A Question of Presentation

I'm putting the finishing touches on the latest draft of the character classes for Secrets of sha-Arthan. In doing so, I'm finding myself befuddled by the clearest way to present certain bits of rules information. A good case in point is the presentation of accumulated hit dice by level. 

At 1st level, all classes begin with a number of hit points equal to their Vigor (VIG) score. At 2nd level, all classes receive an additional number of hit points equal to the results of a random roll. Additional random rolls are made at every even level thereafter (4th, 6th, etc.), while no new hit points are gained at odd levels. What's the best way to present this?

Here's Option 1:

Here, I only include an entry under HD (Hit Dice) when the character adds something to his total. However, this might make the chart less useful for generating NPCs at odd levels, since the referee will need to look to the line below for the number of dice to add to the Vigor total. It's a small thing, admittedly, but it could be an issue.
Option 2 tries to be more clear: My worry, though, is that, by including an entry on every line, it might be possible to misinterpret each one as additive to all its predecessors.
Option 3: This option potentially still has the same potential problem as Option 1, but it avoids those of 2, or at least I hope it does. That's the real difficulty here: I've been staring at this stuff so long and thinking about it so much that I sometimes see problems where there aren't any while simultaneously missing those that might be staring me in the face. 
Ultimately, I simply want a presentation that's clear, easy to understand, and useful. I'd appreciate any thoughts on the best way to achieve this.
 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on May 08, 2023 12:00
No comments have been added yet.


James Maliszewski's Blog

James Maliszewski
James Maliszewski isn't a Goodreads Author (yet), but they do have a blog, so here are some recent posts imported from their feed.
Follow James Maliszewski's blog with rss.