Origins of hit point re-roll at every new level?

[llenlleawg]

A recent blog post (faustusnotes.wordpress.com/2012/05/29/a-strange-hit-point-rule-at-grognardia/), making reference to an older post James made over at Grognardia back in 2008 (grognardia.blogspot.jp/2008/12/dwimmermount-campaign-house-rules.html) speaks about the practice of re-rolling hit points at each new level and taking the higher of the older score or the new roll. This blogger regards this as a "strange hit point rule". Indeed, he opines the following: I’m no OSR expert but giving players a chance to reroll all their hit points every level seems fundamentally at odds with the basic principles of old school play, and thus this house-rule is out of step with its intentions.

On the other hand, while I never used the re-roll method myself, and indeed had not heard of it until years after I began playing (in 1977), I later discovered that this rule exists in the first edition of Chivalry & Sorcery (for fatigue, which is more or less hit points). I also believe Philotomy makes use of the same rule, or at least mentions its use in his campaign.

Without wanting to get into the question of the merits of the method, I wondered whether anyone here could shed light on the origins of this practice in the early years of D&D as well as how widespread it was (whether in D&D or, as I noted above, in games it spawned, like C&S). Any thoughts?

[bigjackbrass]

From section 710 of Empire of the Petal Throne:

"As each player enters the game, he or she shakes one 6-sided die to determine his or her available hit dice points. As each succeeding level of experience is reached, the indicated number of 6-sided dice are shaken to determine his new total... No character may ever have LESS hit points at a higher level than he did at a lower one. Thus, if a warrior shook two 5's and had 10 hit points at level II, and then on reaching level III shook three dice but only got a total of 7, he adds 3 points to maintain his previous 10. He must thus always equal his previous total, although he may not be lucky enough to surpass it."

EPT dates from 1975 in published form. I've not yet seen the pre-publication version which is out as a PDF, so I can't confirm that it has the same rule. It's worth remembering that EPT wasn't a distant product from a minor company, it was published by TSR with direct input from Gary Gygax (how much is arguable, but Professor Barker wrote in Space Gamer issue 71, "I sent Mr. Gygax a set of my rules and maps, and he responded enthusiastically. He advised me to make certain changes to make EPT more compatible with his major product, Dungeons & Dragons, and this was done.") and Dave Arneson was gaming with Professor Barker from at least 1974.

[llenlleawg]

Interesting. That confirms my sense that this practice is nearly coæval to the game itself. (I thought I'd throw a nice Gygaxian word in there, viz. coæval!) Its presence in EPT puts it early than C&S (which came out in 1977, although perhaps it was already there in Chevalier of 1976. In any event, we've gone back with certainty to 1975.

Other thoughts?

[geoffrey]

The rules for rolling hit points in the 1974 D&D boxed set are unclear. One could roll hit points in any of the following ways (and perhaps yet other ways I haven't thought of) and still be going "by-the-book":

1. Do it Moldvay/Cook B/X-style
2. Do it EPT-style
3. Re-roll your character's hit points at the beginning of each game session.
4. Do it Carcosa-style. (Re-roll your hit points at the beginning of each combat.)

[llenlleawg]

Indeed, although I am actually curious about the pedigree of the method. To the best of my knowledge, your #3 and #4 are of far more recent vintage, however much they can be reconciled with the texts of the LBB. There is also no doubt that the standard reading, your #1, is also "original" (in the sense of what seems to have been Gygax's norm at least early on). We seem to have established that at least as early as EPT, some people had already been reading D&D to call for and/or allow re-rolling at each new level (your #2), which same process, as I noted, was carried over into C&S, inter alia.

I guess I was searching less for what to do than an answer to a ludic/archeological puzzle, namely, when this reading of the LBBs arose, and how widespread it was.

All the same, your range of options are certainly interesting! (As a sidenote, and not wanting to be guilty of threadjacking my own thread, I wonder how #4 works for those already wounded. That is, if I am down 15 hit points from combat, and I re-roll before a new combat, and the result is less than 15, what happens?)

[geoffrey]

To quote from CARCOSA:

At the beginning of each combat, each player/character rolls on the above table. He then rolls the indicated type of dice for his hit points. For example, Yogthag the Binder (who has 5+1 hit dice) is attacked. He rolls a “7” on the table, indicating that he rolls five 10-sided dice for his HD for that combat. He rolls them with the following results:
0 (read as “10”)
8
5
3
3
He leaves the dice lying on the table as rolled.

A character with a constitution of 15 or higher gets +1 per die, and a character with a constitution of 6 or lower has a -1 penalty per die (with a minimum score of 1 on any die). When such a character rolls his hit dice, he must manually adjust each of his hit dice. Suppose Yogthag the Binder has a constitution of 15. The player of Yogthag would manually adjust the HD to read as follows:
11
9
6
4
4

(To indicate that a 10-sided die reads “11”, simply leave it reading “0” and place a 4-sided die on top of it. This method will work for all types of HD save for 4-sided dice. To indicate that a 4-sided die reads “5”, simply leave it reading “4” and place a 6-sided die underneath it.)

As damage is done, dice are taken away or reduced in value, always starting with the highest die. Suppose that in the course of combat with a group of Deep Ones, Yogthag the Binder took a total of 24 points of damage. The referee would have literally taken away Yogthag’s hit dice that read:
11
9
The referee would also have turned the highest of Yogthag’s three remaining HD from “6” to “2”, thus leaving him with three hit dice that read:
2
4
4

[If, before any healing occurs, Yogthag gets into another fight, he would look down at the table and see that he had 3 hit dice remaining. He'd re-roll those three hit dice for the new fight.]

[Deleted]

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.

[owlorbs]

Having never played EPT or C&S I always wondered where this re-rolling idea came from. It's a good thing my players didn't know about it way back when.

[vargr1105]

Jun 5, 2012 7:14:26 GMT -6 geoffrey said:

3. Re-roll your character's hit points at the beginning of each game session.

How would you make this fit with character that have been wounded and are bellow max HP?

Jun 5, 2012 10:22:20 GMT -6 owlorbs said:

Having never played EPT or C&S I always wondered where this re-rolling idea came from. It's a good thing my players didn't know about it way back when.

How so?

[llenlleawg]

Jun 5, 2012 9:05:15 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya 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.

That actually clarifies a lot! Some who oppose the re-roll method do so on the mathematical/statistical grounds that keeping the higher of the two scores will tend, over levels, to make the lower end of hit points if not technically impossible, nonetheless so wildly improbable as to be non-existent. The average will tend to skew upward by a few points (not great amounts), but there will be a whole lot more just above the mean. In Gary's version, re-roll and take whatever you get, the standard bell-curve would be preserved.

[talysman]

Jun 5, 2012 9:05:15 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya 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.

That's not the way I did it back in the day, but it's the way I did it for the last group I was playing with... with the addition that re-rolling hp at the beginning of an adventure erases all damage points, but not injuries (crippled leg needs days, weeks or months to heal.)

Thus, there's an incentive to go for the reroll, even with the risk of getting lower hp. Keeps the character's behavior more interesting, too. Our cleric wound up hanging towards the back of the party when he took the reroll and got a 1.

I didn't know specifically that Gary ran with those rules, but I took it as more or less implied in the hit dice progressions. A 9th level Lord gets 9+3 hit dice (minimum hp = 12.) A 10th level Lord gets 10+1 hit dice (minimum hp = 11.) This seems to imply at least the chance of a reroll, to me.

[Stormcrow]

Jun 5, 2012 9:05:15 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

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

Did this encourage players to keep rerolling each adventure until they had a really good roll, and then stop? Was this expected and encouraged? Would this be considered a problem? Did players often avail themselves of the opportunity? Did anyone ever throw a hissy-fit after rolling a lower total?

[owlorbs]

Jun 5, 2012 10:29:35 GMT -6 vargr1105 said:

Jun 5, 2012 10:22:20 GMT -6 owlorbs said:

Having never played EPT or C&S I always wondered where this re-rolling idea came from. It's a good thing my players didn't know about it way back when.

How so?

As to rerolling and keeping the score if it was higher (as opposed to rolling and keeping whatever you get) my old players were real hit point scavengers. I just meant I would have feared mutiny if they had caught wind of this practice. It was my practice to give only a single die roll.


EDIT: Fixed quote

[philotomy]

I think I picked it up from EPT. The "doesn't go lower on a re-roll" thing was deliberate; I don't mind giving PCs a hit point edge, over time. (And, of course, re-rolls when losing a level can only go down.)

I don't apply the "doesn't go lower on a re-roll" to NPCs. (That is, when I stat an NPC I don't roll his 1st level hit dice, then his 2nd, then his 3rd, et cetera -- I just roll his total hit dice, once.)

[Finarvyn]

I had never heard of this method until a couple of years ago, but now I'm sold on it. It's my go-to way to do hit points, even for characters starting at high levels. (I just tell them to roll for 1st level, then re-roll for 2nd level, and so on.)

[Falconer]

It first came up here.