Dungeons & Dragons has been around for close to 30 years. In that time, it has evolved. This evolution has been stuttering, marked by awkward growth spurts and moments of ingenious mutation. Environmental factors had an effect, strangely, and an infusion of new DNA can be held responsible for the birth of its newest incarnation, the mighty Third Edition macrophage called the d20 System.

Unfortunately, many of the rules that developed in the first two editions of the game were carried over into 3e, well after the internal "arms race" that spawned them had been sent the way of the dodo.

The Genesis of Hit Points

In the beginning, there were hit points. The most basic measurement of a character's survivability, hit points indicate your ability to take a hit, or shrug it off, or turn to intercept a potentially lethal blow in a less harmful fashion. It may also be a measure simply of your determination to live. No one definition is entirely satisfactory, but it all boils down to this.

Hit points define how much punishment your body can take before you die.

Hit points have always been determined by class and level (in the original D&D sets, class and race were sometimes hopelessly mingled). Fighters get a beefy d10 per level. Priests get an almost hearty d8 per level. Rogues get a cautious d6 per level, while wizards get a paltry d4 per level. This is balanced well, judging by the frequency of each class being in toe-to-toe combat.

In First Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, hit points were determined by the die roll only until "name level". This varied according to class, but was always around 10th level. Name level was the mark of the adventurer who had made herself a name with her deeds. It was the level where an adventurer had "arrived". It was the level when most adventurers, by accident or design, retired. In First Edition, monsters were only ranked up to 10th or 12th "level", even the greatest dragons (who rarely had even 100 hit points in those days). After characters got to that level, what challenge was there, short of throwing larger and larger hordes at them?

So, at name level, a fighter was called "Lord" and given a keep and followers. Priests got acolytes and were charged with building or taking over a church. Thieves started up thieves' guilds with their new ranks of cohorts. Magi received apprentices to train in the way of things arcane and expected to build a tower in some god-awful location in the middle of nowhere. The mighty became noble, and a new generation of adventurers began kicking in the doors of dungeons their predecessors had missed. At the same time, the moldering oldsters gained level very slowly, and received only a hit point or two each time, likely because any more would unbalance the game in favor of the characters too much. High level play was defined as 12th level and higher.

Since weapons could only inflict their damage one strike at a time, they were irrelevant to game balance at high levels. A dagger would take at least 10 successful hits to kill a 10th level mage. No problem.

Spells, on the other hand, were devastating at high level. Initially, there were no "damage ceilings." In other words, the more powerful the spellcaster, the deadlier a spell's damage, because it was only limited by the caster's level. A 20th level wizard (a popular type of foe for a "high-level" adventure designed for 8-10th level characters) could machine-gun opponents with magic missile, sending a swarm of ten of the no-save, auto-hit beasties into a group of heroes, or pummeling a single opposing spellcaster literally to death. Fireball was a blast of hell that outstripped even a dragon's breath. It was carnage.

It wasn't fair.

Part 2: Second and Third Editions