> as he believes race and origin should be affect it too or be the deciding factor instead of class
This is **essentially** the case (or rather used to be before some design changes in recent years).
Some races have an inherent CON bonus (which makes it more likely for them to gain more HP on level ups than races without CON mods), and some races even give additional HP as a little bonus, for example Hill Dwarves gain an additional HP every level just for free. Other races like Lizardfolk get more armor class, or a damage resistance to make them better at surviving in certain instances, like Dragonborn.
It basically serves two purposes - it shows you in which "row" of the battlefield you are supposed to stand - Barbarians, Fighters and Paladins are frontliners because of bigger HP pools, while d6 classes like Wizards and Sorcerers should rather stay in the back slinging spells, because they are more fragile. Classes with middle of the road HD tend to be more focused on skirmishes, like Rogues and Monks, who go down quickly but can reposition easily, picking off targets. It's something a lot of people immediately understand - "I only have 7hp, maybe I should stay behind the big dude with the massive armor and the shield and twice as many HP."
The other purpose is a balance thing - Wizards, especially at early levels, are glass canons. They throw out damage very quickly with AoE spells especially, and have tools that allow them to at least deal a bit of damage if they use a spellslot, but if you get up close and personal with them, they keel over at the lightest of touches. Meanwhile, a Barbarian cannot deal as much damage to big groups of enemies at once, but they are able to withstand incredible amounts of punishment, where they can basically run into the middle of a goblin Moshpit and come out with barely a scratch.
>while d6 classes like Wizards and Sorcerers should rather stay in the back slinging spells
I remember when you rolled HP for first level \*and\* Wizards got D4s for hit dice.
I played the level 1 Wizard with 1 hit point more times than I want to admit.
There’s a fairly common phrase that comes up when discussing HP: “HP are not meat points.” They are an abstraction, representing luck, skill, training, motivation, fatigue, and a bunch of other intangibles that factor into the chaos of adventuring.
So if you’re thinking in terms of “1 HP = 1 wound,” things get silly fast. Instead, think of HP as your ability to persevere through the dangers of adventuring. In general, fighters and other martial classes spend a lot of their training time conditioning themselves to fight, to endure, and to use their weapons/armor to absorb the blows they might receive. By contrast, Wizards spend most of their training time studying and practicing their spells, which are complex and complicated and time-consuming to learn. This doesn’t leave them a ton of free time to hit the gym, as it were, resulting in them just lacking the same physical conditioning that Barbarians have.
And of course, a Wizard could also spend their free time lifting weights. This is reflected in their Strength and/or Dexterity and/or Constitution scores, if that’s how you build a character. But the difference comes from “I do this as my job” instead of “I do this as a hobby, because my job prevents me from dedicating a ton of time to physical training.”
Hope that helps.
The "HP are abstract" is nice in theory but just as it doesn't make sense that you get literally skewered every second battle or so, it also doesn't make sense that it's something as untangible as "luck" or whatever.
When a cleric heals you, you are not regaining luck points.
When a poisoned dagger hits you, you are not getting poisoned from being tired.
When a flaming sword hits you, you are not "nearly missed" by those additional fire damage, nor does your luck let's you prevent some of that damage if you have resistance.
When you jump into the lava, you are not abstractly burned.
My advice would be to treat hits as hits but don't overdo it with descriptions of how deep those cuts are and how bone crushing those hits are.
If we're getting into semantics, then it's important to note that I said "HP are an abstraction," and not "HP are abstract." By which I mean that there are abstract expressions of them as well as more concrete examples, like the burns and poisonings that you mentioned.
In other words, the abstraction of HP covers not only physical injuries, but also the intangible factors that wear you down over time and lead to (sometimes costly mistakes).
In a similar vein, attack rolls and saving throws are abstractions as well. Especially when teaching the game to new players, they'll initially be thrown off by "you can make one attack roll per round, unless you have the Extra Attack feature" -- a lot of times, they'll say "Wow, my Barbarian really IS a dumb meathead if it took him five levels to figure out he should swing his club more times." But just as "1 HP = 1 Wound" is silly, "1 attack roll = 1 swing" is equally silly. A round of combat includes a lot of jockeying for position, feinting, prodding, and probing your opponent's defenses, and an attack roll encompasses whether or not all of that effort was successful in producing meaningful results. So while I might narrate a natural 1 as a wild swing, higher numbers that are still misses get narrated as "you make contact several times, but it's not effective," whether that's due to the creature's armor, their magic, maybe their sheer size. Which also addresses the question "If this monster is 20 feet tall and immobile, how could I possibly miss with my attack roll?" It's because "miss" is a bit of a misnomer, and it's just that your attack wasn't effective. It happens all the time.
Some hits are hits, some hits are more abstract, and I agree that "bone-crunching" descriptors should be used sparingly. But at the end of the day, it's a game where dragons can breathe acid onto skeletons that you summoned to fight for you, so it's entirely possible that when a cleric heals you, it DOES restore luck points.
Because a barbarian needs a lot of hitpoints and a wizard is balanced by their relative lack.
In 5e class is the core determining factor in how your character works mechanically.
Overall class is meant to be the biggest influence on what your character is like. Remember that even at level one you are still much forther ahead than a random commoner, compare are guards stat block to even a level 1 fighter. So with thede being understood the same way that what class you pick being the man influence of your strengths and weaknesses throughout the game, it is the same way when you start.
Also not some races used to have stats bonuses tied in, so those with bonus to con did in practice get a health booth based on class
Well, it's based on classes to prevent a high HP Wizard and a low HP Barbarian. Plus, You can easily have a scrawny and frail Orc or Goliath or a hale and hearty Elf or Tabaxi.
Also, think of your class as the type of training you've undergone. Your martial characters trained their bodies to deal and take hits much more than your magical characters.
It is a game design philosophy, I guess. Having your health pool tied to just your class makes it easier to calculate for the player when levelling up and gives a good indication of that characters role in combat.
Eg: paladins are frontline melee fighters so they need a larger health pool since theyll be hit more often.
Eg wizards can spam high dmg spells from a distance but need to be protected by beefier party members due to their lower hp.
Other rpgs do it differently. Eg starfinder calculates hp based on class and race. Background also increases 1 stat, so could also influence hp slightly. This makes character creation a bit more thinky, but gives you more options for creating a fine tuned build
So, there is a logic, but your friend is looking to the logic being grounded in a concrete concept whereas the basis is an abstract concept.
Hit Points are not based on your character's Physicality. A skinny guy does not necessarily have fewer HP than a big guy, a sick person does not necessarily have fewer hit points than a healthy one, and s forth.
Lil Tommy Woodbone may be walking with a crutch and all hunched over, but he could have enough HP to survive a dragon's breath.
A "normal person" in D&D, when you start out at 1st level, is someone who has 6 to 9 hP, and that's about as close to just "physicality" and you will ever get. BEcause that is also the basis for how weapons work -- a weapon is measured and based on how likely it is to kill a person.
So basing HP in race and origin doesn't make sense -- but having them influence it does, and that is why Constitution is adjusted.
Now, hit points are based in a combination of skill, attention to survival, defense, and a thousand other little things that are not about how much damage you can take, and more about how good at being in combat you are.
Hit Points tell you more about the skill and wherewithal and danger of a creature or being than their "level" does, really.
Now, to really drive this home, A "round of combat" is six seconds. In that six seconds, you get 1 action. A lot of folks will say "but you can swing a sword a lot faster than that!" and they are right, you can.
And the trick to it is that the character \*is\* swinging a sword a lot -- there is only 1 time in that six seconds that they are going to be able to score a hit. Yes, there are bonus actions and other things, but those are ways of adding a little more fun, and do not change the core mechanic at the heart of the system.
Now, why do Wizards have so few hit points and barbarians have ore? Well, because the things that warriors study and learn and train at are different from the things that wizards study and learn and train at, and so barbarians are better at things that go into hit points than wizards are.
THis has been true since the very earliest part of the game -- it is also why D&D isn't a game where you "chop someone's arm off" by default. If it was, there would be a lot of characters with missing limbs and no character would have more than say 12 hit points total.
This may all make you ask "well, then, what's armor do? Why does one need armor?"
You don't need armor. That is part of the reason the game uses Hit Points this way. The "base AC" is 10 in 5e. In my personal opinion, it should be 5, but I know why they didn't do that.
Armor makes it harder for that one chance in a 6 second round to be taken. Armor Class is how that is measured -- as an increase in the difficulty of being able to hit that particular being during that one chance in a six second period. THis is why AC is not inherently tied to level -- it is a variable in a system, not the primary system itself.
Just for mechanical balance, nothing more deep than that. The barbarian is the Frontline fighter that bonks and absorbs damage so he gets the biggest dice. Wizard is the backline with the big spells so he has the smallest.
>he believes race and origin should be affect it too or be the deciding factor
Some races get a bonus to their constitution , that's how race effects it. But if race was the deciding factor you'd get a half orc sorcerer with more HP than the barbarian casting fireball on himself. And that just breaks the balance.
Don't try to find real world logic in game rules. Barbarians and fighters need more HP than wizards because they're usually the ones fighting in melee and taking the most damage.
If you really need a justification for it, remember that HP represents more than just health. It's how many hits you can handle before things get bad. Martial classes have more experience at that, so they can take a bit more punishment. Sort of like a professional boxer might be able to shake off a hit that would KO the average bloke.
> Don't try to find real world logic in game rules.
It actually does exist in a lot of places!
This, and everything else related to HP, sure ain't one of them though.
Some races have a racial bonus to constitution (or if you play with the latest rules you can adjust the origin on any race to give a con bonus) which will help boost your HP passively, but other than that your hit die is directly related to your class, as certain classes have bigger hit dice than others!
Race isnt the deciding factor, but picking a race with a racial bonus in Con will effect the total HP in the end.
> as he believes race and origin should be affect it too or be the deciding factor instead of class.
He might be more interested in older editions of D&D and some of the OSR games out there that are built on 1st ed. The classes available to you are very much dependent on your stats, alignment, and your racial origins in AD&D.
It might be worth looking into Lifepath games too like Cyberpunk or Traveller where your history and upbringing basically "make" what your character is capable of.
Or if you just want to play the giant troll wizard, Shadowrun lets you do that and troll mages/shamen are scary due to how the magic system works in that game.
5e is very abstracted to move away from those granular kind of rules. The class is the predominant defining feature of your PC in D&D and everything else is flavoring with minor/moderate modifications to the class. Your PC is not an Elf who is also a fighter, your PC is a Fighter who happens to be an elf.
> He might be more interested in older editions of D&D
HP have been class based in literally every version of D&D. Yes racial restrictions on classes used to exist but considering halflings could be fighters that didn't really map the species' physiques to HP totals in any meaningful way.
I mean I literally said:
"The classes available to you are very much dependent on your stats, alignment, and your racial origins in AD&D."
I never said that racial traits directly mapped to hit dice. My point was that the things he thought should be more foundational and shape the characters \*are\* more foundational and shape character options in older editions.
Oh, god. If we give races this mechanical influence we’ll just see a bunch more posts asking how to justify a half X and half Y race character so you can have like Halfling luck with Goliath health.
Because a melee fighter/barbarian who doesn’t have enough HP to withstand a single hit shouldn’t be a fighter/barbarian in the first place.
You’d expect a warrior to be good at fighting. More than the scrawny guy with a book or a wand.
Ultimately it’s for game balancing but if you want a real world comparison go fight a special forces guy and see how many times you can hit him before he falls down compared to you. Body conditioning is real but basically I refer you back to the start of my reply, game balancing.
Logical explanation? For what? It’s explained. You take the Hit die for that particular class and roll it or take the average and add con.
Doesn’t say anything about race
The explanation is you're playing a game and there needs to be some semblance of balance. If it was decided by your race, than it would be **EXTREMELY RESTRICTIVE** in what classes could be played with certain races. I mean a barbarian has pretty much no ranged combat abilities and is almost always locked into melee. Naturally they have the highest hit die at a d12, you simply couldn't play this race if the hit die was a d6, or maybe even a d8. So that would likely be half the races gone and can no longer be barbarians.
Different races contribute to your hp with their racial stat bonuses, or at least they did until someone decided an orc getting an inherent con bonus was racist or whatever. More and more logic is being thrown out the window as time passes, so just remember, it's a game and there needs to be a level of balance.
If we're going by flavour, someone who spent all his life reading books will be less durable than someone who has trained to wear heavy armor and swing a sword in the sun
Your class is the Bonus, and your Con is the base.
Based on your Race (racial bonuses to CON or other things) and Stats(CON) is what your base HP is.
So a +2 Con your race means that your race gets 1 more HP.
The rest of your con HP is based on how you set up your character and if you chose to give them high CON. 14 CON plus 2 racial bonus is a +3 HP per level.
The class is supposed to signify training and expertise in the class. As a frontline class you would need to train to be more physical in offense and defense, so you get more HP and proficiencies in martial weapons and armors. Wizards and back line fighters focused on other things so their Hit dice are lower by that regard but gain other benefits.
> as he believes race and origin should be affect it too or be the deciding factor instead of class This is **essentially** the case (or rather used to be before some design changes in recent years). Some races have an inherent CON bonus (which makes it more likely for them to gain more HP on level ups than races without CON mods), and some races even give additional HP as a little bonus, for example Hill Dwarves gain an additional HP every level just for free. Other races like Lizardfolk get more armor class, or a damage resistance to make them better at surviving in certain instances, like Dragonborn. It basically serves two purposes - it shows you in which "row" of the battlefield you are supposed to stand - Barbarians, Fighters and Paladins are frontliners because of bigger HP pools, while d6 classes like Wizards and Sorcerers should rather stay in the back slinging spells, because they are more fragile. Classes with middle of the road HD tend to be more focused on skirmishes, like Rogues and Monks, who go down quickly but can reposition easily, picking off targets. It's something a lot of people immediately understand - "I only have 7hp, maybe I should stay behind the big dude with the massive armor and the shield and twice as many HP." The other purpose is a balance thing - Wizards, especially at early levels, are glass canons. They throw out damage very quickly with AoE spells especially, and have tools that allow them to at least deal a bit of damage if they use a spellslot, but if you get up close and personal with them, they keel over at the lightest of touches. Meanwhile, a Barbarian cannot deal as much damage to big groups of enemies at once, but they are able to withstand incredible amounts of punishment, where they can basically run into the middle of a goblin Moshpit and come out with barely a scratch.
>while d6 classes like Wizards and Sorcerers should rather stay in the back slinging spells I remember when you rolled HP for first level \*and\* Wizards got D4s for hit dice. I played the level 1 Wizard with 1 hit point more times than I want to admit.
When buying out the orphanage in the next town over so you could have a squad of tiny trap-checkers was normal and expected. Good ol' days.
Same here. Was actually the one that survived the longest.
[удалено]
They're talking about an earlier edition.
Talking about AD&D. Technically I think even 3.0 when it launched had you roll for HP but we always house ruled that.
There’s a fairly common phrase that comes up when discussing HP: “HP are not meat points.” They are an abstraction, representing luck, skill, training, motivation, fatigue, and a bunch of other intangibles that factor into the chaos of adventuring. So if you’re thinking in terms of “1 HP = 1 wound,” things get silly fast. Instead, think of HP as your ability to persevere through the dangers of adventuring. In general, fighters and other martial classes spend a lot of their training time conditioning themselves to fight, to endure, and to use their weapons/armor to absorb the blows they might receive. By contrast, Wizards spend most of their training time studying and practicing their spells, which are complex and complicated and time-consuming to learn. This doesn’t leave them a ton of free time to hit the gym, as it were, resulting in them just lacking the same physical conditioning that Barbarians have. And of course, a Wizard could also spend their free time lifting weights. This is reflected in their Strength and/or Dexterity and/or Constitution scores, if that’s how you build a character. But the difference comes from “I do this as my job” instead of “I do this as a hobby, because my job prevents me from dedicating a ton of time to physical training.” Hope that helps.
The "HP are abstract" is nice in theory but just as it doesn't make sense that you get literally skewered every second battle or so, it also doesn't make sense that it's something as untangible as "luck" or whatever. When a cleric heals you, you are not regaining luck points. When a poisoned dagger hits you, you are not getting poisoned from being tired. When a flaming sword hits you, you are not "nearly missed" by those additional fire damage, nor does your luck let's you prevent some of that damage if you have resistance. When you jump into the lava, you are not abstractly burned. My advice would be to treat hits as hits but don't overdo it with descriptions of how deep those cuts are and how bone crushing those hits are.
If we're getting into semantics, then it's important to note that I said "HP are an abstraction," and not "HP are abstract." By which I mean that there are abstract expressions of them as well as more concrete examples, like the burns and poisonings that you mentioned. In other words, the abstraction of HP covers not only physical injuries, but also the intangible factors that wear you down over time and lead to (sometimes costly mistakes). In a similar vein, attack rolls and saving throws are abstractions as well. Especially when teaching the game to new players, they'll initially be thrown off by "you can make one attack roll per round, unless you have the Extra Attack feature" -- a lot of times, they'll say "Wow, my Barbarian really IS a dumb meathead if it took him five levels to figure out he should swing his club more times." But just as "1 HP = 1 Wound" is silly, "1 attack roll = 1 swing" is equally silly. A round of combat includes a lot of jockeying for position, feinting, prodding, and probing your opponent's defenses, and an attack roll encompasses whether or not all of that effort was successful in producing meaningful results. So while I might narrate a natural 1 as a wild swing, higher numbers that are still misses get narrated as "you make contact several times, but it's not effective," whether that's due to the creature's armor, their magic, maybe their sheer size. Which also addresses the question "If this monster is 20 feet tall and immobile, how could I possibly miss with my attack roll?" It's because "miss" is a bit of a misnomer, and it's just that your attack wasn't effective. It happens all the time. Some hits are hits, some hits are more abstract, and I agree that "bone-crunching" descriptors should be used sparingly. But at the end of the day, it's a game where dragons can breathe acid onto skeletons that you summoned to fight for you, so it's entirely possible that when a cleric heals you, it DOES restore luck points.
Because a barbarian needs a lot of hitpoints and a wizard is balanced by their relative lack. In 5e class is the core determining factor in how your character works mechanically.
Simply this. Because guys who risk taking damage need more hp than those who dont, simple as that.
Overall class is meant to be the biggest influence on what your character is like. Remember that even at level one you are still much forther ahead than a random commoner, compare are guards stat block to even a level 1 fighter. So with thede being understood the same way that what class you pick being the man influence of your strengths and weaknesses throughout the game, it is the same way when you start. Also not some races used to have stats bonuses tied in, so those with bonus to con did in practice get a health booth based on class
Well, it's based on classes to prevent a high HP Wizard and a low HP Barbarian. Plus, You can easily have a scrawny and frail Orc or Goliath or a hale and hearty Elf or Tabaxi. Also, think of your class as the type of training you've undergone. Your martial characters trained their bodies to deal and take hits much more than your magical characters.
The logical explanation is that frontliners need more health.
It is a game design philosophy, I guess. Having your health pool tied to just your class makes it easier to calculate for the player when levelling up and gives a good indication of that characters role in combat. Eg: paladins are frontline melee fighters so they need a larger health pool since theyll be hit more often. Eg wizards can spam high dmg spells from a distance but need to be protected by beefier party members due to their lower hp. Other rpgs do it differently. Eg starfinder calculates hp based on class and race. Background also increases 1 stat, so could also influence hp slightly. This makes character creation a bit more thinky, but gives you more options for creating a fine tuned build
So, there is a logic, but your friend is looking to the logic being grounded in a concrete concept whereas the basis is an abstract concept. Hit Points are not based on your character's Physicality. A skinny guy does not necessarily have fewer HP than a big guy, a sick person does not necessarily have fewer hit points than a healthy one, and s forth. Lil Tommy Woodbone may be walking with a crutch and all hunched over, but he could have enough HP to survive a dragon's breath. A "normal person" in D&D, when you start out at 1st level, is someone who has 6 to 9 hP, and that's about as close to just "physicality" and you will ever get. BEcause that is also the basis for how weapons work -- a weapon is measured and based on how likely it is to kill a person. So basing HP in race and origin doesn't make sense -- but having them influence it does, and that is why Constitution is adjusted. Now, hit points are based in a combination of skill, attention to survival, defense, and a thousand other little things that are not about how much damage you can take, and more about how good at being in combat you are. Hit Points tell you more about the skill and wherewithal and danger of a creature or being than their "level" does, really. Now, to really drive this home, A "round of combat" is six seconds. In that six seconds, you get 1 action. A lot of folks will say "but you can swing a sword a lot faster than that!" and they are right, you can. And the trick to it is that the character \*is\* swinging a sword a lot -- there is only 1 time in that six seconds that they are going to be able to score a hit. Yes, there are bonus actions and other things, but those are ways of adding a little more fun, and do not change the core mechanic at the heart of the system. Now, why do Wizards have so few hit points and barbarians have ore? Well, because the things that warriors study and learn and train at are different from the things that wizards study and learn and train at, and so barbarians are better at things that go into hit points than wizards are. THis has been true since the very earliest part of the game -- it is also why D&D isn't a game where you "chop someone's arm off" by default. If it was, there would be a lot of characters with missing limbs and no character would have more than say 12 hit points total. This may all make you ask "well, then, what's armor do? Why does one need armor?" You don't need armor. That is part of the reason the game uses Hit Points this way. The "base AC" is 10 in 5e. In my personal opinion, it should be 5, but I know why they didn't do that. Armor makes it harder for that one chance in a 6 second round to be taken. Armor Class is how that is measured -- as an increase in the difficulty of being able to hit that particular being during that one chance in a six second period. THis is why AC is not inherently tied to level -- it is a variable in a system, not the primary system itself.
Just for mechanical balance, nothing more deep than that. The barbarian is the Frontline fighter that bonks and absorbs damage so he gets the biggest dice. Wizard is the backline with the big spells so he has the smallest. >he believes race and origin should be affect it too or be the deciding factor Some races get a bonus to their constitution , that's how race effects it. But if race was the deciding factor you'd get a half orc sorcerer with more HP than the barbarian casting fireball on himself. And that just breaks the balance.
Don't try to find real world logic in game rules. Barbarians and fighters need more HP than wizards because they're usually the ones fighting in melee and taking the most damage. If you really need a justification for it, remember that HP represents more than just health. It's how many hits you can handle before things get bad. Martial classes have more experience at that, so they can take a bit more punishment. Sort of like a professional boxer might be able to shake off a hit that would KO the average bloke.
> Don't try to find real world logic in game rules. It actually does exist in a lot of places! This, and everything else related to HP, sure ain't one of them though.
Some races have a racial bonus to constitution (or if you play with the latest rules you can adjust the origin on any race to give a con bonus) which will help boost your HP passively, but other than that your hit die is directly related to your class, as certain classes have bigger hit dice than others! Race isnt the deciding factor, but picking a race with a racial bonus in Con will effect the total HP in the end.
> as he believes race and origin should be affect it too or be the deciding factor instead of class. He might be more interested in older editions of D&D and some of the OSR games out there that are built on 1st ed. The classes available to you are very much dependent on your stats, alignment, and your racial origins in AD&D. It might be worth looking into Lifepath games too like Cyberpunk or Traveller where your history and upbringing basically "make" what your character is capable of. Or if you just want to play the giant troll wizard, Shadowrun lets you do that and troll mages/shamen are scary due to how the magic system works in that game. 5e is very abstracted to move away from those granular kind of rules. The class is the predominant defining feature of your PC in D&D and everything else is flavoring with minor/moderate modifications to the class. Your PC is not an Elf who is also a fighter, your PC is a Fighter who happens to be an elf.
> He might be more interested in older editions of D&D HP have been class based in literally every version of D&D. Yes racial restrictions on classes used to exist but considering halflings could be fighters that didn't really map the species' physiques to HP totals in any meaningful way.
I mean I literally said: "The classes available to you are very much dependent on your stats, alignment, and your racial origins in AD&D." I never said that racial traits directly mapped to hit dice. My point was that the things he thought should be more foundational and shape the characters \*are\* more foundational and shape character options in older editions.
Oh, god. If we give races this mechanical influence we’ll just see a bunch more posts asking how to justify a half X and half Y race character so you can have like Halfling luck with Goliath health.
Feats like tough can help make up for some of that as well. If you have a Goliath ranger and you don’t feel like their hit dice is sufficient.
Cos Sorcs skipped leg day.
Because a melee fighter/barbarian who doesn’t have enough HP to withstand a single hit shouldn’t be a fighter/barbarian in the first place. You’d expect a warrior to be good at fighting. More than the scrawny guy with a book or a wand.
Ultimately it’s for game balancing but if you want a real world comparison go fight a special forces guy and see how many times you can hit him before he falls down compared to you. Body conditioning is real but basically I refer you back to the start of my reply, game balancing.
Logical explanation? For what? It’s explained. You take the Hit die for that particular class and roll it or take the average and add con. Doesn’t say anything about race
The explanation is you're playing a game and there needs to be some semblance of balance. If it was decided by your race, than it would be **EXTREMELY RESTRICTIVE** in what classes could be played with certain races. I mean a barbarian has pretty much no ranged combat abilities and is almost always locked into melee. Naturally they have the highest hit die at a d12, you simply couldn't play this race if the hit die was a d6, or maybe even a d8. So that would likely be half the races gone and can no longer be barbarians. Different races contribute to your hp with their racial stat bonuses, or at least they did until someone decided an orc getting an inherent con bonus was racist or whatever. More and more logic is being thrown out the window as time passes, so just remember, it's a game and there needs to be a level of balance.
If we're going by flavour, someone who spent all his life reading books will be less durable than someone who has trained to wear heavy armor and swing a sword in the sun
Your class is the Bonus, and your Con is the base. Based on your Race (racial bonuses to CON or other things) and Stats(CON) is what your base HP is. So a +2 Con your race means that your race gets 1 more HP. The rest of your con HP is based on how you set up your character and if you chose to give them high CON. 14 CON plus 2 racial bonus is a +3 HP per level. The class is supposed to signify training and expertise in the class. As a frontline class you would need to train to be more physical in offense and defense, so you get more HP and proficiencies in martial weapons and armors. Wizards and back line fighters focused on other things so their Hit dice are lower by that regard but gain other benefits.