This thread is for you who miss random hit points, are curious why there's no official rules variant for it, or just are thinking about how to make it happen.
Please do not fill this thread about discussion why it would be a bad idea. This thread is for people open to the idea. A "plus thread" as it were! :-)
Officially you can't roll for hit points using dice. Every character gets 6 hit points from her Elf ancestry. Never 5 or 7. Every character gets 12 hit points from each level of Barbarian. Never 8 or 16... or 1!
How would you re-add back a variant that lets you roll for hit points?
More in general, starting hp totals have vastly increased in PF2. (A first level character can start with over 20 hit points!) What do you think about that - is there room for playing a game where you start out with five or ten hit points, like in previous D&D rulesets? Or rather, let's assume there is, avoid any negative and boring explanations why not, and tell us about your variant rules? :-)
In short, would you replace the Barbarian's "12 hp per level" with a d12 like before, or would you aim to keep the same average (such as by rolling d12+6 or somesuch)?
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I think it would be fun. With the increased hit points on average, especially at first level, I'd want some kind of baseline to keep a similar, but slightly better, average.
So, I guess I'm for a half and half approach?
A wizard instead of getting 6 hp per level could get 3 + d6 hp per level (average 6.5).
A barbarian could get 6 + d12 (avg 12.5) instead of 12 per level, like in your second example.
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Flagged for moving to Homebrew/House Rule subforum, where it belongs ;:)))))
Go for the average unless you want a very dangerous for the players :P
So half the normal amount and then a die equal to the size of the normal HP.
I cannot see myself ever doing this though. If I want varying HP I will play more old school essentials :P (b/x)
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So to reduce the massive increased death rate of random health, you'll probably have to make damage non random or increase saves/acs massively.
This also might be an option that they publish in the upcoming Gamemastery Guide, which is supposed to have several variant rules.
For a simple homebrew right off the bat, given the increased damage that seems prevalent at low levels, you'll probably want to look into Kios's approach for classes - average amount, followed by rolling the die. This could lead to some characters having a huge amount of HP - for instance, a barbarian starting with 6, then rolling a 12 on the d12, and adding 18 HP before Con Mod. However, it also means that a Barbarian will never get fewer than 7 HP on level up. Given their reliance on being front-line combatants, they likely won't last if they don't at least get that much every level.
Zapp wrote: More in general, starting hp totals have vastly increased in PF2. (A first level character can start with over 20 hit points!) What do you think about that - is there room for playing a game where you start out with five or ten hit points, like in previous D&D rulesets? Or rather, let's assume there is, avoid any negative and boring explanations why not, and tell us about your variant rules? :-) Assuming we are talking about rolling for HP with a die equal to your class's normal "hit die", this change is basically to reduce starting HP drastically, and as they level average HP of the party will settle around 50%.
There is a change in the assumption of how often you will get hit by enemies. In PF2 you will get hit more often, and for more damage, so a 5 HP character will probably have to avoid any attacks being directed at them or else have very good odds of dropping before doing anything.
To make this work enemy attack and damage numbers might have to be adjusted. You could instead try to raise player AC so they are hit less. Or you could simply lower overall encounter difficulty or use lower damage enemies, like gremlins instead of orcs for example.
If you are rolling every level then your chances of being one-shot by at level enemies will likely stay the same, while it slowly takes you longer to kill them in turn, so whatever compensation for this should maybe have slight scaling to account for that.
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I think to make it work you would need to have the bestiary roll for hit points too. Obvious why that is not the case, what GM wants to roll every NPC. But as a player always fun to run into the weak one or strong one and removes metagaming of when they are going to drop.
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Idk but I like 5e's "roll for half or better", but half dice + roll sounds much better for PF2e balance point.
As for bestiary, wouldnt just having static HP and rolling an offset work well enough?
Ex: For 3d10 hd the max might be 40 HP, then an offset of 1d10 (10 is 0) could give 31 to 40 HP.
Temperans wrote: Idk but I like 5e's "roll for half or better", but half dice + roll sounds much better for PF2e balance point. Not how 5e works
"Each time you gain a level, you gain 1 additional Hit die. Roll that Hit Die, add your Constitution modifier to the roll, and add the total to your hit point maximum. Alternatively, you can use the fixed value shown in your class entry, which is the average result of the die roll (rounded up)."
So I actually use rolling for hit points in my game. We have 6 PCs and we roll with just the die (so barbarians get a d12.)
Balance wise I pretend I am making an encounter for a 4 player party. It works very well.
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If you really want the old school roll, then i believe the best way is to roll 2dx. Like 6 hp becomes 2d6. This way you have both the very high and the very low, with acceptable distributions and a bonus average in exchange for the risks involved in rolling.
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I have honestly always hated rolling for health as hitpoints should not really be a measure of trying to differentiate characters with the same class/stats.
Luck hardly ever improves base levels of health so it is in no way "realistic".
At least with the new system you know exactly what to expect.
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Dekalinder wrote: If you really want the old school roll, then i believe the best way is to roll 2dx. Like 6 hp becomes 2d6. This way you have both the very high and the very low, with acceptable distributions and a bonus average in exchange for the risks involved in rolling. This is probably the best recommendation for what the OP was looking for.
I had players that loved rolling and others that hated it. My bad luck player had a barb that had managed to roll under a 4 for like 5 levels of hp. I pretty well started giving him a free re-roll because I felt bad for him. I think It's fine for people that like that strong element of chaos in their games and players that have really good luck. I think I prefer standard. That said I think the two dice idea is the best one I've seen so far for fairer hp distribution.
krazmuze wrote: I think to make it work you would need to have the bestiary roll for hit points too. Obvious why that is not the case, what GM wants to roll every NPC. But as a player always fun to run into the weak one or strong one and removes metagaming of when they are going to drop.
There are (infamously) no NPCs in the Bestiary...
The Gleeful Grognard wrote: Temperans wrote: Idk but I like 5e's "roll for half or better", but half dice + roll sounds much better for PF2e balance point. Not how 5e works
"Each time you gain a level, you gain 1 additional Hit die. Roll that Hit Die, add your Constitution modifier to the roll, and add the total to your hit point maximum. Alternatively, you can use the fixed value shown in your class entry, which is the average result of the die roll (rounded up)." https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/48198/why-would-i-ever-choose-rolli ng-hit-points/160753#160753
Instead of 2dX of the listed die, I might do 2dX+1 of one die lower.
So a d6 would go 2d4+1. You couldn't get less than 3. But you'd be capped at 9.
d10 would go 2d8+1.
And the wildest would be the barbarian's d12 at 2d10+1. Minimum 3, maximum 21.
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BellyBeard wrote: Dekalinder wrote: If you really want the old school roll, then i believe the best way is to roll 2dx. Like 6 hp becomes 2d6. This way you have both the very high and the very low, with acceptable distributions and a bonus average in exchange for the risks involved in rolling. This is probably the best recommendation for what the OP was looking for. Thank you.
Yes, if I offer this variant to my players, they will likely all roll.
(All they can see is that sweet extra hp on average, while forgetting how a low roll is more worse than a high roll is good, at least at low levels ;-)
That is, while mathematically rolling a 2 on 2d12 is equally (un)likely as rolling 24, starting out as an Elf Barbarian with a total of 6+2=8 hp is much more crippling than how starting out with 6+24=30 hp is good.
A party is only as strong as its weakest member. While you personally gain some safety by having 30 hp, the eleven hp you have above average does not make up for your buddy having eleven fewer hp than the average.
I'm not saying this makes the choice of rolling a bad choice. I'm saying you need some incentive to make up for the risk, and that the risk isn't completely expressed by the maths involved. Getting an extra point on average does constitute an incentive - the question that remains is if it is sufficient (at low levels).
Barnabas Eckleworth III wrote: Instead of 2dX of the listed die, I might do 2dX+1 of one die lower.
So a d6 would go 2d4+1. You couldn't get less than 3. But you'd be capped at 9.
d10 would go 2d8+1.
And the wildest would be the barbarian's d12 at 2d10+1. Minimum 3, maximum 21.
I can certainly sympathize with your concern over the large span.
A simpler, easier-to-remember version of your suggestion is to gain half the rulebook increase as a fixed number and then roll a single die of the indicated type.
+12 becomes 1d12+6 and so on.
(And we're back full circle)
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Zapp wrote: krazmuze wrote: I think to make it work you would need to have the bestiary roll for hit points too. Obvious why that is not the case, what GM wants to roll every NPC. But as a player always fun to run into the weak one or strong one and removes metagaming of when they are going to drop.
There are (infamously) no NPCs in the Bestiary... Everything that moves and isn't a player character is an NPC, be it a blacksmith or an animated armor.
Salamileg wrote: Zapp wrote: krazmuze wrote: I think to make it work you would need to have the bestiary roll for hit points too. Obvious why that is not the case, what GM wants to roll every NPC. But as a player always fun to run into the weak one or strong one and removes metagaming of when they are going to drop.
There are (infamously) no NPCs in the Bestiary... Everything that moves and isn't a player character is an NPC, be it a blacksmith or an animated armor. Adding to this even with the understanding of npc as intelligent humanoid race with wide reaching culture.
Duergar, drow and the like fit the role :)
Hmm must have been a house rule then. Still I like that the HP with that rule is never less then half the hit dice, but HP aren't always the maximum either. So you can get a Wizard who happens to roll the same HP as the Barbarian.
Either the wizard didn't forget leg day in his study or the barbarian must have skipped it to go for a drink.
I think half hp per level + roll could work out. It would lead to some players being unusually squishy and some being night unkillable, it also makes level ups a lot more tense. There are ups and downs, but I could definitely see it be the right thing for some tables.
If I was playing a really gritty one-shot I could see myself temporarily bringing back rolling for HP and Ability scores. I don't think I would ever do either for a campaign though.
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The Gleeful Grognard wrote: Salamileg wrote: Zapp wrote: krazmuze wrote: I think to make it work you would need to have the bestiary roll for hit points too. Obvious why that is not the case, what GM wants to roll every NPC. But as a player always fun to run into the weak one or strong one and removes metagaming of when they are going to drop.
There are (infamously) no NPCs in the Bestiary... Everything that moves and isn't a player character is an NPC, be it a blacksmith or an animated armor. Adding to this even with the understanding of npc as intelligent humanoid race with wide reaching culture.
Duergar, drow and the like fit the role :) Yes I am referring to the entire bestiary.
The bestiary is already optimized that any boss can take a PC down on their turn with decent rolls. So leaving the bestiary with full HP if PC have less HP makes the game unbalanced.
Salamileg wrote: Zapp wrote: krazmuze wrote: I think to make it work you would need to have the bestiary roll for hit points too. Obvious why that is not the case, what GM wants to roll every NPC. But as a player always fun to run into the weak one or strong one and removes metagaming of when they are going to drop.
There are (infamously) no NPCs in the Bestiary... Everything that moves and isn't a player character is an NPC, be it a blacksmith or an animated armor. To me, a NPC is a monster stat block with a profession. Could be "baker", "thug" or "cultist"; could also be a member of a class, such as "alchemist", "druid" or "monk".
Usually, NPCs are humanoid and somewhat civilized.
Henro wrote: It would lead to some players being unusually squishy and some being night unkillable Hopefully you're exaggerating.
(If a few extra hit points make you "nigh unkillable", the monsters are doing it wrong ;)
Zapp wrote: Henro wrote: It would lead to some players being unusually squishy and some being night unkillable Hopefully you're exaggerating.
(If a few extra hit points make you "nigh unkillable", the monsters are doing it wrong ;) Definitely at least a slight exaggeration - though a barbarian could potentially get scary amounts of hit points with this method.
Still, there are other ways to secure a win even against mountains of hps.
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