Never roll for Hit Points again

The fourth edition of Dungeons and Dragons is out with lots of rule changes to digest. The first shocker to me was that we no longer roll new hit points upon gaining a level. In fact, you never roll hit points. You gain a fixed amount of new hit points every level.

Initially I was perturbed by this. Rolling hit points always seemed like a rite of passage as I gained a level. Now, this long-held rolling has been eliminated without even a mention of the past in the books.

However, after allowing time for the revised rule to set in, I am starting to feel that it is not such a big deal. I actually see a few benefits of the new approach.

1. One benefit is that it is one less thing I need to do when I gain a level.
2. Another benefit is that it is one less thing I need to keep track of. Many of us, that are experienced at losing levels, keep a record of how many hit points earned as we gained each level. We no longer need to do that in fourth edition.
3. A third benefit is that there are no concerns that your fellow players may be fudging their hit point rolls.
4. The fourth benefit is that we have more hit points in fourth edition than we would in earlier editions because we add our constitution score, not our constitution bonus, to our initial starting hit points.

So I will accept this rule change for what it is. Maybe my group will even adopt that approach for our 3rd edition campaigns.

I haven't found a Wizards of the Coast official outline of the revisions, but I did find this blogger's post with a lot more of the changes: http://www.deanesmay.com/2008/06/16/dungeons-dragons-4th-edition/.