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Message: <blockquote data-quote="el-remmen" data-source="post: 8223068" data-attributes="member: 11">I always roll for damage and love so-called "swingy-ness." If a kobold with four hps can manage to survive for 10 rounds because of PC's bad rolls while doling out damage because of the DM's good rolls (and perhaps the kobold's tactics) that is a story not an annoyance! The opposite is also true, the lucky hit that takes out a big bad monster in one or two hits is awesome.  Most of the time stuff falls in the middle (or feels like it) and that is good enough for me, I don't need to do math and worry about if it is "consistent enough."This is also true for PCs. The last standing and seriously weakened PC who manages to survive through a mix of luck and tactics is fun as hell!As for monster hit points, I usually determine "average" (which for me is max hps for the first HD and then average from there - if the PCs get it the monsters get it! - though for 1 HD creatures I will tweak this down to a create a range of hps). Once I have that number, I think about when and where the PCs might face the creatures and decide if I want to tweak them up or down. If it is multiple monsters of a type I might make different sub-group with different HP totals. So yeah, on purpose in my games, one goblin might die if it takes 4 hps but another has 8. I like to downplay meta-game as much as possible, so I never want players to be thinking "this ogre took 30 hps of damage before dropping, so we need to do that much damage to his buddy." Maybe. But maybe he is weaker or stronger! Narrating Hit Points: I do much like others have described, describing scrapes, hard numbing blows to a limb, desperate breath-taking dodges, headache inducing clangs against armor or a helmet, etc. . .I also describe how hurt creatures are based on a system of 4ths. . . down by up to one-quarter hps = lightly wounded, up to half = moderately wounded, up to three-quarters = seriously wounded, and from there to one HP remaining = critically wounded. I got these categories from previous edition healing spell names.</blockquote>

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