liato
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hps
Jan 10, 2005 12:44:08 GMT -5
Post by liato on Jan 10, 2005 12:44:08 GMT -5
I'd like to see some house rule on hps.
Right now I've had the following hp rolls. 1,1,2,2,7. I'm averaging 2.5 hp per level which is the equivalent of a mage and, in fact, I have about the same number of hp as Winthrop. Without my con bonus I'd be at 23 hp.
At 7th level Raven has 40 hp, right? That means around 5 hp per level which is also lless than average of 5.5. If Raven were a frontline fighter he would be in real trouble (and you don't know which you are going to be when you make a character).
As I pointed out at the end of last session, it's a real issue for fighter and cleric classes since they don't get more hp they just get more potential hp. Meanwhile, the classes are balanced based on the idea of greater hps.
It's such an important part of the characters that if you roll poorly a character you have invested a lot of time in can become unplayable.
Here are a couple rules ideas.
1) players can simply choose average hp instead of rolling 2) players can roll but are always guarenteed at least half of their HD in HP (like during initial character generation). 3) players roll 2 dice for HP and take the average each level. 4) players can roll 2 dice and pick the best one 5) players can get one re-roll but they have to live with it for better or worse.
My pick would be number 2. Like I said, there's a precident for it during character generation. It also makes rolling hp only a good experience (like with cure light wounds). You can only really improve by rolling, not get screwed. If you roll totally bad you'll still end up nearly average. That's fair since HP are integral to a class definition.
I'd obviously like to make it retroactive, but if not, I think it's still a good idea.
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hps
Jan 10, 2005 13:00:31 GMT -5
Post by Ginger on Jan 10, 2005 13:00:31 GMT -5
That's way too generous. PCs are powerful enough as it is. For every time you go down because of your low HP, think of how many times Frank has saved us because of his ridiculously high HP. He rolled (not counting the free 10 at the start) 10, 9, 4, 3. His average is over 7.
Any of these modifications would have to also apply to NPCs or monsters. Do you want to fight a 10 HD creature that got to reroll a bunch of its hit dice?
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hps
Jan 10, 2005 13:56:10 GMT -5
Post by Dell on Jan 10, 2005 13:56:10 GMT -5
My policy is, if you don't have a lot of hit points, don't go somewhere that you're going to get hurt.
It's no different than when you're 1st level - don't bite off more than you can chew. Besides, the HP is just one advantage of those classes. They also have the best THAC0s and least armor restrictions. So not only do they take more hits, they're generally the least likely to be hit.
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liato
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hps
Jan 10, 2005 15:20:55 GMT -5
Post by liato on Jan 10, 2005 15:20:55 GMT -5
What are you talking about with PCs being more powerful than monsters? PCs are exactly as powerful as NPCs. They are built with almost exactly the same rules. We almost got taken out by a bunch of level 3 mercenaries. Look at how fast those bow specialized level 3 guys dropped us and there were only 6 of them.
None of these modifications would have to apply to monsters. We already don't have the same rules. Monsters don't get the level 1 HP adjustment like PCs, for instance. Rules about combat need to be appplied to all characters but rules about character generation don't and aren't. Heck, even rules about combat don't we just choose to because it's not a super hero campaign.
As for chosing your role based on hp, what role is a fighter with low hp supposed to take? If Frank had gotten unlucky and gotten the exact opposite die rolls (an equally likely proposition) he'd be completely useless right now. Imagine instead of those rolls he got the reverse 1,2,6,7. He'd have 26 HP right now at level 5. That means he would frequently not survive two rounds of combat. And imagine if he'd have gotten those rolls in that order. A 3rd level fighter with 13 hp. Apply your "don't bite off more than you can chew" policy to that. What exactly would his role in the party be?
All these systems do is keep people from getting so unlucky that they can't really play their character as it was designed. HPs are even more important than stats and we have special rules governing them.
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hps
Jan 10, 2005 16:06:55 GMT -5
Post by Dell on Jan 10, 2005 16:06:55 GMT -5
Look at how fast those bow specialized level 3 guys dropped us and there were only 6 of them. Only six of them? We have one bow specialist in our party, and he's a killing machine. The same as it is now - hitting people with his sword, really hard, until they die. Remember that fighters have the best armor classes available to them without magical assistance. They have all the weapons available to them. They have the option to specialize in a weapon. So they're harder to hit, and they hit other people more often. So you just have to not plan to absorb lots of damage. The idea is to not get hurt at all. You can invest in a custom made set of full plate, which absorbs damage. Hell, you can get level drained and roll again. Hire a henchman to fight alongside you. Get a mage to cast spells on you to make you harder to hit. Just because you're a fighter doesn't mean you have to be able to catch a fireball in the face.
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hps
Jan 10, 2005 16:08:05 GMT -5
Post by Dell on Jan 10, 2005 16:08:05 GMT -5
All these systems do is keep people from getting so unlucky that they can't really play their character as it was designed. Damn these dice games and their randomness!
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liato
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hps
Jan 10, 2005 16:46:07 GMT -5
Post by liato on Jan 10, 2005 16:46:07 GMT -5
Randomness is okay as long as there is a long run. With HP there is no long run so you can get really skewed numbers. If you get really unlucky on very few rolls then you're pretty screwed.
Well ACs don't go up but to-hit rolls do. That means at high levels the only defense a fighter has is his hp.
Having a 0 AC is really nasty vs. 1st level and 2nd level enemies. But once people start having thacos of 15 (around level 5) then you get hit fairly often.
A level 4 fighter with double weapon specialization and no str bonus gets +3/+3. Using a longsword that means a Thaco of 14 and average damage of 8.5. If you have only 26hp as a fighter then you could go down in as few as 3 average hits. Any two magic spells will almost certainly kill you.
A fighter's hp is one of his major advantages and as it stands, depending on dice rolls it might not even be an advantage.
Getting level drained and then rolling again? Aside from all the obvious things wrong with that, the way the system works you have just as likely a chance to come out screwed as you do to come out favorably. It's certainly not a solution.
Fighters can't avoid getting hit. Their job is to get hit. How exactly is a guy whose only job is to hit things with a sword supposed to not get hit? It sounds like your suggestion is to hide behind the mage.
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hps
Jan 10, 2005 17:12:52 GMT -5
Post by Dell on Jan 10, 2005 17:12:52 GMT -5
As is fairly evident, magical armor and shields are not that hard to come by. If we weren't screwing Frank over on the magic items, he could have an AC of -2 or -4 by now, depending on how many bonuses the armors and shields have had.
Hell, Rook had an AC of -7 after we raided the Sauhaugin lair that first time? What are the odds of any class that can't use platemail and shield getting a -7 armor class?
You would need Bracers of defense AC 2, A ring of protection +6, and a Dex of 17. And I don't think those things are quite as common as magical plate and shield. So yeah, having low hitpoints is bad, but you can't be good at everything, can you?
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hps
Jan 10, 2005 17:23:30 GMT -5
Post by Ginger on Jan 10, 2005 17:23:30 GMT -5
This seems to be a misunderstanding of the use of the rules changes. We don't change the rules to make our characters more tough. We do it to a) make PCs slightly tougher than NPCs b) eliminate the frustration of having to reroll a character who died on his first adventure. If we didn't do the switch, people would just roll up new characters if they got screwed. As it is, with the ability score modifications and hit point modifications, even a mediocre set of rolls yields a perfectly acceptable character.
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hps
Jan 10, 2005 17:30:42 GMT -5
Post by Ginger on Jan 10, 2005 17:30:42 GMT -5
I'd like to see some house rule on hps. Right now I've had the following hp rolls. 1,1,2,2,7. I'm averaging 2.5 hp per level which is the equivalent of a mage and, in fact, I have about the same number of hp as Winthrop. Without my con bonus I'd be at 23 hp. That doesn't add up. 8+1+1+2+2+7=21. Is that HP minus your con bonus, or did you misremember your rolls? For comparison, I had 21 HP as a 4th level fighter.
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liato
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hps
Jan 10, 2005 17:56:10 GMT -5
Post by liato on Jan 10, 2005 17:56:10 GMT -5
We don't change the rules to make PCs tougher than NPCs we change them because 1st edition is really old and has a lot of broken rules or rules that don't make much sense.
One of the things that is broken is how HP work. In 1st edition you only get to roll hp about 9 times and that would be in an extremely long campaign. More realisitically it's around 5 or 6 times. The law of averages doesn't cover that (3rd edition characters can easily get 3 times the number of rolls which is why rolling isn't as important).
The hp house rule we use for first level is because we understand that the system is so broken that if you had to roll for 1st level most characters would be completely screwed from right off the bat.
Well over the long run a series of bad HP rolls screws your character just as bad as it does at first level because you are fighting higher level creatures who do more damage. And it's entirely MORE frustrating to have to start a 6th level character over rather than a 1st level character.
A mediocre set of hp rolls doesn't yield a playable fighter.
Rook had an AC of -7 over 30 hp and got EATEN by the sharks if you remember correctly. The worst chance anyone has of hitting someone is 5% and monsters frequently get 3 attacks per round. If they do hit it often does bonus damage. And don't forget about touch attacks. They ignore armor. And most importantly spells.
The way we roll HP is broken and we should have a rule to fix that. I don't understand why you guys are so against this.
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liato
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hps
Jan 10, 2005 17:57:46 GMT -5
Post by liato on Jan 10, 2005 17:57:46 GMT -5
One of those 2s should be a 4 my rolls were 1,1,2,4,7.
So you had 21 hp at 4th level.
Imagine if you had rolled less than average 3 more times?
You could have under 30 hp right now. Do you really think you'd be a viable fighter with that few hp?
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hps
Jan 10, 2005 19:59:46 GMT -5
Post by Dead Greyhawk on Jan 10, 2005 19:59:46 GMT -5
Sorry guys, going to nip this one in the bud.
First off, the reason I do starting hp the way I do is to make it very unlikely your character will ever be less than average, not because first edition hps are broken. In terms of all of the PCs, Rook has had an overall average of 6.6 hp/level (vs 4.5), Winthrop 5 hp/level (vs 4.5), Ross 6.7 hp/level (vs 5), Raven 5.7 hp/level (vs 5.5), Dell 4 hp/level (vs 3), and Liato 5.5 hp/level (vs 4.5). Some of these are less accruate because your CON became 15 at some point and my treatment of split level multiclass characters. The point of all of this number crunching is that every character has more than average hit points at this point.
Secondly I don't generally make rule changes to make the PCs more powerful, I make them to rectify an unfair situation. This is not one of them. My NPCs suffer with their dice rolls the same way the PCs do.
If we were to increase PC hit points the same would have to be done to NPCs. Then the PCs would say the NPCs are too tough, and the PCs need to do more damage, or have more damage augmenting weaponry. Its an ugly cycle.
Thirdly, I would point out that a corollary of a change to increase minimum hit points would be that maximum hit points would have to be reduced, to maintain statistical parity, leading to all average PCs.
With respect to AC, the example that Keith is using is when Rook, a cleric with exactly 30 hp, tanked three 3 HD creatures with 5 attacks a round for at least five rounds. Considering he was attacked by creatures more powerful than he was in THAC0 terms and survived on the order of 75+ attacks by them is a perfect example of the power of low AC, not the weakness of it.
In any case, I'm not adjusting the rolls for hit points.
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liato
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hps
Jan 11, 2005 10:16:29 GMT -5
Post by liato on Jan 11, 2005 10:16:29 GMT -5
Without his con bonus liato has 23 hp which is 3.8/level which is less than average. Starting max hp protects against exactly 1 roll of 1 if you want to maintain average hp.
As I pointed out, AC is powerful at low levels but becomes significantly less powerful at high levels. A 7th level fighter double specialized with a 17 str gets +4/+5 and has a base thac0 of 14. That means he hits AC0 half the time without a magic weapon. That's AC0. You have to have some sort of magical protection to get that low. If you are sitting out there with a respectable AC4 you are paste.
But the real issue is going to be spells. Spells eat low hp characters. Now I'm the only person with low hp so I understand that no one cares, but it's not a coincidence that I get knocked out in the first round of combat everytime. Given my hp and the fact that I don't really have any useful blast spells, my combat role is going to be to hide behind winthrop.
I don't see any reason there can't be different character generation rules for PCs and villans, particularly in regard to HP. Characters are persistent. They are involved in a string of fights and not just one fight. Plus the actual players dedicate a lot of time to developing one and when it dies that sucks. If an NPC dies because it has less than average HP, BFD. But if a player has to hide under a rock every time they get attacked then it's not much fun for the player.
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hps
Jan 11, 2005 11:11:24 GMT -5
Post by Dell on Jan 11, 2005 11:11:24 GMT -5
But the real issue is going to be spells. Spells eat low hp characters. Now I'm the only person with low hp so I understand that no one cares, but it's not a coincidence that I get knocked out in the first round of combat everytime. Dell only has 4 more hit points than the 1st level ranger. He is a combination of the two weakest classes and has no Con bonus. He manages. Also, he runs away a lot, although he would probably call it "fighting tactically." As for spell damage - the three most commonly used damage spells are what? Magic Missile, Fireball, and Lighting bolt. Liato as a 6th level Druid has access to spells that allow him to absorb 72 points of damage from fire, and the same for electricity. Liato could survive being dead center of a Meteor Storm that did average damage (100 points!) and that's if he failed all four saving throws. Besides, isn't that why you're getting these animal friends, so you don't have to fight in front and expose yourself to danger?
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liato
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hps
Jan 11, 2005 12:02:52 GMT -5
Post by liato on Jan 11, 2005 12:02:52 GMT -5
Minus his con bonus liato has only 7 more hp than the 1st level ranger and, unlike dell, Liato is one of the stronger HD classes. Everyone's math keeps penalizing Liato for taking a strong con bonus. "If you get +2 to all your rolls you end up average. See, there's no problem." It would be like if I said that Dell really has 14 hp more than the ranger because he should have taken a 16 in his con.
If Dana's goal of giving max hp at first level was to give characters average hp then it is a bad system for that. Any of the 5 systems I suggested would be a better system for giving pcs average hps.
It's not like I'm suggesting that pcs should be uber powerful. All I'm suggesting is that PCs should be protected from having low hp and a way to do that is to make them more likely to have at least average. Since that's Dana's goal I'm surprised there's so much resistance.
The system I like (and the one we use at 1st level if you roll your con) where you are guarenteed at least getting half your HD in hp each level moves the average d8 hp per level from 4.5 to 5.25 It's not even one hp more per level on average. What it does do is remove the possibility of getting very few hp which, as I have been arguing is really bad for a PC.
Here are the new average hp under that system: d12 = 7.75 (+1.25) d10 = 6.5 (+1) d8 = 5.25 (+.75) d6 = 4 (+.5) d4 = 2.75 (+.25)
For a fighter we're talking about an average adjustment of maybe 6-7 hp more. I'm okay with that even if it IS applied to NPCs. I would gladly give +6 hp to Raven in trade for all the NPC fighters we fight +1 hp/level. But, as I mentioned I think it's okay for PCs to be slightly better than average anyway (we roll 4d6 for stats), and this, as you can see, is very slight.
If we want to keep average hp even closer to the same, we could roll (d8 - 1) before applying the half rule. That would give you a 4.75 average HP per level.
(d10 - 1) = 6 hp/level (d6 - 1) = 3.5 hp/level
Under the dX - 1 system Liato would get + 7HP Raven would get around + 4 or 5 (I don't know his exact rolls but he'd have had at least +4 just from his first 3 levels)
I don't think anyone else rolled below average hp.
Protection from fire and lightning are broken spells. it's not the meteor storm that's the issue (Although that is nasty), it's the fact that I can sleep in the middle of a bonfire, stick my hand into a forge, walk through lava, etc... forever provided I don't get hit with magical fire.
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hps
Jan 11, 2005 13:17:50 GMT -5
Post by Dell on Jan 11, 2005 13:17:50 GMT -5
You go to war with the hit points you've got rather than the hit points you'd like to have.
As things stand right now, this isn't a matter of taking weak characters and making them playable, it's about taking already strong characters and making them stronger.
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liato
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hps
Jan 11, 2005 13:46:32 GMT -5
Post by liato on Jan 11, 2005 13:46:32 GMT -5
We change the rules all the time. We just increased how powerful bow specialization is, for instance. I know we all agreed that the weakness of bow specialization was a real problem.
I don't think your characterization of weak and strong is very accurate either.
What makes Raven strong? He has almost no bonuses to any stats. His HP are barely average. Basically he's average. So that makes him exactly the same as pretty much any 7th level fighter around. Except for the fact that most fighters tend to have slightly above average stats in at least one area. So for a PC he's definitely worse than average.
For pretty much every non-fighter class the only stat that matters is HP. Except for me, we are all slightly above average in hp. Nearly all characters in 1E are exactly the same.
So unless we are talking about giving bonuses to str, dex, or con for fighters, we aren't talking about making characters strong.
We're so strong that if dana hadn't missed around 8 touch attack rolls in a row we'd likely all be dead right now. (the spectre and then the cleric)
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hps
Jan 11, 2005 14:55:48 GMT -5
Post by Dell on Jan 11, 2005 14:55:48 GMT -5
And having an extra 6 hit points would have done absolutely nothing to prevent either of those situations, so what are we discussing here, exactly? Hit points don't help you make saving throws.
Yes, if you have a shload of hit points you can wade into a fight without thinking about it and still end up okay. With fewer hps, you have to be more tactical in your thinking - which is why Dell is so cautious invisible all the time.
You want to know what third level spell Dell is going to memorize? Invisibility, 10' radius. We can be invisible together!
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liato
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hps
Jan 11, 2005 16:17:12 GMT -5
Post by liato on Jan 11, 2005 16:17:12 GMT -5
HP are the ultimate saving throw.
Having even 1 extra hitpoint would have kept me concious on 3 occasions in the temple alone. In fact, if I had 1 extra hp we would have killed the mage because I would have survived the cone of frost spell.
But you're right, I'm only talking about at most 5 or 6 hp per player during a campaign. That's why I'm kind of surprised to hear about how this would make all the characters super powerful and is completely unbalanced.
Look at the chart. It hardly changes average hp at all. The only thing it does is keep people from getting really few hp.
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hps
Jan 11, 2005 16:44:37 GMT -5
Post by Dell on Jan 11, 2005 16:44:37 GMT -5
In fact, if I had 1 extra hp we would have killed the mage because I would have survived the cone of frost spell. Unfortunately incorrect. If we had been using these alternate hp rules, the mage would have had around 6 more hit points than he actually did, so you wouldn't have been able to kill him in that one round. It's obvious that having more hit points is better. I just don't think we need a mechanism to enforce that. And I certainly don't think that making every enemy in the game tougher is a good idea.
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liato
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hps
Jan 11, 2005 17:44:25 GMT -5
Post by liato on Jan 11, 2005 17:44:25 GMT -5
First, If I was alive for one more round I was going to summon the snake and have it attack the mage. That would have killed him.
Second, your numbers are wrong. Mages get, on average .25 hp more per level under that system. Since level 1 doesn't count. That means at level 10 the mage would have had, on average, 2.25 more hp than he had, not 6.
Now if we let people use the (dX - 1) system mages are actually worse off and wouldn't choose it (their average hp would go down to 2.25). But mage hp aren't broken for a couple reasons. First, low hp is part of the game balance decision for making them so powerful. Second, mage's have the least random hp.
Third, it doesn't make every enemy tougher. Since there are lots of enemies they get lots of rolls and are more likely to approach average. We would have fewer extremely weak enemies, but we wouldn't have any more more powerful enemies than we already have. So the number of level 3 fighters with 30 hp wouldn't change, just the number of level 3 fighters with 12 hp. The average is slightly higher so that means the level 3 fighters would have about 2 extra hp than they have now or 1 extra hp if we use the x-1 system.
Fourth, as I've said before, there's nothing that says NPCs have to have the same character generation rules as PCs. PCs are more important than NPCs. No one wants them to be superheroes, and they don't even have to be above average. All I'm saying is that PCs shouldn't be BELOW average.
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hps
Jan 11, 2005 23:12:58 GMT -5
Post by Dell on Jan 11, 2005 23:12:58 GMT -5
First, If I was alive for one more round I was going to summon the snake and have it attack the mage. That would have killed him. Not if he teleported away or something else like that. Wrong. We were told that that mage had 21 hit points. Using your rolling method, the ABSOLUTE MINIMUM he could have would be 22. And the average would be in the 26-28 range. The average person is level 0 with 1-4 hit points.
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