shirtty on earlier levels, rerolling all was a good option.

[tombowings]

Thanks for the clarification.

[Deleted]

Nutsy? ....NUTSY??? (yells) NUTSY??!?!

Never in his entire LIFE has Gronan of Simmerya said "Nutsy!" By Crom's hairy nutsack, heads will ROLL for this!

[geoffrey]

Nov 29, 2011 19:33:49 GMT -6 Stormcrow said:

Why all the love for this newly invented interpretation that has you reroll all your hit dice every time you achieve a new level? That's obviously not what was intended.

Empire of the Petal Throne (written in the summer of 1974 and published by TSR at Gen Con in 1975) has you re-roll all your hit dice every time you gain a level.

[talysman]

Nov 29, 2011 19:33:49 GMT -6 Stormcrow said:

Why all the love for this newly invented interpretation that has you reroll all your hit dice every time you achieve a new level? That's obviously not what was intended. I don't care if you like the idea and use it, I just don't understand the appeal.

If you only roll one die at a time as each level is gained, Fighters are going to have an odd moment when they go from 9th level (HD 9+3) to 10th level (HD 10+1). Minimum hp for 9th level is 12, minimum for 10th level is 11. That implies that hp is not a permanent number.

Rerolling all hit dice every time a new hit die is gained has the benefit of emphasizing the idea of hp as luck instead of a measure of physical punishment a character may sustain. It may not have been the "intended" way, but it's appealing.

I actually prefer rerolling all hit dice at the beginning of every adventure, erasing damage but not wounds. Might cause a few players to cry if their hp goes down, but then it enables faster turnaround for adventures; no waiting for healing of bruises and minor cuts...

[tombowings]

Nov 29, 2011 23:37:36 GMT -6 geoffrey said:

Empire of the Petal Throne (written in the summer of 1974 and published by TSR at Gen Con in 1975) has you re-roll all your hit dice every time you gain a level.

I really need to give Empire of the Petal Throne a good read sometime. so far I've only skimmed bits and pieces of it.

[Stormcrow]

Nov 30, 2011 0:01:10 GMT -6 talysman said:

If you only roll one die at a time as each level is gained, Fighters are going to have an odd moment when they go from 9th level (HD 9+3) to 10th level (HD 10+1). Minimum hp for 9th level is 12, minimum for 10th level is 11. That implies that hp is not a permanent number.

No it doesn't. It just implies that in the extremely rare case that you have all ones on your hit dice, you're going to lose a hit point going to 10th level. Since this isn't a real-world situation, I'm not worried about it.

And again, you don't "roll one die at a time as each level is gained." You roll whatever dice you receive, when you receive them. The old dice still apply. Bonuses come and go.

Gronan says Gary let people reroll their hit dice if they had sucky dice. That was nice of him. That's a far cry from requiring a reroll every time you advance a level.

[Deleted]

Of course, if asked, Gary's answer would actually be, "It's your game, do it whichever way you like." See last page of LBB#3.

[talysman]

Nov 30, 2011 20:29:49 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

Of course, if asked, Gary's answer would actually be, "It's your game, do it whichever way you like." See last page of LBB#3.

Yep. And when people switch to the Greyhawk HD progession, there's really no reason not to switch to incremental addition of hit points, if it seems easier.

I like the older progression because it works great if I change the combat tables to Target 20 (roll d20, add AC + HD, 20+ means a hit.)

[Necropraxis]

Forgive the ignorance, but what is OEPT? Original Empire of the Petal Throne?

I really like the "re-roll all HD each level" rule. I've also heard of some referees that have players re-roll their HP at the beginning of each session, or even each combat (I don't think I would ever go that far). If I were starting up a new game, I would think about letting the player choose which HD method they wanted at each level (but they would need to decide before rolling any dice, of course). For example, they could choose to roll one die and add it to their total (but risk a 1, due to the high variance) or re-roll all and likely get closer to the average.

This is similar to the way I used to do critical hits: when a natural 20 is rolled, the player could choose either roll for damage (and double it) or do full damage (no doubling). It gives players a nice tactical choice: do I want to take a risk and potentially do much more damage, or play it safe and guarantee at least a decent amount of damage? It's like the risk/reward calculation for interest rates. :-)

Unfortunately, none of these methods can decrease the variance of HP at first level. I used to play with max HP at first level, but now that feels less satisfactory to me. That being said, as a player, having 1 HP at first level can really be a downer, especially if "dead at 0" is in effect. Maybe something like three dice averaged? That adds some unpleasant complexity though.

[Mushgnome]

We've been using "re-roll HP each combat" in my Chainmail Carcosa PbP, and it's been working out fine. If you buy into the whole "hit points are abstract" idea, then it makes perfect sense and actually reinforces good storytelling: Today we fight, and I have the high ground (I roll more HP than you), but tomorrow, we fight again, and this time the sun is in my eyes (you roll more HP than me). "We meet again, but this time the advantage is mine... muaha ha ha ha!!!" Furthermore it gives the PCs fluid tactical decisions (we rolled poorly on HP this time, should we consider retreating and trying our luck another day?) and gives different party members a chance to shine (those who roll well are the front-line fighters for that encounter).

[talysman]

I'm going to go with the "option to reroll all hit points at the beginning of each adventure" variant for the game I'm running tomorrow. I also rule that rerolling hit points erases damage (but not specific injuries, like a broken leg.)

This can be important for my current group. At the end of last session, the cleric nearly died from mild centipede poison, but a player completely new to the game said "I give him wine", without even knowing that I like using a house rule that gives a chance of restoring 1 hp if PCs take time for simple comforts. The cleric is now at 1 hp. I'd rather not deal with the side effects of them waiting around in the village for several days to heal, so unless the cleric rolls badly, this will get things moving again.

I'll let everyone know how the players react to this option.

[Stormcrow]

Dec 9, 2011 11:13:43 GMT -6 Necropraxis said:

Unfortunately, none of these methods can decrease the variance of HP at first level. I used to play with max HP at first level, but now that feels less satisfactory to me. That being said, as a player, having 1 HP at first level can really be a downer, especially if "dead at 0" is in effect. Maybe something like three dice averaged? That adds some unpleasant complexity though.

If you're trying to avoid "one hit and you're dead," an average of 3.5 hp points isn't going to do much.

A better solution is to make characters keep whatever they roll, but allow the first hit during an adventure to be free (no hp lost) for everyone. After that, hits count normally.

Personally I think it's much more interesting to let rolled hit points stand. If you've only got 1 or 2 hp, your immediate priority is never to be hit. Stay on the first level of the dungeon, and be paranoid. This is how all 1st level characters should be played, anyway. Any 1st level character can die from one hit.

[tombowings]

For my AD&D game I have a lower threshold for player HP at first level. Thus if a player lows a 2 on his d10 for a fighter character, his HP is bumped up to 5.

I've found this to work pretty well for anyone that feels rerolling for hp to too strange. Personally, that's how I work it for OD&D, but just doesn't seem right for the "advanced" versions of the game.

In OD&D I'd say minimum 4 HP for Fighting-men, 3 HP for clerics, 2 HP for magic-users (and thieves).

[starcraft]

Fantastic discussion all. Hope you don;t mind a noob throwing his 2 cp in..

I use a pretty straight forward 'you get what you roll at first level' rule for my game. That said, I have house ruled a few of the HD progressions:

Fighters get 1HD +1 per level. I reroll every level, and that +1 carries over - in other words, @ 4th level, the fighting man rolled 4d6 and adds 4.

Clerics get 1 HD +1 as well but skip a hit die @ levels 3, 6 and 9. So they end up with 7 HD +7 @ 10th (the top level in my campaign).

Magic Users get 1 HD +1 every odd level - 5HD +5 @ 10th.

Anyone can get +1 to their HD for a Con 15+.

So, at tenth level, the averages are -

F/M -10d6 +10 = 45

Cleric - 7d6 +7 = 31.5

Magic User - 5d6 +5 - 22.5

A few people have questioned the low HPs of the mage in my game, but, as an old Ad&d player, I remember magic users topping out at 11d4 - that's 27.5 - a 5 point difference.

It could be argued that the +10 for f/m is just 3 extra dice, the 7 for the cleric is 2 and the 5 for the magic user is 1 or 2, but I like the idea.

My measuring stick (right or wrong) has always been how it affects combat.

If the three folks above were taking on a good size White Dragon - say 35 hps - the breath weapon is going to kill 2 out of the three of them if they fail their saves. Now the saves for those guys are pretty darn good and various gear/spells will probably mitigate the danger (a bit) but the dragon is still a force to be reckoned with.

My other thought (and the more mathematically gifted among the members here can probably be of help here) is that on the occasion that you DO roll very high for HPs, you never lose them.

That is, if you never LOWER your HPs ( a 3rd level fighter who rolls 3d6+3 and gets 17 hps keeps it if he levels and rolls 4d6+4 and gets 12) you start to skew a bit higher as you increase in levels. Is this true or does it flatten out (in other words, does the high roll ar 4th level simply make for a few levels of no increase until the average of the higher dice at higher levels inevitably leads to more HPs?).

Thoughts?

[Harbinger]

I vaguely remember crunching the math on starting with HD 1+1 and using reroll keep highest when going to HD 2 and higher. I found that it increased HP by about .25 per level vs the expected value of you just rolled at that level (ie 4d6 at 4th level).

[tombowings]

HP values are small enough in OD&D that is doesn't matter too much. In AD&D, when characters are throwing d10s around, that it could be quite significant.

[foxroe]

Dec 9, 2011 11:49:28 GMT -6 Stormcrow said:

Personally I think it's much more interesting to let rolled hit points stand. If you've only got 1 or 2 hp, your immediate priority is never to be hit. Stay on the first level of the dungeon, and be paranoid. This is how all 1st level characters should be played, anyway. Any 1st level character can die from one hit.

+1

[talysman]

Dec 9, 2011 11:49:28 GMT -6 Stormcrow said:

Personally I think it's much more interesting to let rolled hit points stand. If you've only got 1 or 2 hp, your immediate priority is never to be hit. Stay on the first level of the dungeon, and be paranoid. This is how all 1st level characters should be played, anyway. Any 1st level character can die from one hit.

I agree, it makes for more interesting play. Setting the first hit die to max hit points or similar solutions are obviously designed to get players to take more combat risks; in my mind, that's antithetical to clever play.

Of course, it gets more funny when the PCs are very divergent. As I mentioned in my last comment to the thread, I offered the option to reroll hit dice at the beginning of each adventure; rerolling hit dice also erases hp damage (but not specific injuries, if the character has any.) The cleric in our previous session was brought back from the verge of death after a centipede bite and had only 1 hp left, so he took the option to reroll ... and got a 1. He hung back or hid whenever combat looked eminent. The elf and the dwarf just pushed forward, no matter what the risk.

[snorri]

In the last version of SotU, I suggested to reroll hps after a fight. You cannot exceed your previous hp, but if you roll better than you have after being wounded, you may recover up to your hp. Ie, if a 4HD character had 14 hp before the fight, went to 6 hp during, he may reroll 4d6. If he rolls under 6, he recovers nothing. If he rolls between 6 and 13, he goes up that amount. If he roll more than 14, he's back to his full hps.

It solves any discussion about the part of luck and quickness in hps.

[starcraft]

I really like your thinking on this guys.

I was considering something like rolling d6 + your level. This way, you are accounting for higher level characters being more 'heroic', but not necessarily allowing for a situation where a lucky bunch of die rolls allow someone to essentially walk out of every encounter in better shape than when they started all the time.

This seems like a good rule for a Conan-esque style of game play where the heroes are larger than life and shrug off 'injuries'.

It also helps at low levels, I think. You have a bit more latitude as a DM when designing encounters if you know your PCs have a chance of surviving more than 1.

[bycrom]

I like the GH ranges and variable weapon dmg

F = 1d6+1 per Level
C/T = 1d6 "" (same for Monsters)
M-U = 1d6 -1

reroll each level, keep new roll if higher, HD Max out at lvl 10 for characters (not monsters), if Con>14 add +1 per die (-1 if Con<7)

[waysoftheearth]

Jan 8, 2012 12:36:50 GMT -6 bycrom said:

I like the GH ranges and variable weapon dmg

F = 1d6+1 per Level
C/T = 1d6 "" (same for Monsters)
M-U = 1d6 -1

reroll each level, keep new roll if higher, HD Max out at lvl 10 for characters (not monsters), if Con>14 add +1 per die (-1 if Con<7)

By "GH" do you mean "Greyhawk"?

From what I recall, Greyhawk has fighters d8, cleric/thieves d6, and magic-users d4 per level, topping out at levels 8, 9, 10 or 11. Monsters have d8 per HD.

[bycrom]

yes that is correct ways, b/x is set that way too (except thieves is d4)....i should have said i prefer th GH averages as the modifed d6 rolls i put up equate to those die types but i like the hp total roll per level aspect each level to help avoid extremes in variance thanx (note i should bump the monsters to d6+1 but the variable weapon damage i like is d6 based from S&W WB ...meh)

[tombowings]

Greyhawk also lists thieves at a d4. Blackmore Assassins are a d6 HD, however.

[waysoftheearth]

Dec 9, 2011 11:49:28 GMT -6 Stormcrow said:

If you're trying to avoid "one hit and you're dead," an average of 3.5 hp points isn't going to do much.

My solution is to give all 1st level PCs a once off adjustment of +0 to +6 hit points, as determined by constitution score. This replaces any constitution adjustment they might otherwise received per hit die, and only fighting-Men can get the +5 or +6.

Does the trick.

[tombowings]

Jan 8, 2012 23:58:14 GMT -6 waysoftheearth said:

My solution is to give all 1st level PCs a once off adjustment of +0 to +6 hit points, as determined by constitution score. This replaces any constitution adjustment they might otherwise received per hit die, and only fighting-Men can get the +5 or +6.

Does the trick.

I actually think it is one of your best idea, Ways of the Earth. It works out very well in practice.

[bycrom]

oh ya, with re-roll of hp you can give out max hp t first level withut munchkinnng it up as t will average out anyway...you couls d this with any of the btb edition hit die schemes i guess