Multi-Class Hit Points

[James Maliszewski]

I'm sure this has come up before somewhere on these boards, but, if so, I can't find the thread: how do you handle hit points when dealing with Supplement I-style multi-class characters, like a dwarf fighting man/thief or an elven fighting man/magic-user/thief. I know that, in AD&D, the basic idea was that, upon gaining a new level in one class, you rolled the appropriate type of Hit Die, added your Constitution modifier, if any, and divided the result by the number of classes the character had (2 or 3).

However, that's not spelled out anywhere in OD&D that I can find and, more to the point, it's always struck me as a very "messy" way to handle this. So, I'm curious to hear if anyone uses an approach other than the one used in AD&D.

[coffee]

Based on what Gary said on a forum somewhere, that's the way he intended it.

It was never codified in the actual rules, though, so whatever an individual referee came up with would be the official ruling in his game. This could easily get out of control, especially if the referee just gave the hit points of each level of each class.

More and more I'm becoming fond of the race-as-class idea of subsequent D&D sets (Holmes, Moldvay, etc.).

[waysoftheearth]

This can be made easier by insisting that a multi-classed character simply has "a level" rather than "a level in each class", but to achieve this you wind up defining a "new class" for each allowable multi-class combination. Some will relish this opportunity. Others will loathe this unnecessary overhead.

However (from memory, admittedly) supplement I, and also AD&D as far as I recall, specifies that multi-classes characters should divide their XP evenly between their classes even when they can no longer advance in one (or more) of their classes. This means a character can have a different levels in each class, such as 3/2. With this method, all hit-dice are rolled, divided by the number of classes, and then the constitution bonus to hit points (if any) is added once per level. I can't recall whether this is for every level in every class, or just for the PC's overall highest level. Probably the former, I'm guessing, to give multi-classed PCs better odds of survival.

Another option I've seen (as in Makofan's online OD&D on these boards, for example) is to roll hit-points for each class separately, and then choose the higher result. This is nice and simple. I have an inkling that multi-classed PCs may fall behind their puritan fellows in terms of hit-points, but I haven't seen it matter yet, and perhaps it never will.

In 3E PCs could "add" a level of a desired class at each new level, since all classes required the same XP for each level. I like this approach because it offers players the flexibility to dream up combinations without the need to predefine a plethora of new classes. A possible downside is that players are rewarded for designing "builds" which take advantage of statistical break-points in class advancement... which may or may not matter to you. Hit point calculation is dead simple, however, being the sum of all the various HD earned at each level.

And I'm sure there are other methods out there too ;D

[cooper]

The elf/dwarf decides before the adventure which class will be assigned xp for the adventure.

lets say he has an elf mu-3 fighting-man-0.

What he's done in the above is spent almost all of his time putting xp into his mu class. The player decides he wants a level of fighting man and now assigns the xp for the next couple of adventures to that end. When he gets enough xp to advance, he is now a mu3/fm1 and rolls hit points for the fighting man and adds that to his total.

lets walk it out:
mu 1: d6 hit points
mu 2: +1 hit points
mu 3: d6 hit points
fm 1: d6+1 hit points

had he opted instead to put his xp into getting his mu to 4th level he would have recieved only a +1 hit point pip upon achieving 4th level instead of the d6+1 from the fighting man's 1st level.

If you're using variable hit dice it would look like this:
1: d4
2: d4
3: d4
1: d8

0d&d (4d6+1)+(3d6+3) (4th level fm/6th level mu)=46 hit points
greyhawk supp variable hd (4d8)+(6d4) =56 hp max
b/x/becmi 9d6+2 hit points = 56 hp
*ad&d 6th level f/11th level mu in Ad&d =(6d10+6d4)/2+5d4=68 hp

six of one, half a dozen of the other.

In all cases, the max leveled elf ends up with about 70% the hit points of a similar xp'ed fighter.

600,000 xp fighter
0d&d 60 hp
greyhawk 78 hp
becmi/bx 78 hit points
ad&d 99 hit points

* common misunderstanding of ad&d multi-class rules is that while xp is continued to be divided even after one class stops advancing, hit points for the class that continues does not get divided. A great discussion of this can be found at dragonfoot. This assertion is most easily proved with the description of the half-orc cleric/assassin class. The gist of it is gary's text for this multi-class states that this combination should more rugged overall that a single class half-orc assassin, if the hit points are divided by two even after the cleric maxes out at level 5 this could not be the case. Therefore the cleric/assassins hit points are 5d8+5d6/2+10d6.

[Falconer]

If you use the OEPT method of rolling all dice when you level, then any time the character gains a level in either class he can roll all the hit dice for it. It means early on that the MU levels you probably won’t exceed your Fighter HP, but eventually after the Fighter cap when you are pretty high-up as MU you will start to increase in HP again.

[James Maliszewski]

Aug 25, 2010 14:39:20 GMT -6 Falconer said:

If you use the OEPT method of rolling all dice when you level, then any time the character gains a level in either class he can roll all the hit dice for it. It means early on that the MU levels you probably won’t exceed your Fighter HP, but eventually after the Fighter cap when you are pretty high-up as MU you will start to increase in HP again.

Now there's an idea ...

[philotomy]

Aug 25, 2010 14:39:20 GMT -6 Falconer said:

If you use the OEPT method of rolling all dice when you level, then any time the character gains a level in either class he can roll all the hit dice for it.

This is how I do multi-class hit points in OD&D.

[cooper]

Considering that chainmail already had allowances for, "combination heroes". It it is odd that many people chose to read 0d&d elves as either fighting-men or magic-users and not both simultaneously.

[philotomy]

Sept 15, 2010 23:34:37 GMT -6 cooper said:

Considering that chainmail already had allowances for, "combination heroes". It it is odd that many people chose to read 0d&d elves as either fighting-men or magic-users and not both simultaneously.

I doubt it's a case of saying "this interpretation is the 'right way' or the 'intended way' to do elves" (or missing the intention or the way the game developed). Instead, it's a case of "Huh, you could read that this way, instead, and that's actually kind of a cool/interesting approach, no matter what was intended or how the game developed. I like it." Given that, I don't think it's odd.