In LFG PCs start with max hp, and all classes get higher average HP. Fighter gets d5+5, rogue gets d4+4, magic user gets d3+3, and so on. It is a low magic game however, and limited short rests only restore half damage suffered. Long rests are 1d6 days and generally don't happen during an adventure unless it is particularly long.

I give starting character a number of hit points equal to the Con with the added caveat that they don't increased their hit points until their rolled hit points exceed their Con. [In other words, their hit points equals their rolled hit points or their Con, whichever is highest]

This makes low level characters less squishy without giving them piles of extra hit points at high levels.

One thing I've tried in the past and worked rather decently was bashing together the damage system from DnD and Traveller. Normally, when you get hit you lose Hit Points. If you're out of HP or you've suffered a critical hit, then rather the losing the damage rolled from HP, it's directly subtracted from one of you three physical ability scores (STR, DEX or CON), chosen by a random roll.

It adds a buffer, but you really shouldn't try to deliberately rely on it, since a middling ability can be brought down to 0 with as few as two consecutive hits if you're unlucky. On the other hand, with luck you could just as well be able to take half a dozen extra hits, but with a deadly downwards spiral as the decrease of your abilities starts affecting your attack roll and AC bonuses.

I start first level characters off with maximum hit points, but death still comes at zero.  We used to do unconcious at zero and dead at -10, with bleeding at -1 hp per round..

Using AD&D1e I used to say, "before you were a 1st level adventurer, you were a Common Man, so you get +1d6 hit points."

Now I don't bother. As the great Ivan Drago said, "if he dies, he dies."

By the book: 0HP is unconscious, -10HP is dead, and anyone reduced below 0HP and brought back by magic etc needs a week off to stagger around uselessly and recover. My house rules,

• -Con is death, eg Con 5 is dead at -5, Con 18 is dead at -18, etc.
• if reduced below 0HP by sharp weapons, fire, etc, lose 1HP per round until either stablised (takes 1 round to do and no skill) or dead.
  
• if reduced below 0HP by blunt weapons, you just stay where you are.
• if brought back above 0HP, you can do no more than move slowly to a place of rest for a week. If you cast a spell or do anything requiring a roll, you make a System Shock roll or... die on the spot. Burst your sutures or something.

This does a few fun things.

• Tougher characters have longer till death
• We now have a reason for clerics to use blunt weapons; good clerics want to keep you alive to have a fair trial and hang you, or give you a chance to convert, and evil clerics want you alive to enslave or sacrifice later. And anyone can choose to just beat someone up and leave them there, rather than killing them.
• players can choose not to have a week off and to keep stomping around the dungeon, but at a great risk.

With these rules, in practice what we've found is that loss of hit points rarely kills low-level player-characters, so long as the PCs win the fight overall - they treat their wounded and drag them off for healing. If 2-3 PCs go down and the other 2-3 flee, well that's different, the wounded are left to bleed out and die (interestingly, this was pretty common on actual battlefields, and a guy seeing both sides withdrawing and leaving their wounded to die at the Battle of Solferino was what ultimately led to the creation of the Red Cross). Mostly they just get killed by "save or die" stuff.

I mentioned it being AD&D1e because character creation in that is usually quick. If you take 10' to make a character then you don't mind if they die in an hour. If it takes 1-2 x 3hr sessions to do so, well then that character better last months. This to me is not an argument to make it harder to kill PCs, it's an argument to make it easier to roll up new PCs. The key is "roll up" - dice are quick, decisions are slow.

If he dies, he dies.

Quote from: The Exploited.;1045384What you had for the Space Opera sounds fine to me. As you'd want the characters to be pretty robust heroes. Not much of a hero if he gets lumped by paraplegic Jawa at first level 'cause the poor bloke has 2 hps.

The White Star intro adventure in the core book is really tough, an asteroid base full of cannibal reavers & robotic defence systems, and I didn't see much reason to want to certain-TPK a bunch of brand new players. Giving them 9 hp worked really well, with a bit of luck and 3 sessions (6 hours play) they ended up walking out at the end over huge piles of corpses.

Quote from: S'mon;10453184e D&D is the only version that gave PCs a bunch of hp at 1st level. 5e lets PCs level up from 1st very fast, and makes death harder. In other D&D-based games, PCs are extremely squishy at 1st level and it seems common to give them a boost.

Of my own games currently running, in 5e I don't alter hit points at 1st level, while in my White Star game I want a space opera feel so I increase them significantly by giving PCs 9 hp on their first (d6) hit die, death at -10, and can have 4 hp per subsequent hit die. Looking at my copy of Swords & Wizardry yesterday with an eye to running it soon, I was thinking of running it with max+2 hp at 1st, so Fighters 8+2=10 hp, Clerics 6+2 = 8 hp, M-Us and Thieves at 4+2=6 hp. That seems like enough to make them somewhat robust without greatly altering the feel of play.

Do you ever do this sort of thing, and if so how?

I'm sure other games have used a similar system, but in the D&Dish game I made I split up HP into Wound Points and Vitality Points. The total is what a class would get in a typical non-4E D&D game. For example, fighter's get 6 WP and 4 VP at 1st-level, and something like 4 WP and 2 VP every level thereafter (the rounded up average for rolling their Hit Die, though there are rules for rolling WP and VP if you want to keep things random). Your Constitution modifier gets added to WP every level.

VP is recovered after a short rest (30 minutes is the norm, though GMs can tweak this easily). I could also see GMs tweaking this amount, or increasing the time it takes to regain VP: 30 minutes for the first time, then an hour, then 4 hours, etc.

WP is recovered after a long rest, but only in small increments: level + Constitution modifier. You get -1 per level if resting in a dungeon or wilderness area, +1 per level if resting in a nice, cozy inn. Could see GMs reducing the amount or even just say you get it all back after a good night's sleep.

In actual play VP and its fast recovery makes PCs a bit more durable, reduces the reliance on magical healing, and makes the distinction between "meat" points and fatigue/minor scratches and the like clearer (which I used for other things such as alchemical potions and whether a giant spider actually sinks its teeth into you, forcing a save to avoid being poisoned).

HPs are a false hope in most of my games. I've run entire campaigns were PCs got max at every level and STILL regularly splattered PCs.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1045472HPs are a false hope in most of my games. I've run entire campaigns were PCs got max at every level and STILL regularly splattered PCs.

Accidentally? Sheer luck? Stupid players? Something else?

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1045454U
By the book: 0HP is unconscious, -10HP is dead, and anyone reduced below 0HP and brought back by magic etc needs a week off to stagger around uselessly and recover. My house rules,

• -Con is death, eg Con 5 is dead at -5, Con 18 is dead at -18, etc.
• if reduced below 0HP by sharp weapons, fire, etc, lose 1HP per round until either stablised (takes 1 round to do and no skill) or dead.
  
• if reduced below 0HP by blunt weapons, you just stay where you are.
• if brought back above 0HP, you can do no more than move slowly to a place of rest for a week. If you cast a spell or do anything requiring a roll, you make a System Shock roll or... die on the spot. Burst your sutures or something.

This does a few fun things.

• Tougher characters have longer till death
• We now have a reason for clerics to use blunt weapons; good clerics want to keep you alive to have a fair trial and hang you, or give you a chance to convert, and evil clerics want you alive to enslave or sacrifice later. And anyone can choose to just beat someone up and leave them there, rather than killing them.
• players can choose not to have a week off and to keep stomping around the dungeon, but at a great risk.

With these rules, in practice what we've found is that loss of hit points rarely kills low-level player-characters, so long as the PCs win the fight overall - they treat their wounded and drag them off for healing. If 2-3 PCs go down and the other 2-3 flee, well that's different, the wounded are left to bleed out and die (interestingly, this was pretty common on actual battlefields, and a guy seeing both sides withdrawing and leaving their wounded to die at the Battle of Solferino was what ultimately led to the creation of the Red Cross). Mostly they just get killed by "save or die" stuff.

Excellent House Rules. I like your thinking.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1045454I mentioned it being AD&D1e because character creation in that is usually quick. If you take 10' to make a character then you don't mind if they die in an hour. If it takes 1-2 x 3hr sessions to do so, well then that character better last months. This to me is not an argument to make it harder to kill PCs, it's an argument to make it easier to roll up new PCs. The key is "roll up" - dice are quick, decisions are slow.

Indeed. I sometimes ask myself what people mean when they say "I wanna play in a gritty world where life is cheap where only the tough lucky survive" but then don't expect their character to be in mortal danger. It might be somebody else's idea of fun, but not mine.

I mean, how can you play in a Cyberpunk dystopian world in which, well, you don't really have to watch your back becasues well, the GM and I have this arrangement that PC death is to be agreed upon.

I have heard the idea that the PCs can lose something other than their lives...but really. That's fucking Thundercats.

Quote from: Mike the Mage;1045515That's fucking Thundercats.

Oh no you didnt!
Thunder, thunder, thunder... Thundercats.... hooo!

Quote from: Psikerlord;1045546Oh no you didnt!
Thunder, thunder, thunder... Thundercats.... hooo!

It's getting a new version next year in 2019 CalArts style and people hate it already.

[video=youtube;2qi41rHz4ps]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qi41rHz4ps[/youtube]

That's a singularly ugly style of animation.

Quote from: Mike the Mage;1045551It's getting a new version next year in 2019 CalArts style and people hate it already.

[video=youtube;2qi41rHz4ps]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qi41rHz4ps[/youtube]

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Quote from: Kiero;1045555That's a singularly ugly style of animation.

it's also incredibly lazy as it's the same 'style' used by Steven Universe et al.

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