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It's always bugged me how you ROLL for hp, it makes an already low health'ed wizard/sorceror/bard/so on into a potentially unhealthier sort, what do you do if you keep rolling up ones? I've played DnD with rolled up stats (4d6, drop the lowest) and back then it didn't bug me that you assigned scores appropriately (for some classes there was more than one dump stat), not even health, but this was back with a nutcase DM who always gave us encounters leagues ahead of our ECL/CR and then let them die when he felt we'd been beaten around enough to make fights feel difficult.

I still don't mind rolling for stats (though I'll stick to point buy from now on) but health is another issue, putting aside potentially unhealthy wizards, you could have potentially unhealthy barbarians.

I've decided to incorporate full HP at all levels to pc's IN ADDITION to full HP to foes. Am I making a mistake?

If you do it for the bad guys too then you make damage dealing spells almost useless and warriors less effective because doing damage is what they do. It's ok for the PCs since they're on camera all the time, and it helps to lessen death's door events if that is happening too often leading to unfunness. I suggest only let the BBEG and his main lieutenant have full hit points. All other bad guys have their normal hit points.

Thanks for the advice all, will stick to average health instead of maxing HP (I actually hadn't considered damage). In the case of the BBEG and co. will consider full HP (if it's the BBEG, I'm sure pc's will want to dish out all their best resources), and if the player's are having a hard time will allow them to max their HP as well (but only if they TRULY feel they're struggling, I'm giving them this benefit to avoid them being unhealthy, NOT as a means to buff them up and make combat into pc's outlasting npc's).

Will certainly make the players feel more at ease.

Aug 5, 2011 -- 2:15PM, jostein wrote:

 A method we often use is that you ignore 1s on d4 & d6 HD, ignore 1-2 on d8 and ingore 1-3 on d10 & d12. It is also used on monster HP

I'll note that this method is nearly the equivalent of just doing d3+1, d5+1, d6+2, d7+3, and d9+3 (I realize that d7/d9 are completely non-standard and d5 is half a d10.) except you should actually get better results.  It may also help the "problem" of a low hitpoint roll but it still leaves the hassle of rolling and also inflates hitpoint totals.  Using those figures you're averages are going to match up to the fixed values I mentioned earlier which happen to be a bit better than average.

After a small bit of optimizing for this specific purpose, I've come up with the following:
An average 20th level Barbarian will have about 136 base hit points solely from the d12.  If going with full HP, this rises to 240 (12*20 after all).

A Dragonborn Mongrelfolk can start off with 24 Con, or a +7 bonus right off the bat (18+6).  Through leveling and magic items, this can be increased to 40 at the very least. (+5 levels, +5 Manual of Bodily Health, +6 Amulet of Health)  This is a higher Constitution than The Terrasque's 35.  Top with Mighty Reckless Rage for a +10 Con while raging and sprinkle Improved Toughness on for +1 HP per level.

40 Con is a +15 modifier, so +300 hit points for 20 levels.  Add another 20 for Improved Toughness (+320).  Thanks to Mighty Reckless Rage giving a +10 Con, add another +5 mod for 100 more HP (+420).

When not raging, a Constitution-built Barbarian like this has a base of 456 HP. This rises to 556 while raging, and the rage lasts 23 rounds.  If one were to go with the full HP option, then this increases to 660 HP while raging.  This can be improved by 20 again by choosing the Bear Totem ACF from Complete Champion, and another 20 for having the trait Slow.  Say hello to 700 HP while raging.

I imagine there are plenty of other ways to increase this HP, so feel free to chime in.  Things I can think of are a permanent Enlarge Person and any of the other Toughness feats, especially Dragon's Toughness.

If this Dragonborn were to choose the Heart Aspect, his 100 foot long line breath would do 7d8 damage and require a DC 35 Reflex save to halve damage, or DC 40 while raging.

Such a character would have a base Fort save of +27, or +32 while raging.  If he took the Steadfast Dtermination feat, a roll of 1 would no longer be an automatic failure. Also with Steadfast Determination, his base Will save would be +21.  Not only would this increase to +26 while raging thanks to the Con change, Mighty Rage adds a +4 morale bonus to that to make it effectively +30.  If this character were to gain Mettle, he could effectively say "Screw you!" to most Fort and Will saves.

Edit: To add in some cheese, take a level in Fist of the Forest.  +Con mod to AC anyone?