Quote from: RPGPundit;1048601Generally speaking, what amount of hit points would be your ideal at different levels of play in D&D?

Do you like the classic B/X or 1e distributions, which cap at 9th level and then get fixed bonuses?

Do you prefer the 1dx per level, without limit?

Or do you want something more gritty with lower hit points?

Grittier, less hit points, preferably not-inflattable beyond twice the starting level.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1048601Generally speaking, what amount of hit points would be your ideal at different levels of play in D&D?

Do you like the classic B/X or 1e distributions, which cap at 9th level and then get fixed bonuses?

Do you prefer the 1dx per level, without limit?

Or do you want something more gritty with lower hit points?

Grittier, less hit points, preferably not-inflattable beyond twice the starting level.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1048601Generally speaking, what amount of hit points would be your ideal at different levels of play in D&D?

Or do you want something more gritty with lower hit points?

Grittier, less hit points, preferably not-inflattable beyond twice the starting amount.

What I did in Lion & Dragon is my ideal for low-fantasy gritty play.

For high fantasy I'm fine with 1dx per level.

I don't like having max-dice at level 1 or other such 'survivability buffs'.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1049109What I did in Lion & Dragon is my ideal for low-fantasy gritty play.

For high fantasy I'm fine with 1dx per level.

I don't like having max-dice at level 1 or other such 'survivability buffs'.

I'd note that even in L&D, nothing prevents me from being well in the double-digit HPs by 4th level;).

Depends on how available healing is. If easily/constantly available, probably up to about 50-60 hp. If not easily available, or slower natural healing, I'd think up to about 100 is ok (for high level fighters/barb). For a dnd style game.

More and more however I think I prefer systems with low hit numbers  and persistent injuries of some description, such as shadowrun 2e (low hit numbers), or I imagine WFRP 4e (when is that bloody pdf coming out, anyway??)

Quote from: AsenRG;1049123I'd note that even in L&D, nothing prevents me from being well in the double-digit HPs by 4th level;).

I must be interpreting the rules wrong or have a different idea of well into double digits then. Based on my understanding a fighter rolling the max of 10 at 1st level, +2 per level (or +6 hp  @ 4th) and with the max Con of 18 (bonus of +3) that would only be 28 hit points. With a Con of 10-17 Max hit points would be 20-24hp.

Max HP for a 10th level fighter would be 60, with 30-40 being much more likely. 40 would be my threshold for well into double digits.

Personally I prefer D&D style HP to cap at 9 or 10hd. But 5es current system more or less works as the damage outputs are a bit higher in 5e so it balances out somewhat.

I like low-ish HP, and a much narrower band between starting and top. Something like 6 - 12-ish HP to start, something around 30-ish HP max. I'm OK with fairly rapid HP recovery if the HP are kept low. Like, for something Cinematic, you recover 2/3rds of lost HP 15 minutes after an encounter (or if you take an extra turn to rest, if you're using old school D&D 10 minute turn structure). That keeps characters from being insanely HP sponge in a given conflict, but able to get involved in a lot of action per day. On the other end, listing 6 as the low end shows I'm not a fan of Level 1 "You rolled a 1 for HP! Good Luck!"

What I like depends on the game system as a whole.

D&D's hit points work nice in the context of D&D.

Traveller's 3 physical stats hit points work well in Traveller.

RuneQuest's modest and essentially static hit points work well in RuneQuest (though I have played with various changes such as using SIZ or averaging SIZ and CON, and even adding +6 or so)

Burning Wheel uses wound levels and different thresholds of damage to hit those wound levels and works well in Burning Wheel.

Cold Iron uses (approx) CON/2 * Fighter Skill for hit points with no level cap, plus easy ways to add magic hit points. It works well in Cold Iron.

In general, either I don't like the combat system at all (can't think of any systems I've actually discarded because I hated the combat system), or I find the hit points work well given the whole of the system.

Frank

Quote from: NeonAce;1049259That keeps characters from being insanely HP sponge in a given conflict, but able to get involved in a lot of action per day. On the other end, listing 6 as the low end shows I'm not a fan of Level 1 "You rolled a 1 for HP! Good Luck!"

Massive hp sponge PCs can work well in high fantasy, one man against an army, type settings. I've been fine with it in 5e D&D especially.

I don't find extremely low hp totals to work well, eg front line combatants starting with 3 hp and auto-death at 0 hp when enemies do d6, d8 etc. They seem notably *more* lethal than in real life and not conducive to playing characters who would voluntarily go adventuring - I think voluntary adventurers need to be slightly above average. Starting with around 6-10 seems to work best. My current rule for OD&D (running Swords & Wizardry) is 'max +2' at 1st level (Thief & MU 6, Cleric 8, Fighter 10), or similarly for White Star (sf game based off White Box OD&D) I give 9 hp on the first d6 hit die, so PCs mostly start with 9 or 10 hp.  

Compelled PCs defending their home or surviving the zombie apocalypse would be different; extreme vulnerability would be excellent for survival horror. Makes me think I might run Survive This: Zombies! with everyone getting 3 1st level PCs, and see who makes it through the first session a la DCC Character Funnel.

Quote from: Toadmaster;1049198I must be interpreting the rules wrong or have a different idea of well into double digits then. Based on my understanding a fighter rolling the max of 10 at 1st level, +2 per level (or +6 hp  @ 4th) and with the max Con of 18 (bonus of +3) that would only be 28 hit points. With a Con of 10-17 Max hit points would be 20-24hp.

Max HP for a 10th level fighter would be 60, with 30-40 being much more likely. 40 would be my threshold for well into double digits.

Yup, different thresholds it is:). In my book, double digits is at 10, obviously, so well into the double digits is at 20+, of course!
And you can have that by 3rd level in L&D, even without any really outstanding rolls;).

Quote from: S'mon;1049275Massive hp sponge PCs can work well in high fantasy, one man against an army, type settings. I've been fine with it in 5e D&D especially.

I don't find extremely low hp totals to work well, eg front line combatants starting with 3 hp and auto-death at 0 hp when enemies do d6, d8 etc. They seem notably *more* lethal than in real life and not conducive to playing characters who would voluntarily go adventuring - I think voluntary adventurers need to be slightly above average.

IMO, it's enough if they're just crazier than average, especially since they don't know their own HP:D!

Quote from: AsenRG;1049278IMO, it's enough if they're just crazier than average, especially since they don't know their own HP:D!

That ignorance doesn't seem very realistic to me, at 1st level especially where hp are largely physical resilience. I mean when I was in the army reserve I could tell pretty well who was bigger and tougher than me (most of them! Except the girls of course). Obviously a bullet can kill anyone, but you can look at people and judge pretty well how likely they could be laid out by a punch or blunt weapon strike.

Also the player knows PC hp, so making the PC ignorant of the in-world equivalent creates an immersion-harming gap for me.

Quote from: AsenRG;1049278Yup, different thresholds it is:). In my book, double digits is at 10, obviously, so well into the double digits is at 20+, of course!
And you can have that by 3rd level in L&D, even without any really outstanding rolls;).

Fair enough, personally I'd call 1/3 to 1/2 well into but that's ok.


I don't think I'd enjoy a D&D based game running much less than what L&D does without some serious modifications to the rules, rapid recovery of partial HP after battle (D&D HP are after all supposed to represent endurance as well as actual injury), increasing AC with level to reduce hits, armor reducing damage etc. Lacking that it seems like after the first fight it would tend to turn into the hide and dress your wounds game or an almost comic game of Run away, run away.  

Relatively low hit points work for me in a game like Runequest because the game has other mechanisms to make the hit points last. I have always liked HERO's division of body and stun to represent actual physical injury (body) from short term damage (stun).

The system I'm working on currently uses 20+5/level (so 25 at 1st level, 95 at 15th level which is the level cap) for most classes with tank-like classes getting 24+6/level. Non-heroic types (up through typical soldiers) have scores in the 4-12 range. Also for comparison, a typical PC attack at 1st level does about 10 damage on average and an attack at 15th level does about 36. A non-heroic monster (ex. a goblin or wolf) probably does about 5-6 points while 'heroic' monsters (ex. intelligent undead, giants, veteran troops) do damage on par with PC's of similar levels.

All but the last point or two are non-physical (i.e. stamina, skill, luck... basically you're spending points to avoid taking a real hit) and your Con score affects how quickly you regain points (both naturally and magically) instead of how many you actually have.