Interesting little change to HP and Constitution [PEACH]

[Amechra]

Alright, here's the idea:

-You only add HALF constitution each time you gain HD.
-You are treated as if you had a number of HD equal to 3/4 your BAB+your Constitution modifier, OR your actual hit dice, whichever would be better. I'm torn on whether this should be a straight increase to HD, and skill ranks should be limited to ECL+3 for class skills.

So a 20th level Barbarian with a base Constitution of 24 and Reckless Rage would be treated as if they had 22 HD normally, but when Raging, they would be treated as if they had 27 HD.

The HD alteration should only be from ACTUAL BAB, to prevent Divine Wrath from granting more HD.

Conversely, a Wizard is only gonna have 20 HD at ECL 20.

So, thoughts?

[NeoSeraphi]

I believe you just made dragons unkillable.

Edit: On the plus side, though, this significantly nerfs Wild Shape and other shapeshifting effects that have an HD cap. (Shapechange only lets you turn into up to 20 HD creatures at level 20? Who has 20 HD at level 20? Not outsiders or dragons with their full BAB!)

It also pretty much destroys any hope of anyone taking the lycanthropy template (that extra HD will just make it damn unplayable)

Wait a minute. How does this work exactly? Extra HD gives you extra BAB, which gives you extra HD, which gives you extra BAB...

[jiriku]

Watches neoseraphi enter an infinite loop and explode.

Amechra! Don't post infinite loops without caution signs! Think of the gamers! Oh, the humanity!

It seems...complicated. What problem are we trying to fix here?

[Amechra]

I should probably have specified; you replace your HD with 3/4 your BAB+your Con modifier for the purpose of Spells that care about the number of HD you have, class abilities that check for HD, and the amount of HP you have, but ONLY if that would be higher.

This does not raise your BAB; it is a simple numbers sub for those three things.

And why does it need to fix something? I felt like posting this, that's all.

And watching Neo Seraphi self-destruct is kinda funny, by the way.

[Seerow]

This seems like it would get confusing with multiclassing. Which type of HD do you use?


Also how does the Wizard 20 have 20 HD rather than 7, since you said you only gain 3/4 your BAB as HD?




I like the idea of making high BAB, hit dice, and con more valuable, but I'm not sure this is actually a functioning system.

Edit: Just saw the OR actual hit dice, tbh I'd just drop that and let wizards be squishy. Then HP damage might actually have a chance of killing them. Who am I kidding, they'd never let themselves get hit.



Edit2: Something similar that might actually work that you may be interested in: You could maybe treat HD the same way that I do weapons in my variant rules.

That is, when you level up, if you had a con mod of at least +3, you can trade in the flat HP bonus from your con mod for bonus HD.

So a first level Barbarian with 16 con would have 24 hp rather than 15. At second level he'd have 24+2d12 (average 37) hp instead of 18+1d12 (average 24.5).

If you want it to be more of a high level thing/less swing at the high end, you can make 4 the magic number for trade-ins instead, since 18 con is really unlikely at level 1, and at higher levels it's an average of 1 extra HP for a d10, and 2 extra HP for a d12 if you make the trade.

[Coidzor]

Edit2: Something similar that might actually work that you may be interested in: You could maybe treat HD the same way that I do weapons in my variant rules.

That is, when you level up, if you had a con mod of at least +3, you can trade in the flat HP bonus from your con mod for bonus HD.

So a first level Barbarian with 16 con would have 24 hp rather than 15. At second level he'd have 24+2d12 (average 37) hp instead of 18+1d12 (average 24.5).

If you want it to be more of a high level thing/less swing at the high end, you can make 4 the magic number for trade-ins instead, since 18 con is really unlikely at level 1, and at higher levels it's an average of 1 extra HP for a d10, and 2 extra HP for a d12 if you make the trade.

So if I'm reading this correctly, if you have a Con modifier of at least +3, then upon leveling up, instead of gaining HP equal to the HD roll + constitution modifier at level up, you instead get HP equal to the HD roll + a number of HP equal to the maximum roll of the HD? So instead of getting HD+3 HP every level up, a Ranger would get HD + 8, a Fighter HD + 10, and a Bard HD+6?

Do I have that right?

[Seerow]

So if I'm reading this correctly, if you have a Con modifier of at least +3, then upon leveling up, instead of gaining HP equal to the HD roll + constitution modifier at level up, you instead get HP equal to the HD roll + a number of HP equal to the maximum roll of the HD? So instead of getting HD+3 HP every level up, a Ranger would get HD + 8, a Fighter HD + 10, and a Bard HD+6?

Do I have that right?

No, they'd get to roll a second HD. They only got max hp on first level because that's what first level characters do. (Though if you make bonus HP not max at first level then the 3 trade-in probably works better. In which case the example from the last post would have 18.5 average HP at level 1 [12+1d12], and 31.5 average at level 2 [12+3d12]).

Basically, you trade in 3 hp for 1dX based on the class you're leveling up in. So you level up in Barbarian, you get 3 less HP from con, but you get 2d12 as your hp gain. Say you're a Fighter with a 20 con, you would level up and gain either 1d10+5 HP, or you could choose to gain 2d10+2 hp.

The downside is this does mean you can theoretically lose hitpoints from using this. You could consider this a balancing point, but if you want to encourage high HP from high HD classes, you may want to put in some other normalizing mechanic (ie HD are roll or take average, whichever's higher. Roll all HD twice, take highest, etc)