Help with Combat/Encounters

[MedievalMan]

Man that reminds me of my first D&D game I was playing a cleric and spent all my money on a backpack a sack of food a waterskin, a morningstar, a holy symbol, and full plate armor. I thought I was invincible so when we were ambushed by a pack of wolves I charged in thinking naively "wolves can't hurt a guy in plate armor!" I was dragged down and torn to pieces in 3 rounds, the other adventurers fled after round 1. I learned a valuable lesson that day its best to just run away in most circumstances and its kept most of my characters alive since then. Heck my mage in my old planescape game started with 2 hit points and survived all the way to level 6 before that campaign ended. He spent 90% of encounters hiding and shouting taunts at the enemy, BUT it kept him alive.

[Hywaywolf]

I think all new to old school players should start with HP as rolled and if they die they die. But with that said, I think it gets kind of old to play a weak ass character after you've played in a few separate campaigns/games and have learned the lesson that your PC isn't invisible. Those are the players you want to start out with max HP or other similar method.

[Steveman]

learned the lesson that your PC isn't invisible..

I rarely gets rings of invisibility in the games where I am a player. ._.

[MedievalMan]

I never trust rings of invisibility anymore. I blame Raggi's modules.

[Hywaywolf]

haha, I meant invincible

[Joe the Rat]

Well, the thieves need to learn they aren't invisible

[Dimirag]

My first D&D character was (and still is, yeap, hes pretty much alive and at level 7!!!) Bower Shadowarrow (human thief), having a d4 for hit dice I believe I rolled a glorious 3, he spend most if his time shooting his longbow, searching traps and opening locks (he was kind of reluctant to disarm traps or to climb because any of those thing could kill him on a failure), at one moment he found a trap, he could activate it without suffering any harm, but as he realized that the trap consisted of a bottle of some acid falling over ones head he decided to catch it once the trap where activated...
Bower activate the trap...
I make a Dex roll....
I fail...
Bower suffers 1d8 acid damage on his face...
Yeap, he died, but luckily enough the party had a couple of healing/resurrection potions, so he came back to life with only 1HP...

For 1st level HP I've known a GM who use the standard HD roll but use the max value of the cumulative HD or the Con value.

[MedievalMan]

Another option is to allow the classes to use their AD&D hit dice, you could even still allow max hit points at first level.
Cleric- d8
Fighter- d10
Magic-User- d4
Thief- d6

[SmootRK]

Another option is to allow the classes to use their AD&D hit dice, you could even still allow max hit points at first level.
Cleric- d8
Fighter- d10
Magic-User- d4
Thief- d6

I do this in my house-rules (AD&D style HD and full HP at first level). I like each core class having a different die and generally tweaked upwards.

While I do not mind a little mortality in my low level games, I don't want non-stop character roll-up going on just because the group is all first level. I find having replacement characters dropping in repeatedly hard to deal with in the plot/narrative sort of way. You can only find so many tied up adventurers with their gear nearby, before succumbing to absurdity.

[MedievalMan]

I agree Smoot, thats why I have a few house rules in my game that make minor healing easier to attain. In my games characters heal their hit dice in hit points each night and can bind wounds after battle for 1d4 hit points. Its not much but it helps keep low level characters alive and high level characters in the action. No one wants to have their ninth level fighter bedridden for 3 weeks just because he can only heal a single hit point each night. At least I wouldn't