D&D 5E Average damage or rolled damage?

[delericho]

Using rolled HP makes you a bad person.

Not really. It just makes you a person whose ideas of good design are utterly baffling to me.

And baffling me is mean, and THAT makes you a bad person.

Oh, there are many reasons I'm a bad person. Just not that particular one.

 

[Tia Nadiezja]

Oh, there are many reasons I'm a bad person. Just not that particular one.

At least you know.

At. Least. You. Know.

 

[Imaculata]

I like the randomness of the damage. But I think a DM should simply foreshadow if a monster is going to be tough for them.

For example:

My players discovered a plesiosaur sunbathing on the beach of an island, on top of a rock. One of the players remarked that they could totally kill it, since it would have a severe disadvantage on land. So as a DM I pitched in that considering the fact that it crawled on land by itself, they really had no idea how dangerous this thing would be on land. I also described that it really had huge rows on nasty looking teeth, and could probably do severe damage to their ship if it felt like it. Provoking it came with some considerable risks, while they could also choose to leave it in peace, since it didn't seem to be taking an interest in them at their current distance.

This was my way of foreshadowing that this creature was actually of quite a high challenge rating for their level, and was pretty quick, even on land. Now it could very well be that they could have defeated the creature, but it probably would have cost them dearly. It could have dealt a large amount of damage to them, depending on how the dice rolled.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

Addition: Using fixed HP doesn't mean you can't give "named" monsters higher (or lower) HP within the possible roll range. I don't roll MaxHP, but a goblin leader might have 12 HP and a goblin known for being particular weak might only have 4 HP.

And yes there are many good ways to tell the players how hard an enemy they encounter is without telling the players its stats. But I don't think this has much influence on being able to tell the result of the combat beforehand when rolling damage. I can tell my group "Just by looking at monster X, you feel so small and weak", it can still mean that out of sheer luck they still win the battle. But I think that's what makes it interesting in the first place. I single round often can turn a battle.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Hiving off from the "Access to Races in a Campaign" thread derailment:
There's such a thing as too much information, or information a character in character would not necessarily have, and this is one. In the fog of war there's no way of knowing whether the next swing that gets by your defenses is going to produce a small nick (4 points damage) or stove your head in (50 points damage); just like there's no way of knowing what your own successful attacks will actually accomplish.

It's along the same lines of a character in-character knowing its turn in the initiative order - an equally outlandish concept solved by rerolling initiatives each round.

Might not have been the best example of something "outlandish" for a character to know. I also don't think it's really such a huge thing to have static damage--you still never know if a blow is going to land, and before the first blow you don't know how much damage it will deal. Also, "fog of war" might not have been the best choice either--that's supposed to reflect the "you don't know specifically what's happening at every point on the battlefield"...which, in most games I've played, you do know what's going on at every point on the battle map if you're using one. Only Roll20's computerized line-of-sight stuff has actually tackled that...and the DM found it such an enormous headache (because *he* can't see what ranges *we're* able to see, natch) that he basically handwaved it because it made his life too complicated.

Lan-"wondering both what monster does 13-68 points on a hit and what set of dice one rolls to get that range"-efan

Others have given some...weird and outlandish sets, but a simple 5d12+8 will do the trick. Just played around for a minute or two in AnyDice.

Though that actually demonstrates an important reason why "random" damage really isn't as meaningfully swingy as you'd like. You have less than a 10% chance (~9.3%) to roll any number outside 28-53 (a 26-point range), and you'll get a number between 33 and 48 about twice as often as anything outside that range (a 16-point range). Or, now that I've read more of the thread, if we use the stated damage value (11d6+2), we get an even more centralized bell. The 95% confidence interval is approximately 31-50 (a 20-point range), and the 66% CI is approximately 35-46 (12-point range). When you then factor in the effect of rolling that damage more than once, the results will regress toward the mean (40.5 damage) per hit.

Ironically, it is for the creatures with the smallest damage attacks (single dice) that rolled damage leads to the greatest player uncertainty. For big bosses, rolled damage actually results in nearly as good of information as static does--there's always the small chance you're wrong, but again, regression toward the mean says that such outlier results should, well, actually be outliers. Edit: And this is even more true if you roll your monster damage dice openly. Pretty much anybody with a head for figures who pays attention to (1) how many dice, of what size, you rolled and (2) the amount of damage you called out, can get a good estimate of the average damage and damage range of that monster. And while I don't do much OSR-style stuff...I can't imagine that most groups would be super okay with the DM always rolling damage dice behind the screen.

 

[Maxperson]

I will never use average damage or average hit points for PCs. I'm am generally against things that makes the game more cookie cutter and predictable.

 

[Prickly]

I trust my players not to metagame the fun away.

I use average damage, average hit points and fixed initiative.

The bookkeeping is greatly reduced, I only have to use a d20 and I can focus better on actually running the game and making combats fun.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

players also never know exactly what h.p. an opponent is at, but they get a general idea along the lines of 'untouched', 'fatigued', 'hurting', 'wobbling', 'bleeding', etc."

That's another point that will show my approach to the game more clearly: I don't hide monster hit points (or any other stats) from my players. Knowing the game info helps them play the game, and doesn't actually get in the way of the role-playing portion of said game either.

As I've said in numerous threads: There is no such thing as "metagaming" (at least not until you invent it, claim to want to avoid it, and by doing so make it mandatory for everyone to do it).

 

[Mouseferatu]

That's another point that will show my approach to the game more clearly: I don't hide monster hit points (or any other stats) from my players. Knowing the game info helps them play the game, and doesn't actually get in the way of the role-playing portion of said game either.

And as a player, I would hate this. It doesn't help me play the game in any meaningful way. It makes it more difficult for me to stay in character, to think in-character. Will it harm my role-playing? Probably not in any way you'd see as DM. But it would absolutely damage my immersion and my enjoyment.

So yes, meta-gaming is a thing that absolutely exists--at some tables. It may not at yours, because of your chosen playstyle, and that's fine. But it's not a playstyle that appeals to everyone.