D&D 5E Anyone granting max HP to PCs by default?

[Stoutstien]

max hp at first level and then roll after. Why take away freedoms of playing or adding additional hp at first? Not sure why DM's are against players roling up their characters and insist on using the point buy etc. Do you not trust your players?

Rolling stats is hard one and due to the nature of the spread most of the time the difference is in the favor of rolling. This is double true for tables that roll and allows assignment vs independently rolling each.

HP increase per level doesn't have any safety nets for a few bad rolls in a row. I've seen a wizard roll a 1 for lv 2 and 3 HP increases.

 

[ad_hoc]

max hp at first level and then roll after. Why take away freedoms of playing or adding additional hp at first? Not sure why DM's are against players roling up their characters and insist on using the point buy etc. Do you not trust your players?

On stats:

1. They're a big deal. Having high stats is like starting out with a bunch of powerful magic items.
2. If a character starts with a 20 then they have nowhere to go from there for their main stat. That's it, that's the max. It's better to have progression for a character.

On HP:

1. Again, they're important. Rolling low for HP means the character will die easily. Monsters hit hard and having lower than average HP means they might go down in 2 hits instead of 3. That's a huge difference. Rolling high probably doesn't help much either. That and taking the guaranteed HP is already above average.


At our table we use the Standard Array and set hit points.

It has nothing to do with 'trust', not sure where that is coming from.

 

[Charlaquin]

As a DM I have long removed any randomness in character creation and level-up, unless the players really want to. I always start by proposing the fixed ability array, but I allow point-buy and rolling for ability scores at your own risk. Similarly, I grant average HP by default when levelling up. I do not recommend players to roll for anything they will be stuck with long-term.

I was wondering recently if I could even take it a step further and grant max HP instead of average when levelling up (as in 1st level). Obviously this means tougher PCs, but then I can always be more mean with monsters if I feel the encounters are too easy. Mainly, the effect would be to make the players less worried about dying in the first encounter of the day or from a single unfortunate trap/attack/spell.

I don't think this is a popular idea at all, but I am curious if any DM out there has used this before and whether it made a difference or not.

I did this once, coupled with a house rule that a long rest restores all of your hit dice but does not change your hit points. My thinking was, their Max HP would represent the maximum possible roll of all of their hit dice, but on most days their current HP would be closer to the average-rounded-up. In practice though, they were usually able to start the day within a few points of their maximum.

Going max HP also made a huge difference in survivability, which I anticipated, but it made that difference far sooner than I thought it would. I expected low-level characters to be a bit tougher but still pretty fragile, and for mid-high level characters to be much, much tougher. But in fact, even as early as level 2, those extra couple hit points gave the players the extra couple turns they needed to take on much stronger opponents. This was in Curse of Strahd, and my players defeated the shambling mound in Death House without any deaths. This came after surviving the ghouls and the shadows, with only a short rest between.

Escaping the house did nearly finish the party off after that, and would have been a TPK if I hadn’t also been using a house rule that characters can remain conscious at 0 HP by concentrating. But even so, the fact that a party of four 2nd level characters was able to take down a shambling mound after having survived two other notoriously tough encounters, without anyone dying, goes to show how huge those extra few HP really are.

 

[Li Shenron]

Not sure why DM's are against players roling up their characters and insist on using the point buy etc. Do you not trust your players?

I said I allow rolling but I do not recommend it. With beginners, I don't even necessarily tell them about it but I won't forbid it if they ask for it.

Indeed I do not trust the players ability to accept bad rolls on ability scores or hp without constantly complaining later on how unlucky they are or how better the other PCs. Most players claim they are fully capable, but their willingness to play well and seriously is negatively affected by having rolled very poor ability scores.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

In my game we use point buy or standard array. We do not roll, ever. It creates too much variability in character power levels within the group.

For HP, my house rule is that anyone who rolls lower than the average, gets the average. For example, if you are a cleric, roll a d8. If you roll under a 5, you get bumped up to 5. From there you apply Con modifier.

My player characters have a lot of hit points!

 

[wicked cool]

On stats:

1. They're a big deal. Having high stats is like starting out with a bunch of powerful magic items.-I would disagree. You fighter/wizard has an 18 in their stat. I have never found it to be like having a magic item. Sure its better than a 14 but combat is hard. FYI Please don't think I'm fighting with you on this

average party then I had experience is 3+. in 5e how often the party gets into trouble mostly due to terrible rolling. My 18 dex rogue isn't dominating the battlefield . Even if I was a 100% cheat and had 18 in all rolls i'm still not mopping the floor at first level

2. If a character starts with a 20 then they have nowhere to go from there for their main stat. That's it, that's the max. It's better to have progression for a character.-Also disagree with this. So my dwarf has an 18 and gets a +2 making it a 20. I have never felt I had nowhere to go

low stats wizard etc the game is much harder and even with additional HP you die
low stat fighter-especially first level-you hit less and die-first level you have junk armor and most of those negate having a good dex

ive been playing this game for a long time (mostly low magic campaigns so maybe that's the difference). Most parties don't have magic items until 5th level)

 

[Weiley31]

I'll ALLOW players to roll if they want. But I have it where it's Max HP per level up of whatever their class Hit Die is. So fighters gain 10 Hp each level up, Bards 8 HP each level up, Barbarians 12 HP each level up, etc etc.

Because frak gaining 1 HP from rolls.

 

[DammitVictor]

The best system I have ever seen for this, for any version of D&D, was that characters re-roll all of their Hit Dice every time they gain a level-- and then, they either take their new total, or their old total +1, whichever was higher.

It's something I've been playing with a lot. There are a number of ideas I really like, but I can't get them to work together neatly.

 

[Al2O3]

What tone and themes are you going for? What kind of challenges?

If you want "will our characters survive?" to be a big part, then don't use max hit points.

If you run a more intrigue heavy campaign, where combat is more a change of pace or a way to get clues, then go for it! The hardest campaign my group has played was also the one with the least challenging combat. Sure, the villains (if that is what they were) could probably hold their own in a fight. However, we never truly considered that options, because violence would have created more and worse problems that it solved. Our longest streak of intense roleplaying and overcoming challenges without combat was around 10 sessions...

TL;Dr: if PC death is a desirable potential result, then avoid max hit points.
If the campaign works fine even if the PCs virtually unkillable in combat, then go for max hit points.

 

[DND_Reborn]

The best system I have ever seen for this, for any version of D&D, was that characters re-roll all of their Hit Dice every time they gain a level-- and then, they either take their new total, or their old total +1, whichever was higher.

It's something I've been playing with a lot. There are a number of ideas I really like, but I can't get them to work together neatly.

This is something I added as well for my game coming up. In fact, I think you might be the one who gave me the idea in another thread. It isn't a huge boost, but does allow to make up for a bad roll or two eventually.