Troll Lord Games

I am going to begin my first campaign either saturday or sometime in the very near future. I was thinking of giving PC's an HP Kicker to start.I am currently considering two methods. Either give a 5 hp kicker as well as max 1st HD or 10 hp kicker with a normal die roll.

If you have used kickers, wht have you found worked best?

I don't use them but I've heard that many people do. I think that the characters' CON score (half of it could also be used) is sometimes used as a HP kicker. You could also award them an extra HD at 1st level.
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I find that not using HP kickers works best. Otherwise, I would just allow a PC to start with a number of HP = Constitution score. No HD roll. At 2nd level, they get roll + Con mod as normal.

Only time I ever used kickers was while running a Hackmaster game. The critters got the kicker as well though.

My thoughts?

It worked out all right. I did like how even at level one the fights seemed more "epic" due to the hero and the kobold trading more than a single swipe.

I have used the CON = HP idea before. Worked pretty cool too. Depending on the lethality of your game, you could use this -OR- you could give max HP+1d6, -OR- Max hp +5, etc, etc.

............................................Omote

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I've never used HP kickers before, I do allow max HP at first level. IMHO that is enough of a bonus for characters, part of the fun (at least for me) of low levels is the chance of character death.
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Quote:
I've never used HP kickers before, I do allow max HP at first level. IMHO that is enough of a bonus for characters, part of the fun (at least for me) of low levels is the chance of character death.

I too just use max HP at 1st level. I do try encourage the players to work together in a fight & if they are I'll pull some of the more unlucky rolls -I also never let them see the attack & damage rolls, unless they realy wine about it then all bets are off & it gets bloody-
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I don't use kickers nor do I allot maximum hit points at first level. As long as the players don't encounter dragons, the players should be ok.
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My group has been newbies and youngsters, so I only gave max HP at 1st level. If I ran a veteran group, probably would be no kickers and roll for HP.
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I give out Max-2HD (so Fighters would have 20-26 HP at 1st). This is purely a flavor thing, since a GM can always adjust the difficulty of encounters as he cares to. I just find it easier to adjust up than down. I like that fights last a while, and that a PC might be good for 2-3 fights in a day even 1st level. The 'trading of blows' adds to the excitement.
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