Do you roll for a Monster's HP?

[francisca]

Was in a FLGS the other night. They had a copy of the 1E Monster Manual on hand. This guy was flipping through the pages and bitching about how awful it was, "'cuz it don't even list the <f-word-ing> hit points".

He was already arguing with another guy about 1E vs. 3E, a Vampire player was telling them they both sucked (oh the irony) and should stop playing D&D, and the guys playing a CCG were snickering at all three. So I didn't bother explaining to him that in older editions, you rolled for HP.

So, when I first got my hands on 3E, I thought the average HP was handy, though it doesn't take much to chuck some dice and add the numbers up. However, my players are by nature pretty quick studies. I wanted to avoid the assumption of how many HPs monsters have, so I generally roll for a monster's HP.

Anyone else?

 

[JoeGKushner]

For standard monsters, I go with the value in the book. For creatures a little toughter, I take the hit dice and go 70%. For even bigger meannies, 80-90%. For end monsters, 100%.

My campaign model has the characters at 100% of their hit points thought so it's not too bad.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

If it is a "stock" monster (or merely advanced by a few HD) I always use the average value. (If it is advanced, I add the average - rounded down - for each HP).

If it is a monster with class levels or otherwise heavily tweaked, I use the "upper" average. I round the average HD up, and add full first HD.
(And in most games in our group we always have the choice to roll our HD our assume the "upper" average. I never roll for HP.)

 

[Eye Tyrant]

If they are more then just scrub Orcs or Goblins, or some other mundane scrub that is just filler then no.

Kinda like the stabilizing thread a while back. If I go through the trouble to name a monster or NPC then I'm rolling HP and to see if they stabilize...

 

[MonsterMash]

If I add class levels then I normally roll, otherwise with 'stock' encounters it depends, but I often try to as it means that there isn't a #I hit and do # points of damage, so the orc is dead' scenario.

 

[Henry]

He was already arguing with another guy about 1E vs. 3E, a Vampire player was telling them they both sucked (oh the irony) and should stop playing D&D, and the guys playing a CCG were snickering at all three. So I didn't bother explaining to him that in older editions, you rolled for HP.

I have to say I'm loving the mental image of your encounter with a room full of Simpsons' Comic Book Guys.

In 1E, I used to roll at first, but then later when I discovered the beautiful law of averages, I could come up with hit points on the fly by multiplying the hit dice by 4.5, and then adding the "plus."

I love the average hit points too, but there is such as thing as "too easy", I suppose?

 

[Kalendraf]

For the grunts, random encounters and any other time that I need a quick'n'dirty number for HPs, I use the Hit points straight from the book. For troopleaders, champions or other "best of breed" type opponents, I usually go with a number somewhere around +1 HP/dice above the average. Weakened creatures (malnourished, abused slaves, etc), I'll go about -1 HP/dice below the average. For named and special foes, I often roll.

For classed foes (i.e. Ogre with Fighter levels, etc), I usually roll all the dice, then compare to the average and scatter the HPs for any other troops like this. So if the average was 35 and my roll was 42, and I need 4 of them, I'll make them be 35, 37, 40, 42.

 

[diaglo]

i make the players roll for hps at all lvls.

so why shouldn't i do some ground work and roll ahead for the monsters too.


i always roll.

 

[Trainz]

I voted "never", cause I indeed never roll for my crit's HP's (neither does our other DM), but your poll got me to think.

Maybe I should sometimes change the HP values of the crits. Not necessarily physically rolling them, but arbitrarily change them to simulate what you could have come up with if you did indeed roll. Thus a critter with 45 hit points could, in a given fight, have 36 or 62 hit points. Even better if there are many critters.

Yup, got to think...

 

[Bigwilly]

Don't exactly roll, but don't use book value either

Standard grunts might get the book value, but as my fighter PCs dish out nasty amounts of damage I often boost the average values up to 75% of maximum or higher. For advanced creatures - templates, character levels or HD - I usually add 60-75% of the maximum extra HD.