I was under the assumption that when rolling hit dice you rounded up rolls of less than half to half or half+1 but i cant find where it is in the rules. Is this in the rules or is it a house rule?
I was under the assumption that when rolling hit dice you rounded up rolls of less than half to half or half+1 but i cant find where it is in the rules. Is this in the rules or is it a house rule?
House rule. Unless specifically stated, you always round down. Though I'm not sure when there would ever be a need to round a hit die roll, as each are rolled separately and there are no fractions of a hit point that way. Rounding would only need to be done if you skip rolling and instead just take the average.
Rounding: Occasionally the rules ask you to round a result or value. Unless otherwise stated, always round down. For example, if you are asked to take half of 7, the result would be 3.
I think I've missused the term rounded. It wouldn't be rounding up from a rolled one to a 3 on a 1d6 roll since they're both already round numbers, maybe a boost?
Max hp at level 1 for a PC, every level after that is rolled and taken as the dice land. In organised play(PFS) you get averaged HP for animal companions etc.(4.5/die)
The way you describe is the perview of a House Rule, but is a fairly common one to my experience in various groups.
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One house rule I've always liked is that you roll a d4 and add your hit die size - 4 to it.
Stated another way,
if your HD are d4, you roll a d4,
if your HD are d6, you roll d4+2,
if your HD are d8, you roll d4+4,
if your HD are d10, you roll d4+6,
if your HD are d12, you roll d4+8
This prevents lucky wizards from gaining more HP at level-up than unlucky barbarians.
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our preferred house rule, is taking half rounded down of your HD and adding it to the same die for example. a d8 = d4+4, d6 =3+d3, d12=6+d6. This means you always get higher then your average rounded down.more useful for smaller HD true, as a wizard would only lose 1-2 max hp whereas the barbie could lose up to 5... but it works well enough for us.
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We do a player opt-in reroll. The player rolls, and if they don't like their roll, they can have the GM reroll for them and take the new roll. It slightly increases the average roll, assuming the player opts to reroll below average results. Of course, occasionally they reroll a 2 and end up with a 1.
RAW, after 1st level, you roll the die and take the result. Lots of room for table variation, of course.
Our house rule is that the minimum you can get is 1/2 the dice size (so 3 for a d6, 4 for a d8) etc. You still roll, but if your result is lower than the minimum, you get the minimum.
Pretty sure the option to take the average instead of rolling after 1st level is a PFS thing, not RAW.
Pretty sure the option to take the average instead of rolling after 1st level is a PFS thing, not RAW.
For player characters, yes. For monsters, the game assumes average hit points.
In my current game, we roll the HD and if it's a one, we make it a 4. But if we roll a 2, we keep it.
Pretty sure the option to take the average instead of rolling after 1st level is a PFS thing, not RAW.
Ah so it's not a pathfinder rule it's a PFS rule but it is somewhere. At least that makes me feel like I'm not crazy, I was so sure I had read it.
Also, taking the maximum roll at first level only applies to characters whose first hit die is in a player class. In the case where your character's first level is in something like expert, warrior, noble, or adept, or the character had racial hit dice, the first hit die is rolled.
This isn't likely to come up with player characters, of course, but occasionally a character concept involves starting as an NPC class.
Pretty sure the option to take the average instead of rolling after 1st level is a PFS thing, not RAW.Ah so it's not a pathfinder rule it's a PFS rule but it is somewhere. At least that makes me feel like I'm not crazy, I was so sure I had read it.
Great news, you're not crazy! :D
Changing how you gain HP with each level-up is also an extremely common houserule, to the point where I'm surprised when I see recruitment threads for games that do it the old-fashioned way.
Also, taking the maximum roll at first level only applies to characters whose first hit die is in a player class. In the case where your character's first level is in something like expert, warrior, noble, or adept, or the character had racial hit dice, the first hit die is rolled.
This isn't likely to come up with player characters, of course, but occasionally a character concept involves starting as an NPC class.
And thus the tale of Owen the One Hit Point Wonder was born.
for the PFS thing though you don't roll any HP, you just get a constant amount. So the rolling for HP with that as the minimum isn't found anywhere.
Our house-rule: when you reach a new level, you can re-roll the hit dice of all previous levels, keeping the highest value. This requires keeping track of these values, of course, but many automated character sheets do so already.
My GM uses the 'at least half the HD' houserule, too. Which pretty much equates to 'you get 3/4 your HD', in average.
Personally, I find rolling for HP an annoying legacy thing like rolling for stats. My players profit from full HD, as well as the NPCs, but it has some side effects (high Con creatures profit less, relatively; encourages crowd control over dealing damage a bit etc.), so I might cut it down to a straight-forward 3/4 HD next campaign.
I have my players roll twice and keep the better of the two. Makes the 1s a lot less likely but still allows substantial variation.
We use max -2 for all classes. It is simple and rewards high hp classes while not punishing low hp classes. The half hd makes d8 and d12 almost equal.
Pretty sure the option to take the average instead of rolling after 1st level is a PFS thing, not RAW.
But it is a very good rule to use in a home game if you don't want to submit to the randomness of hit die rolls.
I let people roll and add con or just take half and add their con.
But some of my players roll low so giving them half helps a lot.
For the longest time we thought it was max at lvl 1, then you roll 2dX at second, 3dX at 3rd, etc. It REALLY shows the difference in hit die size.
For the longest time we thought it was max at lvl 1, then you roll 2dX at second, 3dX at 3rd, etc. It REALLY shows the difference in hit die size.barbarians would be even more dope under those rules
It made for some amazing games. Multi classing was simple and easy.
Honestly, I loved running games that way.
I like the PFS rule. It's simple, and gives the player characters a slight edge of .5 hp per die from level 2+.
Rolling yields these averages:
d6 = 3.5
d8 = 4.5
d10 = 5.5
d12 = 6.5
PFS rounds up [which is a rarity in the game of PF] for PC's:
d6 = 4
d8 = 5
d10 = 6
d12 = 7
PFS uses the average though when dealing with PC's animal companions or eidolon, by effectively using the rounded down number first, and then the rounded up number. So, on a d8, the odd-level HD yield a 4 and the even-level HD yield a 5.
http://paizo.com/paizo/organizedplay/faq#v5748eaic9vh3
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I've seen a system where you reroll your hp each level, and your total can only go up. For example, for a d8 class:
Level 1: 8+con
Level 2: 8+d8+2xcon
Level 3: 8+2d8+3xcon, hp must go up by at least 1+con from level 2
...and so forth. In general, you'll be slightly above average most levels but really extreme rolls will even out over time.
You can find articles by early D&D players that thought you rerolled hp every day. "I'm feeling really healthy today guys!"
PFS rounds up [which is a rarity in the game of PF] for PC's:
d6 = 4
d8 = 5
d10 = 6
d12 = 7
Until I saw this thread, I assumed that was a rule in the Core rulebook.