Community

I'm looking around this forum and I see many salient and relevant critiques of the latest release of the playtest, but I haven't seen a single comment about the hit point shift. Am I the only one who doesn't like that hit points are mostly dependant on class and have little to do with a character's actual constitution? Am I the only one who noticed that the damage output has shifted up in the August playtest packet?

For example, the Rogue Class starts with a bonus 2d6 damage from Sneak Attack at level 1 compared with the former 1d6 at level 1. Another example: the Fighter Class starts with the ability to add 1d6 to every successful attack at level 1.

A Wizard with 13 Constitution starts with 5 hit points while a fighter with the same starts with 11 hit points. Is the point that Wizards are supposed to be half as difficult to tire/harm/etc. as Fighters and basic Constitution scores don't really matter?

This also propogates a game-play that requires a minimum of level disparity because a challenge to a level 10 character is likely going to steamroll a level 3 or possibly even level 7 character. Many people might say, "as it should be," but I've played other games free of that level disparity issue and I don't think that it is a necessary part of the Dungeons and Dragons experience. The point of level progression is to see character improvement, but that shouldn't be at the expense of game balance and I don't think that it has to be. Level progression already sees an increase in hit dice, which means that there are shorter periods of downtime as adventures continue and the "5-minute day" problem is lessened. If the point of the increase in hit points is to make it possible for higher level character to adventure longer before resting then the multiple hit dice already addresses part of that issue. Perhaps I just don't see the logic or fun in having the hit point grind.

And this is purely the result of adding cool damage features and a different method of hit point calculation. The first playtest packet didn't have this grind-a-thon mentality and I for one would like to see a return to the fun of the adventure rather than the grind of ever increasing hit point monsters with ever increasing damage-dealing to match. Should there be a difference between the strike or magic of a level 1 character and the strike or magic of a level 5 character? Absolutely, but I don't think that the difference should be one of pure mathematics. There are feats and specialties that could make for very interesting character progression independent of simply making class bonuses to hit.

This increasing damage/to-hit and hit points as levels increase indicates to me a trend toward the hit point grind-a-thon of previous editions. The grind-a-thon was a major part of why I stopped playing Dungeons and Dragons. To say that I dislike that would be a gross understatement of my opinion. I am much less excited now than after reading and playing the first packet because I see the return of that odious trend.

Only complaint I have on HPs is the Wizard could stand to go to d6 instead of d4 but other than that it looks fine to me.

The first level Fighter is in real danger if facing 3 Goblins alone

I have no problem with that, in fact that is pretty much how it should be.

Damn sight better than people starting the game with 16 to 20 hps at first level

 

Aug 15, 2012 -- 9:13AM, wootersl wrote:

Actually, HP are talked about in numerous posts through here. And no one is in love with the new HP format. To have a Fighter start off with 12 HP and a lowly goblin hits at 1d6-1 means that if the DM gets in some great rolls, the fighter is going down in 3 hits. Not very appealing. I actually miss the minions from 4E. It was so cool to put like 8 of those things on the board along with 1 or 2 other monsters. Made the combat feel more epic.

I read every post on the front page and missed it then.

I don't actually see the problem with starting out with 16-20 hit points if the higher end is not multiplicatively as high. It means that multiple levels can adventure together while power creep is kept to a minimum. I would like to see a model that used Con score as base hit points and gave a flat bonus based on level and Con modifier. Hit Dice are already random and adding complexity to the hit point totals just seems needlessly and excessively random. It doesn't make characters more interesting to have randomized hit points, random damage, and random healing.

Hit points don't define a character in any way other than how long they can last in a fight and adding a "Healing Surge" or something to fights so that hit points can be recovered in combat randomly would make it more interesting than not knowing if a 5th level fighter with Con 15 had 37 or 39 hit points.

I'll look for other threads discussing hit points though.