No rolling HD: Creating HP disparities and dealing w/ SoDs

[Judging__Eagle]

We all know that Con decides more about HP than HD size does.

So let's scrap the Roll HP rule, PCs get max HP. Bang, Barbarians and Fighters will now always pull away from Clerics and Druids and will blow Rogues, Bards and Wizards out of the water in terms of raw hp.

An other rule that I'd like to use is this idea that I got for dealing with SoDs;

Grin and bear it: If you fail an SoD (a true SoD, not Hold Person or Blind), you can choose to take X damage, where X is the caster level of the effect that targeted you times 5. You count as if you made the saving throw for the spell, and suffer any effects that would occur to you from the spell if you had made the saving throw initially. If you would take damage when succeeding the saving throw, you take no damage instead.

[Tequila Sunrise]

We all know that Con decides more about HP than HD size does.

So let's scrap the Roll HP rule, PCs get max HP. Bang, Barbarians and Fighters will now always pull away from Clerics and Druids and will blow Rogues, Bards and Wizards out of the water in terms of raw hp.

Fixed hp is a pretty common house rule; I've been using it since before I can remember and it only makes the game better.

An other rule that I'd like to use is this idea that I got for dealing with SoDs;

Grin and bear it: If you fail an SoD (a true SoD, not Hold Person or Blind), you can choose to take X damage, where X is the caster level of the effect that targeted you times 5. You count as if you made the saving throw for the spell, and suffer any effects that would occur to you from the spell if you had made the saving throw initially. If you would take damage when succeeding the saving throw, you take no damage instead.

Sounds alright, though disintegrate does more damage, which may or may not be an issue for you.

TS

[K]

Yeh, rolling HP is cruel.

SoDs need a rethink altogether. The value they have to auto-kill weak crap, but auto-killing awesome crap is bad.

[IGTN]

Yeh, rolling HP is cruel.

SoDs need a rethink altogether. The value they have to auto-kill weak crap, but auto-killing awesome crap is bad.

If you're looking for auto-kills on weak crap, you can just use direct damage. Whether D&D provides big enough direct damage is a different story, of course.

[JonSetanta]

Rolling HP is for the yucks. Hyuck yuck yuck! Look at that poor bastard, rolled a 1 for his HP.

"Can I reroll it?"

"Sure. Make a food run. DM's Privilege."


Many campaigns I've played in, even back to AD&D, have HP at maximum.
Some friends and I did roll HP back in our introduction to AD&D but after so many rerolls it made more sense to skip that process.
Many friends were hellbent on rolling stats, though, a process I shun in favor of point buy. When forced with point buy they also tend to complain about the results even when rolling stats (without rerolls) would give a worse array.
Go figure.

On the matter of HP:
One could have a large amount of HP at level 1. This would correct the situation of having low level adventurers die to accidents too often and make for predicting combat outcomes easier, then base spell damage off of the expected average for L1 HP.
Oh, wait, 4e.

There are some other suggestions to this:
• Their resistances to both magic and physical damage should be greater as well, rather... something inherent at all, as by class ability.
• Special abilities such as Improved Toughness shouldn't stop there, we also need +2 per level and +3 per level feats as well (or maybe even part of the same feat at higher levels)
Agreed that HD type should matter more than CON, but it should also go one step further in to the area of rewarding defensive ability picks more.
• CON score as HP bonus rather than CON bonus really should be a part of 3e. It makes so much more sense than recalculating HP for each level as CON goes up and down.


Evocations and other damage spells should be able to take out a magelike in about 2-3 level-appropriate blasts. The warriors will continue to suck it right up while remaining unfased as they should.



JE, your HP-for-suck exchange alternative does look effective but I wouldn't have the HP damage scale by level like that.

Damage would be a set amount level-appropriate to the effect's user level (as defined by the spell level), so that a character much higher than say Hold Person could sink that easily to break free but to avoid a Finger of Death costs much more.

[Psychic Robot]

I'm both for and against rolling HP. On the one hand, I think it's fun to roll HP. On the other hand, having the fighter get a 1 sucks hardcore. My solution?

d4 HD becomes a d6.
d6 HD and d8 HD becomes 1d6+2.
d10 HD becomes 1d6+4.
d12 HD becomes 1d6+6.

Thoughts?

[Judging__Eagle]

Actually, my group hasn`t actually rolled HP in a while. We used the Living Greyhawk system (1/2 HD + 1 + Con Mod).

The method that I`m thinking about here is meant to put the higher HD classes in a position where their HP is actually a lot larger than a smaller HD characters.

In the 1/2 HD + 1 system, the difference between a d4 (3), but a d10 (6) and a d12 (7) have a 3 and 4 point difference per HD, going up to a max of 30 or 40 HP difference at lvl 20.

Using a full HD worth of HP gives 4 to the caster, but 12 to the barb and 10 to the fighter result in 8 and 6 point difference per level.

The wizard gets 80 hp, while the fighter gets 200 and the barb gets 240.

Really, the two ideas sort of are meant to be used together.

Also, for the implementation of a Cap to damage. I don`t want to do it since I want even the weakest SoD that a powerful spell caster has to still be deadly.

It also means that powerful casters might fire their lowest end SoDs in order to try and blow away a creatures (monster or PC) hp.

[Bigode]

Given that everyone knows you play Tome, there's a pretty decent argument that noncasters don't actually need any sort of help. Anyway, if they do, it's hardly "more HP".

[RandomCasualty2]

SoDs need a rethink altogether. The value they have to auto-kill weak crap, but auto-killing awesome crap is bad.

Yeah SoDs need to find a niche.

Right now if you want to kill weak stuff, you use AoE damage. So as a weenie killer, they're probably not all that useful.

Using 4E concepts (but not necessarily 4E mechanics), I think we'd want SoDs to be good against the standard monster. A SoD should be at its most efficient there in terms of saving time.

Against a minion, a SoD will kill him easily but it's a waste of resources since a fireball would have done the job better.

Against an elite, a SoD probably won't work and thus it should be a rather inefficient choice since most of the time you'd just be wasting your round.

Against a solo, SoDs should just fail.

[JonSetanta]

No limited but essential resource in an RPG should be determined randomly.

[Judging__Eagle]

Given that everyone knows you play Tome, there's a pretty decent argument that noncasters don't actually need any sort of help. Anyway, if they do, it's hardly "more HP".

Actually, the idea is that instead of all sorts of bullshit methods used to mitigate the effect of true SoD`s on PCs, I simply give them the option to dump a pile of HP and survive a failed saving throw for a SoD.

I could even get away with lowering the base saves with such a system, or just use SoDs more often.

What ends up happening is that mooks die to SoDs, while PCs have a chance to not do so.

Really it`s a way to take the edge off of SoDs.

[fliprushman]

I'm both for and against rolling HP. On the one hand, I think it's fun to roll HP. On the other hand, having the fighter get a 1 sucks hardcore. My solution?

d4 HD becomes a d6.
d6 HD and d8 HD becomes 1d6+2.
d10 HD becomes 1d6+4.
d12 HD becomes 1d6+6.

Thoughts?

This isn't a bad idea though it lumps 5 HD types into 4 categories. It does address the dice rolling problem some but that wizard could still end up with mor hp than the fighter(though it is only one more). Maybe another HD shift could be arranged that all fighters are d12's and the wizard is the d6 or something like that so fighters don't get screwed by a lucky wizard.

[Psychic Robot]

Perhaps. Although, I could see the "flat HP per level" thing.

[ckafrica]

One option could be to allow SoD only to work against a creature with X hp or less. That way they become more of a finishing move rather than a rocket launcher from the get go. this would prevent people from killing the BBEG in one round, or having the reverse happening

[Judging__Eagle]

One option could be to allow SoD only to work against a creature with X hp or less. That way they become more of a finishing move rather than a rocket launcher from the get go. this would prevent people from killing the BBEG in one round, or having the reverse happening

True.

That was the intent behind Grin and bear it.

Someone can get an SoD off, but unless the target has low HP or has been wounded, they can easily just take the damage and either run, target the SoD-user or some other option.

The BBeG or Fighter dying to an SoD or a Spell-Trap is lame, except when they've already taken damage or are near death to begin with. Unless you're playing a Gygaxian game.

[IGTN]

One option could be to allow SoD only to work against a creature with X hp or less. That way they become more of a finishing move rather than a rocket launcher from the get go. this would prevent people from killing the BBEG in one round, or having the reverse happening

True.

That was the intent behind Grin and bear it.

Someone can get an SoD off, but unless the target has low HP or has been wounded, they can easily just take the damage and either run, target the SoD-user or some other option.

The BBeG or Fighter dying to an SoD or a Spell-Trap is lame, except when they've already taken damage or are near death to begin with. Unless you're playing a Gygaxian game.

There's a difference between these mechanics, though; a Finger of Death that deals 75 damage is a different, more useful spell than a Finger of Death that only works on creatures with less than 75 HP.

Setting it up this way allows death magic to be used from the start, and makes save-or-dies into more direct damage. 50 damage is 50 damage, whether it takes the last 50 or first 50 of your opponents HP, so long as you eventually bring it down, it's all the same; there's no difference between opening with Phantasmal Killer, then having the goblin lancer charge to finish it, and opening with the lancer and finishing with the death spell.

It might keep them more as spells that will kill you if you fail your save if, instead of doing damage, they just had no effect unless you had less than a certain number of HP (which could be higher than the damage they'd otherwise do). Of course, this is just a matter of personal taste; they work either way.

[RandomCasualty2]

No limited but essential resource in an RPG should be determined randomly.

I think it's more a case that nothing that permanently stays with your character should be determined random. It's okay to roll for something that exists for the duration of the setting or the encounter, but you should never roll for something that exists for the duration of the entire campaign. Otherwise you get into "I stab myself in the eye" territory where PCs want to make new characters.

[Judging__Eagle]

One option could be to allow SoD only to work against a creature with X hp or less. That way they become more of a finishing move rather than a rocket launcher from the get go. this would prevent people from killing the BBEG in one round, or having the reverse happening

True.

That was the intent behind Grin and bear it.

Someone can get an SoD off, but unless the target has low HP or has been wounded, they can easily just take the damage and either run, target the SoD-user or some other option.

The BBeG or Fighter dying to an SoD or a Spell-Trap is lame, except when they've already taken damage or are near death to begin with. Unless you're playing a Gygaxian game.

There's a difference between these mechanics, though; a Finger of Death that deals 75 damage is a different, more useful spell than a Finger of Death that only works on creatures with less than 75 HP.

Setting it up this way allows death magic to be used from the start, and makes save-or-dies into more direct damage. 50 damage is 50 damage, whether it takes the last 50 or first 50 of your opponents HP, so long as you eventually bring it down, it's all the same; there's no difference between opening with Phantasmal Killer, then having the goblin lancer charge to finish it, and opening with the lancer and finishing with the death spell.

It might keep them more as spells that will kill you if you fail your save if, instead of doing damage, they just had no effect unless you had less than a certain number of HP (which could be higher than the damage they'd otherwise do). Of course, this is just a matter of personal taste; they work either way.

That's one way of looking at it.


But let me describe how I see it in play, because really, the description of what happens is really what should determine mechanics. Always.




The story of how me and my crew faced the Necromancer Cicatrix while he was trying to sacrifice a hecatomb's worth of creatures kidnapped and captured from across the planes?

Yeah, I'll tell you how that fight went. See these adamantine teeth on my left side of my mouth? Yeah, that was a Destruction that winged me.

I coughed up a quarter bucket of blood when it hit me and had to force me way through his swarm of skeleton soldiers by myself with my chained-sword, and tower sheild. If not the swarms would have ripped me apart if I had just stood there, they damn near did too.

It's one thing to fight a bunch of skeletons at once. It's an other when they just press on you and don't care a damn for their safey. When they're trying to just bury you in their bones and clawing fingers they're able to dig into the nooks and crannies of even the best Asgardian Dwarf-crafted Adamantine Armageddon-Plate. My right wrist still doesn't bend as well as it used to, and I'll let you in on a little secret, my love still notices that me wrist don't bend the way it could, but she's really the only one.

Anyway, why was it just me? Why wasn't the Great Winged Tiger cleaving skulls with his double swords alongside me? Easy, he couldn't.

Afsan was trapped in a mental trap from a Curse of the Putrid Husk that Cicatrixes wizard allly had cast on him. Good thing that Afsan is tough as a he is, if not he probably would have really had all of his guts pour out of his belly and cough up his lungs like pink-red puke. He was just dry-heaving and had a bit of blood-tears instead.

Ig-Thul knew that Cicatrix needed to be weakened by the time that me and Roland got to the altar that the death priest was about to begin sacrificing the hecatomb of creatures that he had captured. So he began to just straight out make Cicatrix weaker and began to cast Enervation on the death priest.

Well, I can tell you that 'ole Sik didn't like that at all. He noticed that Tommot said that he was going to Banish the fiendish minions that were helping to bind and subdue the tied up creatures and Animated the stone statues that lined the great halls walls. This new swarm of stone soldiers flanked us and had our casters pinned down.

Finally Keishou and Fayruz were ready with the protective spells they had been casting on themselves and they popped up right behind 'Sik and his minion with Tommot and one of his undead guardians in tow.

Kei easily grappled Sik and pinned him to the ground while Fay and Tommot charged the Glabrezu and left Tommot's Hulking Corpse Urthalg to beat up Sik's wizard so that Priya could stop burning it with Scorching Rays and instead shoot fireballs at the skeletons that had me and Afsan pinned.

After that it was no problem. Kei broke Sik's arms, me and Afsan made our way up the altar steps and helped Tommot and Fay take on the Glabrezu that had started the whole mess.



I want SoDs to not insta-kill a character that's in their prime. However, I do want the spell to still hurt or otherwise affect the character. I don't want a Finger of Death to simply bounce off of a character b/c they have a set amount of HP, that's both dumb, flavour-wise (failed the save, and no effect? I don't think so) and mechanics wise (wasted actions).

The easiest way that I can think of is to have the character take damage and then count as if they had made the saving throw (and take any effects that the succeeded saving throw would give; some spells still bone you even if you make the save), except that you don't take any damage if making your save would normally deal damage.

Also, at 5 damage per caster level..... it's often more damaging to cast an SoD than to cast a straight Direct Damage spell. So SoD's are still big spells that will auto-kill weak(ened) targetes, or badly harm less weak targets.

A Delayed Blast Fireball deals 12d6 damage (avg 42), a Destruction would deal 60 damage if you fail your save and can afford to take the damage or 10d6 if you make the save (or 35 average).

[Username17]

The place of the SoD effect can be taken in the Damage Test system by having powers with fixed damage rolls. That is: when you cast disintegrate (or its equivalent), the damage roll is invariant - you don't roll dice if it hits, you just get a specific result. This means that if enemies are weak, you will be tempted to pop one off to insta-gib them. And if enemies are strong, you will be tempted to wait until you rack up enough damage mods until you can let it off and instantly remove your opponent.

That way finger of death still has utility, still instantly kills fools, and so on; but it doesn't dominate the game or make the field swing wildly. Quite the opposite, these types of effects can live on as "old reliables" rather than game defining pieces of crazy.

-Username17

[JonSetanta]

No limited but essential resource in an RPG should be determined randomly.

I think it's more a case that nothing that permanently stays with your character should be determined random. It's okay to roll for something that exists for the duration of the setting or the encounter, but you should never roll for something that exists for the duration of the entire campaign. Otherwise you get into "I stab myself in the eye" territory where PCs want to make new characters.

Thanks, thought I was ignored for a while there.

Random elements within individual combats themselves are essential, of course, but making the resources that fuel those combats random is bad.
When one character has X amount of a resource (say, HP) yet another has X+3 and those values were determined randomly, there might not be much of a difference in later levels but it sure as fuck counts in the earliest ones.

At Level 1, possibly the most played level ever, HP is maximum by default.
This was a good move on WOTC's part for 3e.
The bad idea was in thinking Level 2 would be any different, when rolling a 1 for HP with a Barbarian or Fighter suddenly ruins their expected level-appropriate combat durability.


Frank: Taken 1 step further, typical damage spells such as Fire, Lightning, Ice, and other elemental magic would NOT actually deal damage directly, but rather apply some sort of status effect if the target doesn't take HP off.
Damage from these kinds of spells would scale by user's level, or a set intensity when occurring naturally.

Fire: burned (more HP lost over longer time), lasting injury that might need twice as much healing
Lightning: defenses reduced, possibly lose an action
Ice: slowed then frozen solid

[Judging__Eagle]

That way does make for quicker resolution of SoD's effects.

No more Rocket-launcher Tag: If you fail a save for an effect that would kill you instantly (i.e. True SoDs), and take 5*Clvl damage. If still alive, you also take Non-damaging effects of the spell as if the save had been made.

[opera]

I know I'm very much a minority, but I always like the randomness of the occasional SoD effect... getting hit with a death effect brought some amazing tension to the table (especially SoD-type poisons from 2E - I loved those fights). I've read people's reasoning for getting rid of them, and I think they are pretty clearly right, but I *did* like the tension introduced by battling against enemies who had a (small, but non-negligible) chance of taking your character out of the fight permanently at any time during the fight. Not that I would have liked those fights all the time (by any stretch of the imagination), but I wouldn't want to give them up completely, either.

The idea of allowing SOD-type effects after a suitable battle "build-up" seems like a nice balance with some very nice thematic qualities. However, in addition to the suggested mechanic (only allowing SoD effects when opponents have reached a certain damage threshold), what about simply allowing some types of SoD effects that require a lot of time to get off? Something like substantial, long casting times that introduce decent chances to be interrupted? I seem to recall this mechanic being discussed before, but I don't remember what people's feelings were about directly trading time for chances of SoD effects....

A similar mechanic might be for certain SoD powers to have a certain % chance of bumping targets across damage thresholds (real or "virtually"), which would be especially nice in systems with multiple thresholds like TNE. This way, a death effect could kill toadies in one round, but would most likely require several rounds of concentrated effort to kill a target of higher level than the user, which could be interrupted at any point.

I do like the mechanic of allowing people to take a certain flat effect to avoid SoD effects. These effects could be large enough that people can only "defer" SoDs every one in a while (like the large fixed damage amounts already suggested), but another mechanic could be to just give characters a fixed number of deferments every (e.g., every encounter, 24 hours, level, whatever) with no ill effects at all. I know that time-based restrictions run into problems with the five-minute workday, but I think it's still worth mentioning as one possible mechanic.

EDIT:
I forgot one more mechanic I think could work: only allowing SoD powers to be taken by high-level characters. This goes back to K's suggestion from the other thread about "Orders" of powers to restrict the level at which powers with certain effects are allowed. This way, SoDs only become available at higher levels when characters have more options for dealing with them (e.g., teleporting the rest of the party out of harm's way, removing the death effect entirely, etc.), so that a SoD that occurs is likely to become a TPK, which is the real issue, IMHO.

[JonSetanta]

I know I'm very much a minority, but I always like the randomness of the occasional SoD effect... getting hit with a death effect brought some amazing tension to the table (especially SoD-type poisons from 2E - I loved those fights). I've read people's reasoning for getting rid of them, and I think they are pretty clearly right, but I *did* like the tension introduced by battling against enemies who had a (small, but non-negligible) chance of taking your character out of the fight permanently at any time during the fight. Not that I would have liked those fights all the time (by any stretch of the imagination), but I wouldn't want to give them up completely, either.

Eh, I'll have to agree with you there. That is a dwindling minority of preference for SODs.
Unless you have abundant and readily available countermeasures and remedies for such immediate "You Lose" effects, that doesn't produce a very fun game.