The Issue of Hit Point Inflation and Related Materia

[Reynard]

In a fir of nerdstalgia, last night I was reading through the original 1E Fiend Folio and happened upon the entry for Lolth. Though a minor goddess and Demon Queen, Lolth has only 66 hit points (but a very, very good AC, to be fair; this is even mentioned in the entry). So I started flipping through the book as well as the 1E MM and realized how low the hit point values are on various creatures. Certainly, the damage capabilities of most characters are also low (high level mages notwithstanding). So I pulled out the 2E MM -- PCs have roughly the same "power" as their 1E counterparts, but many of the monsters (dragons in particular) have many more hit points.

Moving to 3E, you see a major hit point boost for all but the lowliest of "mook" monsters -- as well as a massive increase in PC damage potential (except for the Wizard, interestingly). I haven't run the numbers, so I am not sure if it turns out a wash or not.

4E increases monster hit points again, but this time reigning in the PC damage potential by a wide margin.

Because combat is so central to the game, whatever the edition, and hit point attrition is by and large the determinant of lengths of combat, I wonder what impact the hit point inflation trend of the game throughout its editions has on play. How has the tactical; aspect of the game changed throughout the editions, due to this element, and how do players respond to the changing circumstances? How do "mooks" and "minions" fir in to the equation, and where does PC level figure in? When, in fact, does any given monster become a mook or minion?

 

[S'mon]

Overall I think hit point inflation has been detrimental to the game. Bigger numbers does not mean better, it just means more number-crunching. It started at least as far back as moving monsters from d6 hd to d8 hd, and continued with eg the 1e MM2 critters having far more hp than the OD&D-based MM1.

In my current 3e D&D campaign I discarded the 3e MM and am using the C&C Monsters & Treasures book and similar; so my monsters have many fewer hp, it means I can use more of them and use them on lower level PCs and I find it works far better.

 

[Spatula]

2e toughened up dragons and some other monsters (like giants I think) to make them scarier opponents. Whereas in 1e you can take on groups of dragons with no problem (not to mention the player-favorite of finding a dragon asleep, killing the helpless beast, and getting the XP & GP for no effort), I think they were trying to move the creature into being a more stand-alone threat.

3e boosted hit points across the board, for monsters and players, but player damage is also a LOT higher. So it doesn't really change much unless you pile on stupid amounts of HD and/or defenses onto a monster. Dragons were made tougher, again.

4e boosts hit points again with the intention of making combats last longer and opening up more tactical possibilities. This is probably the result of 3e introducing interesting combat options that you never got to use because they were always suboptimal to a full attack.

 

[Frostmarrow]

In 4E I find monsters surrender out of sheer boredom.

 

[Fabio Andrea Rossi]

In a fir of nerdstalgia

This neologism awards you an XP

Also, the hit point inflation is annoying.
I understand the whys and becauses , and I have to admit that 4e HP grindind seems to get less of a problem the more we understand how to play the charcaters and the more we understand the /2 function on calculators, yet there was a certain appeal in the arbitrary "66" or "43" HP of monsters.

Also, and this is both a pro and a con, you always knew more or less how powerful a monster was.

Now, a gnoll can be a lowly 1 hp minion or a monstruous 100+ creature.
Only the DM with his description can give hope of evaluating a threat to the pcs, and yet the spread seems to be a bit large.

Like, let's say, the one a gnoll adventurer facing human pcs would meet.

 

[frankthedm]

(not to mention the player-favorite of finding a dragon asleep, killing the helpless beast, and getting the XP & GP for no effort),

A dragon being asleep was not an auto kill. The party got one round to make attacks at +2 to hit {maybe also +2 to damage rolls]. That was part of WHY the was a chance the party could find the dragon asleep as a default. The more deadly it was for a dragon to be asleep in the DM's milieu, the less likely finding the dragon sleeping should have been.

 

[Obryn]

I think HP inflation is the other side of the coin of the real change - damage inflation.

Starting in 1e, characters could get crazy bonuses to damage from weapons, strength, specialization, etc. Exceptional strength was I think the main culprit here.

In 2e, creatures were beefed up in response to this - getting more HPs in order to be viable.

In 3e, damage stacks from pretty much everywhere. 3.0 didn't fully acknowledge this fact, so still had low-HP demons & the like. 3.5 really dramatically expanded HPs, and I think damage again escalated in response.

4e is an odd duck. For PCs, low level grants a bonanza of HPs. At high level, they have relatively fewer compared to their 3e counterparts. Monsters have an absolute ton of HPs - again, like with 2e, to ensure they survive for long enough to make an interesting fight.

-O

 

[ExploderWizard]

I think HP inflation is the other side of the coin of the real change - damage inflation.

Agreed. Damage inflation was likewise a single facet of overall numbers bloat which included attributes and bonuses in general.

 

[scrubkai]

I don't know...
All of our 1E monsters had HP= HD*8.
So going to 3rd edition was actually a nice step down in HP...

Now moving from 3ed to 4th did feel like a major inflation particularly at low levels, but that has seemed to slow down a bit as we climbed through the heroic tier.

 

[Irda Ranger]

I like it.

Simple arithmetic is still simple. I can do it in my head, so I'm not "suffering" anything for having more HP and damage. And there are benefits:

1) More predictable combat (for the DM). It's more grindy than 3E but also less swingy. There's a tradeoff between those two variables (and no Door #3), so I guess I just subjectively prefer being able to easily gauge how tough a given fight will be. That fight with 1e Lloth could end up a cake walk by either side depending on how the dice roll, while a 4e fight with Lloth is much more a know quantity.

1.b) This does not mean fights are more predictable for PCs. He could be a Minion. He could be an Elite Brute Leader.

2) Feats, items, powers, etc. can add +1 here, +2 there without screwing everything up. You can have some flavor and a shtick without being over-poweringly awesome with your preferred weapon and nerfy with anything else. Instead you're "better than decent" with your preferred weapon and "respectably competent" with everything else. That's a Good Thing (TM) when you need to improvise a weapon or use a particular silver sword.