D & D rules question

[bretlt]

I would really appreciate it if someone can help me with questions about rules for D & D (3.5). I have never played (I am 57), but my son is asking via email (Corrlinks -- he is a good man who is in prison for a few years, and is playing D & D with some others who seem to be relatively good influences -- please please please don't troll me here) -- here is a paste from his email, and I have no real idea what he is talking about ...

1. When you die and you're raised back to life through any means EXCEPT True Ressurrection, and you gain a level (because, unless you use True Ressurrection, you lose a level,) do you gain all your bonuses for leveling up or do you simply keep what you had before you died? Whenever you level up, you gain 1 hit die, base attack bonus, saves, skill points, and spells if you're a caster.

2. Does a Druid's animal companion advance on it's own as well as gaining bonuses based on the Druid's effective Druid level or does the animal companion ONLY level up with the Druid's ECL? For instance, an animal companion that shares an effective Druid level of 4 gains +2 bonus HD, +2 natural armor, +1 STR and DEX as well as learning one more bonus trick. Does the animal companion not also gain experience on it's own and advance naturally based on it's HD?

Both questions apply to Ver. 3.5

[King539]

These questions are best posted on the 3.5 subforum. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?59-D-amp-D-3e-3-5e-d20)

I'd recommend PMing a mod and asking them to move it.

[Kish]

I would really appreciate it if someone can help me with questions about rules for D & D (3.5). I have never played (I am 57), but my son is asking via email (Corrlinks -- he is a good man who is in prison for a few years, and is playing D & D with some others who seem to be relatively good influences -- please please please don't troll me here) -- here is a paste from his email, and I have no real idea what he is talking about ...

1. When you die and you're raised back to life through any means EXCEPT True Ressurrection, and you gain a level (because, unless you use True Ressurrection, you lose a level,) do you gain all your bonuses for leveling up or do you simply keep what you had before you died? Whenever you level up, you gain 1 hit die, base attack bonus, saves, skill points, and spells if you're a caster.

2. Does a Druid's animal companion advance on it's own as well as gaining bonuses based on the Druid's effective Druid level or does the animal companion ONLY level up with the Druid's ECL? For instance, an animal companion that shares an effective Druid level of 4 gains +2 bonus HD, +2 natural armor, +1 STR and DEX as well as learning one more bonus trick. Does the animal companion not also gain experience on it's own and advance naturally based on it's HD?

Both questions apply to Ver. 3.5
1. If you lose a level, it's gone. You don't "regain" the level, ever. You determine your new level as if you had never been level X before. That may mean more hit points, less hit points, different spells known, the level being a different class, etc.

2. The druid's animal companion does not advance. Its statistics are entirely dependent on the druid's level. If it gained XP it would need to be taking a share of XP, which most of the party members would probably prefer it didn't.

[gooddragon1]

1. If you lose a level, it's gone. You don't "regain" the level, ever. You determine your new level as if you had never been level X before. That may mean more hit points...

So what you're telling me is that theoretically you could use this method to optimize your HP to have max HP per level? Excellent.

[Gellhorn]

I mean... it'd get expensive, especially if you've got d10s for HP.

[Lazymancer]

So what you're telling me is that theoretically you could use this method to optimize your HP to have max HP per level? Excellent.
I have no words.

But I might have some numbers: initial cost of this re-roll is 25% of progress towards next level, but it goes up to 33% at next level, and, as the levels get higher, approaches 50% (limit).

[Psyren]

So what you're telling me is that theoretically you could use this method to optimize your HP to have max HP per level? Excellent.

In PF you can just retrain your hit points without all this rigmarole. I'd simply backport that.

[KillianHawkeye]

In PF you can just retrain your hit points without all this rigmarole. I'd simply backport that.

Wait, really?? :smalleek:

[Psyren]

Wait, really?? :smalleek:

Yep: (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/ultimateCampaign/campaignSystems/retraining.html)


"Hit Points
Sometimes the dice aren't in your favor when you gain a level and the hit points you roll are especially low. Unlike retraining other character abilities, retraining hit points doesn't involve replacing an existing ability with a new one, it just increases your maximum hit points.

Retraining hit points takes 3 days and requires you to spend time at a martial academy, monk monastery, or with some kind of master of combat who is at least one level higher than you. At the end of the training period, increase your hit points by 1. You can retrain hit points only if your maximum hit point total is less than the maximum possible hit point total for your character."


There are other gems in the retraining rules too. For example, if you have a lot of time on your hands, you can use it to learn new languages without sinking any skill points into Linguistics. (It also doesn't need to be a listed language for your race and class. Hello Druidic!)