As someone who just ran a TON of 11th level 5e24 combats in the past few weeks, I found that 11 HP was very easy to one-shot kill. I used some bandits as filler, and those worked great. 33 HP (Pirates) definitely lived through most initial attacks. I guess your sweet spot would be somewhere...
I also find it funny that people here think they didn't do any other kind of testing, polling or even consider self selection in their surveys. Is it really that far fetched that these professionals might have thought of the same things you thought of in 10 minutes?
What is your proof that they are self selected? What do you belief? And why do you believe it?
I never heard anything about Crawford saying players forgot what they voted, or maybe that’s from before I played.
I just shared first-hand experience of Mike Mearls about this, and I see nothing but...
You'd think that! It's pretty clear they don't build monsters this way. Looking at most other NPC statblocks will tell you this. CR6 mages have 18 HD. HD are no longer connected to class level in any way. CR is no longer connected to class levels in any way. Monsters are not connected to class...
Really? The 2024 monsters have seen significant improvements in power from tier 2 onwards. My experience is that it has never been easier to challenge PC's that now, since we have the 2025 MM.