Archived thread started by Mort...
Oh boy, look what I found, a blog.. well I just thought about something to rant about so here I am.
Now, the new D20 D&D, the high and mighty of 'balance' as they claim all over the place.
"Yes, all our classes are balanced against each other, yada yada yada." - Now this is mostly true, apart from some classes being a bit crap compared to others, and some classes scaling upwards on the power scale at higher levels while others start to suck somewhat. But all in all you can pick any class you want and end up with a decent character.
Except for one silly thing: Hitpoints!
Why, oh why did they decide to keep that stupid die roll for hitpoints? It's the do or die for some characters. Your 10th level mage has got 15 hitpoints? Well that's not very good is it? You might as well just chuck it on the discard pile now, or be prepared to spend a lot of time unconcious. Sure you can put up Con, but do you really want to do that as a wizard? No not really, those stat points are much better spent on your Int stat, so you can cast spells with a decent chance of success.
Why didn't they just chuck that die roll out the window and give each class a number of hitpoints per level instead? In theory a barbarian at level 10 might have less hitpoints than a mage, if the barbarian is unlucky. Not very likely as a barbarian probably has quite a high Con, but definately possible. If they insisted on keeping the hit points roll they should have kept the old way of rolling stats as well, none of this fancy 4d6 crap, and stat buying? Oh please, where's the randomness in that?
I'm done ranting now, please return to your normal reading....
Archived comment by me:
ReplyDeleteRolling hit points is, indeed, rather bad, especially if you happen to roll a 1 at 2nd level (which is death to any fighter type), or, alternatively, someone in the party cheats (and always 'happens' to roll maximum hit points). In fact, I'm not keen on randomness in any facet of character management - ability scores, starting wealth, hit points.
(Indeed, it seems that modifying the random roll has always been a favourite house rule - either allowing two rolls, keep the better, or rerolling 1's, or allowing a reroll, but you have to take the second value even if it's worse.)
Of course, random rolls never suck if you either happen to roll high values when it matters, or cheat, so you always "happen" to roll high values when it matters. And therein lies the problem with removing the randomness: unless you just assign the maximum possible value, people are liable to resent this - the potential for greatness has been curtailed, or so they think, even though it was always extremely unlikely that they would ever reach that potential.
Anyway, looking at my Star Wars Revised Core Rulebook, there is a section on page 15 dealing with the RPGA Living Force campaign, which doesn't have random rolls. Extrapolating the values for classes with d4 and d12 hit points per level (which don't exist in Star Wars), we get the following suggested values:
Wizard or Sorcerer: 3 per level
Rogue or Bard: 4 per level
Cleric, Druid, Monk or Ranger: 6 per level
Fighter or Paladin: 8 per level
Barbarian: 10 per level
These would seem reasonable values, although they do, on average, increase the hit points of the party somewhat (a 5th level Wizard will have an average of 14 hit points, and now has 16, while a 5th level Barbarian goes from an average of 38 to 52).
Archived comment by Mort:
ReplyDeleteYes, cheating is always a possibility and something which annoys the hell out of me, especially when people just randomly roll a dice, if it is a good number it's suddenly their new hp, otherwise it's just some random dice rolling. Anyway, I actually have something to say so I'll leave this for another time.
Living Greyhawk, which happens to be a d20 D&D thing does have static hp progression, which, as it seems does not have the same hp values as Living Force.
The rules from Living Greyhawk is as such:
Assign your starting character the maximum hit points possible for his class. For each additional character levels, assign hit points according to the new class by taking half the maximum value for the class, add 1 point, and then your Con Bonus (or penalty).
This means the values for the classes would be:
Wizard or Sorcerer: 3 per level
Rogue or Bard: 4 per level
Cleric, Druid or Ranger: 5 per level
Figher or Paladin: 6 per level
Barbarian: 7 per level
I have no more comments at this time.
Archived comment by me:
ReplyDeleteLiving Force vs. Living Greyhawk
I was surprised, when looking at the Living Force, to find that the numbers were as they are - I expected them to match the values you posted for Living Greyhawk. That stole a bit of weight from my comment about people not liking the loss of the really high values a bit - it's easier to complain that your Barbarian gets only 7 per level than to complain because he only gets 10.
Still, if there were one wish I could make for fourth edition, I think it would be an end to random-rolled hit points and starting cash. I guess I should probably ask for the same for ability scores, but my concerns over min-maxing still get to me.
Cheating with Dice
Alas, cheating with dice is an ill that probably can never be eradicated. Between the deliberate cheats (oh, I was just rolling until now; whoops, I knocked that '1' onto the floor, guess I'd better re-roll, or even people who weight their dice), and the people who 'cheat' unconcsciously (by not rolling dice properly), I think it's just endemic to the games.
(The 'unconscious cheating' thing goes as follows: you've been rolling dice, and a good roll has just come up. The next roll comes, so you grab the dice, and immediately throw them down again. Since the dice don't actually 'shake' the new roll is not independent of the old one, and so is likely to also be a good roll. This is more of a problem with small dice sizes that large ones - the good rolls on a 1d6 are all within 1 turn of each other, while turning a d20 by one face can change a 20 into a 2, 8 or 14. It's also especially bad with lots of dice, since it's harder to roll several dice in your hand. So, if you roll a 10d6 fireball and happen to get a 60, the next 10d6 fireball is also likely to be above average, without the player even realising it.)
I know of only two ways to guarantee fair rolls:
1) The roller has to use a cup (like Johannes already does). The dice are placed in the cup, covered with the palm of the hand, and given no fewer than four vigourous shakes. The cup is then inverted, 'slammed' down onto a horizontal surface, and then removed. If the player at any time looks at the contents of the cup between the first shake and the cup being entirely removed, the whole roll must be re-done, and any die that doesn't land flat must be rerolled.
2) Craps style - the dice have to be thrown (fast) down a run-way, where they must bounce on the 'ground' surface and the 'end' surface before coming to a halt. Any die that doesn't land flat must be rerolled.
Either way, every roll would need to be supervised, and 'just rolling' would have to be disallowed.
Adding either of these techniques to the game would either slow the game down greatly (method 1), or take up a lot of room (method 2), or probably both. Not to mention that people don't like being told that such things are being done because their friends are worried that they might be cheating.
Archived comment by Andrew:
ReplyDeleteI've always been a fan of taking the average score for hitpoints since it always seemed to be me who rolled the one or two at that moment. I've also liked the Living Greyhawk method of generating ability scores rather than the more random dice-rolling session as I try and come up with a decent background for the character first and then generate abilities. This meant I could try and fit ability scores to what I came up with in the background (for example, my current character was "absent-minded" so I wanted a low Wisdom score, but higher-than-average Charisma for possible leadership). Both can still leave the system open for min-max abuse that the DM needs to keep an eye on.