Adjusting HD or Hit point rolls as a custom power

Hello and Happy New Year!

I was wondering what the general opinion is on slight HD adjustments or affording hit point roll bonuses as custom powers when building a class (specifically a human class).

For example:

I build a class with Fighting 4. After many adjustments, I end up with 6 custom power options. I'd like to start the class at 2d4 HD at Level 1 for 2 or even 3 custom power slots. Alternatively, instead of the HD adjustment at level 1, have the character receive a +1 to hit point rolls at each level for 2 or 3 custom power slots.

Thanks for your time and consideration of this inquiry.  I apologize if this has been covered before.

2d4 has a different curve but the same range and average as 1d8, which costs 2 build points.

+1 to a die roll is effectively increasing the average by one, which is the same as increasing the size of a die by 2, which is the same as spending a build point on hit dice.

so... the things you're describing should cost 2 and 1 build point respectively. i'll confess i've always found the hit dice category a bit underpowered, but you're kind of bending the rules pretty far here. if you did this you'd be creating classes that are just plain more powerful than classes that gained their hitpoints through build points spent on hit dice.

Jard, thanks for the quick reply! That's all very clear. I'll just avoid any HD/HP adjustments.

I did set a CON req for this class to 11 in hopes of possibly affording more HP. Certainly, having that +3 bonus to Attack Throws per 2 levels is worth the frailty of the class. 

Your first option was to increase hit points by one per level. It costs 150XP per Fighter Power tradeoff.  Each HD increases average hit points by 1 per level. Each point in HD category costs 500 XP. Therefore you could assume that increasing hit points by 1 per level costs 3.33 class powers. If you want to be generous, 3 class powers. If you want to err towards making it more expensive to be custom and less expensive to build a classic class, round up to 4 class powers.

Your second option was to get an extra 1d4 hit points at 1st level. I use a formula to determine the relative value of a power at a given level. It's sort of like a time-value of money formula. It works like this:

  1. x1
  2. x0.93
  3. x0.85
  4. x0.79
  5. x0.71
  6. 0x.64
  7. x0.57
  8. x0.5
  9. x0.43
  10. x.036
  11. x0.29
  12. x0.21
  13. x0.14
  14. x0.07

Total of all the coefficients is 7.5.

So if you want to know how much it would cost to have 1d4 extra hit points at 1st level, what you would do is find the cost to have an extra 1d4 hit points at every level, divide that by 7.5 and then multiply that by the coefficient for getting it at level 1 (which is x1). 

Giving the class an extra 1d4 hit points per level is actually better than having HD value 2 (it's 2.5+2.5 = 5 hp versus 4.5 hp); Since having 1d8 instead of 1d4 hp per level costs (1000 x 5/4.5) 1,111 XP. Dividing that by 7.5 yields 148xp. 148xp is the equivalent of one fighter trade-off class power.

IN CONCLUSION:

  • 1 extra hp per level (14hp over 14 levels): 3 class powers
  • 1d4 bonus hp at 1st level: 1 class power

 

 

[quote="Alex"]

IN CONCLUSION:

  • 1 extra hp per level (14hp over 14 levels): 3 class powers
  • 1d4 bonus hp at 1st level: 1 class power

[/quote]

This makes me feel even more so that Hit Dice build points are overcosted. That's not only from an XP perspective, but from having to use some of your precious build points.

[quote="Jard"]

 

 

IN CONCLUSION:

  • 1 extra hp per level (14hp over 14 levels): 3 class powers
  • 1d4 bonus hp at 1st level: 1 class power

 


-Alex

 

This makes me feel even more so that Hit Dice build points are overcosted. That's not only from an XP perspective, but from having to use some of your precious build points.

[/quote]

 

Yeah, if I can get +1 hp per level by taking Thievery 1 instead of HD 1, I will do this every time.

I don't think I agree with that criticism. The OP specifically asked for math that would translate Fighting Value trade-offs into hit points and I provided it to him.

Had he asked me how many class powers were required using thievery value, the same analysis you would reach the conclusion that it would require 7 to 8 class powers to get +1 hp/level. (Thief 1 = 3 powers for 200XP = 66.7XP per power; 500/66.7 = 7.5). 

You might say "how can the same power cost a different number of class powers depending how you buy it?" But that happens all the time in the system.  The ACKS class creation system does *not* assume that class powers are always worth the same fixed XP cost, nor does it assume that class powers available to one category are necessarily available to another. Class powers purchased with fighting trade-offs cost a lot at high Fighting values but cost nothing at low Fighting values, and can never be used to get thief aiblities or turn undead. Thievery offers you class powers at a much lower cost, but isn't as efficient at building fighters and can't be used to get turn undead. Divine power can be traded against to get class powers by getting rid of turn undead at different values. The ACKS class creation system isn't really a point-build system based on class powers,and treating it as such won't get you the right answers..

 

 

I think this brings up an interesting point that currently, RAW, Thievery and Divine have unique ways to spend their class powers/tradeoff options, but Fighting and Arcane do not.

Arcane has no abilities to trade off (unless you’re building a new magic type from scratch with Axioms but let’s ignore that for now because that’s not technically Arcane anyway), but Fighting has ways to generate tradeoffs without any unique ways to spend them. I think bonus HP is a pretty reasonable example of the kind of power that might show up on their unique list.

(I’ve also made myself curious what it would look like, in terms of class metagame, if it were impossible to get combat bonuses with any custom power except a Fighting tradeoff. I’m not actually sure if that would affect any of the published classes but it would likely affect ones designed at home.)