Hi there!
Had a bit of a discussion with someone about the first hit points. You get max hit points when you start game at level one but he says that because you start in a class. Meaning whenever you multi class and start a new class on lvl 1, you get the max hp for it.
For example, a barbarian brawler. At lvl 1 he takes one level in the brawler class and get 10 + con as HP because brawlers have a D10 hit die. At 2nd level, he multiclasses and becomes a lvl 1 brawler lvl 1 barbarian. He says that he would get 12 + con as a d12 is the hit die of a barbarian.
I thought it was just a one time thing. Am I wrong? Do you get max hp at every instance you start a new class?
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Pathfinder can have a lot of confusing terms. For all this, there are a few things you need to be aware of in order to understand what's going on (you'll see these terms if you look up the rules for hit points):
Hit Points (HP): the number of points of damage your character can take before s/he dies. There's also max HP and current HP. Max HP represents the total your character can have, current HP represents the amount your character has after any damage taken. If you have 10 max HP and have a current of 1 HP, and you get healed for 15 hit points worth of damage, you go up to your max 10, even though you were "healed" a lot more than that.
Hit Die (HD): Hit Die and Hit Dice are very similar. Your character's Hit Die is the die a/he rolls to gain more Max HP at every character level. Hit Dice is the total number of dice you've rolled so far for your character (aka your character level; some non-characters, like animal companions or monsters, only have Hit Dice and not class levels).
Character Level: this is the total level of your character.
Class level: this is the level of an individual class; when you add up all your class levels, you get your total character level. If you are a single classed character, they will be the same number.
Constitution Score Modifier: every time you gain a class level (or gain a HD), you add your constitution score modifier to your max HP.
Favored Class Bonus (FCB): if the class you increase is your Favored Class (all races can have one Favored Class, except Half-Elves who get two), you can choose to gain 1 HP or 1 skill rank when you increase a class level for that class. For example, your Character level 2 (class level barbarian 1, class level Brawler 1) friend may have barbarian as his favored class. So when his class level in barbarian increases (including class level 1), he may choose to increase his max HP by one or take one more skill rank. When his class level in brawler increases, he does not get this choice. There are also some variant rules that allow for other aspects of your character to improve based on a race/class combination. See the Advanced Players Guide for this variant rule.
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For your first character level, you start of at maximum HP. For Non Player Characters (NPC), if their first HD is a class level, then they also start off at max HP for their first HD; if their first HD is not a class level (like animal companions), then their first HD is just the same as all the rest of their HD - it's average.
If your player character (PC) gets a second or more character level (no matter if any class level is 1 or more), then they roll for HP to increase their max. There are some variant house rules: instead of rolling, your GM may want you to take average, and Pathfinder Society games (PFS) has a rule that when you gain a character level, you take slightly above average (4 for d6, 5 for d8, 6 for d10, and 7 for d12). For things like animal companions, you always round down for decimals; for example, most animals companions (if not all) get d8 Hit Die. At your first class level which gains an animal companion, that animal starts with 2 HD, or 2d8. The average of d8 is 4.5. 2 x 4.5 is 9. So your animal companion starts at 9 HP max. The next time your animal companion would increase their max HP, they would have 3d8 HP (or 3 HD), which is 13.5, or rounded down to 13.
In conclusion, you are absolutely correct that the maximum HP is for your first character level only, and not anytime you have a first class level.
It is just a one time thing. You are not wrong.
Yeah. It's not a terrible house rule though. Multi classing is typically substandard unless you use the new rules from Unchained.
It is just a one time thing. You are not wrong.Yeah. It's not a terrible house rule though. Multi classing is typically substandard unless you use the new rules from Unchained.
To be fair, multiclassing was designed to be substandard (unless you are going for a very specific build which requires it).
Back in 3.0 and 3.5 editions of D&D (where Pathfinder came from), staying single classed was substandard, and nearly every single optimization guide and build guide recommended multiclassing to increase your character power. One of the things Pathfinder did when it became its own system was to "correct" that so anyone who played a single classed character wouldn't feel under-powered to everyone else.
For a lot of us Grognards, this is an improvement to the game.
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It is just a one time thing. You are not wrong.Yeah. It's not a terrible house rule though. Multi classing is typically substandard unless you use the new rules from Unchained.
While definitely true if you multi-class at random. (Just played a game yesterday with a cleric/wizard/rogue and a sorceror/oracle - ugh.)
But many multi-class combos are amazing - especially certain archetyples. Brawler into two levels of Master of Many Styles? Snakebite Striker with a dip into Knife Master? A dip into Swash before another class for TWF dex-2-damage & deeds? Bloodrager into DD?
There are quite a few very potent combos - you just need to know what you're doing.
To be fair, multiclassing was designed to be substandard (unless you are going for a very specific build which requires it).
Back in 3.0 and 3.5 editions of D&D (where Pathfinder came from), staying single classed was substandard, and nearly every single optimization guide and build guide recommended multiclassing to increase your character power. One of the things Pathfinder did when it became its own system was to "correct" that so anyone who played a single classed character wouldn't feel under-powered to everyone else.
For a lot of us Grognards, this is an improvement to the game.
If you want to go old school - multiclassing in 2nd was almost always superior. Heck - Thief was pretty awful sans Fighter/Thief.
Keep in mind that most of the good multi classes are martial anyway. And martials can use the help.
I'm just saying it wouldn't be a bad house rule if someone wanted to use it.
If you want to go old school - multiclassing in 2nd was almost always superior. Heck - Thief was pretty awful sans Fighter/Thief.
Fighter/Thief/Bard if you want to do it properly :)
If you want to go old school - multiclassing in 2nd was almost always superior. Heck - Thief was pretty awful sans Fighter/Thief.
Only up to a certain level; all multiclassing options had level limits in 2e. It was weird at best.
Fighter/Thief/Bard if you want to do it properly :)
Not possible in 2e. Thief and bard were both classified under the same "Theif" class (with thief and bard being subclasses; I know, they used the same name for the class and subclass which makes it confusing). Anyways, you can't multiclass or even dual class under the same major class heading. Just like you can't have a fighter/ranger in 2e, you can't have a thief/bard.
One of the major improvements with 3e, in my opinion.
For many of us who started in 3E, this overcompensation is very much a disservice to the game. Giving more stuff with level from classes is great, destroying Prestige Classes as a viable alternative is horrible.
I don't like the fact that prestige classes aren't as viable, but I do like the fact that I'm not seeing character with 3-5 different classes as the norm. It also helps people who are new to the game; simply playing a show for classed character doesn't mean that you're starting underpowered to everyone else.
The fact that a caster is better than a martial character shouldn't be solved by multiclassing; it should be solved by class design. Path of War by Dreamscarred Press does a wonderful job at this for martial characters.
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Fighter/Thief/Bard if you want to do it properly :)Not possible in 2e. Thief and bard were both classified under the same "Theif" class (with thief and bard being subclasses; I know, they used the same name for the class and subclass which makes it confusing). Anyways, you can't multiclass or even dual class under the same major class heading. Just like you can't have a fighter/ranger in 2e, you can't have a thief/bard.
He said do it properly, that means first edition :)
So you HAD to be a fighter/thief before you could add bard... guess that makes bard the first edition prestige class :)
First edition multiclassing was being multiple classes at the same time with 'effectively' independant 'character levels' for each class. So you could be a fighter 5/Magic User 7 but you were not a 12th level character. Probably you were 8th or 9th level because that is how much XP it took to get both classes up to that point. There was no character level as defined in 3.0 and beyond.
While your HP's got super screwed since you only got half your roll HP for each class and you only got your con bonus once when your classes were equal, you had all the powers of that 5th fighter and 7th mage at the same time. Multiclassing in AD&D could be a LOT more powerful than the system we have now.
Oh and humans could not even do that. They had to duel class which meant QUIT their current class, train in their new class and could ONLY use their new class abilities until their NEW class was one level past their OLD class. If they even used one of their old class abilities they gained no XP for the ADVENTURE.
The only thing they kept was their HP's. Gods help you if you were like a 20th level Wizard who then decided to go fighter as a human. You would have 20th level Wizard HP's, would NEVER get fighter HP's and could only use your fighter abilities and saving throws until level 21 or you would not get XP to level. If you were with a group of 20th level characters the XP would be rediculous sure but AD&D also had a rule (that everyone ignored) that you could only gain one level per adventure no matter how much XP you got.
THAT was why being a bard was so hard back then. Only humans and half elves could be them and to do it with a Half Elf required very careful XP monitoring or your would get too high level with your Fighter/Thief levels, since they multiclassed and not duel classed like humans could.
And as a grognard myself I welcome the current system as now everyone of a level is roughly of the same overall power potential compared to a multiclass character.
Yes you can still multiclass and use PrC's but it takes a little more planning and the 5 class dip beast is gone, which I a like frankly.
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Yes you can still multiclass and use PrC's but it takes a little more planning and the 5 class dip beast is gone, which I a like frankly.
It did boost the saves of martials a lot. Between the loss of that, plus races having + to mental stats (The only races that did in 3e were +1 LA races & a couple broken elf variants.) I do wonder how much more often people fail saves now between the two things.