Goodman Games

That's cool, I'm confident you know what's best for your group, and that's all that matters of course!

Some of this is just framing and perception, and has much, much less bearing on character viability/survivability than the thousands of happenstances that make up the character's life. Over a theoretical 20 session arc that takes a party from 1st to 3rd level, there will be only three rolls for HP. Regardless of the Birth Auger, it is entirely conceivable that Al the warrior rolls 8, 4, 9 (not bad!) whereas Bob the warrior rolls 3, 6, 2 (ouch!).

Please don't take this as an argument; I'm more just spitballing some observations! My favorite characters have sometimes been the "crippled" characters that manage to survive and ultimately flourish, if it isn't clear from my advocacy.

The problem is it might be Bob who has the -1 hp per level birth augur...

Some players may like the challenge but I know many would be irritated his birth augur continues to play such a huge role in defining and hindering the character after that many sessions.

Of course, if you don't allow for the possibility of a warrior with ridiculously low hit points due to a crippling birth augur, you'll also never have the pleasure of seeing such a character reach third or fourth level to everyone's astonishment. Yes, in the long run, the sheer weight of probability suggests that the character will meet his doom long before the rest of his party, but in the meantime, the potential for highly entertaining underdog scenarios may be worth the inevitability of his demise.

If a player can't handle the tiny possibility of -1 hp per level due to his birth augur, it's hard for me to see how they could handle rolling 3d6 down the line at all (where there's a tremendously better chance of rolling a low stamina that would have the same effect).

They should probably be using a system where they roll 4d6 choose best 3 (+1 or more on everything!).