Multi-class hit points - once and for all...

[John Stark]

So, if you've got a PC, and he's one person, with two or three classes, and one of them is fighter, then the fighter class gives him a CON bonus the other classes don't have. How can a PC draw different CON bonuses for each class when he's only one person? He's got to have only one CON bonus since he's only one person with one CON applied a certain way. Back to the RL example of the boxer, you sometimes meet priests who used to box, and they're tough as nails because of it even though they may look like wimps. Your stamina can only be at a certain level.

One possible explanation might be from the training rules. A certain amount of vigor is required to train as a fighter, versus say a thief or magic-user. In other words, the character has the same level of health overall, but he goes through more or less rigorous training to gain levels in different classes, and thus he ends up with varying bonuses from Con because he is working harder for those fighter levels.

This is just a shot in the dark.

[JCBoney]

Oh no...not disputing the division part at all, simply how the CON bonus comes into play here.

[rogatny]

Regardless of when the Con bonus is added, you're only talking about a few hp per level...

The big question, for me, is how you add hit points once the level has been gained. There have been three options in this thread:

1. My long-standing interpretation, which was to simply repeat the steps from when the character was originally rolled up - roll each hit dice and divide by number of classes

2. Semaj's interpretation, which was to roll the HD for the class that just levelled (which mathematically ends up being about the same as my interpretation)

3. Cias' interpretation (and that of Foster in the quote I posted) which is to roll the hit dice of the class that's levelling and then divide by the number of classes.

Over the course of a career, picking 3 over options 1 or 2 will make a huge difference.

What's the real method? I see support for all three. Anything definitive?

R.A.

[Lord Cias]

Ok, the text you're quoting is vague

Not to be an a$$, but I don't see how Step 2 coming before Step 3 is vague, seems pretty clear cut to me.

Look at it this way: fighters get exceptional CON bonuses because their regimen introduces a toughness that another class of the same CON can't match.

Exactly. So why should a fighter/magic-user with a constitution of 18 get a +4 for his magic-user class? Such a character would get ((1d10+4) + (1d4+2))/2. This means the character would get a +3 for a constitution of 18 or a +2.5 for a constitution of 17, more than a magic-user but less than a fighter.

[JCBoney]

So, if you've got a PC, and he's one person, with two or three classes, and one of them is fighter, then the fighter class gives him a CON bonus the other classes don't have. How can a PC draw different CON bonuses for each class when he's only one person? He's got to have only one CON bonus since he's only one person with one CON applied a certain way. Back to the RL example of the boxer, you sometimes meet priests who used to box, and they're tough as nails because of it even though they may look like wimps. Your stamina can only be at a certain level.

One possible explanation might be from the training rules. A certain amount of vigor is required to train as a fighter, versus say a thief or magic-user. In other words, the character has the same level of health overall, but he goes through more or less rigorous training to gain levels in different classes, and thus he ends up with varying bonuses from Con because he is working harder for those fighter levels.

This is just a shot in the dark.

Maybe. But then you're back to the question of how one person can have varying benefits from his health. He's only got one CON level.

[John Stark]

Regardless of when the Con bonus is added, you're only talking about a few hp per level...

Sorry about the thread jack RA. It just threw me that I've probably been handling HP for multiclasses wrong since about 1981...

[JCBoney]

Ok, the text you're quoting is vague

Not to be an a$$, but I don't see how Step 2 coming before Step 3 is vague, seems pretty clear cut to me.

Sorry, no...I meant interpretation about where the CON bonus goes. I might have misread you.

Exactly. So why should a fighter/magic-user with a constitution of 18 get a +4 for his magic-user class? Such a character would get ((1d10+4) + (1d4+2))/2. This means the character would get a +3 for a constitution of 18 or a +2.5 for a constitution of 17, more than a magic-user but less than a fighter.

Because he has that level of stamina gained from his fighter training. If a fighter gets extra benefit from his fighter training that another class doesn't, that benefit applies to the person, not the classes involved. Therefore, why get one benefit from one class in addition to another benefit based on another class? There should be only one level of stamina benefit since there's only one person involved.

[John Stark]

Ok, the text you're quoting is vague

Not to be an a$$, but I don't see how Step 2 coming before Step 3 is vague, seems pretty clear cut to me.

He's not disputing that at all. He's disputing whether you add the Con bonus to each hit die after totalling them up, NOT when the division (step 3) occurs. Everyone is in agreement on that.

[John Stark]

Maybe. But then you're back to the question of how one person can have varying benefits from his health. He's only got one CON level.

What I'm saying goes something like this. To gain a level in fighter during training, the fighter needs to be able to bench 300 pounds. He gets proportionally tougher (i.e., more HP from his overall health or Con) as he trains to reach this goal.

Later, when he gains a level as thief, he only needs to bench 200 pounds. The "toughness" he gains from his training to level up as a thief is less because he does less work to acquire that level.

When he trains to gain a level as a MU, he only has to bench 100 pounds, and thus his training is alot less rigorous and his subsequent "toughness" benefit is less because he did less work.

In other words, its the difference between overall health and how much "tone" one gains as he trains in different things.

Like I said, its a rough analogy but a workable one I think.

[Contrarian]

Page 12 of the PHB says "Hit Point Adjustment indicates the subtraction from or addition to each hit die for the character.", which could be seen as support for the "add CON before dividing" side of the argument.

Honestly, I don't see how the other way could work. It has two problems:

1) What to do with the fighter's extra hp bonus?
2) When to add the CON bonus for character who only went up a level in one class?

I can think of one related issue: 1st-level rangers and monks start the game with 2 hit dice. I'm pretty sure Sage Advice (and maybe even Gygax) have said that those classes get the CON bonus on each die.

[Lord Cias]

Ok then, lets look at an extreme example. We have a cleric/ranger with a constitution of 18. This is how I would calculate hit points.

Level 1/1: ((1d8+4) + (1d8+4) + (1d8+2))/2
Assuming rolls of 4, 3, and 7 respectively, the end total would be 12 h.p.

Level 2/1: (1d8+2)/2
Assuming a roll of 5 this would equal 4 h.p. (rounded up from 3.5).


Level 2/2*: (1d8+4)/2
Assuming a roll of 6 this would equal 5 h.p.

Level 3/2*: (1d8+2)/2
Assuming a roll of 3 this would equal 3 (rounded up from 2.5)

Thus at level 3/2 the character would have a total of 24 h.p.

*Note, I don't have my book in front of me right now, but I believe that the ranger class will reach level 2 before the cleric will reach level 3, I don't know if the cleric will be level 4 before or after the ranger reaches level 3.

Using the above example character, how would the rest of you calculate the hit points?

[Edit: Would someone with a PHB handy post what hit points this character would have as a single classed ranger and single classed cleric with the same x.p. totals, assuming the same die rolls for each class as above].

[Edit again: corrected math.]

[JCBoney]

Edit: I screwed up.

Ok, I'll take a shot:

1/1 Cleric/Ranger with 18 CON.

Initial HPs:

(1d8+1d8+1d8)+4

Let's say the rolls were:

6, 4, 7 which is 17+4=21

Divide for classes = 10.5 or 11

XPs for 2nd level Ranger are 2,251 and 2nd level Cleric are 1,501. Say the PC gains 2,100 XPs total, so he raises a level in Cleric. The player rolls a d8 and adds 1/2 the CON bonus...say he rolls a 5 and adds 2. That's 7 added to 7 or now a HP of 18. When he raises to 2nd level Ranger, he rolls another d8 and adds the remainder of the CON bonus...say 7+2 for 9 and a HP of 27. When he raises a level in either class, he gets 1/2 the CON bonus, and the other half on the other raised level.

If he had an odd CON bonus such as +3, you divide that by half for 1.5 or 2, and add that. On the other class raising, he would also get a +2 for the other 1.5. Freaky, but that's always how I've seen it done.

EGG seems to have mysteriously disappeared over at DF...he's not been answering questions lately.

[rogatny]

Ok then, lets look at an extreme example. We have a cleric/ranger with a constitution of 18. This is how I would calculate hit points.

Level 1/1: ((1d8+4) + (1d8+4) + (1d8+2))/2
Assuming rolls of 4, 3, and 7 respectively, the end total would be 8 h.p.

I think you goofed here. You divided by three instead of two... This ranger-cleric should have 12 hp.

A single classed ranger with the same rolls would have 15 hp, and a single classed cleric would have 9 hp.

Level 2/1: (1d8+2)/2
Assuming a roll of 5 this would equal 4 h.p. (rounded up from 3.5).

2nd level cleric at 1,501 - 2nd level ranger at 2,2501, thus the multi level character advances in cleric first...

This is where my interpretation diverges from yours... although, I'm not sure I was doing it right. You say you roll the HD for the appropriate class and divide by number of classes. I say (or said) that you roll all dice for the classes the character is "professing" and divide by number of classes...

Thus your cleric ranger gets (d8+2)/2 hp and mine gets (d8+2)+(d8+4)/2 hp. So let's say yours gets 4 hp and mine gets 8, for a total of 16 and 20 hit points respectively...

A single leveled cleric with 3,002 xp would be 3rd level and have (assuming the high Con) about 17 hp. A single leveled ranger with 3,002 xp would be 2nd level and have (again, assuming the high Con) about 26 hp.

Level 2/2*: (1d8+4)/2
Assuming a roll of 6 this would equal 5 h.p.

Your c/r now has 21 hp. Mine would have 29.

A single class Cleric with 4,502 xp would still be 3rd level and still have 17 hp. A single class ranger with 4,502 xp would now be 3rd level and have about 30 hp.

Level 3/2*: (1d8+2)/2
Assuming a roll of 3 this would equal 3 (rounded up from 2.5)

Your c/r now has 24 hp. Mine would have 35 hp.

A single class cleric with 6,002 xp would be 4th level and have about 20 hp. A single class ranger with 6,002 xp would be 3rd level and have about 38 hit points.

[JCBoney]

Heh. I divided by three too. Fixed.

[T. Foster]

I stand by my post from a year or two that RA quoted above, including the part that says that this seems completely straightforward to me and I don't understand why this topic is at all controversial