One of the biggest struggles I have had with the development of Eira is in handling potential changes to normal and core mechanics that have been a part of the system since its inception. While not the biggest of these self-contained arguments with myself is that of Hit Dice and how they should be determined.
Traditionally Hit Dice are determined by the player character’s class. Thieves get 1d4, fighters get 1d8 and so on. This has been how health has been determined since the beginning but what if your fighter and thief had the same exact background except for that one event that chose their occupational path. Would they not have the same starting health and only have adjustments to that based on their occupation?I have been flip-flopping on this for a while now and the recently uploaded Pixie Trickster is no exception. As originally conceived Pixies (the race) had 1d6 per level of HD and the Trickster had a HD adjustment of racial HD -1 point, so 1d6-1. Recently I waffled and decided to go back to the traditional method … only to, a few hours later, regret that decision and change it back again.
I think in the end this is going to be my biggest issue with getting “Lands of Eira” finished, my constant everlasting waffling over details involved in the mechanics.
… Still, it is fun.
5 thoughts on “Quick Notes – Race vs Class Health”
Comments are closed.
This is the main reason I switched from the traditional dX/level hit point scheme back to the one from original D&D where the classes have differing number of hit dice. For example, a fighter gets one hit die per level whereas a magic-user gets 1 every 2. The type of hit die is determined by the race (pixies d4, hobbits d6, humans d8, ogres d10, etc) but the number of hit dice is determined by class. It also works out that each class gets 1 hit die at first level so they all start out with the same hit point (depending on their roll naturally).
For example, a 4th level hobbit fighter will have 4d6 hit points, a 4th level ogre-mage 2d10, and a 4th level pixie thief 3d4.
That's a really cool take on it Hedgehobbit, I like it!
Yes, constantly changing my mind and going back-and-forth are also the biggest problem with writing my Weird Opera homerules. It's very rritating.
Hedgehobbit: That sounds really good! I'm stealing it.
That does seem interesting. Could you tell me where that is so I can look into it a bit more. I have a bunch of the older D&D books from a bargain bin a few years ago but I get a bit confused when trying to work my way through them.
+Hedgehobbit, you seem to have stolen the day! Great info, man.