[AD&D, D&D] A question about Hit dices after level 10
Silvermiles
they don't roll a hit dice anymore, instead they just earn 1 extra
maximum hit point.
Was it in:
- AD&D
- Dungeons & Dragons
- Baldur's gate videogames
- Icewind Dale videogames
Do you guys remember?
I write a videogame based on 3.5. Since after level 10 characters tend
to be overly powerful and unkillable, do you think it's a good option
to restrain HP this way? Have you tried it?
Harold Groot
In AD&D, characters had different stopping points for hit DICE
depending on their class (mostly in the 9-11 range), and then got
different amounts of extra hit POINTS (generally 1-3/level) also
depending on their class.
So if it happened that you were reading about an AD&D 2E Wizard then
yes, it was 10 hit dice and then 1 hp per level after that. In
contrast, a 2E fighter stopped at 9 hit dice but got 3 hp/level after
that.
In general, in 3.5E the amount of extra power that characters get
after 10th level is not very dependent on the amount of hit points
they have. The spells and magic items they will be getting are much
more important in determining their overall power than their hit
points. But how players play their characters has much MORE to do
with how high the death rate is than how many hit points they have or
even how much magic they have.
As it happens, in our current 3.5E game the DM has many House Rules.
Some help the players, some hurt the players. One of the helpful House
Rules results in characters getting an EXTRA hit point or two per
level. Yet before my character joined that campaign (at 8th level),
it had a VERY high death rate. Players always had 2 backup characters
ready to go. One was in the same role (in case theirs was the only
character to die). The other was in a different role (in case of a
Total Party Kill they'd swap around roles). On the average, they were
probably losing a character every 4 playing sessions. After my
character joined and had a chance to settle in, the death rate dropped
to almost nothing. Why? Was it because my incoming character was
super-powerful? Did I have huge numbers of hit points? No and no. I
didn't build a Super-Optimized character. It's just that my Divine
Caster/Crafter spent most of her spells on making everyone harder to
kill. Buffing spells before battles and Healing spells during battle
kept the others in the game. It wasn't dramatic, it didn't earn much
spotlight time, but it WAS effective. In down time she was crafting
magic items to let everyone get desired magic items faster and in
greater quantity. And setting modesty aside: before the battles there
was better planning/preparation, and during battles there was a more
realistic appraisal of when to retreat. So after my character had
settled in, we had a run of over 100 playing sessions without a
permanent casualty (and only 4 temporary casualties during that run).
And when we DID finally have a permanent casualty a few weeks ago, it
was because the player decided he wanted to try a different type of
character. We're currently at 14th level and had recovered his body,
so his PC could have been brought back from the dead - even without
the loss of a level. He chose not to have us do that.
Would having fewer hit points have changed our death rate? Again, no.
If absolutely nothing else about our characters changed it would
simply have meant we retreated a few more times rather than pressing
some of the close fights. We would have made somewhat slower
progress, but it wouldn't have changed the death rate. More likely we
would have made some changes, such as shifting more of our resources
to getting buffing and defensive magic to compensate for our having
fewer hit points, or doing even better pre-battle prep work.
My 14th level Divine Caster, even with House Rules giving out an extra
hp or two per level, has only 72 hit points. Even without getting
bonuses from House Rules, most RAW Divine Casters of her level would
be built to have quite a few more hit points. She's considered to be
quite low on hit points in general, and PARTICULARLY low on hit points
for this campaign. (In fact, she has fewer hit points than anyone
else in the party.) Yet as far as surviving goes, she's doing just
fine.
Hit points are probably more important in video games, but in D&D
(where you have such a huge number of options in play) they just
aren't such a big deal. You adjust your strategy to account for them
and move on.
Ubiquitous
>I remember having read somewhere that after characters go past level 10
>they don't roll a hit dice anymore, instead they just earn 1 extra
>maximum hit point.
>
>Was it in:
>
>- AD&D
In AD&D, after a certain level, usually the "name" level, characters receive
a fixed number of points per level.
BTW, There is no such word as "dices"; "dice" is the plural of "die".
--
"If Barack Obama isn't careful, he will become the Jimmy Carter of the
21st century."
Silvermiles
>
> In AD&D, after a certain level, usually the "name" level, characters receive
> a fixed number of points per level.
The "name" level? Do you mean it's up to the Dungeon Master?
> BTW, There is no such word as "dices"; "dice" is the plural of "die".
Thanks, I'll try to remember. ** ban dices **. A die, several dice. All right.
Silvermiles
>
> In AD&D, characters had different stopping points for hit DICE
> depending on their class (mostly in the 9-11 range), and then got
> different amounts of extra hit POINTS (generally 1-3/level) also
> depending on their class.
>
> So if it happened that you were reading about an AD&D 2E Wizard then
> yes, it was 10 hit dice and then 1 hp per level after that. In
> contrast, a 2E fighter stopped at 9 hit dice but got 3 hp/level after
> that.
Ok, it's very clear this way. Wizard getting d4 hp/level (avg 2.5), 10
HD would be 40hp? Which would be get after 16.6667 levels with a null
constitution modifier?
And for the fighter, d10 hp/level (avg 5.5), 9 HD would be 90hp. Which
would be get after 16.3 levels with a null constitution modifier. With
a +3 CON modifier it would be get after 10.5 levels.
So the rule is not what I understood. Thanks for explanations.
J.O. Aho
> On 2011-05-12 17:42:50 +0800, Ubiquitous <web...@polaris.net> said:
>>
>> In AD&D, after a certain level, usually the "name" level, characters
>> receive
>> a fixed number of points per level.
>
> The "name" level? Do you mean it's up to the Dungeon Master?
At 9th/10th level a character reaches the "name" level and only gets a fixed
amount of HP per level (see your copy of PHB), there are always the
possibility that a DM uses house rules and continues to give a dice...
--
//Aho
Ubiquitous
>On 2011-05-12 17:42:50 +0800, Ubiquitous <web...@polaris.net> said:
>> In AD&D, after a certain level, usually the "name" level, characters
>> receive a fixed number of points per level.
>
>The "name" level? Do you mean it's up to the Dungeon Master?
I forgot the exact term, but if you look at the class charts in the PH,
it's the level where the name stops changing: "footpad", "burgler",
"pickpocket",...,"thief".
tussock
> I remember having read somewhere that after characters go past level 10
> they don't roll a hit dice anymore, instead they just earn 1 extra
> maximum hit point.
>
> Was it in:
>
> - AD&D
> - Dungeons & Dragons
> - Baldur's gate videogames
> - Icewind Dale videogames
>
> Do you guys remember?
All of the above. Wizards and Rogues at 1hp/level, Clerics at 2, and
Fighters at 3. Different levels in different editions.
> I write a videogame based on 3.5. Since after level 10 characters tend
> to be overly powerful and unkillable, do you think it's a good option
> to restrain HP this way? Have you tried it?
Not tried it, but it's more than the hit points that make high level d20
characters so awesome. You may like the idea of Epic-6 (E6) if high level
characters are a bit hard on the game, only cap character level at 10 or so
(might be a bit too much work to recode all the higher level spells as slow
rituals though).
http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-legacy-discussion/202109-e6-game-inside-d-
d-pdfs.html
--
tussock
Silvermiles
> http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-legacy-discussion/202109-e6-game-inside-d-
> d-pdfs.html
Wow that's really interesting, thanks. I think your advice capping to
level 10 or so, is a good idea. I always hate it in RPG when my party
is too powerful...
Loren Pechtel
<silve...@nospam.com> wrote:
IIRC that's first-edition rules.
Hadsil
Harold Groot
<silve...@nospam.com> wrote:
>On 2011-05-12 18:21:40 +0800, que...@infionline.net (Harold Groot) said:
>>
>> In AD&D, characters had different stopping points for hit DICE
>> depending on their class (mostly in the 9-11 range), and then got
>> different amounts of extra hit POINTS (generally 1-3/level) also
>> depending on their class.
>>
>> So if it happened that you were reading about an AD&D 2E Wizard then
>> yes, it was 10 hit dice and then 1 hp per level after that. In
>> contrast, a 2E fighter stopped at 9 hit dice but got 3 hp/level after
>> that.
>Ok, it's very clear this way. Wizard getting d4 hp/level (avg 2.5), 10
>HD would be 40hp? Which would be get after 16.6667 levels with a null
>constitution modifier?
With no bonus for a high CON:
With an average of 2.5 on a d4 roll, 10 HD would mean getting around
25 hit points, not 40 (the maximum possible).
Going up to 16th level would mean getting an extra 6 hit points, so
around 31 total.
There are no fractional levels in D&D. You are 16th level until you
reach 17th level. There is no such thing as 16.6667 level.
>And for the fighter, d10 hp/level (avg 5.5), 9 HD would be 90hp. Which
>would be get after 16.3 levels with a null constitution modifier. With
>a +3 CON modifier it would be get after 10.5 levels.
Again, 9 HD times 5.5 (the average role, not the maximum roll) means
around 49-50 hit points at 9th level. Adding 3 points per level x 7
levels (to get up to 16th level) means around 70-71 hit points.
The Con Bonus only applied to actual hit DICE. With a +3 Con bonus,
at 9th level and above the total bonus for Con would be +27.
=========================================================================
Now, it was a very common House Rule in 1E/2E (AD&D) to give PCs
maximum hit points at first level - something that later was added to
the 3E (D&D) game as an official rule. That would give the wizard an
extra 1.5 hit points and the fighter an extra 4.5 hit points. (This
was to prevent the very high death rate if you happened to roll low at
first level.) But I will note that a quick death was NOT guarenteed.
I managed to get a fighter up to 3rd level with only 4 hit points
before he died. I had rolled a 1 at 1st level, a 2 at 2nd level, and
a 1 at 3rd level. (Naturally enough, he did NOT want to enter melee.
He bought a bow and fired arrows from a distance.)
But at higher levels, let's say that you play a very simple game and
just set a certain number of hit points as the point where you
retreat. Let's say that you decide to retreat if you go under 20 hit
points. You figure that gives you a pretty good chance to get away
and live. If you don't live - well, you hit some bad luck. That's
what happens in games.
Now suppose that you play the same character with extra hit points
while using the same strategy. You still retreat when you go under 20
hit points. You still think it's pretty safe, and you still have the
chance to die if there's some bad luck involved. Your death rate will
not change very much. Your decision on when to retreat (at 20 hit
points rather than, say, 15 or 25) is much more important to your
survival than the number of hit points you started with.
Now, most people don't make a decision simply based on hit points.
There are lots of other factors involved (like how badly damaged your
teammates and opponents look). But it remains a question of "How
risky is it to stay and fight?" Having more hit points means it can
take you longer to GET to the risky part, but the death rate depends
more on how MUCH risk you're willing to take rather than how SOON you
get there.
Paul Colquhoun
|>
|> In AD&D, characters had different stopping points for hit DICE
|> depending on their class (mostly in the 9-11 range), and then got
|> different amounts of extra hit POINTS (generally 1-3/level) also
|> depending on their class.
|>
|> So if it happened that you were reading about an AD&D 2E Wizard then
|> yes, it was 10 hit dice and then 1 hp per level after that. In
|> contrast, a 2E fighter stopped at 9 hit dice but got 3 hp/level after
|> that.
|
| Ok, it's very clear this way. Wizard getting d4 hp/level (avg 2.5), 10
| HD would be 40hp? Which would be get after 16.6667 levels with a null
| constitution modifier?
In a word, no.
10 HD means that you have thrown 10 dice (of whatever type) to generate
your hit points. So in your wizard example, 10 HD would average 25 hp +
CON modifiers.
| And for the fighter, d10 hp/level (avg 5.5), 9 HD would be 90hp. Which
| would be get after 16.3 levels with a null constitution modifier. With
| a +3 CON modifier it would be get after 10.5 levels.
Again, 9 HD at an average of 5.5 each would give 49.5 hp on average.
| So the rule is not what I understood. Thanks for explanations.
How had you understood it previously?
--
Reverend Paul Colquhoun, ULC. http://andor.dropbear.id.au/~paulcol
Asking for technical help in newsgroups? Read this first:
http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#intro
Harold Groot
<silve...@nospam.com> wrote:
>On 2011-05-12 17:42:50 +0800, Ubiquitous <web...@polaris.net> said:
>>
>> In AD&D, after a certain level, usually the "name" level, characters receive
>> a fixed number of points per level.
>
>The "name" level? Do you mean it's up to the Dungeon Master?
In 1E they gave titles for each level as you advanced in a class. So
for a fighter, at 1st level you were a "Veteran", at 2nd level you
were a "Warrior" and so on. At 9th level you were a "Lord". That was
where you got your last hit die, and that was the "Name" level. You
stuck with that title from that point on. You could be a "Lord (10th
level)" and "Lord (11th level)" and so on, but your title of "Lord"
didn't change and you got extra hit POINTS but no extra hit DICE.
Clerics worked their way up to "High Priest" at 9th level, Magic Users
worked their way up to "Wizard" at 11th level, Thieves would be a
"Master Thief" at 10th level and so on. Almost no one ever used those
titles in play, so they were permanently dropped in 2E.
Of course in 3E you no longer reach a limit in the number of hit dice
you get. That's simpler, but it means that the differences in hit
points between various classes gets much wider as you gain levels.
The 1E/2E system was attempting to keep the difference from growing
quite so fast after you reached 10th level or so.
David Lamb
> Your decision on when to retreat (at 20 hit
> points rather than, say, 15 or 25) is much more important to your
> survival than the number of hit points you started with.
Sounds familiar -- I've read several things over the last few months
that people generally have a fixed tolerance for risk. If you add a
safety measure, people take more chances. I have a vague memory of an
article about several car safety measures that had very little net
effect for that reason.
tussock
The main idea in safety training is to make people think they're facing
a lot of danger, but that there's something simple they can do to completely
negate it (that same line works for politicians when they're seeking your
vote). What doesn't work is fake safety lessons or equipment, helmets that
don't stand real impacts /increase/ injuries.
--
tussock