D&D 5E Would you change a monster's hit points mid-fight?

[EzekielRaiden]

Is that a standard or bonus action?

Standard, though Rogues with the Accountant subclass can Review Financial History as a bonus action.

 

[spinozajack]

For non-boss trash mobs I usually make their HP and stats known to the table (not special powers), and roll in front of everyone. That is what makes the game fair and if players die due a poor roll, they deal with that. I'm not a fan of fudging HP either, except in rare cases. When players know the DM is not going to fudge dice or damage in their favor, that tends to make them play better, smarter, and more cautiously. Win.

There are plenty of other ways, actually an infinite number, that a DM can legitimately compensate either in favor of the monsters or PCs, when HP are trending downward too quickly for either side. A smart monster could have a healer or roar for an ally come to its rescue, or an escape plan. Noise from the fight could cause a more monsters to start rushing in from down the tunnel over there, making the PCs reconsider staying another round to finish this dragon off at the risk of their own hides. If PCs are reckless, I don't hold back, I can kill them without fudging dice and there are many ways to influence them going one direction or another, without resorting to fiat or rail road.

Simply put, fudging HP is cheating, and cheating should be done sparingly. It's more serious when PCs cheat by not properly recording damage on their own sheets. If the DM has to ask the PC what their current HP are, and they don't match, that's a problem. It isn't the DM only who shouldn't fudge their HP totals, it's PCs. Who are to my mind much more likely to do it. If you alter your HP it makes combat meaningless, because it makes that huge crit back there not have happened, or not be a crit. (like players subtract less damage than they should). This is the dirty little secret of D&D : people cheat. It's sad.

That's why HP have to be in the open for the most part, and DMs should track PC HP totals at least every so often, to make sure everyone's being honest. The occasional audit after fights and short rests. DMs could alternate which players they audit with a dice roll.

 

[WayneLigon]

I haven't done even moderate level 5E yet, but with 3/3.5/Pathfinder, I use w wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey sliding scale of hit points depending on how important the guy is, and how engaged the players are in defeating him.

After about 6th level, the big story-important bad guys have enough hit points to make sure the fight with them is interesting. That could be their normal amount, or it could be several times that amount. In addition, the weirder or more important it is, the more points it has, unless someone really does unload a truly titanic amount of damage or crits in an unusual or spectacular way.

 

[Relax]

There are plenty of other ways, actually an infinite number, that a DM can legitimately compensate either in favor of the monsters or PCs, when HP are trending downward too quickly for either side. A smart monster could have a healer or roar for an ally come to its rescue, or an escape plan. Noise from the fight could cause a more monsters to start rushing in from down the tunnel over there, making the PCs reconsider staying another round to finish this dragon off at the risk of their own hides.

I must be misunderstanding here. You're saying changing a monsters hit points is cheating, but having more monsters simply show up is perfectly valid?

Either something is being lost in the translation or I've entered some sort of Bizarro world.

Further explanation is required.

 

[Manbearcat]

I'll quote myself from earlier in this thread.

Quote Originally Posted by Jacob Marley
A little late to the party, but...

No, I don't adjust monster hit points during combat (unless it is from damage taken or healed ). I also don't use a screen, I roll my dice in the open, and my stat blocks are in plain view of my players. I don't worry about my players metagaming. I embrace the variance of the die, and appreciate the times it deviates wildly from the average. In my experience, these times are when the most interesting narratives emerge. YMMV

In my opinion, why the characters are fighting this monster is the interesting question, not what the monster is.

Edit: Also, I prefer to let my players judge for themselves whether they believe their characters would have this knowledge.

I find that very interesting, and to me not D&D at all.

I wonder if its more common in games whose players/DMs are running the same version of D&D tney hace pkayed for decades. The assumption being by now everyone knows the stats of a kobold.

Not sure how common or uncommon it is. However, I'll give you another datapoint for your hypothesis. 31 years running D&D and it hasn't been one edition. GMed every edition except for OD&D and Jacob Marley's description of his GMing is 100 % in lockstep with my own.

 

[Jeff Albertson]

the MM on the other hand may have 3 or 4 copies at the table.

Why would that ever happen?

 

[Jeff Albertson]

This is the dirty little secret of D&D : people cheat. It's sad.

I thought t was that illegitimate child it had in Thailand.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I must be misunderstanding here. You're saying changing a monsters hit points is cheating, but having more monsters simply show up is perfectly valid?

Either something is being lost in the translation or I've entered some sort of Bizarro world.

Further explanation is required.

It's the difference between changing the DC of a trap in the middle of trying to solve it, and deciding that there should be more (or fewer) traps than you previously thought there should be. The former is Schrodinger's Difficulty--it doesn't actually have set odds until the DM looks into the box. The second is DMs being flexible about their planning and responding to player participation. The former means success or failure boils down to "did the DM favor us this time, or not?" The latter will have fixed odds of success for each trap employed, even if the OVERALL odds still change. It is thus, in my eyes, "unfair" to the players (and yes, I include favoring the players as "unfair"!) to modify the difficulty of challenges that are currently in progress, but perfectly legitimate to modify the difficulty of challenges that have not yet been started. Players cannot, *even in principle,* make actually informed decisions about solving problems (be they springing traps, fighting monsters, parleying NPCs, whatever) if the difficulties of those problems are always a breath away from being changed. Players can, at least in principle, make informed decisions about an encounter that might expand later, and certainly about solving *this current trap* regardless of whether there are also future traps down the road.

Also, once a monster/trap/etc. exists explicitly in the fiction, I believe it should remain the way it is, *unless and until* there is a good reason for it to be different. E.g.: Once a vampire is introduced in combat, its HP should be a fixed value. Prior to combat being joined, the DM can do whatever she wants; she put the bloody combat together in the first place, she can re-build it if she likes. If battle is joined, its HP are its HP, because it clearly exists. But let's say the party realizes they can break a hole in the ceiling and let some sunlight into the lair, and then do so. Suddenly the vampire is in a substantially weakened position. Such a situation is a perfectly justified time for the DM to say, "Okay, the vampire's max or current HP should change" or "the vampire can't hit as well after this point" or any number of other changes, because those changes are justified by an event which "actually happened" (as much as any event in a TTRPG "actually happens.")

 

[billd91]

It's the difference between changing the DC of a trap in the middle of trying to solve it, and deciding that there should be more (or fewer) traps than you previously thought there should be. The former is Schrodinger's Difficulty--it doesn't actually have set odds until the DM looks into the box. The second is DMs being flexible about their planning and responding to player participation. The former means success or failure boils down to "did the DM favor us this time, or not?" The latter will have fixed odds of success for each trap employed, even if the OVERALL odds still change. It is thus, in my eyes, "unfair" to the players (and yes, I include favoring the players as "unfair"!) to modify the difficulty of challenges that are currently in progress, but perfectly legitimate to modify the difficulty of challenges that have not yet been started. Players cannot, *even in principle,* make actually informed decisions about solving problems (be they springing traps, fighting monsters, parleying NPCs, whatever) if the difficulties of those problems are always a breath away from being changed. Players can, at least in principle, make informed decisions about an encounter that might expand later, and certainly about solving *this current trap* regardless of whether there are also future traps down the road.

In other words, the difference between you and someone who modifies hit points on the fly is really just a matter of the scale at which modification happens. You look at the encounter that has been started as being a fixed entity and not to be messed with but are willing to change a dungeon or adventure site on the fly once the PCs have engaged with it. Those of us willing to adjust the encounter on the fly do something very similar, just the encounter level rather than adventure site level.

 

[Elf Witch]

This is a good point. If there's a perceived need to fudge in this manner, it should be a rare need. I expect that just about anyone can learn to design appropriate encounters quickly enough that this shouldn't be an ongoing issue. This plays into my preference in the matter. If there's only a rare issue with a too difficult or easy encounter, I would prefer to have the issue to damaging the integrity of the game with fudging. If it's a constant issue, constant fudging might be preferable to constant hassle, but I find neither tolerable. I this case it's time for a new DM or a new game.

I think there is a large difference between very occasionally having this problem where you need to change things (whether numerically fudging numbers or narratively) and having to do it on a frequent basis. If this happens a lot, it means the DM is having issues using the (encounter building) rules to create desired scenarios. This may be due to lack of experience or bad judgement calls on the DM's behalf, or it could be a problem with the rules themselves. For example, the scenario you just provided could be avoided using something like 13th Age's escalation die to add a bonus to all rolls each round, or having a "lucky" ability or Action Points to allow rerolls or bonuses on misses... Which reminds me I need to reread the Inspiration and variant rules regarding that again.

Challenge does not have to be contrary to fun.

I never said it was. With no challenge why bother to play just go home and read a book about other characters.

I think one problem here is that a lot of you seem to not get the fact that people have different role playing kicks. In Robins's guide to DMing he talks about this. I fall heavily into the storyteller style of role playing I want the game to feel like a great book or movie my emotional kick is seeing the story unfold and sometimes seeing the cinematic great moments. A great DM acknowledges what is the emotional kick of his various players and tries his best to accommodate that. Now a heavily tactical player is different they get their emotional kick out of beating the DMs encounter through their planning and players like that are the ones that dislike fudging or changes because it interferes with their emotional kick.

If you can't accommodate a certain style of player in your game then be upfront and say this is not the game for you. But I think the very best DMs can accommodate different player kicks, it just means knowing what is your players emotional kick.