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7 months ago ::
Oct 31, 2012 - 6:25AM
#1
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Date Joined:
Oct 16, 2012
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Ahhh... I remember the time I was one experience point away from level 2 and decided that I wanted to hunt squirls to avoid anything dangerous. I LOST! Squirl kicked my a%% and left me for dead as he went to gather nuts.
Farmers in the field should be hearty enough to band together and fight off squirls too. They have to tend the fields and scare off wolves and stuff. Adventures should be the same. Would it be too much to ask to allow the characters at first level the full constitution score plus their hit dice, rather than the constitution bonus. This would mean that your basic farmer would have an average of 10 hit points since that is the level of an average ability score. And once trained as a class would benefit from a hit die at reaching 1st level.
It would also help characters get over that awkward hump of first level where a stray dagger or tripping might kill your timmid little mage. And combat is more of a sense that you must hit them before they hit you because everything is a one hit kill. If people were that fragile in real life no one would have ever left home. Mountain lions would waist farmers in groups of 8 or less. Wolves would not need to fear towns. Even stray dogs would kick humans when kicked. LOL!
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7 months ago ::
Oct 31, 2012 - 6:28AM
#2
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Date Joined:
Oct 16, 2012
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Mage hits himself on the thumb with a hammer while hanging a picture in his study. DEAD!
Thief punched in the face while trying to pick pocket a farmer. DEAD!
People should not be that fragile...
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7 months ago ::
Oct 31, 2012 - 12:03PM
#3
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Date Joined:
Aug 26, 2007
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I think getting hit in the face with a maul for 1d6 damage is different than hitting your thumb while hanging a painting. In actual plat test I have not seen any problem with the current HPs method. Being able tos spend hit die during short rest has been a great mechanic.
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7 months ago ::
Oct 31, 2012 - 12:29PM
#4
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Date Joined:
Apr 16, 2009
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The first essential checkpoint of character toughness that Next must pass:
What's the minimum possible HP that a level-1 character can have?
What's the maximum possible damage an ordinary housecat can do to one PC in one attack?
That minimum HP must be greater than that maximum damage.
Yes, some previous editions failed this test. Which is why a VERY common houserule was that first-level PCs got an automatic maximum on their HP "roll". Sometimes this was extended to second-level as well.
Next needs to pass this test without houseruling. Preferably without making a special case either.
"The world does not work the way you have been taught it does. We are not real as such; we exist within The Story. Unfortunately for you, you have inherited a condition from your mother known as Primary Protagonist Syndrome, which means The Story is interested in you. It will find you, and if you are not ready for the narrative strands it will throw at you..." - from Footloose
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7 months ago ::
Oct 31, 2012 - 2:12PM
#5
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Date Joined:
Aug 26, 2007
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The first essential checkpoint of character toughness that Next must pass:
What's the minimum possible HP that a level-1 character can have?
What's the maximum possible damage an ordinary housecat can do to one PC in one attack?
That minimum HP must be greater than that maximum damage.
Yes, some previous editions failed this test. Which is why a VERY common houserule was that first-level PCs got an automatic maximum on their HP "roll". Sometimes this was extended to second-level as well.
Next needs to pass this test without houseruling. Preferably without making a special case either.
Well, the rule right now is you basically get your max hp roll +con at first level, and at each level you get at least half your hd+1 as minimum. So, sounds like it passes....
I agree that in previous editions, a cat doing a d4 damage against a mage with 4hps was rather silly. But so far it looks like Next has a good hp system going. Oh, and mages did get bumbed to 6+con instead of 4+con, and 4+con per aditional level instead of 3+con. So far the hp levels have been pretty good in my play tests. The question is, how much damage can a house cat do? If it does 3d12, yeah, thats a problem. It probably should just do 1 point of damage per hit, and have a terrible to hit bonus. I think a house cat doing 1d4 damage, the same as a dagger plunged into you up to the hilt, was more of the silly part.
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7 months ago ::
Oct 31, 2012 - 2:20PM
#6
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Date Joined:
Apr 21, 2007
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IMO a house cat should do zero damage... maybe 1 on a critical hit. The monsters in the bestiary are things like goblins with swords/spears at level 1. These are deadly, and can easily kill an adventurer who is unprepared/unlucky. I agree that it sucks to worry about your character dying... but going down to zero hit points doesn't kill you anymore so keep that in mind.
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7 months ago ::
Oct 31, 2012 - 4:49PM
#7
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Date Joined:
Feb 22, 2012
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You do not get at least half your hit die. you either get half or roll. you can't do both
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7 months ago ::
Oct 31, 2012 - 4:55PM
#8
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Date Joined:
May 25, 2012
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I like H.P. the way they are. Besides you only have to survive till 160 xp. j/k. I prefer a grittier game. oh and O.P. That was one bad squirrel. And your thief got punched to death? That's what you get for messing with a Monk. Otherwise all damage would have been halved. 
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7 months ago ::
Oct 31, 2012 - 6:34PM
#9
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Date Joined:
Oct 16, 2008
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IMO a house cat should do zero damage... maybe 1 on a critical hit. The monsters in the bestiary are things like goblins with swords/spears at level 1. These are deadly, and can easily kill an adventurer who is unprepared/unlucky.
I agree that it sucks to worry about your character dying... but going down to zero hit points doesn't kill you anymore so keep that in mind.
0 hp doesn't automtically kill you, but you are out of the fight, vulnerable to a coup de grace which is an insta-kill, and possibly "bleeding" to death if you fail enough death saves. So you twiddle your thumbs and hope nothing bad happens... lots of fun, and I speak from expeirence
This isn't to say I'm not happy with the new Hp numbers, I just dislike that arguement and have since the first time I heard it.
I like H.P. the way they are. Besides you only have to survive till 160 xp. j/k. I prefer a grittier game. oh and O.P. That was one bad squirrel. And your thief got punched to death? That's what you get for messing with a Monk. Otherwise all damage would have been halved.
Why would it be halved? All unarmed strikes are a 1d4+strength weapon. Meaning most strength fighters can deal 5 damage at minimum, 8 max.
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7 months ago ::
Nov 16, 2012 - 5:59AM
#10
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Date Joined:
Oct 16, 2012
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Actually we figured that a Squirl could do as much or little damage as any simular sized creature cut in half. As my mage only had a d4 hp to start with a low enough constitution that he got no bonuses I thought it would be the safest thing to hunt. 1d4 divided by two means that I could survive 2 to 4 hits before surcuming. We had just finished a dungeon and I was still at full hit points but needed a single XP to level up to second level.
Option 1: Get the party back together and run an encounter just for my character...
Option 2: Rest up while the rest of the party was training and try an encounter the next day
Option 3: Just go smack something releatively small and harmless that could count for 1 XP
Turns out option 3 was too much for my poor mage who woke the next day after getting his @$$ handed to him by a stupid squirl. I missed, he hit, I missed, he hit and I fell down. Classic kindergarden playground rules and I got the smack down.
Even in 4th edition, how many hit points would an average townsperson have. They are not fighters or even mages who have trained. How many hit points would they have withouth the hit die from training? Some would argue that every farmer is the same as a first level fighter but that can't be true if the fighter had to train to get to that level. (Otherwise every mage would have fighter HP because they are people too) So what is the average NPC townsperson HP? And shouldn't an adventurer have enough HP that they could win in that fight?
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