What do you think of rerolling hit point maximum every long rest?

[wilhelmdubdub]

I think the variable of different hit points every day would help change up combat tactics. Some days a PC could tank a lot of hits, other days they may want to hang back and support. It could help with long rest spamming if the players rolled well, or help the players to not feel bad if they rolled poorly as next day might be better. I could see prepared casters changing up their spell selection for the day depending on hp which would give them something more to think about instead of the same spells every day. You could roleplay it as a bad nights sleep, or the players slept and ate well during the rest that night. What do you all think?

[PhoenixPhyre]

I think the variable of different hit points every day would help change up combat tactics. Some days a PC could tank a lot of hits, other days they may want to hang back and support. It could help with long rest spamming if the players rolled well, or help the players to not feel bad if they rolled poorly as next day might be better. I could see prepared casters changing up their spell selection for the day depending on hp which would give them something more to think about instead of the same spells every day. You could roleplay it as a bad nights sleep, or the players slept and ate well during the rest that night. What do you all think?

Way too obnoxious to keep track of. Not to mention totally swingy.

A level 20 fighter with +3 CON could have anywhere between

13+4*19 = 89 HP

and

13 + 13*19 = 260 HP

On any given day. That's obnoxious and makes encounter balance nearly impossible. One bad day at level 1 and you have 4 HP. Another day you've got 13.

[Jakinbandw]

I think the variable of different hit points every day would help change up combat tactics. Some days a PC could tank a lot of hits, other days they may want to hang back and support. It could help with long rest spamming if the players rolled well, or help the players to not feel bad if they rolled poorly as next day might be better. I could see prepared casters changing up their spell selection for the day depending on hp which would give them something more to think about instead of the same spells every day. You could roleplay it as a bad nights sleep, or the players slept and ate well during the rest that night. What do you all think?

Sounds nifty for a sandbox campaign with player buy in. Time would have to have meaning to stop the players from just waiting a week till they all got good rolls though.

[Damon_Tor]

Maybe some kind of system where they only recover a random number of hitpoints when they rest.

...

Oh, wait...

[Man_Over_Game]

To avoid it being "swingy", while also having an impact on strategy each day, and using an existing mechanic, why not use some sort of Hit Dice solution?

Change resting to something like this:

You no longer restore all of your HP when you rest. Instead, you spend Hit Dice until you are at your maximum HP or until you run out of Hit Dice. Afterr doing that the first time, you gain half of your maximum number of Hit Dice and do it again.

This way, people will have to be more cautious about their HP. Taking a lot of damage in one day can impact your ability to heal naturally throughout the week. When your stress does get to you, the amount of HP you have to adventure with will be variable based on your luck, your Constitution, relevant feats, and how much damage you've been taking lately.

For something a bit less reliant on player interaction, you could consider a variant of the Proficiency Dice rules, having the players roll what their Proficiency will be for the entire day. This is a little more consistent and across the board for all players, while also not being a big enough impact to render anybody useless.

Proficiency Dice normally replace your Proficiency with a die, starting with 1d4 and gaining in size each time your Proficiency upgrades. The averages of each size (d4, d6, d8 d10, d12) is 2.5, 3.5, 4.5, 5.5, 6.5. This means that this rule would actually make players stronger, on average, compared to normal Proficiency (which starts at 2).

[KorvinStarmast]

What do you think of rerolling hit point maximum every long rest?
We did that back in the day. If everyone's into it, do it.
But to get the real "feel" of what you are trying to do, here's the kicker: only the DM knows how many HP you have.
DM rolls the dice, adds the con mods, and tells you "you fee about avearage" or "you feel about like crap" or "you feel awesome" and that's it.
No numbers on your sheet.

We did that for our thief adventures in the City State of the Invincible Overlord, using xd4 thieves, late 1970's.
Heck of a fine time.

But my personal feeling is that, for 5e in this modern time, what Damon Tor said is correct.

[Guy Lombard-O]

I've played in a 5e-based campaign like that. We weren't cheesy enough to just punt the whole day when HP didn't go our way, but it definitely effected how adventurous we were that day, and how quickly we were looking for a long rest.

Of course, with multiple characters in the party, you'd think it might all average out so that everyone wasn't weak on the same day. But really, all it took was one person feeling seriously nerfed in order to make the whole party more cautious...especially if that person was the tank.

It's interesting, but overall I didn't like it. Don't think the other players really did either.

In my regular campaign now we just take the average number for the class. Everyone seems happy with that.

[Dalebert]

Sounds absolutely miserably tedious.

[Man_Over_Game]

Sounds absolutely miserably tedious.

"Everyone roll 8d10 and count up your life. Make sure not to get your dice mixed up".

[Naanomi]

Bob the Barbarian used to have only 6 CON; but now that he made it to level 20 he has a cool 10 CON like a big boy

Some mornings he can have 240 HP, but on a bad day he can be down to 31

[Max_Killjoy]

Sounds like a good way to cause strife when most of the party rolls really high and one guys rolls really low, and wants to skip the day and get in another long rest to try again. Or vice versa.

[Snowbluff]

It would be annoying, but would make for an interesting in-world effect. Like, what if it was like just mundane illness.

"Ah dang, that shrimp I ate is getting me back."

"Yeah, sorry, I've a bit of a cold."

"Oof, I woke up in a funny position and I've a huge headache."

I might make it more forgiving, like making the minimum half your HD.

[Tanarii]

Way too obnoxious to keep track of. Not to mention totally swingy.It'll get a lot less swingy as you gain levels. But level 10 it'll be fairly tight. For example, a level ten fighter with 16 Con will get a standard deviation of ~8.6 around the avg of 89.5, so 68% of your days will be within 83-98. By level 20 it'll be super tight, a level 10 fighter will have 95% of their results in the range 150-200.

A low levels it'll be swingy though.

Edit: changed example to reflect Con 16 'cause that's what you used.