Debate on toughness with three different views.

[Michael F.]

I need some help in ending a debate on the interpretation of the toughness feat between some of my friends. I will post the feat as per the core rulebook and then give the three different opinions.

Quote:

You gain +3 hit points. For every Hit Die you possess beyond 3, you gain an additional +1 hit point. If you have more than 3 Hit Dice, you gain +1 hit points whenever you gain a Hit Die (such as when you gain a level).

Person 1:

lvl 1.....+3
lvl 2.......0
lvl 3.......0
lvl 4.....+1
lvl 5.....+1
...
lvl 20....+1
total:....20

Person 2:
lvl 1......+3
lvl 2........0
lvl 3........0
lvl 4....1+1
lvl 5....1+1
...
lvl 20...1+1
total:.....37

Person 3:
lvl 1......+3
lvl 2......+3
lvl 3......+3
lvl 4....3+1
lvl 5....3+2
...
lvl 20..3+20
total:....213

Who is right?

[Vaellen]

Person 1

[Trekkie90909]

Vaellen is correct, it is person 1.

[Mathius]

Definately not 3. That is no where in the feat. I can see 2 but pretty sure that the last sentance explains how the +1 works. 20 HP is plenty.

[Gauss]

Person 1.

[CommandoDude]

The language of the feat just means that if you take Toughness at say, level 7, you get an extra hit point for every die from 4 to 7, and continue to gain a hit point for every hit die thereafter.

If that second sentence wasn't in, then you wouldn't retroactively get those hit points.

[Bandw2]

it's just supposed to provide a larger boost at lower levels but provide overall +1 hp per HD. Person 1.

[LazarX]

Person one is right. Person one is displaying exactly what the text parses out to. Let me also illustrate another point on how this works.

A 20th level character with a static constitution, will have the same total hit points no matter when she took the toughness feat, whether it was level 1, 5, 7, or 19. If you work it out as to why, you'll see why Person 1 is the only right answer.

[Claxon]

Agreed with everyone else. Person 1 has the correct understanding of the feat.

[Some Random Dood]

I'm going to echo here, but person 1 is right. It works out to +1hp per lv.

[In My Humble Opinion]

Well, it's not 2 or 3, so here's to two anonomyous people's viewpoints getting slam dunked by the boards. *toasts*

[Pink Dragon]

Just to add more noise, I think Person 1 is correct.

[RDM42]

Boy, if person three were correct that feat would rocket up to be one of the best. 213 extra hit points?

[CommandoDude]

RDM42 wrote:

Boy, if person three were correct that feat would rocket up to be one of the best. 213 extra hit points?

I think we'd finally have a contender that surpasses leadership.

[RDM42]

CommandoDude wrote:

RDM42 wrote:

Boy, if person three were correct that feat would rocket up to be one of the best. 213 extra hit points?

I think we'd finally have a contender that surpasses leadership.

"Who needs armor, ya woos!! Hit me RIGHT in the face. Go ahead. I might twitch. If you are LUCKY!

[claudekennilol]

Now that the masses have weighed in, which interpretation was yours?

[Bandw2]

i have a feeling that we're not going to hear back from him...

[Ascalaphus]

It's perhaps more obvious to those of us who remember the 3.x Toughness feat, which just gave +3 hp once, nothing more.

Which was a useful feat for level 1 one-shot adventures, but poison in the long term.

[MechE_]

Echoing sentiments - Person 1 is accurate.

[CraziFuzzy]

It's obviously #3. 3 > 1. You people suck at the mathses...

[tony gent]

Yep number ones on the money

[Lifat]

CraziFuzzy wrote:

It's obviously #3. 3 > 1. You people suck at the mathses...

I concur. If you add all the options together (1,2,3) and then divide by two... Just because... then it says three so obviously 3 is the correct option! DUH! :D

[taldanrebel2187]

One thing worth noting is that there are various effects and buffs that give you extra HD. The most common is racial HD or other creature types that have more than 1HD per level. Templates can also grant HD, and some DMs may count Aid or other buffs as temporary HD.

[Melkiador]

I didn't like the wording of that feat. In my opinion something like this would be clearer:

"You gain 1 extra hit point per hit die. You always gain a total of least 3 hit points from this feat"

There are probably even clearer ways of stating it, but what's currently there doesn't read naturally.

[claudekennilol]

Melkiador wrote:

I didn't like the wording of that feat. In my opinion something like this would be clearer:

"You gain 1 extra hit point per hit die. You always gain a total of least 3 hit points from this feat"

There are probably even clearer ways of stating it, but what's currently there doesn't read naturally.

This doesn't take into account the health gained while leveling.

[Benchak the Nightstalker]

This is also one of the rare-ish situations where its possible to go look at how the feat is being deployed by developers in the actual game, since quite a few monsters have Toughness, and their stat-blocks list how many bonus hit points they get (from Con and other sources).

Take the Mummy, for instance: Mummy

He's got 8 hit dice, and Toughness as a feat.
As an undead creature, he adds Cha in place of Con to determine hp, and a 15 Cha nets him 2 hp/HD.

So, with a base of +16 from his Cha, we see he's getting 8 additional hit points from Toughness, for a total of +24. This fits the first person's interpretations.

[Lifat]

Toughness wrote:

Benefit: You gain +3 hit points.

This is self explanatory. When you take the feat it immediately grants you 3 hit points.

Toughness wrote:

For every Hit Die you possess beyond 3, you gain an additional +1 hit point.

Again. This is reasonably easy to understand. For every HD you have beyond 3 at the time you take the feat you get an extra hit point.

Toughness wrote:

If you have more than 3 Hit Dice, you gain +1 hit points whenever you gain a Hit Die (such as when you gain a level).

This sentence is telling us that when we gain a level after taking the feat we still get +1 hit point, assuming it is above the 3 HD minimum.

None of those sentences are redundant. If you took out the middle sentence, then you'd not gain any HP for any HD you already possess beyond the 3 HD. If you took out the third sentence then you wouldn't gain +1 hit point every time you gained a HD, meaning that you'd be stuck with the amount you got when you took the feat.
An example to make it clearer:
If we took out the second sentence:
At lvl 7, McStumpy the Fighter decides to take Toughness and gains 3 hit points. When McStumpy levels to lvl 8 he gains another hit point and so on.
If we took out the third sentence:
McStumpy again takes toughness at lvl 7 and gains 3 hit points +4 hit points for his HD above 3. McStumpy then gains a level and becomes lvl 8... McStumpy doesn't get an extra hit point from toughness.

I will agree that the feat could probably have been written so that it was more easily understood, but when you dig into them, they cannot be interpreted differently.

[CommandoDude]

Lifat wrote:

CraziFuzzy wrote:

It's obviously #3. 3 > 1. You people suck at the mathses...

I concur. If you add all the options together (1,2,3) and then divide by two... Just because... then it says three so obviously 3 is the correct option! DUH! :D

Half Life 3 confirmed.