Do you roll for a Monster's HP?

[X-Marks!]

Random Goodness

Rolling for the hp's counteracts against those Players who have become so familiar with the Core Books (etc) themselves that they just know what the standard hps are, and thus set their strategies to counter just that many. (i.e. "Hey Guys, why waste our last lightning bolt, when I calculate the purple worm can only have 8hps left..?!?")

In quick, random encounters, I might still take the average just to save time, but that's not very often. ALX

 

[Shemeska]

I arbitrarily set the number of HP above or below the average of the critter depending on how difficult I intend for an encounter to be. For instance, a Nycaloth isn't much trouble for a level 22 average party. However with a dozen rogue levels added onto it and a boost of its con by around 6 it suddenly warrents attention.

It's rare that I'll nerf a critters hp to make it easier, I like to challange my players, and I've never had an encounter be too difficult on them, though numerous times that they've done much better than I expected. I've come to expect such.

 

[d4]

i use an "average" value but not the one in the books.

i average each hit die, not the total. so a 4d8 HD creature would have 20 hit points (4 x 5), not 18 hit points (4 x 4.5).

 

[Tuzenbach]

I never roll, but I never take the value in the book, either. I always make sure that the hps are good enough to be challenging to whichever party of adventurers are fighting the creature. And usually, the number of PCs/players going up against that creature isn't known until it happens and then.........ZOING! A number magically appears in my head and I write it on the paper.

Granted it's "roughly based" upon the value in the book, but almost never is. It's usually the value +/- 5 to 40.

 

[Zappo]

I never roll. However, I don't always take the average, either. When I have lots of similar enemies, I sometimes use different HPs to make them slightly stronger or weaker, rather than changing their stats (which is a lot more complex and forces you to have different stat blocks). This has more to do with differentiation than encounter difficulty. Very, very rarely, I'll give an important NPC some above-average hit points to reflect some (possibly supernatural) background bit. I've done this in the Abyssal Campaign with

Spoiler

the tiefling Lianne, who is not just any tiefling, but the granddaughter of a Tanar'ri Lord; this exceptional heritage makes her simply harder to kill than her body and skill would suggest

.

As a general rule, though, I don't like random hit points. They were needed in past editions, where all monsters of the same type were otherwise identical, but today we have varying HD, class levels, and varying Constitution (not to mention Toughness and similar feats).

If I want to really make an enemy tougher or weaker, I change his Constitution instead, or give him extra HD or levels.

i use an "average" value but not the one in the books.

i average each hit die, not the total. so a 4d8 HD creature would have 20 hit points (4 x 5), not 18 hit points (4 x 4.5).

Nothing wrong with the idea, but the average of each 1d8 is still 4.5. That "not in the books" also refers to statistics textbooks I suppose.

 

[d4]

Nothing wrong with the idea, but the average of each 1d8 is still 4.5. That "not in the books" also refers to statistics textbooks I suppose.

of course i mean, "average, rounded up to the nearest integer."

 

[Jeff Wilder]

I said "sometimes," because it's closest to what I actually often do ... assign HP values within the possible range. For example, I'll give the alpha dire wolf more hit points than the others in his pack.

I do this with frequency, but still I usually just go by the average values as listed.

 

[Mark]

I wanted to avoid the assumption of how many HPs monsters have, so I generally roll for a monster's HP.

Sometimes I don't if there are a lot of them, except for whatever one or more might be "special" like commanders. I often decide that an entire pack of something has a few more or less hit points than what is "by the book" if I feel the party strength and situation warrants an adjustment.