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Hi everybody.
Me and my friends just started playing Pathfinder about two months ago, and I've been really enjoying the changes Paizo has made to 3.5.
My friend is the GM and he got a recommendation from some random dude to use an alternative Hit Point rolling scheme that goes like this: Roll a d4 and subtract the result from the total possible of your class die, 4 counts as a zero (if it's a d8, you could get anywhere between 5 and 8 hp at a new level, instead of 1 to 8.)
In general, this seemed kind of cool until I thought about three things-
First, all creatures use this rule exactly now, so every single fight lasts a little longer. We only got to use the rule when we leveled to 5th, not retroactively, so our party of 4 is each missing out on a small handful, perhaps 5 hp, not that much, but still, at level 5, it's still noticable.
Second, he used a haunt (which I'm not too fond of, personally) that took one of our fighters immediately down to -8 hp... at the beginnning of a dungeon. From 40-odd HP down to -8 in a second... That takes a lot of healing to make up for it.
Third, I'm playing the healer in the group, an Oracle. By the time we reached the big bad, I had used up ALL my spell slots on healing. I didn't cast any other kinds of spells... just healing spells, and I had nothing if anyone actually got hurt in the biggest fight of the night.
I'm just wondering if anyone has any thoughts on how messing with hitpoints might affect the game. I'm thinking that the extra round or two each creature we face sticks around in battle is going to add up eventually, and I'd personally like to be able to use my spells for something other than healing.
I addressed this with my GM, and he said that since we're getting the same benefit, it'll all even up, but I don't think he's taking into account healing. Am I totally wrong? (This was the house in Rise of the Runelords module 2, in case you're wondering...)
Thanks!
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You are around 4-5th level, right?
1) Get the group to collectively buy a wand of Cure Light Wound. It is the most used system to cure HP damage in the game. A single wand will cure an average 50*5.5=275 hp for an expenditure of 750 gp.
At 5th level you should have 7 level 1 and 5 level 2 spells (with bonus from charisma), so you can cure an average of 7*9.5+5*14= 136.5 hp in one day.
2) If you are an oracle of life channel is your friend. Curing 3d6 in a 30' radios burst 3+charisma bonus times in a day (at least 6 times for you) mean that you can cure 10.6*63 hp to each member of the party in one day. In a 4 member party that is a theoretical maximum of 252 hp. The larger the party the more efficient it become.
3) convince your fellow player that the "Custer school of combat" (Charge!) isn't always the best solution.
The large HP allotment (a monster using d8 for hit point get an average 6.5 hp/dice) give your group and the monsters/NPC a bit of a buffer against damage, but as it is depleted it is a bit more costly (in spells or resources) to recover to full health.
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Tsoli,
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thanks
I'm just wondering if anyone has any thoughts on how messing with hitpoints might affect the game. I'm thinking that the extra round or two each creature we face sticks around in battle is going to add up eventually, and I'd personally like to be able to use my spells for something other than healing.
As you found out, fights last longer, you take more damage, you have more hit points that need healing. All you've really done is make weapons and healing weaker. I don't understand making such an adjustment if you apply it to both friend and foe alike. If its a PC-only thing then it makes PC tougher than everyone else, but if you do it for everyone else the balance of PC vs. monster doesn't really change, but it plays havoc with the rest of the system.
Now, you have to change how healing is done using the same method. Or you could just stick with the rules-as-written.
I find this a little bit too often when a well-meaning DM starts house-ruling things without thinking about the unintended consequences.
Exactly, why did the DM want to change the system? What 'flaw' was he trying to fix? How was this going to make the game 'better'?
If he says it "all evens out" why change it?
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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What Diego said - it's not the HP rule, it's the way you're handling healing. Items are not "extras", they're an integral part of an effective character. In Pathfinder Society (the Pathfinder Organized Play system, if you didn't know), most characters acquire a Wand of Cure Light Wounds before they even hit level 2. At the beginning of an adventure, everyone hands their wands to whoever's able to use them (cleric, ranger, bard, oracle, witch, paladin or in a pinch someone with UMD) and they heal each character from that character's wand (or the wand of a benevolent ally, if someone doesn't have one).
A divine caster's actual spells are better used to influence combat directly (thus attempting to prevent the NEED for healing in the first place), leaving the healing for after combat when you can start tapping people with wands at your leisure. It's generally considered a waste of resources to spend your actions healing in combat unless it's a dire emergency. And by "dire emergency", I mean "the bleeding character won't last until the end of the fight".
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Average Hit Points per Hit Die is usually:
d6 = 3.5
d8 = 4.5
d10 = 5.5
d12 = 6.5
Using the method you described the averages are:
d6 = 4.5
d8 = 6.5
d10 = 8.5
d12 = 10.5
As you can see, the 'house' method described means that each bigger size of Hit Dice is now, on average, 2 Hit Points per level better than the next smallest sized Hit Die, instead of the usual 1 Hit Point.
That not only means everyone has more Hit Points than normal (so anything doing damage - like weapons or blasting spells - is less effective), but the disparity between creatures with different sized Hit Dice is greater. The party Barbarian is now 6 Hit Points per level better off than the party Wizard, just due to his Hit Die, rather than the usual 3 Hit Points per level. Except for Fey (d6 Hit Die) and Dragons (d12 Hit Die) all monsters have d8 or d10 Hit Dice - that means the d6 Hit Dice classes are more behind the curve than ever, and the Barbarian is more ahead.
Also, look at the standard Cure spells. A caster level 1 Cure Light Wounds heals 1d8+1 points of damage, or an average of 5.5 points of damage. That's usually at least a level's worth of Hit Points for all characters except the Barbarian; with the house method it's less than a level's worth for all characters except the d6 Hit Dice guys...
So yeah, messing with this stuff across the board does have an impact.
Does your GM roll HP for each monster? That's going to add a lot of real-life time to each combat. In general, most monsters should be at average health, +/- one HD's worth of range.
Also, anything that boosts both the party and the monsters equally is a net loss for the party, because there's many more monsters to benefit from it. So by adding additional HP to everything, he actually made the party relatively weaker, rather than stronger (which is the usual goal of providing additional HP).
I do not agree with the conclusion that this rule makes the party weaker, encounters are just about favoring the party, as they are intended to win in normal gameplay. Adding more hitpoints makes the combat less swingy for the characters, a good crit is less likely to end a character's career.
The healing might be a problem as well as slightly messing with class balance, this might just mean people are less inclined to play arcane characters and more likely to play barbarians over fighters though.
If the GM does not use this rule for monsters then I would not see a problem with his ruling on hp adjustment not working retroactively, but as it is, it is a little unfair towards the party in my opinion.
I would :
1) add a flat 1 hp to d6, 2hp to d8 and 3hp to d10 or d12
This is basically the same result on average, but removing the greater advantage of barbarians over fighters and other warriors over their normally already greater HD
2) boost healing up a little possibly enhancing the dice used by one size, channel d6's become d8's and most healing spells change from d8's to d10's, while not as large an increase as the hp increases it adds up, especially on channel uses, also making it slightly more useful to in combat
3) enhance natural healing possibly double it or make it 1, 2 or 3 hp per level dependent on HD of the creature, warrior types tend to recover faster by this