D&D 5E DMs of EN World: How do YOU assign HP to monsters?

[Swarmkeeper]

Do you just take the average amount listed in the stat block?
Do you roll for hit points?
Do you just assign an amount within the possible range presented?
Do you wing it and adjust on the fly during combat?
Something else?

I actually used to roll all the time - an old habit from my AD&D days I suppose. But that became too time consuming for my session prep. Now I usually take the average amount unless I have a reason to adjust up or down for story reasons. For a group of enemies, I might make some weaker and some stronger, but otherwise aim for the average overall. And I almost always stick to the numbers I wrote down prior to the session (with the occasional "close enough" if the monster is down to just a few hit points and the combat is getting old or I want to reward a particular character with the "killing" blow).

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

At first I was rolling them since I think that is fun and some trolls are tougher than others. By the end I was giving a lot of them max HP just to try and keep the combats interesting.

 

[Charlaquin]

I never roll monster HP. Sometimes if I want to make a monster especially tough or especially frail, I’ll pick an appropriate value from within the possible range of the rolled HP, but I want those variations to be intentional. No random chance making my encounters unexpectedly easy or unexpectedly difficult. Most of the time I just use the average though.

 

[Cyrinishad]

I always give Monsters maximum HP... but, on the flip side I also give my PCs maximum HP...

 

[Gradine]

Yeah, I'll either go with what the stat block says or manually adjust it myself based on what I think makes the most sense for the encounter.

 

[GameOgre]

I never roll.

I use average a lot but often add or take away a few points.

If the fight is supposed to be challenging (about 1/5th of the time) I might just give em close to max.

Sometimes I just give a monster lower hit points as well if im ready for the fight to be over. If all that's left is the cleanup...often they will have half or less of average.

I'm kinda all over the place I guess.

 

[Prakriti]

I always give Monsters maximum HP... but, on the flip side I also give my PCs maximum HP...

Huh. This gives me an idea: Giving everything minimum HP (monsters AND PC's) to create a grittier, deadlier campaign.

Of course, this would make Constitution a really important ability. But not as important as Dexterity (Initiative).

 

[Cyrinishad]

Huh. This gives me an idea: Giving everything minimum HP (monsters AND PC's) to create a grittier, deadlier campaign.

Of course, this would make Constitution a really important ability. But not as important as Dexterity (Initiative).

Wow! So many discussions & ideas & threads about how to make a grittier & deadlier campaign... but, this may be the best idea yet to actually achieve that.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

Typically either MM average or Max depending on the level of challenge I want to present.

 

[Satyrn]

Most of the time I just use the average in the statblock.

But when I want to vary it up, I'll just pick some arbitrary number.