User:Spazalicious Chaos/Static Hit Points (3.5e Variant Rule)

Have you ever played WOD? The World of Darkness, even in it's latest edition, has always had a static hit point system; WOD hit points you don't improve unless magic or other unusual capabilities are applied. This variant is intend to adapt the 3rd edition WOD Health system to D&D, in the vain hope of carrying over the gritiness and realism of that system. Before editing the mechanics, I ask all contributors to do a quick google search of the WOD systems and use that as a reference point.

Static Hit Points
This variant is actually really simple- first, you determine class or creature type. This gives you your Hit Die, or the die used to roll hit points. Then, find the size of your character on the table below- You roll the number of dice indicated and add your constitution modifier, and those are your hit points. This result does not change unless one of the following happens:
 * Fine- 1/3 die
 * Diminuative- 1 die
 * Tiny- 3 dice
 * Small- 5 dice
 * Medium- 7 dice
 * Large- 9 dice
 * Huge- 11 dice
 * Gargantuan- 13 dice
 * Colossal- 15 dice
 * Size Change: When you change in size, you roll the difference between the size categories and either subtract (for shrinking) or add (for growth) the total to your hit points. Unless the effect is permenant these modifications are temporary hit points (or absence of hit points.)
 * Toughness: This feat works normally.
 * Increase in Level: The player of a character, when gaining a character level, may substitute the lowest roll of his begining set of rolls with a new, one die roll of the new levels hit die type. This can encourage multiclassing of low hit-die characters into high hit-die characters, but at the cost of not learning the better abilities of their previous classes. This "level-based improvement" can only be done once per level, the new roll must be used even if it worse, and is completely optional.

Effects Based on Hit Dice
For effects that function off of Hit Dice, like many spells and the DCs of monster abilities, all references to Hit Dice become references to Level. Under this system, every thing has a level measuring how powerful it is.

As a general rule monsters have a level equivilent to what their Hit Dice were before this variant was added, though this rule is little more than a guideline as monsters should be reviewed before implementation under this system. In all honesty, this rule works best in a world where the majority of monsters in the various Monster Manueals are terrifying one-time occurances, as it is MUCH easier on the paper work that way. I personally reccomend that you create a list of what are common occurances in your area (typical animals and creatures, etc.) keep any conversions you must make in a note book, and only sit down and seriously convert the big time monsters as they show up.

Also, humaniod NPCs are much easier under this system. The average warrior (10 Con) has about 31 hit points, regardless of race, culture, upbringing, or what have you. The same can be said for random encounters and coming up with combative NPCs on the fly.