> Although I can think of a solution to this problem, it seems much too restrictive and would most likely be take more away from the game than it would add.

It's an idea. I agree that it's restrictive, but I have to look at everything.

> I don't know. I seem to lose a lot, so everything seems expensive to me. But it wouldn't seem fair for a player to effectively add an entire player to his defence, so something high enough to discourage doubling your hitpoints. I would think something in the range of 6 to 10 gold per hit point would be sufficient. Perhaps hit points could be like enchantments and the price would scale upwards as you purchase more, and they would evaporate after one round.

Doubling hit points wouldn't really be the same as adding a fourth character, because there's still only three delivering attacks. But even so, it would be fair just because your opponents could do the same.

But I agree with what you're saying. Allowing the purchase of too many hit points would be a little unbalanced. I'm thinking of a linear scale, like enchantment, rather than a flat rate or an exponential scale. A linear scale still *allows* you to get up to ridiculously high hit point values, but at the expense of doing anything else with your money; meanwhile, modest adjustments to hit points would probably be quite economical.

Here's what has to be balanced. A hit point should cost roughly what it costs you to save one hit of damage from being done in the first place with increased constitution. A point of constitution saves you anywhere from 0.1 to 1.0 hit points per hit, so whatever the practical average is, times the average number of times you get hit, is the number of hit points of damage a point of constitution saves you. What's a point of (permanent) point of constitution cost? 35 for the first two (weapon and armor adjustments), 70 for the next two, 140 for the next two.

Because constitution costs grow faster than a linear hit point scale would, the first point of constitution should be cheaper than a comparable amount of hit points, but maybe the second should be comparable or more expensive.

It's not a simple question, and by saying "average" above, it means that the relative value of constitution and hit points is going to fluctuate wildly. If an extra point of constitution would only save you 0.1 hits of damage per hit, over ten hits, big whoop. Whereas, a point of constitution saving you 1.0 hits of damage per hit, over 30 hits, is a much bigger deal.

The fact that I can't figure out what the price scale should be hopefully means that if I can get something approximate, it'll add a good dose of strategy to the game.