So apparently JC says you can lose HP on level up now...

[Mikal]

If you have a negative con mod and decide to roll... average still works though (unless your average is somehow not as high as your negative Con mod) (https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/938885709783384064)

I guess ye olde "minimum of 1 hp per level" no longer applies.
I... well I'll be honest. I like it.

People should have actual penalties when dumping stats, and Con should be considered important. There aren't any skills for Con, it's not a casting or attack stat, and saves against it or having low average HP can be mitigated various ways.

Penalizing HP into the negatives if you decide to try your luck makes sense, and forces choice on the player, and provides a mechanical aspect to playing your stats instead of ignoring them.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

I love that we're overturning forty years or whatever of precedent with a ****ing tweet. It's really great that that's a thing now.

[Mikal]

I love that we're overturning forty years or whatever of precedent with a ****ing tweet. It's really great that that's a thing now.

Just pretend the tweet is a sage advice column in Dragon magazine like I've started to do? :smallcool:

[UrielAwakened]

I love that we're overturning forty years or whatever of precedent with a ****ing tweet. It's really great that that's a thing now.

I mean what is he, the president or something?

Also just one more thing to add to the pile of dumb **** Jeremy Crawford says that nobody should ever actually do.

[Naanomi]

I love that we're overturning forty years or whatever of precedent with a ****ing tweet. It's really great that that's a thing now.
Wait what? In 2e you could get negative HP on leveling up. A really unhealthy wizard seriously risked dying at level ups...

With point-buy being standard in the games I’ve played, I don’t think I’ve seen a CON under 12 yet... very few under 14 for that matter

[nickl_2000]

I mean what is he, the president or something?

Also just one more thing to add to the pile of dumb **** Jeremy Crawford says that nobody should ever actually do.

He'e been designated by the D&D team at Wizard of the Coast to make ruling decisions, so sure kind of.

Luckily, you can always take the average, or just ignore this as a stupid rule if you don't like it.

[Mikal]

Wait what? In 2e you could get negative HP on leveling up. A really unhealthy wizard seriously risked dying at level ups...

With point-buy being standard in the games I’ve played, I don’t think I’ve seen a CON under 12 yet... very few under 14 for that matter

...No you couldn't? It was a minimum of 1. Page 21 of the PHB, Constitution HP adjustment: "However, no Hit Dice ever yields less than 1 hit point, regardless of modifications. If an adjustment would lower the number rolled to 0 or less, consider the final result to be 1"

[tieren]

I don't quite follow, is this saying if you roll for your new max hp, that the result could be a lower max hp? (for instance if I rolled a one but had a -2 Con modifier)

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Just pretend the tweet is a sage advice column in Dragon magazine like I've started to do? :smallcool:

Plenty of tables when Dragon and Dungeon were published in hard copy didn't accept material from either publication. And plenty of tables don't check errata or the web columns either. I honestly think that for a change this sweeping - anyone who started with 4E, 3E, Pathfinder, AD&D 2E or AD&D will have had minimum of +1 hp per level up - the only appropriate place is in the physical, published copy of the Player's Handbook.

I'm not sure I'm against the change in principle, though I'm not sure anyone treats Con as a dump stat. It may not be tied to AC or attack options for most classes, though I'm sure we'll get some splats later in the edition's lifespan that use Con for other things, but I can't say I've ever seen someone recommend treating Con as anything other than a critical secondary stat. I don't think this change was needed to emphasize how important having hit points is.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

I don't quite follow, is this saying if you roll for your new max hp, that the result could be a lower max hp? (for instance if I rolled a one but had a -2 Con modifier)

Yes. If your rolled number plus your negative Con modifier is a negative number, you will lose than number of hit points. In your example, you lose 1 hit point when you level up.

[Mikal]

I don't quite follow, is this saying if you roll for your new max hp, that the result could be a lower max hp? (for instance if I rolled a one but had a -2 Con modifier)

Exactly.
Or if your average was 3 and your con mod was -3, you never gain HP until the Con mod is improved.

[UrielAwakened]

I don't quite follow, is this saying if you roll for your new max hp, that the result could be a lower max hp? (for instance if I rolled a one but had a -2 Con modifier)

Yep.

Basically, **** the idea that you should always gain things for leveling up, and **** the idea that dumping Con is ever an option for any character concept.

[Mikal]

Yep.

Basically, **** the idea that you should always gain things for leveling up, and **** the idea that dumping Con is ever an option for any character concept.

It's almost like the frail consumptive character who can be killed by someone throwing a single rock at him isn't meant to be an adventurer or something..


I'm not sure I'm against the change in principle, though I'm not sure anyone treats Con as a dump stat. It may not be tied to AC or attack options for most classes, though I'm sure we'll get some splats later in the edition's lifespan that use Con for other things, but I can't say I've ever seen someone recommend treating Con as anything other than a critical secondary stat. I don't think this change was needed to emphasize how important having hit points is.


Yeah, most people won't dump Con, but I like that it makes the player have a mechanical aspect to dumping it if they choose to do so.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

It's almost like the frail consumptive character who can be killed by someone throwing a single rock at him isn't meant to be an adventurer or something..


Yeah, most people won't dump Con, but I like that it makes the player have a mechanical aspect to dumping it if they choose to do so.


I'm not sure there's a meaningful difference in fragility between 24 hit points at level 20 and, say, 10. So I do think that aspect already existed.

[ad_hoc]

I love that we're overturning forty years or whatever of precedent with a ****ing tweet. It's really great that that's a thing now.

There is also no THAC0 in 5e.

5e is its own game with its own rules.

I find it much easier to teach new players than to teach players from previous editions because they always try to apply rules from other games to the one they are learning.

[Mikal]

I'm not sure there's a meaningful difference in fragility between 24 hit points at level 20 and, say, 10.

That's assuming they make it to 20 in the first place.
Someone with the kind of Con mod that can make you lose HP if you decide to roll and you lose HP more often than you gain, or you lose HP even if you take the average isn't likely to survive more than a couple levels regardless.

[Naanomi]

...No you couldn't? It was a minimum of 1. Page 21 of the PHB, Constitution HP adjustment: "However, no Hit Dice ever yields less than 1 hit point, regardless of modifications. If an adjustment would lower the number rolled to 0 or less, consider the final result to be 1"
My copy says, on page 21,

“Hit Dice--the dice rolled to determine a character's hit points. Up to a certain level, one or more new Hit Dice are rolled each time a character attains a new class level. A fighter, for example, has only one 10-sided Hit Die (1d10) at 1st level, but when he rises to the 2nd level, the player rolls a second d10, increasing the character's hit points.”

Which section does your printing have that info in?

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

There is also no THAC0 in 5e.

5e is its own game with its own rules.

I find it much easier to teach new players than to teach players from previous editions because they always try to apply rules from other games to the one they are learning.

There was no THAC0 in 3, 3.5, PF or 4. It's been gone for 17 years, and when it left us it left via a page in the most important document in the entire edition. Not a piece of errata that's, at best, available as a PDF from a website.

[Mikal]

My copy says, on page 21,

“Hit Dice--the dice rolled to determine a character's hit points. Up to a certain level, one or more new Hit Dice are rolled each time a character attains a new class level. A fighter, for example, has only one 10-sided Hit Die (1d10) at 1st level, but when he rises to the 2nd level, the player rolls a second d10, increasing the character's hit points.”

Which section does your printing have that info in?

I've got the 1st printing of the revised 2e AD&D rules, April 1995. Easier to find than searching for specific wording. Checked the index anyway and all HD and HP entries don't have that specific phrase you asked for that I can easily see.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

That's assuming they make it to 20 in the first place.
Someone with the kind of Con mod that can make you lose HP if you decide to roll and you lose HP more often than you gain, or you lose HP even if you take the average isn't likely to survive more than a couple levels regardless.

Again though, I'm not sure if there's a meaningful difference between 12 hp at level 10 and 5 hp at level 10. I don't necessarily disagree with this design decision on the merits. My objection is primarily how much of a change it represents from the established way of doing things, and how that change is being communicated to players.

[Naanomi]

I've got the 1st printing of the revised 2e AD&D rules, April 1995. Easier to find than searching for specific wording. Checked the index anyway and all HD and HP entries don't have that specific phrase you asked for that I can easily see.
Mine says “5th Printing, October 1979” and I can’t find minimum HP language anywhere on flipping through. Maybe that was a Revised 2e addiion?

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

My copy says, on page 21,

“Hit Dice--the dice rolled to determine a character's hit points. Up to a certain level, one or more new Hit Dice are rolled each time a character attains a new class level. A fighter, for example, has only one 10-sided Hit Die (1d10) at 1st level, but when he rises to the 2nd level, the player rolls a second d10, increasing the character's hit points.”

Which section does your printing have that info in?

Look in Character Generation under the Constitution heading. It's the paragraph immediately after Hit Point Adjustment.

Wait a second. Seems like you two aren't actually looking at the same edition.

[Arkhios]

Twitter credibility suffers a lot from that certain heads-of-states are allowed to blurt out their quick-tempered thoughts out loud and cause political scandals, because everyone assume those tweets are official statements of whatever government.

In similar vein, Crawford and Mearls' tweets are seen almost as if official answers to FAQ or errata, while they're not.

[Mikal]

Again though, I'm not sure if there's a meaningful difference between 12 hp at level 10 and 5 hp at level 10. I don't necessarily disagree with this design decision on the merits. My objection is primarily how much of a change it represents from the established way of doing things, and how that change is being communicated to players.

Again, you're assuming they make it to level 10.
For the extreme, let's go with a barbarian with say 4 Con for a nice -3 vs. a wizard with 20 Con (Variant human with +1 con and a feat to give another +1 con)

Barb stats with 12 HP, Wizard starts with 11 HP.
Level 2- Barb takes average, and goes up 4 HP to 16 HP. Wizard takes average, and goes up 8 HP to 19 HP.

At level 2 the wizard already overtakes the Barb in HP at this point, and the gap widens.

Now let's go with something more likely, two wizards, one with a 16 in Con, one with an 8.

Level 1- First wizard has 9 HP, second wizard has 5 HP
Level 2- First wizard gains 7 HP for a total of 16, second wizard gains 3 HP for a total of 8 HP.

So even in a more average situation, one class can have double the HP than another... which makes the suitability of that character to adventuring plain.


Mine says “5th Printing, October 1979” and I can’t find minimum HP language anywhere on flipping through. Maybe that was a Revised 2e addiion?

Oh. That's 1st edition AD&D, not 2nd. Even going back that far the rules still stat you don't roll results below a 1 for HP though, per Quickly's later post

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Twitter credibility suffers a lot from that certain heads-of-states are allowed to blurt out their quick-tempered thoughts out loud and cause political scandals, because everyone assume those tweets are official statements of whatever government.

In similar vein, Crawford and Mearls' tweets are seen almost as if official answers to FAQ or errata, while they're not.

According to WotC, Crawford's tweets are official rulings, equivalent to errata. Mearls's are not.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Mine says “5th Printing, October 1979” and I can’t find minimum HP language anywhere on flipping through. Maybe that was a Revised 2e addiion?

In the AD&D 2E PHB, the relevant section is under Constitution in Generating a Character, somewhere around page 30. In the AD&D PHB (not the 2E one), it's page 12, also under the Constitution heading:


Note that subtraction can never reduce any hit die below 1

[mgshamster]

I love that we're overturning forty years or whatever of precedent with a ****ing tweet. It's really great that that's a thing now.

I'm curious as to how the tweet overturned it.

Can you find such a ruling in the book that the tweet overturned?

I can't find anything in the PHB that says there's a minimum for HP when you level up. Perhaps I'm missing it?

[Tboy1492]

...No you couldn't? It was a minimum of 1. Page 21 of the PHB, Constitution HP adjustment: "However, no Hit Dice ever yields less than 1 hit point, regardless of modifications. If an adjustment would lower the number rolled to 0 or less, consider the final result to be 1"

I believe there was a flaw that overruled this called “feeble” for 3.5, -1 to hp rolls which could result to no HP increase on level up. I always figured it to be sensible that if your con is poor you run the risk of no hp gain, so it makes sense. Almost like aging.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Mikal, that's a very good argument for not dumping Constitution. I don't see that anyone has ever suggested dumping Constitution, and I don't find it convincing that the difference between having 8 Hp at level 2 instead of 10 is meaningful. More hit points are better. I'm focusing on high levels because that's where the differences are most dramatic, and I'm focusing on the difference between getting negative HP and getting +1 hp, because that's the only place that changed.

[Mikal]

I'm curious as to how the tweet overturned it.

Can you find such a ruling in the book that the tweet overturned?

I can't find anything in the PHB that says there's a minimum for HP when you level up. Perhaps I'm missing it?

Well seeing as how he said 40 years of precedent he's talking about the previous editions, which we've already shown did state minimum rolled was always a 1, you never lost HP on leveling up.

Since there was nothing in 5th edition stating one way or another until the tweet, precedent was still there saying you never lost HP on leveling up, since nothing said otherwise, until the tweet.


I believe there was a flaw that overruled this called “feeble” for 3.5, -1 to hp rolls which could result to no HP increase on level up. I always figured it to be sensible that if your con is poor you run the risk of no hp gain, so it makes sense. Almost like aging.

You're thinking of Frail. And yeah that flaw did exist, but flaws and traits were optional rules, not core.


Mikal, that's a very good argument for not dumping Constitution. I don't see that anyone has ever suggested dumping Constitution, and I don't find it convincing that the difference between having 8 Hp at level 2 instead of 10 is meaningful. More hit points are better. I'm focusing on high levels because that's where the differences are most dramatic, and I'm focusing on the difference between getting negative HP and getting +1 hp, because that's the only place that changed.

The problem with focusing on high levels is that it's unlikely those characters would make it to high levels for the reasons I was stating, thus going back to my original point that maybe those types of characters aren't suited for the adventuring life. Though playing a character knowing the dangers it represents does sound like an interesting challenge.

[MadBear]

TBH, the ruling seems fine to me.

I mean, he even says "If you have a -3 Constitution modifier, don't roll. If you do, your character probably has a terminal disease, which manifests slowly over time."

[Mikal]

EDIT: Instead of 3 posts I just edited my original post at the bottom of the last page... easier that way eh?

[mgshamster]

Well seeing as how he said 40 years of precedent he's talking about the previous editions, which we've already shown did state minimum rolled was always a 1, you never lost HP on leveling up.

Since there was nothing in 5th edition stating one way or another until the tweet, precedent was still there saying you never lost HP on leveling up, since nothing said otherwise, until the tweet.


Ok, so basically a bunch of people made an assumption that old rules still apply, even though it's a new edition, and then got pissed when they found out that their assumption was wrong?

I mean, one of the most common pieces of advice given for 5e is, "This is a new edition, you need to learn the rules as a new addition and not bring your assumptions from previous editions to this game." It's also one of the most common sources of errors for 5e, and we see that again here.

I mean, HP is a pretty concrete rule that doesn't have any ambiguity around it. And the math is fairly simple. If it doesn't state that there's a minimum of one, then why is it ambiguous as to whether there's a minimum of 1? This doesn't seem to be a case of ambiguity.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

The problem with focusing on high levels is that it's unlikely those characters would make it to high levels for the reasons I was stating, thus going back to my original point that maybe those types of characters aren't suited for the adventuring life.

Maybe they aren't, but the difference in hit points between +1 hp minimum and negative numbers isn't big enough to be the difference. Low Con is enough of a punishment on its own, which is why no one has ever recommended dumping Con (with the edge case of playing a Construct, Undead or using some other method to get other ability score synergy with hit points in 3E). At this point I think we're talking past one another, though.

[LeonBH]

Losing HP on leveling up has always been possible in this edition. Scour the RAW and you will not find a "minimum 1" rule.

That said, it's pretty silly to put anything less than 10 on your Con.

[JackPhoenix]

I like it, and it kinda makes sense (and doesn't contradicts anything in the PHB). OTOH, all my games use point buy or standard array, so it's not like it would affect me or my players.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Ok, so basically a bunch of people made an assumption that old rules still apply, even though it's a new edition, and then got pissed when they found out that their assumption was wrong?

What happens with negative modifiers should be spelled out in the rule, as it has been with every other version of the rule ever published, especially since all the listed examples are of characters gaining hit points from leveling up or from increasing Con.

[Mikal]

Ok, so basically a bunch of people made an assumption that old rules still apply, even though it's a new edition, and then got pissed when they found out that their assumption was wrong?

Yup! Pretty much!


Maybe they aren't, but the difference in hit points between +1 hp minimum and negative numbers isn't big enough to be the difference. Low Con is enough of a punishment on its own, which is why no one has ever recommended dumping Con (with the edge case of playing a Construct, Undead or using some other method to get other ability score synergy with hit points in 3E). At this point I think we're talking past one another, though.

Actually, since you can always take the average, even with a Con of 3 you don't risk losing HP. At worst you never gain HP. The worst being the aforementioned 3 Con (-4 modifier) and a wiz/sorc Hit Die of d6, whose average is 4.

So I mean, unless you (the player) have a gambling issue and need to roll the dice for HP, you're still getting HP, even if it's less than the average. Unless you're crazy and playing a 3 Con sorcerer (non-draconic) or wizard.

[War_lord]

I assumed it worked like that anyway. I mean, if you dump con you're clearly looking to play hard mode anyway.

[Unoriginal]

I love that we're overturning forty years or whatever of precedent with a ****ing tweet. It's really great that that's a thing now.

5e is not 40 years old.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Yup! Pretty much!

Anywho, since you can always take the average, even with a Con of 3 you don't risk losing HP. At worst you never gain HP. The worst being the aforementioned 3 Con (-4 modifier) and a wiz/sorc Hit Die of d6, whose average is 4.

And since all the averages are actually above-averages, there's no reason to roll at all anymore.

[Unoriginal]

And since all the averages are actually above-averages, there's no reason to roll at all anymore.

Rolling was never the safest option. It's the point: either you get something decent, or you do a gamble and get something potentially worse or better due to random chance.

I guess that the lesson is "don't gamble your health if you don't have the constitution for it."

What I'm curious is if any NPC or monster got the same thing. I doubt that, but technically a Tiny being with 6 in CON should suffer from this.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

5e is not 40 years old.

Characters in Dungeons and Dragons gaining a minimum of 1 hit point per level up is. A published set of rules should be explicit about that. Yeah, yeah, new edition, forget everything you thought you knew, but that's been very clear and very explicit in every edition since 1977's AD&D. There's really no reason not to insert a clause saying your HP can drop, or that your maximum HP can decrease if your Con modifier decreases.

To be clear, I don't care about the rule on its merits. I don't think it makes a big difference whether you have a floor of +1 or not, and I'm happy to use it going forward. My objection is entirely centered around the sloppy presentation.


Rolling was never the safest option. It's the point: either you get something decent, or you do a gamble and get something potentially worse or better due to random chance.

I guess that the lesson is "don't gamble your health if you don't have the constitution for it."

By "anymore" I meant since the release of 5E.


What I'm curious is if any NPC or monster got the same thing. I doubt that, but technically a Tiny being with 6 in CON should suffer from this

Looking at the MM, it seems like all the tiny monsters have 10 Con. They do use the true average for HP rolls, though, rather than the buffed PC averages. So the 5d6, 10 Con Dust Mephit gets 17 HP rather than 20.

[Naanomi]

Page 12, there it is. My bad, sorry! This goes past 40years, but what does ODnD say about it?

[Mikal]

And since all the averages are actually above-averages, there's no reason to roll at all anymore.

Pretty much. Unless you like gambling.
Me? I'm the guy who'll play blackjack, but I won't bet the mortgage. So I'll roll the dice if I got a good Con mod to buffer it, but not if I'm playing Frail McWheezy, the Consumptive Cleric.

[Unoriginal]

Characters in Dungeons and Dragons gaining a minimum of 1 hit point per level up is. A published set of rules should be explicit about that. Yeah, yeah, new edition, forget everything you thought you knew, but that's been very clear and very explicit in every edition since 1977's AD&D. There's really no reason not to insert a clause saying your HP can drop, or that your maximum HP can decrease if your Con modifier decreases.

To be clear, I don't care about the rule on its merits. I don't think it makes a big difference whether you have a floor of +1 or not, and I'm happy to use it going forward. My objection is entirely centered around the sloppy presentation.



By "anymore" I meant since the release of 5E.

I don't disagree that they could have mentioned it, but on the other hand since they did remove the explicit "character get minimum 1 HP" part, we should probably have realized the assumption was no longer valid.

Same way that they don't have to state: "you don't risk to hit your ally who is in melee with a monster if you shoot at range", which was a thing in some previous edition, because not having a rule about it means it doesn't apply there.

So I wouldn't call it sloppy presentation. Sloppy presentation is how they messed up wordings in the Xanathar's, for exemple.



Looking at the MM, it seems like all the tiny monsters have 10 Con. They do use the true average for HP rolls, though, rather than the buffed PC averages. So the 5d6, 10 Con Dust Mephit gets 17 HP rather than 20.

Interesting. Thanks for having looked it up, I'll check the Volo's.

EDIT:

After looking in the Volo's, I haven't seen any Tiny beings with less than 10 in CON.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Unoriginal, I do agree that upon a closer reading I should have realized that the minimum +1 assumption was incorrect. Danger of assumptions.

[Tanarii]

Ok, so basically a bunch of people made an assumption that old rules still apply, even though it's a new edition, and then got pissed when they found out that their assumption was wrong?
I totally thought there was a minimum 1 hp rolled rule in the PHB. :smalleek: lol old edition thinking for the win.

But who has a Con 6 or lower, and is also going to get pissed? First you have to roll stats. Then the low stat either goes in Str or Dex, just like (IMX) players do with the low stat for every class except Barbarians and the occasional Str-based Valor Bard, Cleric, Ranger or Bladelock. Who almost all put it in Int. Basically, if you dump Con, you're already intentionally deciding to play "hard mode" for hit points. What's a little harder?

[mephnick]

What happens with negative modifiers should be spelled out in the rule, as it has been with every other version of the rule ever published

It was spelled out: You add your Con modifier. If you add a negative it goes down. I guess WotC didn't think they had to explain simple math.

You don't need to mention a minimum because it doesn't exist. It existed in previous versions, so they mentioned it.


What did you want them to write? "In previous versions you always got at least a 1 but this is not previous versions so just do the math."

[Mikal]

It was spelled out: You add your Con modifier. If you add a negative it goes down. I guess WotC didn't think they had to explain simple math.

You don't need to mention a minimum because it doesn't exist. It existed in previous versions, so they mentioned it.


What did you want them to write? "In previous versions you always got at least a 1 but this is not previous versions so just do the math."

No, but perhaps "please note that a negative constitution modifier can result in loss of HP upon leveling up, if the result is less than 0." or something similar.
Previously, they noted the minimum existed. They could easily have noted the minimum does not exist, and being confused about it is something that can easily occur.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

It was spelled out: You add your Con modifier. If you add a negative it goes down. I guess WotC didn't think they had to explain simple math.

You don't need to mention a minimum because it doesn't exist. It existed in previous versions, so they mentioned it.

What did you want them to write? "In previous versions you always got at least a 1 but this is not previous versions so just do the math."

I don't think it's particularly onerous to write "If the roll plus your Constitution modifier is negative, the character's maximum hit points decrease" to make explicit the change rather than leaving it by implication.

[MadBear]

While they could have included it, this to me screams super edge case that's not worth really focusing on.

[Temperjoke]

Mechanics aside, it makes sense from a story perspective, after all, if you've already got the poor health implied in a negative CON mod, why would your health get better sleeping in the woods, gallivanting in damp caves, and traipsing through dusty tombs?

That being said, it's already been pointed out that you can take the average instead of rolling, or if a home game insists on rolling, then it can be house-ruled that you get a minimum of +1. Really, this only impacts min-maxing players who roll their initial stats.

[mgshamster]

Just out of curiosity, has any previous editions mentioned when the rules change between editions? Did 3e say, "THAC0 is no longer a thing" or anything akin to that?

[Mikal]

Just out of curiosity, has any previous editions mentioned when the rules change between editions? Did 3e say, "THAC0 is no longer a thing" or anything akin to that?

No,(EDIT: Well sort of. from 2nd to 3rd and such there were conversion documents available to help you transfer existing characters to the new edition) but previous editions tried to make sure that questions like this were answered within the rules instead of waiting for Sage Advice to answer it, with Sage Advice used for questions that were actually conundrums, not something that could easily have been put in the basic rules like "Can you lose HP when leveling up if your Con is bad".

[Anonymouswizard]

Wait what? In 2e you could get negative HP on leveling up. A really unhealthy wizard seriously risked dying at level ups...

With point-buy being standard in the games I’ve played, I don’t think I’ve seen a CON under 12 yet... very few under 14 for that matter

I've certainly considered characters with 10s and 8s, although not very seriously and they were all casters. At the end of the day Con Saves are still so important, and more hp is still important enough, to almost always make it my third highest stat.


According to WotC, Crawford's tweets are official rulings, equivalent to errata. Mearls's are not.

Considering Mearls thought Greyhawk initiative was a decent idea, I think we should be thankful.


On the topic, I'm not actually against the idea. To start with, you need to be rolling stats, and roll a 7 or less on 4d6b3 (a 5.71% chance), and then you need to put that 7 in Constitution, and then if it's exact seven you have to pick one of the races that doesn't grant a CON bonus, and if it's six you have to not pick dwarf, then you have to roll hp, and then you have to roll low enough for it to be negative, which if you're a wizard you need a -3 modifier (so a five or less, 1.16% chance of rolling) to have a 50% chance of not gaining any hp (you need a three exactly, which is a 0.08% chance of rolling, to have a 50% chance of losing hp). Probabilities from AnyDice, for the record.

I'd personally have capped it at 'gaining no hp', but considering how rarely it'll come up even in 'always roll' generation performed by entirely new players using Wizards with 16 Strength and 8 Intelligence I don't have a problem with there being no rule limiting it.

[JackPhoenix]

Looking at the MM, it seems like all the tiny monsters have 10 Con. They do use the true average for HP rolls, though, rather than the buffed PC averages. So the 5d6, 10 Con Dust Mephit gets 17 HP rather than 20.

Bat: 8
Frog: 8
Hawk: 8
Owl: 8
Quipper: 8
Rat: 9
Raven: 8
Scorpion: 8
Sea Horse: 8
Spider: 8
Weasel: 8

Wasn't looking for non-beasts, so no idea about values there.

[Unoriginal]

Bat: 8
Frog: 8
Hawk: 8
Owl: 8
Quipper: 8
Rat: 9
Raven: 8
Scorpion: 8
Sea Horse: 8
Spider: 8
Weasel: 8

Wasn't looking for non-beasts, so no idea about values there.

Thanks. Uh, those animals have just the CON to live.

[Theodoxus]

I don't play AL - but I know that JCs tweets become AL law, right? They're the power of errata... so, in AL, is rolling for HP allowed, or is it always the average? (Seems like, given the desire to make AL as portable as possible, average would be the rule, but...)

If AL = average, then this ruling has zero affect, because even with an 8 Con (the lowest you can get) you're still gaining 3 HPs as a sorcerer or wizard.

In non-AL games, it's up to the table if 1) you roll, potentially getting a negative mod in Con 2) roll HPs instead of taking the average 3) not adopt the houserule that if you roll under the average, you get the average and 4) accept JCs ruling that negative Con mods can result in fewer HPs at level 2 than level 1.

[Naanomi]

Just out of curiosity, has any previous editions mentioned when the rules change between editions? Did 3e say, "THAC0 is no longer a thing" or anything akin to that?
I think... the Player's Option era PHB had a header talking about things that changed between 2.0 and 2.5

[Mikal]

I think... the Player's Option era PHB had a header talking about things that changed between 2.0 and 2.5

They also had it from 1st to 2nd.

[KorvinStarmast]

Page 12, there it is. My bad, sorry! This goes past 40years, but what does ODnD say about it?

Constitution is a combination of health and endurance. It will influence such
things as the number of hits which can be taken and how well the character can
withstand being paralyzed, turned to stone, etc(Men and magic page 9)

Constitution of 15 or more: Add +1 to each Hit Die
Constitution of 6 or less: Minus 1 from each hit die*.
*Minimum score of 1 on any dice.
(Men and Magic Page 11).
Dice for Accumulative Hits (Hit Dice): This indicates the number of dice which are rolled in order to determine how many hit points a character can take. Plusses are merely the number of pips to add to the total of all dice rolled not to each die. Thus a Super Hero
gets 8 dice + 2; they are rolled and score 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6/totals 26 + 2 = 28, 28
being the number of points of damage the character could sustain before death. Whether sustaining accumulative hits will otherwise affect a character is left to the discretion of the referee(Men and Magic Page 18)

[eastmabl]

Here's how I view the way we receive information about D&D 5E:

The books are like a statute. The core books, along with the errata, tells you what the rules are supposed to be. What is written clearly in the books should be followed, and anything that directly conflicts with the books is a house rule.

The Sage Advice columns are like regulations. Because it is not possible for anyone to fully address every possibility in the game, Sage Advice interprets and clarifies what comes up to help tables make consistent rulings. So long as the Sage Advice does not directly conflict with what is in the books, players and DMs should reasonably rely on it.

Crawford's tweets, until codified in Sage Advice, are like industry guidance. As they have not gone through a notice and comment period where players say, "well, that ain't right," they lack the same official nature as the books or Sage Advice. Thus, while a player or DM may choose to reasonably rely on the tweet for a ruling, there is much greater room to ignore the tweet in favor of your ruling.

(Tweeting at Mearls is like asking Dad when you don't like Mama Crawford's answer).

Using this approach:

The 5E PHB is silent as to the matter of whether you can gain no or negative hit points when gaining a level.
Crawford accurately tweets a ruling that, in absence of a contrary rule, that one may gain negative hp as a result of leveling.
If you don't his ruling, then you can ignore it.


Ultimately, the likelihood that this arises in 5e is slim to none.

[Xetheral]

From my perspecrive, gaining hit-points on level up implies a non-negative domain of acceptable values. Accordingly, I consider the minimum HP gain in 5e to be zero. If the rules instead talked about "changing" HP on level up, then I would permit negative values.

Similarly, I would never permit a negative damage roll to cause the target to gain HP regardless of whether or not a particular edition sepcificied a minimum on damage rolls.


I don't play AL - but I know that JCs tweets become AL law, right? They're the power of errata... so, in AL, is rolling for HP allowed, or is it always the average? (Seems like, given the desire to make AL as portable as possible, average would be the rule, but...)

If AL = average, then this ruling has zero affect, because even with an 8 Con (the lowest you can get) you're still gaining 3 HPs as a sorcerer or wizard.

In non-AL games, it's up to the table if 1) you roll, potentially getting a negative mod in Con 2) roll HPs instead of taking the average 3) not adopt the houserule that if you roll under the average, you get the average and 4) accept JCs ruling that negative Con mods can result in fewer HPs at level 2 than level 1.

Last time I checked, in AL JC tweets are considered rulings that DMs may adopt at their table or not, as they see fit. Edit: Unless the tweet contradicts the PHB or the AL documentation, in which case the tweet (like any such contradictory ruling) may not be used by the DM.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

(Men and magic page 9)

(Men and Magic Page 11). (Men and Magic Page 18)

Huh. That's interesting, thank you.

[mgshamster]

What is written clearly in the books should be followed.

I like what you wrote, but I disagree with this particular line.

5e is designed to be modified easily to best fit the game you want to run. It's all over the books that you should add, subtract, and modify the rules at your whim to create the game and story you want.

So in my humble opinion, I don't think the rules should be followed, I think that they may be followed if that's the rule your table wants to use.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Last time I checked, in AL JC tweets are considered rulings that DMs may adopt at their table or not, as they see fit.

His tweets, accord to the Sage Advice Compendium (https://media.wizards.com/2016/downloads/DND/SA-Compendium.pdf)released by WotC, are official rulings. He is the only WotC employee empowered to issue official rulings outside of the confines of Sage Advice. That suggests that they're intended to be mandatory at AL tables, but I'm not sure and don't play AL anyway.

[Anonymouswizard]

Similarly, I would never permit a negative damage roll to cause the target to gain HP regardless of whether or not a particular edition sepcificied a minimum on damage rolls.

Actually... if we skip the first few levels 5e characters can be quite stodgy, if not as much as earlier editions, and if we're assuming hp is luck/narrative importance then...

Alright, in a Rule of Cool D&D superheroes game, I would totally allow a bad damage roll to give a PC hp back (but not to a monster). But in such a game I'd likely also drop short rests to five minutes and long rests to one hour, to encourage spending a lot of resources in each fight.

[lunaticfringe]

I skipped some pages so whatever this may have been covered.

JC is just a guy, yeah he works for WotC but his rulings are just his rulings. If you play AL this may have an impact on your games, I'm not really sure. You don't have to use or even pay attention to his rulings & he has even admitted that after playing at tables that don't follow Sage Advice he regrets some of his rulings.

[MaxWilson]

Yes. If your rolled number plus your negative Con modifier is a negative number, you will lose than number of hit points. In your example, you lose 1 hit point when you level up.

Which means... energy drain makes you STRONGER!

Wait, what? There's no energy drain in 5E? Phooey.

[MadBear]

I skipped some pages so whatever this may have been covered.

JC is just a guy, yeah he works for WotC but his rulings are just his rulings. If you play AL this may have an impact on your games, I'm not really sure. You don't have to use or even pay attention to his rulings & he has even admitted that after playing at tables that don't follow Sage Advice he regrets some of his rulings.

To be fair, this isn't even a ruling for JC. It's a rule that's been there this whole time during 5e, it just many made assumptions about how it works.

[JAL_1138]

I don't play AL - but I know that JCs tweets become AL law, right? They're the power of errata... so, in AL, is rolling for HP allowed, or is it always the average? (Seems like, given the desire to make AL as portable as possible, average would be the rule, but...)

If AL = average, then this ruling has zero affect, because even with an 8 Con (the lowest you can get) you're still gaining 3 HPs as a sorcerer or wizard.

In non-AL games, it's up to the table if 1) you roll, potentially getting a negative mod in Con 2) roll HPs instead of taking the average 3) not adopt the houserule that if you roll under the average, you get the average and 4) accept JCs ruling that negative Con mods can result in fewer HPs at level 2 than level 1.

I'm active in League. Rolling for HP is not allowed in AL; you always use average (after 1st level, where you get max, as per PHB). Rolling for stats is also not allowed; you always use point-buy (27pt) or standard-array, so it's impossible to have 6 Con (unless there's a race with a Con penalty or something out there; I dunno all the Volo's or EE races' stat adjustments).

Sage Advice (both in the columns/compilations and the tweets) are considered optional in AL, according to...one of the AL rules documents, I forget which, probably the ALFAQ. DMs are allowed to follow them, and most do, but are explicitly not required to. Only actual official errata (labeled as such, e.g. "Player's Handbook Errata"), or if a later printed book changes the wording of a prior rule (like XGE did for some spells out of EE) counts as errata, which is required to be followed.

EDIT: League also has some additional rules for spells like Simulacrum and Wish (including how the two interact), which also have to be followed and are considered to have the same force as errata for League purposes. But SA is explicity called out as being non-binding.

[Xetheral]

His tweets, accord to the Sage Advice Compendium (https://media.wizards.com/2016/downloads/DND/SA-Compendium.pdf)released by WotC, are official rulings. He is the only WotC employee empowered to issue official rulings outside of the confines of Sage Advice. That suggests that they're intended to be mandatory at AL tables, but I'm not sure and don't play AL anyway.

The AL FAQ is apparently no longer available for download without making a free purchase on DMsGuild, and I'm not going to make an account just to check. But last I read it it was explicit that JC tweets were not required to be followed.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Thanks for clarifying, to both of you.

[BoringInfoGuy]

I don't play AL - but I know that JCs tweets become AL law, right? They're the power of errata... so, in AL, is rolling for HP allowed, or is it always the average? (Seems like, given the desire to make AL as portable as possible, average would be the rule, but...)

If AL = average, then this ruling has zero affect, because even with an 8 Con (the lowest you can get) you're still gaining 3 HPs as a sorcerer or wizard.

In non-AL games, it's up to the table if 1) you roll, potentially getting a negative mod in Con 2) roll HPs instead of taking the average 3) not adopt the houserule that if you roll under the average, you get the average and 4) accept JCs ruling that negative Con mods can result in fewer HPs at level 2 than level 1.

Not necessarily . Unless there is a specific hashtag, tweets are not official AL rulings. Likewise, Sage Advice is also not official AL rulings.

Quoted below from the DDAL_FAQ v6-1:

What about Sage Advice?

Sage Advice is a great barometer for ‘rules-as-intended’, in any case. Whether or not any given Dungeon Master chooses to utilize Sage Advice as a resource for rules adjudication in D&D Adventurers League play is at the discretion of each individual DM. As always, the DM remains the final arbiter of how a rule is to be implemented in their game.

What about guidance given on Facebook/Google+ etc?

Any rules guidance given by an Admin using the #AL_Admin or #AL_Official hashtag is considered official rules guidance. In time, it may be added to this FAQ and made available without the drudgery of having to resort to Facebook’s “search” function.

[Max_Killjoy]

I love that we're overturning forty years or whatever of precedent with a ****ing tweet. It's really great that that's a thing now.

Well, you know, it lets them publish unfinished work, the same way that endless patches and updates allow software makers to publish software that's half-finished and then pretend that fixes are "upgrades".

[krugaan]

Is this really so unreasonable though?

JC points out if you have low con, you can always take the average roll, which is statistically better and unlikely to get you to actually lose HP.

If you want to gamble for that extra hp ... well, there should be and upside and a downside.

[Vaz]

Is this really so unreasonable though?

JC points out if you have low con, you can always take the average roll, which is statistically better and unlikely to get you to actually lose HP.

If you want to gamble for that extra hp ... well, there should be and upside and a downside.

Eh, just do both. Roll, minimum is the average.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

well, there should be and upside and a downside.

The downside was getting a below-average roll. It's baked in, especially since the average is rounded up and rolling would round down.

[mgshamster]

To note, I do have a frenzy barbarian where I've rolled HP every level. At level 5, I'm just slightly above if I had taken the default every level. There is a risk, but I decided to roll for this PC every level and take what I got.

Much of the time, I prefer to take the risk. It's the same reason I roll for damage instead of just doing the stated amount. I like the variability. Making everything static all the time is boring to me.

I also don't like using the roll-with-average-minimum method. It's a pseudo-variability, where you want a chance at the rewards with no risk whatsoever. And to me, that's just as boring.

[krugaan]

The downside was getting a below-average roll. It's baked in, especially since the average is rounded up and rolling would round down.

Shrug, at any modifier low enough to matter the minimum 1 hp rule would incentivize rolling, if only slightly.

the Wizard with d6 hit dice and a con of 5 (for whatever stupid reason) should always roll, since half of the results will be invalidated and others are a net gain. (1,1,1,1,2,3) avg 1.5 versus 1. A con of 7 gives us (1,1,1,2,3,4) avg 2 vs 2.

Shrug. Anyone who willingly takes a con that low probably has RP reasons to do so.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Shrug, at any modifier low enough to matter the minimum 1 hp rule would incentivize rolling, if only slightly.

the Wizard with d6 hit dice and a con of 5 (for whatever stupid reason) should always roll, since half of the results will be invalidated and others are a net gain. (1,1,1,1,2,3) avg 1.5 versus 1. A con of 7 gives us (1,1,1,2,3,4) avg 2 vs 2.

Shrug. Anyone who willingly takes a con that low probably has RP reasons to do so.

Sure. I don't think the power difference between an average result of 1.5 and an average result of 1 matters in helping those characters avoid going splat, though.

[LeonBH]

Shrug. Anyone who willingly takes a con that low probably has RP reasons to do so.

My guess is they rolled all low stats and their DM will not let them re-roll, so they put their lowest one in Con in hopes of dying early.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

My guess is they rolled all low stats and their DM will not let them re-roll, so they put their lowest one in Con in hopes of dying early.

3d6, assign in order, no rerolls.

[krugaan]

Sure. I don't think the power difference between an average result of 1.5 and an average result of 1 matters in helping those characters avoid going splat, though.

Right, but this thread is all about how JC is an idiot, apparently.

Full Disclosure: I think he's made some bad calls recently.


My guess is they rolled all low stats and their DM will not let them re-roll, so they put their lowest one in Con in hopes of dying early.

Zing. PC suicide seems like the easiest thing to pull off, though.

"Ok, the tavern wench brings you all steaming plates of ..."

"IS THERE A FORK?"

"Yes, she brought utensils."

"I TRY TO TOUCH THE BACK OF MY SKULL WITH THE FORK."

"Ok?"

"OH, I GO THROUGH MY EYEBALL."

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Right, but this thread is all about how JC is an idiot, apparently.

Full Disclosure: I think he's made some bad calls recently.


This clarification doesn't make me think he's an idiot; it's another data point in my hatred of Twitter being a place where rulings can be issued. With the ability to take averages that guarantee you can't lose HP, it doesn't actually matter since the optimal choice is to take the flat value at every level. (I do think his recent ruling that you don't have time within a reaction to cast counterspell based on your own knowledge, but do have time to consult x other people but not yourself before casting is trending towards idiotic.)

[Waterdeep Merch]

This is going to sound crazy, but after thinking about this, I suddenly kind of dislike Constitution- or any ability score, for that matter- being tied to hit points. It makes it a necessary attribute for every character that you always put as much as you can afford into it and it has poor roleplaying potential outside of saying that you're usually healthy or sickly. Why not just let debilitations handle that?

Now, I'm not an opponent of everything else Constitution handles, that stuff's fine. It could even merit some expansion. But would removing Con to HP be that big of a deal? Maybe give +1 HP per level to the +Con races in trade? I think it might make character building more interesting and less linear.

[rbstr]

Twitter-hating around here is both hilarious and getting old. "No I don't want a way to ask the designers about problems directly and receive advice straight from a designers fingers, I'd rather it by much more convoluted".

Whether or not you actually agree with JC, using Twitter like this is an exceptionally good way to contact a wide audience and offer advice, clarify intent and correct errors:
It is timely - it can easily go out as soon as an error is discovered.
It's public and verifiable - there's no ambiguity, if it's real you can link to it and everyone can see.
It's is conversational and direct - it's easy to both ask questions and for someone to follow up on them.

If they just left the rulings on Twitter, sure, that would be inconvenient for those that don't follow the news. BUT they don't do that, they collect errata and sage advice into documents at fairly regular intervals. So use those if "it's a PDF with D&D letterhead" is the standard you need.

Like, what the hell is a preferable system? No information at all until they post a PDF to a website? I guess we could all wait for a magazine to get published quarterly or something? Maybe we should have to email them directly and post screenshots of their replies? We could manually compare subsequent printings of the PhB to look for changes!

As far as the inciting ruling: the 5e PHB is written this "ruling" is actually the "rule". Nothing at all anywhere says you gain a minimum of one hp. If you're playing a character with negative con that's your problem. It doesn't matter if 2.76e says you gain a minimum of 5hp on every odd level and 36 on those divisible by 7 nobody playing 5e gives a ****. It's never been the rule in 5e and continues to not be the rule.
House-rule it or Deal with it. Seriously.

[sithlordnergal]

So...here's a question. What happens if you have a con mod of, say, -2, and start with a max hp of 4 due to being a wizard. What happens if every time you level up, you roll a 1? What happens when you reach level 4, roll a 1 and your max hp becomes 0? O-o

[Mikal]

So...here's a question. What happens if you have a con mod of, say, -2, and start with a max hp of 4 due to being a wizard. What happens if every time you level up, you roll a 1? What happens when you reach level 4, roll a 1 and your max hp becomes 0? O-o

Simple.
Level 1- 4 HP
Level 2- Roll a 1, HP total is now 3 HP
Level 3- Roll a 1, HP total is now 2 HP
Level 4- Roll a 1, HP total is now 1 HP
Level 5- Roll a 1, HP total is now 0 and you die.

Or you just choose to take the average, and gain 2 HP every level so
1- 4 HP
2- 6 HP
and so on.

[Typhon]

So...here's a question. What happens if you have a con mod of, say, -2, and start with a max hp of 4 due to being a wizard. What happens if every time you level up, you roll a 1? What happens when you reach level 4, roll a 1 and your max hp becomes 0? O-o

Drop 2 points to Con and gain 4 hp retroactively.

[Unoriginal]

The downside was getting a below-average roll. It's baked in, especially since the average is rounded up and rolling would round down.

Rolling high or not has no impact on the modifier.

[Mikal]

Rolling high or not has no impact on the modifier.

No but the modifier makes a bigger impact on your character when you low roll or high, since it mitigates the low roll and makes the high roll even better.

[Anonymouswizard]

Eh, just do both. Roll, minimum is the average.

Or do what Low Fantasy Gaming did, low hp classes get 3+1d3 per level, medium hp classes get 4+1d4, high hp classes get 5+1d5 hp per level, and Barbarians get 6+1d6 hp per level (plus CON modifiers in each case). It means you'll never get worse than average, and characters will be quite beefy.

[UrielAwakened]

Twitter-hating around here is both hilarious and getting old. "No I don't want a way to ask the designers about problems directly and receive advice straight from a designers fingers, I'd rather it by much more convoluted".

Whether or not you actually agree with JC, using Twitter like this is an exceptionally good way to contact a wide audience and offer advice, clarify intent and correct errors:
It is timely - it can easily go out as soon as an error is discovered.
It's public and verifiable - there's no ambiguity, if it's real you can link to it and everyone can see.
It's is conversational and direct - it's easy to both ask questions and for someone to follow up on them.

If they just left the rulings on Twitter, sure, that would be inconvenient for those that don't follow the news. BUT they don't do that, they collect errata and sage advice into documents at fairly regular intervals. So use those if "it's a PDF with D&D letterhead" is the standard you need.

Like, what the hell is a preferable system? No information at all until they post a PDF to a website? I guess we could all wait for a magazine to get published quarterly or something? Maybe we should have to email them directly and post screenshots of their replies? We could manually compare subsequent printings of the PhB to look for changes!

As far as the inciting ruling: the 5e PHB is written this "ruling" is actually the "rule". Nothing at all anywhere says you gain a minimum of one hp. If you're playing a character with negative con that's your problem. It doesn't matter if 2.76e says you gain a minimum of 5hp on every odd level and 36 on those divisible by 7 nobody playing 5e gives a ****. It's never been the rule in 5e and continues to not be the rule.
House-rule it or Deal with it. Seriously.

Could they just make the rules good the first time instead.

[Mikal]

Could they just make the rules good the first time instead.

No because this is the edition of "rulings, not rules". And then they realize that people actually want rules when their crap is too vague.

[Unoriginal]

I don't even see why people are calling that a ruling. It's just pointing out to something in the PHB.


So...here's a question. What happens if you have a con mod of, say, -2, and start with a max hp of 4 due to being a wizard. What happens if every time you level up, you roll a 1? What happens when you reach level 4, roll a 1 and your max hp becomes 0? O-o


Simple.
Level 1- 4 HP
Level 2- Roll a 1, HP total is now 3 HP
Level 3- Roll a 1, HP total is now 2 HP
Level 4- Roll a 1, HP total is now 1 HP
Level 5- Roll a 1, HP total is now 0 and you die.

So that's what happened to the First Doctor.

[krugaan]

This really feels like a level 1 challenge in Final Fantasy Tactics or something.

If you level ... YOU DIE!

I wonder if anyone has ever done that: refuse to level up and stay at some low level because RP.

[sithlordnergal]

Drop 2 points to Con and gain 4 hp retroactively.

At that point your Con mod would be a -1, you still wouldn't gain any hp. In order to get a +0 con mod you would need to be level 8. At that point you will have a level 4 character, the level needed to increase an ability, with either 0 max hp or 1 max hp.

You would need a minimum of level 12 to gain a +1 con mod. Then you could have +12 hp.

[KorvinStarmast]

3d6, assign in order, no rerolls. This isn't the edition for that. (I've played in the original edition, and even back then you could swap between Str, Int, and Wis to boost one or the other, after rolling. )
The default rolling method is clearly written in the rules:

You generate your character’s six ability scores randomly. Roll four 6-sided dice and record the total of the highest three dice on a piece of scratch paper. Do this five more times, so that you have six numbers.

Now take your six numbers and write each number beside one of your character’s six abilities to assign scores to Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma.
Afterward, make any changes to your ability scores as a result of your race choice.

[Mikal]

At that point your Con mod would be a -1, you still wouldn't gain any hp. In order to get a +0 con mod you would need to be level 8. At that point you will have a level 4 character, the level needed to increase an ability, with either 0 max hp or 1 max hp.

You would need a minimum of level 12 to gain a +1 con mod. Then you could have +12 hp.

The 4 retroactive HP are for the HP lost from levels 1 to 4 prior to getting the Con mod.
Using the -2 mod and rolling and getting 1s every level example from before...

Lvl 1- 4 HP
Lvl 2- 3 HP
Lvl 3- 2 HP
LVL 4- 1 HP+4 HPdue to con mod being increased from -2 to -1 for each HD you have= 5 HP

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

The default rolling method is clearly written in the rules:

My God. I've always written them directly on the character sheet. I didn't realize I was in violation of the rules.

[BoringInfoGuy]

At that point your Con mod would be a -1, you still wouldn't gain any hp. In order to get a +0 con mod you would need to be level 8. At that point you will have a level 4 character, the level needed to increase an ability, with either 0 max hp or 1 max hp.

You would need a minimum of level 12 to gain a +1 con mod. Then you could have +12 hp.
Typhon had it right.

From the basic rules PDF, since I am away from book:


Hit Points

Typically, you add your Constitution modifer to each Hit Die you roll for your hit points. If your Constitution modifer changes, your hit point maximum changes as well, as though you had the new modifer from 1st level. For example, if you raise your Constitution score when you reach 4th level and your Constitution modifer increases from +1 to +2, you adjust your hit point maximum as though the modifer had always been +2. So you add 3 hit points for your frst three levels, and then roll your hit points for 4th level using your new modifer. Or if you’re 7th level and some effect lowers your Constitution score so as to reduce your Constitution modifer by 1, your hit point maximum is reduced by 7.
Since a change in your Con modifier affects your HP retroactively, any positive change to your Con Mod will grant a higher max HP.

So if you have a -2 penalty, and reduce that to a -1 penalty at level 4, then your Max HP will be 4 higher than if you did not take use your ASI to improve your constitution modifier.

Using averages
Level 1 = 4HP (6 + -2)
Level 2 = 6Hp (4 + 4 + -2)
Level 3 = 8Hp (6 + 4 + -2)
Level 4 = 10Hp (8 + 4 + -2)

After improving your Con mod becomes
Level 1 = 5HP (6 + -1)
Level 2 = 8Hp (5 + 4 + -1)
Level 3 = 11Hp (8 + 4 + -1)
Level 4 = 14Hp (11 + 4 + -1)

[Typhon]

At that point your Con mod would be a -1, you still wouldn't gain any hp. In order to get a +0 con mod you would need to be level 8. At that point you will have a level 4 character, the level needed to increase an ability, with either 0 max hp or 1 max hp.

You would need a minimum of level 12 to gain a +1 con mod. Then you could have +12 hp.

Good catch. Pretty sure that 1-1=0 means hit points wouldn't have gone down each level. Thus hit points retroactively go back to what they had at level one.

Not great but better than losing.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

From the basic rules PDF, since I am away from book:

The book says:


When your Constitution modifier increases by 1, your hit point maximum increases by 1 for each level you have attained. For example, when Bruenor reaches 8th level as a fighter, he increases his Constitution score from 17 to 18, thus increasing his Constitution modifier from +3 to +4. His hit point maximum then increases by 8.

So in this case the Basic Rules PDF is significantly more detailed than the book.

[The_Jette]

Good catch. Pretty sure that 1-1=0 means hit points wouldn't have gone down each level. Thus hit points retroactively go back to what they had at level one.

Not great but better than losing.

His hit points at level one would actually go up, too. So, instead of being stuck at 4 (which is 6-2) he'd be stuck at 5 (for 6-1). So, his math was still good, and is essentially the same thing. Only, he just added for, and I went back and added one to each level.

[BoringInfoGuy]

The 4 retroactive HP are for the HP lost from levels 1 to 4 prior to getting the Con mod.
Using the -2 mod and rolling and getting 1s every level example from before...

Lvl 1- 4 HP
Lvl 2- 3 HP
Lvl 3- 2 HP
LVL 4- 1 HP+4 HP due to con mod being increased from -2 to -1 for each HD you have= 5 HP
By the time this unlucky roller has hit level 3, any hit that does 4 damage will trigger the Instant Death due to massive damage rule.

[Pex]

By the time this unlucky roller has hit level 3, any hit that does 4 damage will trigger the Instant Death due to massive damage rule.

Stay away from cats.

[krugaan]

By the time this unlucky roller has hit level 3, any hit that does 4 damage will trigger the Instant Death due to massive damage rule.

OMG, I didn't even think about that.

That's literally the worst part of it.

[The_Jette]

By the time this unlucky roller has hit level 3, any hit that does 4 damage will trigger the Instant Death due to massive damage rule.

So... just stay in the back and pray you never run into archers, or something. This is all hypothetical, anyways. Nobody would actually build a Wizard, or any other character, with a Con of 6. And, if they did, there's only a .46296296...% chance that they would roll 1's on all of their dice rolls for hit points. So, whether or not the character would survive to level 4 doesn't really matter.

[Tanarii]

Isn't it possible to interpret the PHB on rolling hit points as roll, then choose to take the average afterwards? In that case, this ruling would have no affect.

(Obviously most people aren't going to read it that way, I just remember the wording being vague enough it was possible to interpret it that way.)


Shrug, at any modifier low enough to matter the minimum 1 hp rule would incentivize rolling, if only slightly.

the Wizard with d6 hit dice and a con of 5 (for whatever stupid reason) should always roll, since half of the results will be invalidated and others are a net gain. (1,1,1,1,2,3) avg 1.5 versus 1. A con of 7 gives us (1,1,1,2,3,4) avg 2 vs 2.

Shrug. Anyone who willingly takes a con that low probably has RP reasons to do so.Thats the major impact I can see. Previously as a seriously low enough Con mod you were better off rolling than taking the average, but otherwise the average was always better (because of rounding).

Now taking the average is always superior odds, no matter what.

[rbstr]

There's no new ruling!
There is no "previously" or "now". You've always added your Con Mod with no other stipulations. Everything is how it has always been.

If you'd been using a minimum of one HP you made it up!

[Typhon]

So then houserule away. The game is fluid and adaptable that way. Groups decide how the game runs at their table. Status quo is upheld.

[The_Jette]

Isn't it possible to interpret the PHB on rolling hit points as roll, then choose to take the average afterwards? In that case, this ruling would have no affect.

(Obviously most people aren't going to read it that way, I just remember the wording being vague enough it was possible to interpret it that way.)

Just read the entry. It says you can roll and add your Constitution modifier. Then it mentions that, as an alternative method, you can use the average. So, there's really no option of rolling and being able to take the average if you don't like your roll. Of course, your DM can house rule it that way. But, that doesn't help much in this conversation.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Isn't it possible to interpret the PHB on rolling hit points as roll, then choose to take the average afterwards? In that case, this ruling would have no affect.

(Obviously most people aren't going to read it that way, I just remember the wording being vague enough it was possible to interpret it that way.)

Thats the major impact I can see. Previously as a seriously low enough Con mod you were better off rolling than taking the average, but otherwise the average was always better (because of rounding).

Now taking the average is always superior odds, no matter what.

The DM for my next game has ruled that we'll be re-rolling on all rolls of 1 for HP, which brings the average roll up a half a point to be mechanically equal to the printed average, because it felt gamey otherwise. I'm pretty happy with that.

[krugaan]

The DM for my next game has ruled that we'll be re-rolling on all rolls of 1 for HP, which brings the average roll up a half a point to be mechanically equal to the printed average, because it felt gamey otherwise. I'm pretty happy with that.

My DM lets us do that too. Then again, he doesn't let us take the average roll.

[Tanarii]

There's no new ruling!
There is no "previously" or "now". You've always added your Con Mod with no other stipulations. Everything is how it has always been.Accurate. Poor choice of wording on my part calling it a ruling.


Just read the entry. It says you can roll and add your Constitution modifier. Then it mentions that, as an alternative method, you can use the average. So, there's really no option of rolling and being able to take the average if you don't like your roll. Of course, your DM can house rule it that way. But, that doesn't help much in this conversation.What you're saying sounds exactly like I was talking about.

Basic Rules says:
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 yeah, it's definitely possible interpretation, although an edge one IMO, "Roll blah blah. Alternately blah blah" as roll first, then alternately use the fixed value after doing that.

[Finney]

My DM lets us do that too. Then again, he doesn't let us take the average roll.

Our DM makes us take the average + 1 from the PHB. He used to let us roll for HP, since everyone claimed they were fine with the risk vs reward of rolling. Until the fighter in our group rolled poorly and had less HP than both the cleric and rogue. :smallcool:

That player got disgruntled and his character suddenly became hyper aggressive and confrontational, since he wanted him to get killed so he could make a new character.

[krugaan]

Our DM makes us take the average + 1 from the PHB. He used to let us roll for HP, since everyone claimed they were fine with the risk vs reward of rolling. Until the fighter in our group rolled poorly and had less HP than both the cleric and rogue. :smallcool:

That player got disgruntled and his character suddenly became hyper aggressive and confrontational, since he wanted him to get killed so he could make a new character.

lol, that sucks. If you can't take the heat then stay out of the kitchen.

Average +1 is very generous.

[Tanarii]

That player got disgruntled and his character suddenly became hyper aggressive and confrontational, since he wanted him to get killed so he could make a new character.I take it he wasn't going to have to start his new character over at level 1?

"I don't like the low HPs on my level 5 character. I know, I'll just kill this character and start over at level 1!" :smallbiggrin:
(Funny, but probably actually said by by at least one oD&D, AD&D or BECMI player.)

[Finney]

I take it he wasn't going to have to start his new character over at level 1

I think we were 6th or 7th level at the time, so he would have been allowed to generate a character that was the same level as the rest of the party. It all worked out in the end.

Everyone really seems to like the PHB average + 1 for hit points. It would be highly improbable to beat that by rolling and our characters are slightly tougher than normal.

[Tanarii]

I think we were 6th or 7th level at the time, so he would have been allowed to generate a character that was the same level as the rest of the party. It all worked out in the end.That's kinda bizarre thinking to me. If you're going to let someone bring in a new character at the same level, why not just let them change their HPs to something satisfactory instead? They shouldn't have to suicide to fix their character problem in that case, it's getting handed a "freebie" either way.

[Finney]

That's kinda bizarre thinking to me. If you're going to let someone bring in a new character at the same level, why not just let them change their HPs to something satisfactory instead? They shouldn't have to suicide to fix their character problem in that case, it's getting handed a "freebie" either way.

After it became clear why the player in question was disgruntled, the DM introduced the house rule for hit points and allowed everyone at the table to retroactively adjust their character's hit point total.

[Tanarii]

After it became clear why the player in question was disgruntled, the DM introduced the house rule for hit points and allowed everyone at the table to retroactively adjust their character's hit point total.Good DM. Weird player tho. :smallbiggrin:

[krugaan]

Good DM. Weird player tho. :smallbiggrin:

Weird is not the word I would use, lol.

[BoringInfoGuy]

There's no new ruling!
There is no "previously" or "now". You've always added your Con Mod with no other stipulations. Everything is how it has always been.

If you'd been using a minimum of one HP you made it up!
Everything is as it’s been since the start of 5E. Always in this edition certainly, but that little rule has been around across pretty much every edition across the decades.

It’s not that we “made it up” it’s that we simply assumed it was there.

This has been an emotional reaction. Not because the rule is going to impact gameplay overly much. But... how to put this? Across several editions, this has been a constant part of the D&D rules set. It’s a minor rule, certainly, but to suddenly find out it was removed is jarring. Because we just found out about it, it feels like it was suddenly taken away. A bit of certainty over how the (D&D) universe works has been taken away. It is a change, and change is experienced as loss. Worse, this change came out of left field, so we were caught by surprise. How small the change is, or that it was really there from 1st printing of 5e is minor detail to the emotional impact

So we take umbrage over minor details. A cornerstone of D&D removed - with a tweet?! Outrageous! Why didn’t they do a better job of pointing out this change in the PHB instead of sliding it by like a trap? We deserved to be properly informed!

Then we calm down a bit. The discussion has already shifted to what actual effect it has in gameplay, how rarely it is likely to come up, and stories of how games with low HP characters went. Rational discussion is already taking over.

But the emotions had to be expressed first.

[krugaan]

Everything is as it’s been since the start of 5E. Always in this edition certainly, but that little rule has been around across pretty much every edition across the decades.

It’s not that we “made it up” it’s that we simply assumed it was there.

This has been an emotional reaction. Not because the rule is going to impact gameplay overly much. But... how to put this? Across several editions, this has been a constant part of the D&D rules set. It’s a minor rule, certainly, but to suddenly find out it was removed is jarring. Because we just found out about it, it feels like it was suddenly taken away. A bit of certainty over how the (D&D) universe works has been taken away. It is a change, and change is experienced as loss. Worse, this change came out of left field, so we were caught by surprise. How small the change is, or that it was really there from 1st printing of 5e is minor detail to the emotional impact

So we take umbrage over minor details. A cornerstone of D&D removed - with a tweet?! Outrageous! Why didn’t they do a better job of pointing out this change in the PHB instead of sliding it by like a trap? We deserved to be properly informed!

Then we calm down a bit. The discussion has already shifted to what actual effect it has in gameplay, how rarely it is likely to come up, and stories of how games with low HP characters went. Rational discussion is already taking over.

But the emotions had to be expressed first.

Im dead inside unless I can argue about irrelevant minutiae.

[ad_hoc]

If the rule was there it would be:

a) a waste of space
b) needlessly limiting a player who wants to play a sickly character

Mostly A. It just doesn't matter. Average HP is much more of a change from 'classic D&D'

[gooddragon1]

Just pretend the tweet is a sage advice column in Dragon magazine like I've started to do? :smallcool:


5. Intent matters.

I know, I know..."Blasphemy! No man may know the intent of the Most Holy Designers!"

Except that, in some cases, we can. In some cases, the intent is glaringly, painfully obvious. In other cases, the intent has been clarified by various WotC sources, such as CustServ.

It makes sense to take these sources at their word, people. They work with the folks who design the game, they have access to them. If a conflict comes up, then it can be resolved, but I can't help but notice that for all the talk about how CustServ never gives the same answer twice, they've been remarkably consistent of late.

It's one thing to say "This rule is vaguely worded, and we don't know the intent." It's another thing to say, "The rule is vaguely worded, and therefore I can ignore the intent."

The first is sensible caution; the second is rules lawyering. When an ambiguity has been clarified, that should be the end of it.

Can't help but laugh at the bolded part.

[Luccan]

That's... dumb. I mean, I could understand a character with a con so low you only got 1 or even 0 extra hp on level up, but essentially a big enough negative Con could, in theory, kill you. By leveling. Now, admittedly this would be hard to achieve in 5th edition, but that still seems really dumb.

[2D8HP]

...a big enough negative Con could, in theory, kill you. By leveling....
That actually makes sense to me.

Time (experience) + bad luck (low rolls) + poor health (low Constitution) = death.

Fits real life.

[Luccan]

.
That actually makes sense to me.

Time (experience) + bad luck (low rolls) + poor health (low Constitution) = death.

Fits real life.

Except a level is a complete abstraction of disparate elements. Especially given leveling could happen over decades or a few months, it's more accurate to say a level is a measure of power than any definitive unit of time. So if you get too powerful (anything from too much magic to being too good at some skills], well boom, you're dead... Idk, that doesn't make sense to me at all.

[Naanomi]

Except a level is a complete abstraction of disparate elements. Especially given leveling could happen over decades or a few months, it's more accurate to say a level is a measure of power than any definitive unit of time. So if you get too powerful (anything from too much magic to being too good at some skills], well boom, you're dead... Idk, that doesn't make sense to me at all.
People in the bottom .5% of healthiness dropping over dead seemingly out of nowhere, unexpectedly and on an unknown timescale, still seems pretty reasonable as an abstraction

[krugaan]

Except a level is a complete abstraction of disparate elements. Especially given leveling could happen over decades or a few months, it's more accurate to say a level is a measure of power than any definitive unit of time. So if you get too powerful (anything from too much magic to being too good at some skills], well boom, you're dead... Idk, that doesn't make sense to me at all.

Ignorance (not gaining experience) is truly bliss, in this case.

[MeeposFire]

Except a level is a complete abstraction of disparate elements. Especially given leveling could happen over decades or a few months, it's more accurate to say a level is a measure of power than any definitive unit of time. So if you get too powerful (anything from too much magic to being too good at some skills], well boom, you're dead... Idk, that doesn't make sense to me at all.

Hey if your body is very sick putting too much strain on it could kill you. Sometimes a heart just gives out perhaps after that big event and you level up well now your body just can't keep going.

I would not have asked to have this in the rules but I can certainly work with it and rationalize it. Granted you have to try on purpose to even make this a possibility.

[Arkhios]

A sickly constitution wizard eh? Hi there Raistlin! How's it hanging?

[Unoriginal]

A sickly constitution wizard eh? Hi there Raistlin! How's it hanging?

Didn't the guy actually have normal CON when he was a PC, but his player gave him a voice that made him sound sickly and they books kept that ?

[Zalabim]

I didn't even know this was a question since I'd been quietly joking about it for months. Ever since people started rolling 6d20 down the line for character stats as a joke.


So...here's a question. What happens if you have a con mod of, say, -2, and start with a max hp of 4 due to being a wizard. What happens if every time you level up, you roll a 1? What happens when you reach level 4, roll a 1 and your max hp becomes 0? O-o
At 0 HP you're unconscious, but since you haven't taken any damage, you're stable. Then someone with 8 or less Strength comes along, hits you with an unarmed strike, and kills you instantly by dealing "massive" damage (equal to or greater than your remaining HP plus your maximum HP.) Did that have to be blue? Does this?

Could they just make the rules good the first time instead.

Could people not flock to twitter to ask "The rules say X. Does that mean X?" with hopes of being told "No, X doesn't mean X." I guess we don't use question marks for rhetorical questions?

[gooddragon1]

Suddenly lichdom seems a lot more appealing.

[Mikal]

Could people not flock to twitter to ask "The rules say X. Does that mean X?" with hopes of being told "No, X doesn't mean X." I guess we don't use question marks for rhetorical questions?

It's more like people flocking to twitter to ask if the rules mean X or Y because they vaguely allude to X but could also mean Y but because they didn't bother to plainly state it as they did in previous editions people can't be sure.

[Unoriginal]

It's more like people flocking to twitter to ask if the rules mean X or Y because they vaguely allude to X but could also mean Y but because they didn't bother to plainly state it as they did in previous editions people can't be sure.

On other cases, sure, but here it's "the rule states X, with no mention of Y. Y was in other editions, so people asked if Y still applied, despite Y clearly not being there."


Suddenly lichdom seems a lot more appealing.

Why?

[Arkhios]

Didn't the guy actually have normal CON when he was a PC, but his player gave him a voice that made him sound sickly and they books kept that ?

To be honest, I have no clue :smallsmile:

I prefer the idea that Raist had lower con than would've been good for his health :smalltongue:

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

On other cases, sure, but here it's "the rule states X, with no mention of Y. Y was in other editions, so people asked if Y still applied, despite Y clearly not being there."

Do you lose HP when your Con decreases?

[Arkhios]

Do you lose HP when your Con decreases?

Yes. /10chars

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Yes. /10chars

And the source for that is page 177 of the PHB, when previously that information was given up front. I don't understand why they felt like they needed to move things around.

[Unoriginal]

Well, it's obvious. If you add your CON modifier to HPs, then decreasing or increasing CON will affect them.

I'm sure most people realized "if you put one AsI into CON and your bonus increase, you get more HPs for all your levels" without the book pointing it out.

[jojo]

I love that we're overturning forty years or whatever of precedent with a ****ing tweet. It's really great that that's a thing now.

I don't, whatever the appropriate verbiage is for employing twitter.

Someone really ought to counter-tweet that though... I'll go with:

"Opinion Noted, Considered and Disregarded. #OurTablesOurRules"

[mgshamster]

I don't, whatever the appropriate verbiage is for employing twitter.

Someone really ought to counter-tweet that though... I'll go with:

"Opinion Noted, Considered and Disregarded. #OurTablesOurRules"

Why would you need to do that as a counter? That's exactly what they want you to do. That was the specific design intent for 5e: your table, your rules. They want you to customize the game for your group.

It's why 5e is filled to the brim with so many optional and variant rules and suggestions for how to change things up.

[Tanarii]

To be honest, I have no clue :smallsmile:

I prefer the idea that Raist had lower con than would've been good for his health :smalltongue:

Raistlin Majere's stats from DL modules were:
Str 10 Int 17 Wis 14 Dex 16 Con 10 Chr 15

[Unoriginal]

Raistlin Majere's stats from DL modules were:
Str 10 Int 17 Wis 14 Dex 16 Con 10 Chr 15

Someone rolled their stats at home before coming, I see

[Tanarii]

Someone rolled their stats at home before coming, I see
All the DL modules character stats are like that.

OTOH 3d6 in order wasn't the default rule for AD&D 1e, unlike oD&D or BECMI. Even so, yeah, it's pretty high.

[Unoriginal]

I don't, whatever the appropriate verbiage is for employing twitter.

Someone really ought to counter-tweet that though... I'll go with:

"Opinion Noted, Considered and Disregarded. #OurTablesOurRules"

Like mgshamster said. Though it should be "rule noted, considered and disregarded."

5e never pretended stopping DMs from modifying the rules at their tables, quite the contrary.


All the DL modules character stats are like that.

OTOH 3d6 in order wasn't the default rule for AD&D 1e, unlike oD&D or BECMI. Even so, yeah, it's pretty high.

I know, I was joking.

[Tanarii]

I know, I was joking.
Trust me, I was thinking the same thing with a wry smile as I posted them. :smallwink:

[Vaz]

Why would you need to do that as a counter? That's exactly what they want you to do. That was the specific design intent for 5e: your table, your rules. They want you to customize the game for your group.

So did 3.5?

[krugaan]

Trust me, I was thinking the same thing with a wry smile as I posted them. :smallwink:

I just /roll i google hangouts.

Google hates me.

[jojo]

Like mgshamster said. Though it should be "rule noted, considered and disregarded."

Since I paid for my books, and I do not participate in AL, I spoke accurately... IMO.

[furby076]

TBH, the ruling seems fine to me.

I mean, he even says "If you have a -3 Constitution modifier, don't roll. If you do, your character probably has a terminal disease, which manifests slowly over time."

Sorry, this is a poor excuse. Low con does not mean disease, it just means poor con. Diseases are quantified in dnd, and even someone with 20 con can have a dibilitating disease. Also, in dnd, disease can be cured by paladins and clerics. So what happens if a cure disease spell is cast on someone with 6 con? Does it go up to 10?

[mgshamster]

Sorry, this is a poor excuse. Low con does not mean disease, it just means poor con. Diseases are quantified in dnd, and even someone with 20 con can have a dibilitating disease. Also, in dnd, disease can be cured by paladins and clerics. So what happens if a cure disease spell is cast on someone with 6 con? Does it go up to 10?

It's called roleplaying.

[Kish]

Some diseases going by the rules laid out for diseases and others arbitrarily functioning entirely differently is called roleplaying? Wow, you've got a different dictionary than I do.

[krugaan]

Some diseases going by the rules laid out for diseases and others arbitrarily functioning entirely differently is called roleplaying? Wow, you've got a different dictionary than I do.

Low con is like aids.

[Coffee_Dragon]

Would it help to make a distinction between infectious and genetic diseases? Cure Disease removes your malaria but not your Huntington's.

But I don't think you necessarily must have a specific explanation for accruing CON penalties any more than you need a specific in-world explanation for why Bob the Fighter consistently rolls 1s and 2s on level up and Bill the Other Fighter consistently rolls 9s and 10s. (My group happily uses averages, Bill and Bob are equally heroic in the eyes of the universe.)

[jas61292]

Huh... am I the only person who knew that there was no minimum of 1, but also didn't think that you could decrease on level up? I always thought that it was just a minimum of 0. No idea why, other than seeing a level up as an increase in power, and thus discarding any thoughts of getting weaker on level up, but not believing you must get more HP, just because. Personally, that is how I like it, as losing HP just seems weird, but I definitely see no reason for a min of 1.

[Vaz]

Huh... am I the only person who knew that there was no minimum of 1, but also didn't think that you could decrease on level up? I always thought that it was just a minimum of 0. No idea why, other than seeing a level up as an increase in power, and thus discarding any thoughts of getting weaker on level up, but not believing you must get more HP, just because. Personally, that is how I like it, as losing HP just seems weird, but I definitely see no reason for a min of 1.

Yes jas. You are unique and special and snowflake.

[qube]

Since there's now a rule to chose the average die roll to get hp, it does make sense that there's no mandatory 1 hp minium. Considering otherwise, rolling the die would be more powerful then taking the average ...

average dieroll is calculated as (assuming d6)

(1+2+3+4+5+6)/6
(rounded up, to compensate for an inability to get a higher result)


If thre's a 1 hp minium, but a 1, 2 or 3 would result in negative or no hp, then their values are equivalent to 4.

(4+4+4+4+5+6)/6

which is obviously better then picking the alternative average of 4. No risk, more gain.

[Unoriginal]

Sorry, this is a poor excuse. Low con does not mean disease, it just means poor con. Diseases are quantified in dnd, and even someone with 20 con can have a dibilitating disease. Also, in dnd, disease can be cured by paladins and clerics. So what happens if a cure disease spell is cast on someone with 6 con? Does it go up to 10?

Lower than 8 CON means you have an extremely fragile health. It could still be roleplayed as having a chronic disease or having been permanently wounded, but eh, you can roleplay anything as anything, ultimately.


Since I paid for my books, and I do not participate in AL, I spoke accurately... IMO.

Why would you participating in AL be a factor? It's a rule in the basic book, not an AL thing.

Again, Crawford didn't make a ruling. He just pointed out to the rule in the PHB. You can houserule it to be differently, but don't say it's an "opinion".



Some diseases going by the rules laid out for diseases and others arbitrarily functioning entirely differently is called roleplaying? Wow, you've got a different dictionary than I do.

It's due to 5e being a sub-par edition that lacks moral complexity, I'm sure.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

which is obviously better then picking the alternative average of 4. No risk, more gain.

Unless your reading of that rule is that you pick before you roll the dice, in which case you're picking between an average dice value of 3.5 or the alternative average of 4.

[MadBear]

Sorry, this is a poor excuse. Low con does not mean disease, it just means poor con. Diseases are quantified in dnd, and even someone with 20 con can have a dibilitating disease. Also, in dnd, disease can be cured by paladins and clerics. So what happens if a cure disease spell is cast on someone with 6 con? Does it go up to 10?

It's not an excuse, it's giving an in-game reason why your hp's are going down upon level up. And in this case, it's not saying that the person has any particular disease. It's more that they're constantly getting sick and wearing down their already terrible health. Much like if I took an toddler dungeon crawling with me, even if I cast cure/remove disease spells on them before and after, the ware and tear would be awful for them and could potentially hurt their overall health.

Again, if you have a -3 modifier to your con, and you're rolling a d6, you're a fool if you choose to roll rather then take the average. Especially if your goal is to make your hp's go up.

50% of the time you'd gain 0 or fewer hp's.

But as always, 5e is meant to have DM make rulings. If you're not comfortable with a hero's HP total going down, then feel free to house rule that you always get a minimum of 1 hp upon level up. There's no reason to not do it, if that works better for your table.

[Keltest]

Some diseases going by the rules laid out for diseases and others arbitrarily functioning entirely differently is called roleplaying? Wow, you've got a different dictionary than I do.

Yes? We in the real world attach the word "disease" to a fairly wide variety of things, up to and including genetic mutations. Theres no reason to think that a Cure Disease spell would heal every ailment and source of weakness a person has, even if its a "disease" they inherited from their parents.

[Tanarii]

Considering otherwise, rolling the die would be more powerful then taking the average ...
Yes. If there's a minimum of 1 on the die along with a small enough HD size and a low enough Con, rolling the dice (on average) becomes superior to taking the average. Why is that a bad thing?

It's no like rolling the die is already a better choice that taking the average needs to be more powerful to balance it out. The opposite is true, rolling is worse, and taking the average is always the superior option.

Honestly, I don't understand why taking the 'average' isn't the die roll average rounded down. When it's higher than the average, why would anyone ever roll? I've only ever seen brand new players do it, and only for 2 levels or so before they realize it's crazy. At least if it was rounded down, some players would feel the need to take a risk on it.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Yes. If there's a minimum of 1 on the die along with a small enough HD size and a low enough Con, rolling the dice (on average) becomes superior to taking the average. Why is that a bad thing?

It's no like rolling the die is already a better choice that taking the average needs to be more powerful to balance it out. The opposite is true, rolling is worse, and taking the average is always the superior option.

Honestly, I don't understand why taking the 'average' isn't the die roll average rounded down. When it's higher than the average, why would anyone ever roll? I've only ever seen brand new players do it, and only for 2 levels or so before they realize it's crazy. At least if it was rounded down, some players would feel the need to take a risk on it.

The best solution IMO is allowing rerolls on 1, which bumps the dice up to be equal to the flat value. People who want consistency can take the flat, people who want chance can roll, and over the long run no one's punished for either.

[Unoriginal]

Honestly, I don't understand why taking the 'average' isn't the die roll average rounded down. When it's higher than the average, why would anyone ever roll? I've only ever seen brand new players do it, and only for 2 levels or so before they realize it's crazy. At least if it was rounded down, some players would feel the need to take a risk on it.

Some people like the gamble.

I nearly facepalmed when I saw someone do it in a video with their reasoning being "because the other player is doing it."

[History_buff]

Con is never acceptable for a “dump stat”. I have never made a character with less than 14 Con. (Exception for one character that rolled in order and got an 11. First ASI was getting resilient Con.)

It’s great for casters and necessary for melee.
You can’t save anyone if you’re dead.

[Theodoxus]

I have this amusing thought of someone with a 3 Con, after a fight sitting at 1 HP and taking a short rest to heal up, rolling a 1 on the die and suddenly having to go into death saves because they're now at 0 and technically dying.

[Naanomi]

Con is never acceptable for a “dump stat”. I have never made a character with less than 14 Con. (Exception for one character that rolled in order and got an 11. First ASI was getting resilient Con.)
As low as 12 for some very MAD builds, but in general yes; a CON in the negatives is unheard of except when there are some very 'old school' rolling systems going on

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Con is never acceptable for a “dump stat”. I have never made a character with less than 14 Con. (Exception for one character that rolled in order and got an 11. First ASI was getting resilient Con.)

It’s great for casters and necessary for melee.
You can’t save anyone if you’re dead.

The only times I've seen it done or recommended is in 3.X builds that lose their Con score entirely by becoming undead or a construct sometime around the start of play.

[Tanarii]

Con is never acceptable for a “dump stat”. I have never made a character with less than 14 Con. (Exception for one character that rolled in order and got an 11. First ASI was getting resilient Con.)I see Con 10 or 11 characters once in a while. At a single-class table to boot, so no "MAD multiclassing" concerns. But it's exceedingly rare. Con 12 thru 14 is the norm. I don't think I've ever seen a Con 8 character at my table.

The only way I can see it happening, realistically, is if a table was using custom rolling rules and required rolling "in order".

[Xetheral]

I would see Con 8 characters in 3.5, where prioritizing AC over HP was a reasonable strategy for races with a Con penalty. The lowest I've seen in 5e is 10.

[Vaz]

I would see Con 8 characters in 3.5, where prioritizing AC over HP was a reasonable strategy for races with a Con penalty. The lowest I've seen in 5e is 10.

Given how attack power and touch ac scaled, I personally would habe thought it strange.

[Kish]

Con is never acceptable for a “dump stat”. I have never made a character with less than 14 Con. (Exception for one character that rolled in order and got an 11. First ASI was getting resilient Con.)

It’s great for casters and necessary for melee.
You can’t save anyone if you’re dead.

As low as 12 for some very MAD builds, but in general yes; a CON in the negatives is unheard of except when there are some very 'old school' rolling systems going on

I would see Con 8 characters in 3.5, where prioritizing AC over HP was a reasonable strategy for races with a Con penalty. The lowest I've seen in 5e is 10.
Would it be acceptable to paraphrase this as, "5ed is especially unforgiving of lack of optimization?"

(Disclaimer: Yes, I know this is an exchange between three individuals, and I have no intention of passing it off as some kind of Official Decree or even something one of those people might have implied without the other two's contributions.)

[Tanarii]

Would it be acceptable to paraphrase this as, "5ed is especially unforgiving of lack of optimization?"No. 5e is especially forgiving towards a lack of optimization.

There are always better dump stats to dump, and it's blindingly obvious what they are most of the time, so even non-optimizers will see that Con has middle to high value most of the time.

Dumping Con to 8 does not make an unplayable character. Players just never do it because there's no reason to, and they can all see that. It's, like, 5e optimization 101. And everyone optimizes to one degree or another.

[Naanomi]

Choosing to greviously dump CON is one of the few consistent areas where 5e is less forgiving; ‘bad’ stat dumping in general in fact

[Unoriginal]

Would it be acceptable to paraphrase this as, "5ed is especially unforgiving of lack of optimization?"

No, it is not acceptable.

Not having a negative CON modifier is not optimizing. And the game isn't punishing you even if you have 8 CON (the minimum unless rolled stats), you're just fragile, as you should when you have 8 CON.

The only way to have horribly low HPs is to roll for stats, and then roll your HD at each level.

5e is not unforgiving of lack of optimization. You have to deliberately try to make your character weak to manage it.

At worse, you can say that 5e is unforgiving when you keep gambling instead of taking care of your health.


Why ask that question?

[Arkhios]

Not having a negative CON modifier is not optimizing. And the game isn't punishing you even if you have 8 CON (the minimum unless rolled stats), you're just fragile, as you should when you have 8 CON.
--
At worse, you can say that 5e is unforgiving when you keep gambling instead of taking care of your health.

Unrelated to the discussion, but for some reason (maybe I'm just crazy) that part sprung up an idea of making a variant human wizard with the standard 27 point buy.

Str 15, Dex 14, Con 8, Int 15, Wis 10, Cha 8

+1 Str, +1 Int, Tough for extra feat.

Why high Strength? I dunno, it felt funny enough so I did it. :smalltongue:

With Tough, this character would be just as durable as any wizard with rather common Con 12, only that his Constitution saves are a little worse than usual.

Make it even funnier: Start as a barbarian, use a medium armor, have proficiency in those Con saves, which are now a bit less bad for you. Have a whopping 13 hit points to start with (still more than a fairly common fighter would have). Also, a decent durability, for a wizard (once you take wizard levels, that is). Come to think of it, this would make some sense as a War Wizard.

Note, that Arcane Deflection doesn't require you to cast spells, and it's not a spell so you can use it even while raging! While not raging, you blast armies to cinder!

[opaopajr]

This really feels like a level 1 challenge in Final Fantasy Tactics or something.

If you level ... YOU DIE!

I wonder if anyone has ever done that: refuse to level up and stay at some low level because RP.

It's only the coolest new 5e mini-game I can think of! "Death by Leveling Up!" Challenge. Take a 3 in CON (-4 mod) and roll everything else. Roll your Hit Die during leveling up. Level up until you die. Death by other means is failure.

Easiest classes would be the HD d6 classes.

Or you could play an alternate survivalist mini-game, "Two HP Weenie Marathon." Choose a d6 class, take CON 3, and from then on only take the fixed HD average. (Fixed HD average is half plus one, so d6 classes are 4 HP. CON 3 is -4 mod, which washes away HP gains.) Level your 2 HP PC as far as they can in actual play. Shoot for the perfect score of Lvl 20!
:smallcool:

[Tanarii]

Str 15, Dex 14, Con 8, Int 15, Wis 10, Cha 8

+1 Str, +1 Int, Tough for extra feat.

Why high Strength? I dunno, it felt funny enough so I did it. :smalltongue:Because you're planning on taking Weapon Master (Longsword, Greatsword, Glaive, Longbow) at level 4, to go with your Booming Blade / Greenflame blade?

Edit: hopefully your team has a good Cleric ... :smallamused:

[Arkhios]

Because you're planning on taking Weapon Master (Longsword, Greatsword, Glaive, Longbow) at level 4, to go with your Booming Blade / Greenflame blade?

Edit: hopefully your team has a good Cleric ... :smallamused:

Honestly? Didn't think that far, but sure, why the heck not! :D

[jas61292]

Yes jas. You are unique and special and snowflake.

Yay! I like being special.

But in all seriousness, while I do find the whole loss of HP thing weird, I really don't think it is a big deal. So few guys will have that even come up. So it shouldn't matter.

[Arkhios]

But in all seriousness, while I do find the whole loss of HP thing weird, I really don't think it is a big deal. So few guys will have that even come up. So it shouldn't matter.

Honestly, it's not. People playing games these days seem to have cradled themselves into some self-comforting dream in which everything always works fantastic for them, and as soon as someone points out something severely hindering, all hell breaks loose as they start defending their comfort zones with bare teeth!

To me, negative ability modifiers are just as much tools and flavorful features to work with as any other aspects of this game (and any other games, really). Every good character must have flaws! A wizard with Con 8 can be just as entertaining to play as a half-orc barbarian with greataxe and Great Weapon Master.

[krugaan]

Honestly, it's not. People playing games these days seem to have cradled themselves into some self-comforting dream in which everything always works fantastic for them, and as soon as someone points out something severely hindering, all hell breaks loose as they start defending their comfort zones with bare teeth!

To me, negative ability modifiers are just as much tools and flavorful features to work with as any other aspects of this game (and any other games, really). Every good character must have flaws! A wizard with Con 8 can be just as entertaining to play as a half-orc barbarian with greataxe and Great Weapon Master.

Damn whippersnappers with their "theater of the mind" and "geek chic!" Girls woudn't even ask us to do their math homework, that how much we suffered for our craft!

Back in my day, we used to have to walk to the library, in the rain, sleet, and snow, uphill both ways! And then, we'd spend the next 5 hours in one grueling battle, gain our hard earned 3 XP points, and then trudge back home and do it all again the next day for the next 75 years just to get to level two!!!

Now you can just jump on this newfangled internet and find groups to play with in like 5 minutes! Just finding people to play with used to be a heroic undertaking worthy of feast and song!

AND GET OFF MY DAMN LAWN!

[mgshamster]

I've got a frenzy barbarian with 5 wisdom and I always roll HP for him. Also rolled stats for him.

I've also got a beast master ranger with an 8 con. Used standard array.

These are things I'm told one should never do, and yet my PCs do just fine.

[Arkhios]

Damn whippersnappers with their "theater of the mind" and "geek chic!" Girls woudn't even ask us to do their math homework, that how much we suffered for our craft!

Back in my day, we used to have to walk to the library, in the rain, sleet, and snow, uphill both ways! And then, we'd spend the next 5 hours in one grueling battle, gain our hard earned 3 XP points, and then trudge back home and do it all again the next day for the next 75 years just to get to level two!!!

Now you can just jump on this newfangled internet and find groups to play with in like 5 minutes! Just finding people to play with used to be a heroic undertaking worthy of feast and song!

AND GET OFF MY DAMN LAWN!

Preach it!

Seriously though. Don't forget the fun. It's just a game. Don't be too serious about it lest you risk a burn-out.

[Knaight]

Would it be acceptable to paraphrase this as, "5ed is especially unforgiving of lack of optimization?"

Only if the things it's being compared to are better in that regard - "especially" is explicitly a comparative term.

They aren't.

[BoringInfoGuy]

I played a 3.5 paladin with a 10 Con.

We rolled 4d6, drop the lowest, place as chosen.

Well, I rolled great stats, for a Wizard or other SAD character. 18 on one end, the rest mediocre with an 8 on the low end. Problem is, I wanted to play a paladin, since this was my first game running under a DM that had similar ideas on how a paladin could behave without falling.

Realizing that a DM who won’t go out of his way to think up ways to screw a pally was worth more than optimization, I had some tough choices. I could put the high stats into being a decent front line combatant and have almost non existent bonuses to the paladin mechanics. But why bother being a paladin if I was going to build him as a sub par fighter with barely there paladin abilities?

So, I went with an extremely sub par fighter with the Paladin abilities being emphasized. 18 in Cha for Smite Evil, Divine Grace, Lay on Hands, and Turn Undead, plus the diplomacy skill. 14 in Wisdom for full Paladin Spellcasting.

But I was stuck on where to put a 10. Dex, the only pally dump stat was holding the 8. So where to put it? Str? I needed enough carry capacity for the heavy armor I was going to get ASAP, and I wanted some melee utility. Int? All that was left was Int or Con.

Could’ve dropped Int, but I had skills I wanted. Con was really just two things. HP and Fortitude saving throws. Paladins has good Fort saves, and Divine Grace adds your con bonus for all saves. So, as long as I rolled well for HP, I should’ve been fine.

Hit level 2. Rolled a 1 for HP

Hit level 3. Rolled a 1 again.

Turned out well though. Having low HP really shaped and developed his personality.

[Unoriginal]

I played a 3.5 paladin with a 10 Con.

We rolled 4d6, drop the lowest, place as chosen.

Well, I rolled great stats, for a Wizard or other SAD character. 18 on one end, the rest mediocre with an 8 on the low end. Problem is, I wanted to play a paladin, since this was my first game running under a DM that had similar ideas on how a paladin could behave without falling.

Realizing that a DM who won’t go out of his way to think up ways to screw a pally was worth more than optimization, I had some tough choices. I could put the high stats into being a decent front line combatant and have almost non existent bonuses to the paladin mechanics. But why bother being a paladin if I was going to build him as a sub par fighter with barely there paladin abilities?

So, I went with an extremely sub par fighter with the Paladin abilities being emphasized. 18 in Cha for Smite Evil, Divine Grace, Lay on Hands, and Turn Undead, plus the diplomacy skill. 14 in Wisdom for full Paladin Spellcasting.

But I was stuck on where to put a 10. Dex, the only pally dump stat was holding the 8. So where to put it? Str? I needed enough carry capacity for the heavy armor I was going to get ASAP, and I wanted some melee utility. Int? All that was left was Int or Con.

Could’ve dropped Int, but I had skills I wanted. Con was really just two things. HP and Fortitude saving throws. Paladins has good Fort saves, and Divine Grace adds your con bonus for all saves. So, as long as I rolled well for HP, I should’ve been fine.

Hit level 2. Rolled a 1 for HP

Hit level 3. Rolled a 1 again.

Turned out well though. Having low HP really shaped and developed his personality.

Now I'm picturing a very old guy who spent his life as a public speaker and who became a Paladin at the age others would enjoy retirement.

[Spacehamster]

How can you loose hp leveling up 8 being minimum CON gives -1 and when you roll a 1 that just leaves your hp without any positive or negative change?

[Unoriginal]

How can you loose hp leveling up 8 being minimum CON gives -1 and when you roll a 1 that just leaves your hp without any positive or negative change?

8 is the minimum for standard array and point buy. If you roll, the minimum is technically 3.

[LeonBH]

8 is the minimum for standard array and point buy. If you roll, the minimum is technically 3.

Technically, the lowest score is 1 post-modifier if you're playing an Orc (Volo's) and placed that 3 in Intelligence.

But yes, 3 is the minimum for Con.

[Vaz]

Honestly, it's not. People playing games these days seem to have cradled themselves into some self-comforting dream in which everything always works fantastic for them, and as soon as someone points out something severely hindering, all hell breaks loose as they start defending their comfort zones with bare teeth!

To me, negative ability modifiers are just as much tools and flavorful features to work with as any other aspects of this game (and any other games, really). Every good character must have flaws! A wizard with Con 8 can be just as entertaining to play as a half-orc barbarian with greataxe and Great Weapon Master.
Until it dies. And you no longer get to play with.

[Spacehamster]

Technically, the lowest score is 1 post-modifier if you're playing an Orc (Volo's) and placed that 3 in Intelligence.

But yes, 3 is the minimum for Con.

Hmmm how would you role play a 1 INT orc?! 😂 can’t talk probably and wonder if he could understand spoken language or just had to be the party pet or smthn?! :D

[Arkhios]

Until it dies. And you no longer get to play with.

Who. Cares!? :DDDDD Dying is part of the game. Sheesh!

Why are you so incredibly negative about every single thing? Did you forget your meds?

[Unoriginal]

Who. Cares!? :DDDDD Dying is part of the game. Sheesh!

Why are you so incredibly negative about every single thing? Did you forget your meds?

Vaz is a self-proclaimed thread derailer.


That being said, it's true dying can be frustrating. But if you're the kind who's frustrated by death, you're not going to make a deliberately fragile character. Unless if you're doing it on purpose to be contrarian or if you think the DM will never kill you.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Given how attack power and touch ac scaled, I personally would habe thought it strange.

I suppose it depends on the level of the game. At level 1, 1 point of AC is worth significantly more than 1 point of hp.

[Arkhios]

Hmmm how would you role play a 1 INT orc?! 😂 can’t talk probably and wonder if he could understand spoken language or just had to be the party pet or smthn?! :D

In 3rd edition you actually had to make a Handle Animal check to direct any humanoid with intelligence 2 or lower to do anything (it was RAW!) :smallbiggrin:

[Naanomi]

Hmmm how would you role play a 1 INT orc?! 😂 can’t talk probably and wonder if he could understand spoken language or just had to be the party pet or smthn?! :D
If I map 3d6 Intelligence to an extrapolated Stanford-Binet IQ chart (which is a bad idea but gives us some talking points); INT 1 is about IQ 16... virtually no cognitive engagement, below 20 and learning is generally considered impossible due to massive deficits in processing and memory; almost always accompanied with significant motor impairments and/or physical deformities

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Historically, 3 Int was the minimum, and a character that had less wasn't playable.

[BoringInfoGuy]

Now I'm picturing a very old guy who spent his life as a public speaker and who became a Paladin at the age others would enjoy retirement.
(Man a La Mancha now playing in my ear)

A missed opportunity. I went with a young man who was strong in spirit, but weak of the flesh.

Of course, I had been hoping for better HP roles. Rolling two ones and having 12 HP at 3rd level was not something I planned.

[Xetheral]

Hmmm how would you role play a 1 INT orc?! 😂 can’t talk probably and wonder if he could understand spoken language or just had to be the party pet or smthn?! :D

Play as a Wizard for the irony. Cast Find Familiar. Do whatever the familiar tells you to do. (As necessary, consult the sidebar in the Arms and Equipment guide for 3.0 entitled: "What to do if your mount is smarter than you are.")

[opaopajr]

Heh, Mongo the Orcish Wizard. Not even the orcs pay attention to him. Good usage of a random spellcasting function, though. "No Mongo! We said cast Sleep!"

I'd probably rule it as partial catatonia, however. I mean, you're a point away from a slime, so not good. Or maybe you can speak with the slimes... :smallamused:

(Edit: Y'know, I always wanted to play a mentally-elevated Gelatinous Cube as a paladin. This might just qualify if I reskin it...)

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Play as a Wizard for the irony. Cast Find Familiar. Do whatever the familiar tells you to do. (As necessary, consult the sidebar in the Arms and Equipment guide for 3.0 entitled: "What to do if your mount is smarter than you are.")

Would have to be a Sorcerer, or you could have your Int raised magically.

[Arkhios]

Would have to be a Sorcerer, or you could have your Int raised magically.

Well... technically low Int doesn't stop you from being a wizard and casting spells (you can always have a minimum of one spell prepared). Your Spellcasting DC would obviously suffer, but you could choose spells that care about neither :)

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Well... technically low Int doesn't stop you from being a wizard and casting spells. Your Spellcasting DC and attack bonuses would obviously suffer, but you could choose spells that care about neither :)

True, I was thrown by the reference to 3.0's AEG

[Arkhios]

I guess it's my slightly contrarian nature when there's a chance to try and prove otherwise (regardless of subject), but now I came to wonder how many spells are there in wizard's list that could work even with very low intelligence to their full potential.

A nomad-born non-intellectual War Wizard could be really funny to play with, even when considering obvious drawbacks.

Str 15, Dex 14, Con 15, Int 8, Wis 10, Cha 8
+1 str, +1 con, Tough
AC 15 (w/Mage Armor), HP 11

Spells: Mage Armor, Shield, Magic Missile, what else? :smallbiggrin:
Booming Blade as one of the cantrips.
Weapon of choice: arcane focus (staff) which works as a quarterstaff (held in two hands)

[Unoriginal]

(Man a La Mancha now playing in my ear)

A missed opportunity. I went with a young man who was strong in spirit, but weak of the flesh.

Of course, I had been hoping for better HP roles. Rolling two ones and having 12 HP at 3rd level was not something I planned.

Well, you can still do it in a different game, if you want.

[BoringInfoGuy]

It’s actually very tempting.

Not with my current group though. We already have a player who’s character was an old man at first level. Would feel like I was copying his concept too much.

[Xetheral]

True, I was thrown by the reference to 3.0's AEG

The sidebar I referred to is good, non-edition-specific advice for how to handle a special mount (or familiar) smarter than the character.

[Vaz]

Who. Cares!? :DDDDD Dying is part of the game. Sheesh!

Why are you so incredibly negative about every single thing? Did you forget your meds?

Nope. I, er, care, about my characters. Fancy that, getting invested in a character that much that I care about my characters dying. If by having 40 additional hitpoints allows me to experience a game that much better, at the expense of rolling 2 lower on my Initiative then sure.

If I wanted to play a game where I died on the reg, then make it a good one. Bloodborne, Dark Souls, Skyrim Requiem DiD. Dnd, and 5e in particular doesn't have the system to support an interesting death mechanic. If i wanted to try a new build, I'd try a new build, not simply wait to die. I'd rather not have it forced by managing to roll double snake eyes.


Vaz is a self-proclaimed thread derailer.
Heh, excuse me while enjoy the double irony of you talking about me derailing threads to derail a thread, while simultaneously being unoriginal with the moniker of 'Unoriginal'.

[Chaosmancer]

To me, negative ability modifiers are just as much tools and flavorful features to work with as any other aspects of this game (and any other games, really). Every good character must have flaws! A wizard with Con 8 can be just as entertaining to play as a half-orc barbarian with greataxe and Great Weapon Master.

See, I've never understood this. I can have fun and interesting characters without having negative numbers on my sheet. In fact, I actually tried to play a character with a negative mod in dex that was tied deeply into his backstory (broken leg leading to a permanent limp and being the entire reason he became a cleric instead of a farmer) and know what happened?

It was entirely ignored by the DM and the rest of the party, I forgot it over half the time, and eventually the DM gave me a stat boost which removed it entirely.

I've got a different character with a negative intelligence right now, same exact deal except he still has the negative. No one remembers it is there and in fact I've been the one to solve puzzles for the group before because I saw the answer and we didn't want to spend 30 minutes beating our heads against the metaphorical wall while I pretended not to know.

Does the character have flaws?

Oh boy is that a yes. He's a Knight (barbarian by class, Knight by Background) and he can't turn down hospitality even from questionable people. Accepting cursed food from the same woman at least twice that I can remember. He also refused to let the same woman walk home alone at night (he councilled resting for the night and ignored the barbs about him being a coward, but the "totally not hags" refused to stop) and he, followed by the party who couldn't let him go alone, walked for 2 days straight until they got through the woods.

These sort of things would be the realm of low wisdom, and my wisdom is actually pretty dang good, so my stats aren't leading to these ideas or these flaws or any roleplaying what so ever. It all comes from a backstory and developing an actual character. My low stats? They just mean I'm going to fail at rolls and generally not in ways that are interesting, just in ways that result in "no, you failed, next person roll to succeed".


Anyways, about the HP. At a certain point it doesn't really matter if the player loses hp, gains 0, or gains the average. You can't take more than a single attack or two anyways, so the impact of this rule is essentially nothing, and if people want to follow it, then go ahead. I'd never play someone with less than a 10 Con unless I was forced to. Heck, 10 is too low when talking about Hp and Concentration checks.

[Arkhios]

See, I've never understood this. I can have fun and interesting characters without having negative numbers on my sheet. In fact, I actually tried to play a character with a negative mod in dex that was tied deeply into his backstory (broken leg leading to a permanent limp and being the entire reason he became a cleric instead of a farmer) and know what happened?

It was entirely ignored by the DM and the rest of the party, I forgot it over half the time, and eventually the DM gave me a stat boost which removed it entirely.

I've got a different character with a negative intelligence right now, same exact deal except he still has the negative. No one remembers it is there and in fact I've been the one to solve puzzles for the group before because I saw the answer and we didn't want to spend 30 minutes beating our heads against the metaphorical wall while I pretended not to know.

Does the character have flaws?

Oh boy is that a yes. He's a Knight (barbarian by class, Knight by Background) and he can't turn down hospitality even from questionable people. Accepting cursed food from the same woman at least twice that I can remember. He also refused to let the same woman walk home alone at night (he councilled resting for the night and ignored the barbs about him being a coward, but the "totally not hags" refused to stop) and he, followed by the party who couldn't let him go alone, walked for 2 days straight until they got through the woods.

These sort of things would be the realm of low wisdom, and my wisdom is actually pretty dang good, so my stats aren't leading to these ideas or these flaws or any roleplaying what so ever. It all comes from a backstory and developing an actual character. My low stats? They just mean I'm going to fail at rolls and generally not in ways that are interesting, just in ways that result in "no, you failed, next person roll to succeed".


Anyways, about the HP. At a certain point it doesn't really matter if the player loses hp, gains 0, or gains the average. You can't take more than a single attack or two anyways, so the impact of this rule is essentially nothing, and if people want to follow it, then go ahead. I'd never play someone with less than a 10 Con unless I was forced to. Heck, 10 is too low when talking about Hp and Concentration checks.

Not sure if you tried to argue against or to prove my point, but that's just it: whatever stats and however high or low they are, in the end, none of it really matters too much. Especially with bounded accuracy.

About HP. It just occurred to me that I may have expressed myself poorly. It's not the death itself, but the risk of dying that makes the game exciting and interesting. So what if you had a slightly increased incentive to watch out for your HP? It only encourages to think of more ways to avoid or mitigate being hit/damaged/whatever.

[Luccan]

Not sure if you tried to argue against or to prove my point, but that's just it: whatever stats and however high or low they are, in the end, none of it really matters too much. Especially with bounded accuracy.

About HP. It just occurred to me that I may have expressed myself poorly. It's not the death itself, but the risk of dying that makes the game exciting and interesting. So what if you had a slightly increased incentive to watch out for your HP? It only encourages to think of more ways to avoid or mitigate being hit/damaged/whatever.

My only problem is the idea of dying on level up. That just seems like an odd thing to declare is a part of the standard game. Naturally we can (and I think should) ignore this, but the fact that it is technically an semi-official ruling bothers me.

[MadBear]

it is technically an semi-official ruling bothers me.

Apparently, it's been the actual rule this whole time.

The part the confounds me, is that this edition tries so hard to make it clear that the DM should do what's best for your table. Apparently due to previous editions assumptions, many DM's did make unaware house rules around how this worked with no apparent issue at all.

But I mean, really. Talking about dying on level up is so unlikely, that it's hardly a matter to even consider the merits of.

I mean, if you assume that the character has a -2 Con, then it'd take a character rolling a 1 on a d6 class until they hit level 5. If I'm doing my math right, that puts you at about a .01% chance of that happening to any given character with the -2 Con.

And at that point, you're more likely to die from the overkill rules then you are from leveling.

And if we're talking about a person with a -3 Con and that person's an adventurer, I'd just assume they have some fatal genetic flaws that make the dying on level up make sense.

[2D8HP]

Con is never acceptable for a “dump stat”. I have never made a character with less than 14 Con. (Exception for one character that rolled in order and got an 11. First ASI was getting resilient Con.)

It’s great for casters and necessary for melee.
You can’t save anyone if you’re dead.

Would it be acceptable to paraphrase this as, "5ed is especially unforgiving of lack of optimization?"

(Disclaimer: Yes, I know this is an exchange between three individuals, and I have no intention of passing it off as some kind of Official Decree or even something one of those people might have implied without the other two's contributions.)


No. 5e is especially forgiving towards a lack of optimization.

There are always better dump stats to dump, and it's blindingly obvious what they are most of the time, so even non-optimizers will see that Con has middle to high value most of the time.

Dumping Con to 8 does not make an unplayable character. Players just never do it because there's no reason to, and they can all see that. It's, like, 5e optimization 101. And everyone optimizes to one degree or another.


Choosing to greviously dump CON is one of the few consistent areas where 5e is less forgiving; ‘bad’ stat dumping in general in fact


Unrelated to the discussion, but for some reason (maybe I'm just crazy) that part sprung up an idea of making a variant human wizard with the standard 27 point buy.

Str 15, Dex 14, Con 8, Int 15, Wis 10, Cha 8.
I have played a 5e WD&D Fighter 1/Rogue (Swashbuckler) 4 with a low CON, works fine, in fact I seldom play 5e PC's with CON's above 12.

Prioritize DEX (so you dodge getting hit in the first place), and WIS (so your perceptive enough to notice the dangers that are coming). If a Rogue, get Expertise in Stealth (so you can hide) and Perception.

And don't wade into melee like a damn fool!
Bows were invented for a reason!


Damn whippersnappers with their "theater of the mind" and "geek chic!" Girls woudn't even ask us to do their math homework, that how much we suffered for our craft!

Back in my day, we used to have to walk to the library, in the rain, sleet, and snow, uphill both ways! And then, we'd spend the next 5 hours in one grueling battle, gain our hard earned 3 XP points, and then trudge back home and do it all again the next day for the next 75 years just to get to level two!!!

Now you can just jump on this newfangled internet and find groups to play with in like 5 minutes! Just finding people to play with used to be a heroic undertaking worthy of feast and song!

AND GET OFF MY DAMN LAWN!.
Dude! It's like you're in my mind!


..Vaz is a self-proclaimed thread derailer..


...Heh, excuse me while enjoy the double irony of you talking about me derailing threads to derail a thread, while simultaneously being unoriginal with the moniker of 'Unoriginal'..
Amateurs.

SISKO WAS THE BEST STAR TREK CAPTAIN!

GANDALF BATTLES NAZI CATS ON THE DEATHSTAR USING THE FORCE!

NI!

SPAM!

A SHRUBBERY!

KHAAAAAAAN!!!

BY GRABTHAR'S HAMMER, BY THE SUNS OF WARVAN, YOU SHALL BE AVENGED!!!

RAILROADING IS A GOOD THING! (Too far?)


Not sure if you tried to argue against or to prove my point, but that's just it: whatever stats and however high or low they are, in the end, none of it really matters too much. Especially with bounded accuracy.

About HP. It just occurred to me that I may have expressed myself poorly. It's not the death itself, but the risk of dying that makes the game exciting and interesting. So what if you had a slightly increased incentive to watch out for your HP? It only encourages to think of more ways to avoid or mitigate being hit/damaged/whatever..
I agree completely.

:smile:
.

[Theodoxus]

About HP. It just occurred to me that I may have expressed myself poorly. It's not the death itself, but the risk of dying that makes the game exciting and interesting. So what if you had a slightly increased incentive to watch out for your HP? It only encourages to think of more ways to avoid or mitigate being hit/damaged/whatever.

I've become enamored with the idea of getting reduced to 0 HP grants a level of exhaustion if your HPs are healed in any manner other than natural healing: (stabilization (magical or otherwise) + 1d4 hours of consciousness.) I know a number of people here use that particular house rule, and I'm planning on adopting for my next "not AL-esque" game.


snip

Deflection successful.

[qube]

Yes. If there's a minimum of 1 on the die along with a small enough HD size and a low enough Con, rolling the dice (on average) becomes superior to taking the average. Why is that a bad thing?because actions have consequences?

After all, where talking about a player who not only dumps his hit points, but actively decides to take the gamble option instead of the sure bet. Why should he get a superior mechanism? What has this person done to deserve a break? I don't know about you, but my players aren't that immature that they can't handle losing a bet where they themselves stacked the deck against themselves...

And if your players are ... I'll pray to see what their reaction would be when you tell them the DC has gone up for their diplomacy check after after spitting directly in the kings face ...

[Tanarii]

After all, where talking about a player who not only dumps his hit points, but actively decides to take the gamble option instead of the sure bet. Why should he get a superior mechanism? What has this person done to deserve a break? I don't know about you, but my players aren't that immature that they can't handle losing a bet where they themselves stacked the deck against themselves...
Why should the gamble option be worse than the sure bet? It should be more likely to pay off, not less likely, because of the risk.

[Unoriginal]

Why should the gamble option be worse than the sure bet? It should be more likely to pay off, not less likely, because of the risk.

What.

By definition, a risky gamble is less likely to pay off than a sure bet.

It's like saying "I'll have a risky behavior while driving, so I will have less accidents."

[Tanarii]

What.

By definition, a risky gamble is less likely to pay off than a sure bet.

It's like saying "I took more risks while driving, so I will have less accidents."No one will take the gamble if the safe bet is better. As is demonstrated by players rarely choosing to roll. Because it's both riskier and worse.

[Unoriginal]

No one will take the gamble if the safe bet is better. As is demonstrated by players rarely choosing to roll. Because it's both riskier and worse.

The gamble can potentially give better results. But yes, it's risky -because it's a gamble.

You could argue "the risky gamble's positive results should be better than the safe bet", maybe, but it's already the case. It's just hard to get said results, because it's a risky gamble.

[Naanomi]

No one will take the gamble if the safe bet is better. As is demonstrated by players rarely choosing to roll. Because it's both riskier and worse.
?? The safe bet at a casino is keeping your money in your own pocket, not gambling at all... yet they still get rich. The potential payout being higher, even when the average is lower, is the core of ‘gambling’ in almost every form

[Coffee_Dragon]

I'd argue in terms of design practice there's really no contest.

With rounding up, gambley players get to gamble and non-gambley players get to feel good about playing it safe.

With rounding down, gambley players get to gamble and non-gambley players get to feel bad about playing it safe.

A designer should 7 times out of 7 pick the rule that makes players feel good. Average HP is one of 5E's steps forward.

[Tanarii]

With rounding up, gambly players don't get to do their thing because they're forced to do the non-gambly thing, and non-gambly players get to be arrogant because they're better off than gambly players stupid enough to actually gamble.

With rounding down, gambly players are happy because they get to do their thing, and non-gambly players are happy because they get to play it safe.

Design wise, they made a mistake.

Edit: it's anecdotal evidence, but pretty sure only one player at my tables has ever chosen to roll after 2nd or 3rd level. That's not providing two alternatives. That's providing one method, and a sop to old school.

[Xetheral]

With rounding up, gambly players don't get to do their thing because they're forced to do the non-gambly thing...

If an expected value below zero forced gamblers to not gamble, casinos wouldn't be viable.

[Chaosmancer]

I don't disagree with Tanarii. The vast majority of players I play with take the average. The few who used to gamble a little stopped after A) They consistently rolled lower than the average they could have taken and B) I point out to them how bad of a deal the gamble is, since you have to roll higher than the actual average to get better.

For a 1d6 class, needing a 5 or 6 means that a player only has a 33% chance of increasing their hp and a 50% chance of making it worse

The odds get better the higher your HD, having a 1d12 means a 42% chance of improvement with a 50% chance of making it worse

Most of my groups, it becomes a dead option. No one is willing to risky hurting their character that much. And for some tables (like mine) rolling for HP being a dead option is fine, but I could see others where this is seen as a problem since it makes the game more predictable.

Also, players aren't necessarily working with the same impulses as slot machine players, I'd like to think most of us are closer to Poker players. Yeah, there is random chance and we like that, but there is a lot of skill to mitigate that chance and we like that part a little bit more. And we'll fold our hand if the odds are too far stacked against us.


And don't wade into melee like a damn fool!
Bows were invented for a reason!

See, but like you said, Bows were invented for a reason, and both arrows and spells don't care if you are a frontliner or not.

[2D8HP]

...See, but like you said, Bows were invented for a reason, and both arrows and spells don't care if you are a frontliner or not..
Given a choice between boosting STR (for armor), DEX, WIS or CON, I do not choose CON, as it's better to just not get hit in the first place, and I've found that habits learned playing TSR D&D (like avoiding the monsters instead of just doing a conga-line of combat) usually means my PC gets hit less than other players PC's.

While I've had a 5e WD&D PC get down to 3HP, I've never had one die (unlike my big stack of dead TD&D PC's).

With the quick healing and other goodies 5e PC's get, I just don't think prioritizing CON is that important.


...Deflection successful..
Curses!

[Chaosmancer]

Given a choice between boosting STR (for armor), DEX, WIS or CON, I do not choose CON, as it's better to just not get hit in the first place, and I've found that habits learned playing TSR D&D (like avoiding the monsters instead of just doing a conga-line of combat) usually means my PC gets hit less than other players PC's.

While I've had a 5e WD&D PC get down to 3HP, I've never had one die (unlike my big stack of dead TD&D PC's).

With the quick healing and other goodies 5e PC's get, I just don't think prioritizing CON is that important.

I get it, and I don't disagree with you.

But, you can't control getting hit or not, and a lot of effects and special attacks deal half damage even if you succeed. I'm in a high-level game right now and both the ranger and Wizard were hit with Dragon's breath and the 50 or so damage they took was devastating to their small health pools.

And I've seen skirmisher characters playing archers who are shocked when either the party gets hit from behind or the enemy ranged attackers return fire on them, and have quickly realized that despite what they may have believed they weren't untouchable, and it doesn't take much to leave them hurting.

I just advise caution to people who believe a high dexterity and wisdom is all you need to avoid being in dire straits. Con isn't flashy, but it means that those surprises that do get past your other plans are less likely to streak you across the dungeon walls.

[2D8HP]

I'm in a high-level game right now and both the ranger and Wizard were hit with Dragon's breath and the 50 or so damage they took was devastating to their small health pools..
Ah, I usually bail on a PC if they reach high levels (I don't enjoy superpowered PC's as much), so I simply don't have much high level experience (and what little I've had I found duller than low level play, and frankly surreal and hard to relate to, I really don't know how to role-play superheroes).


Con isn't flashy, but it means that those surprises that do get past your other plans are less likely to streak you across the dungeon walls..
That would seem true for earlier D&D, but since you rolled CON and HP there was no choice involved.

But average HP is simply higher now (see: Hit Point Creep in Dungeons and Dragons (http://www.nerdovore.com/2017/05/hit-point-creep-in-dungeons-and-dragons.html?m=1)), and that most of my co-players now run towards combat instead of away from combat still feels strange to me.

I'll probably start putting more into CON after I finally have a 5e PC that dies, but that hasn't happened yet.

[qube]

No one will take the gamble if the safe bet is better. As is demonstrated by players rarely choosing to roll. Because it's both riskier and worse.Firstly, I very much disagree no one will take that gamble.

Secondly, all I'm advocating is that the player who dumped his CON gets the same mechanism, opposite to a superior one, compared to the to the person who didn't. You can dislike the choise, and you can claim that it isn't a real choise that WotC presents to you, etc ... But in the end that's (apparently) the non-choise you present to the player who likes to have hit points.

Why would you give a player who dumped his hp, a superior mechanism? Why give him a choise when you (apparently) don't give your other players one?



But average HP is simply higher now (see: Hit Point Creep in Dungeons and Dragons (http://www.nerdovore.com/2017/05/hit-point-creep-in-dungeons-and-dragons.html?m=1)), While there is hp creep ... wow, this article is horrible. It's been a LONG time since I seen such blatant manipulation of data to fit the naritive. Talk about cherry picking: the actual evolution of a wizard with 14 CON is


.4, 16, 29, 34, 39. (no healing surges) (1/AD&D)
.6, 24, 47, 70, 93. (no healing surges) (3/3.5E)
24, 40, 60, 81, 101. (values x3, if you include the 8 healing surges of quarter hp ) (4E)
.8, 32, 62, 92, 122. (values x1.5 if you include healing surges you regain per long rest) (5E)


Yup, in the 5 eiditions, a lvl 1 wizards total hit points were 4, 4, 6, 72, 13. Guess what number didn't fit the narrative and guess what number wasn't bothered to be mentioned.

Edit: it also fails to mentions that 3/3.5E wasn't geared towards doing about 8 encounters per day.

[Unoriginal]

Hit Point Creep...

Can someone tell those guys that cross-edition modifications isn't "power creep" ?

Gods and Angels.

I can do it, too:

Hypothesis: There Is a Damage Creep in D&D

Data:

Hill Giant throwing a rock in AD&D 2nd: 2d6 damages

Hill Giant throwing a rock in 3.X: 2d6+7 damages

Hill Giant throwing a rock in 4e: 2d10+5 damages

Hill Giant throwing a rock in 5e edition: 3d10+5 damages

Conclusion:

https://media.giphy.com/media/8fbeFbshnfyJW/giphy.gif

[2D8HP]

...Hypothesis: There Is a Damage Creep in D&D

Data:

Hill Giant throwing a rock...].
Looks convincing.

[Unoriginal]

.
Looks convincing.

Are you joking?

[2D8HP]

Are you joking?.......
No.

[MeeposFire]

Firstly, I very much disagree no one will take that gamble.

Secondly, all I'm advocating is that the player who dumped his CON gets the same mechanism, opposite to a superior one, compared to the to the person who didn't. You can dislike the choise, and you can claim that it isn't a real choise that WotC presents to you, etc ... But in the end that's (apparently) the non-choise you present to the player who likes to have hit points.

Why would you give a player who dumped his hp, a superior mechanism? Why give him a choise when you (apparently) don't give your other players one?


While there is hp creep ... wow, this article is horrible. It's been a LONG time since I seen such blatant manipulation of data to fit the naritive. Talk about cherry picking: the actual evolution of a wizard with 14 CON is


.4, 16, 29, 34, 39. (no healing surges) (1/AD&D)
.6, 24, 47, 70, 93. (no healing surges) (3/3.5E)
24, 40, 60, 81, 101. (values x3, if you include the 8 healing surges of quarter hp ) (4E)
.8, 32, 62, 92, 122. (values x1.5 if you include healing surges you regain per long rest) (5E)


Yup, in the 5 eiditions, a lvl 1 wizards total hit points were 4, 4, 6, 72, 13. Guess what number didn't fit the narrative and guess what number wasn't bothered to be mentioned.

Edit: it also fails to mentions that 3/3.5E wasn't geared towards doing about 8 encounters per day.

While I agree with you I do think it is also important to mention that yes 4e characters did have all that reserve HP that they got back after a long rest in healing surges but it needs to be mentioned that unlike the other editions that reserve HP was the vast majority of the HP that use when you heal unlike most editions where healing was pure additional HP, in 4e healing spells required you to spend a surge most of the time (of course there are exceptions).

[Unoriginal]

.......
No.

I'm going to take the white dots as evidence you were not serious.

[2D8HP]

I'm going to take the white dots as evidence you were not serious..
No, they were there for the "10 char" limit.

But, to the point, there has indeed been general numbers inflation since oD&D, in each subsequent edition.

But my absolute experience in playing the game is that 5e PC's "die harder" than Oe, and 1e AD&D PC's, and it correlates with how much higher HP is.

A CON 12 Rogue, for example, starts with an HP of 9, whereas I would have been lucky to start with a 5 HP Oe/1e Thief, plus healing is so much faster, and healing potions are on the equipment price list!

[Olfgar]

From my perspecrive, gaining hit-points on level up implies a non-negative domain of acceptable values. Accordingly, I consider the minimum HP gain in 5e to be zero. If the rules instead talked about "changing" HP on level up, then I would permit negative values.

Similarly, I would never permit a negative damage roll to cause the target to gain HP regardless of whether or not a particular edition sepcificied a minimum on damage rolls.



Last time I checked, in AL JC tweets are considered rulings that DMs may adopt at their table or not, as they see fit. Edit: Unless the tweet contradicts the PHB or the AL documentation, in which case the tweet (like any such contradictory ruling) may not be used by the DM.

His tweet does not contradict the PHB as there is no rule or line that states you will gain X amount of HP per level regardless of stats. And since 5e is a very "exactly as presented" edition, it means since it does not say you cannot gain negative HP on level up, you can indeed gain negative HP on lvl up. Im pretty sure it says add your roll (or average provided) and add your con Modifier. Now, in the extreme edge case that you have -3 con mods, you add those to what ever HP you get per level up and that can negatively affect it.

What everyone misses is that this doesnt mean **** for your home game if your DM doesnt like it. But maybe you shouldnt be stupid enough to rock out with a negative Con anyways.

[JBPuffin]

I just want to doublecheck something – this only applies to people roll their ability scores, doesn’t it? For. But, the minimum is eight, which means the worst you can do is not gain any health that level. Honestly, this is some edge case BS that it literally makes no difference whether you pay attention to it or not… In other words, JC edit again with another non-useful errata. Par for the course, am I right?

[Chaosmancer]

While there is hp creep ... wow, this article is horrible. It's been a LONG time since I seen such blatant manipulation of data to fit the naritive. Talk about cherry picking: the actual evolution of a wizard with 14 CON is


.4, 16, 29, 34, 39. (no healing surges) (1/AD&D)
.6, 24, 47, 70, 93. (no healing surges) (3/3.5E)
24, 40, 60, 81, 101. (values x3, if you include the 8 healing surges of quarter hp ) (4E)
.8, 32, 62, 92, 122. (values x1.5 if you include healing surges you regain per long rest) (5E)


Yup, in the 5 eiditions, a lvl 1 wizards total hit points were 4, 4, 6, 72, 13. Guess what number didn't fit the narrative and guess what number wasn't bothered to be mentioned.

Edit: it also fails to mentions that 3/3.5E wasn't geared towards doing about 8 encounters per day.


My problem with the article is less that if fails to mention 4e and more that the context and assumptions are utterly insane.

The author immediately jumps in with the "fact" that the increase in hp means that wizards will

1)Jump into melee like fighters
2) Charge through traps
3) Generally act stupid and careless

Well, 3) is just straight up the realm of roleplaying and personality, so I'm going to ignore that.

Even fighter and barbarians generally try to play smart and avoid traps unless charging through the trap has tangible benefits, like preventing th bad guy from escaping, or if the party lacks another way to deal with the traps other than triggering them, so I'm going to skip over 2) as well for the moment

1) Act like fighters.

Well, you've got your big boy 122 hp, so you decide to charge the Ancient red dragon, a common game ending fight I'd imagine. You've got your mage armor for a whopping 15 AC.

Dragon hits on a +17, so it won't miss you unless it crit fails. If your DM is kindly and just multi-attacks you, you are looking at 6 attacks (three normal and then three from legendary actions) for an average not rolled total of 126 damage. You are bleeding out now, thank you for playing.

And that's if they are being nice, more than likely the dragon opens with the 90 ft cone of fire for 91 damage to you and your closest friends, and this is part of the reason wizards started getting more hp. That opening blast being so large and dragons being so smart, they can likely get your wizard in their blast. Even with fire resistance (a solid defensive plan) that dragon is likely to hit for over 45 points of damage, and if the wizard is "properly squishy" and only 39 hp like they did in 1e, then they are dying before turn one is over, unless they have fire immunity.

And, I will guarentee that a single ancient dragon is not the most dangerous or most damaging type of encounter a group of 20th level characters can fight. So that "high" hp (which is still comparitively low as a fighter with a con of 18 has an average hp of 204) is just to give the wizard a fighting chance of staying up long enough in the fight to make a difference.

Then there is also how they open every different part of the article with "I think X is part of the problem". Hp inflation is part of the problem, spell damage nerfing is part of the problem, monster damage nerfing is part of the problem, rest mechanics are part of the problem.

Is the problem that they changed the entire combat system, cause this is beginning to sound like the vast majority of the combat system.


But more aggravating to me is the authors clear sense of superiority, talking about their players "learning their lessons" and how they play their wizards "properly" (I love how they felt the need to italicize it too), telling us what nerf means (if a reader is interested enough in gaming to read an article about inflation of hit points over mutliple editions of DnD... they likely have run into the term nerf before, you don't need to tell us what it means) and on and on and on.


I have no problem with people prefering the older editions and styles of DnD. That's completely cool and I love that people still love the game after all these years, that is a great sign to how it did what you wanted it to do. But things have changed, and the game has changed to reflect what different people want. My players are level 17 now, and they still don't feel like the biggest and baddest things in the room most of the time. They are immensely powerful, but in 5e, numbers and resources can still make a huge difference in a fight, and the things they are going up against have all that and far far more.

[Luccan]

My problem with the article is less that if fails to mention 4e and more that the context and assumptions are utterly insane.

The author immediately jumps in with the "fact" that the increase in hp means that wizards will

...

2) Charge through traps

...


Well to be fair, that's how literally every rogue/thief has disabled traps since they could rely on not being next to worthless half the time. That pesky d6 and "being useful in combat" has been ruining the game since 3rd edition! Real thieves cower in combat and trick their party out of hard earned treasure!

[Zalabim]

I just want to doublecheck something – this only applies to people roll their ability scores, doesn’t it? For. But, the minimum is eight, which means the worst you can do is not gain any health that level. Honestly, this is some edge case BS that it literally makes no difference whether you pay attention to it or not… In other words, JC edit again with another non-useful errata. Par for the course, am I right?

It's not an edit, not errata, and while it's not useful, it's also not something JC spontaneously came out with. Someone asked. JC answered with the rules exactly as they are, as he often does. There's nothing unusual here, so yeah. Par for the course.

[Unoriginal]

I just want to doublecheck something – this only applies to people roll their ability scores, doesn’t it? For. But, the minimum is eight, which means the worst you can do is not gain any health that level. Honestly, this is some edge case BS that it literally makes no difference whether you pay attention to it or not… In other words, JC edit again with another non-useful errata. Par for the course, am I right?

Is ****ting on JC just a meme at this point?

Like Zalabim said. It's not an errata, or a ruling, or anything. It's literally him saying "re-read the book, what you thought was in it actually isn't in it."

[Xetheral]

His tweet does not contradict the PHB as there is no rule or line that states you will gain X amount of HP per level regardless of stats. And since 5e is a very "exactly as presented" edition, it means since it does not say you cannot gain negative HP on level up, you can indeed gain negative HP on lvl up. Im pretty sure it says add your roll (or average provided) and add your con Modifier. Now, in the extreme edge case that you have -3 con mods, you add those to what ever HP you get per level up and that can negatively affect it.

Actually, rather than demanding a literal interpretation, this edition is frequently characterized as the "natural language" edition. In natural language, the permissible domain of a number is often implict. Therefore, in a situation like this one where it doesn't make much sense to gain (or "regain", in the related case of spending a HD on a short rest) a negative number of hit points, it is perfectly reasonable to read the text as implicitly requiring that the domain is non-negative.

A similar example would be: "I will pay you X, where X is determined by a formula." The domain of X is implicitly restricted to non-negative numbers by the language used.