D&D 5E Would you change a monster's hit points mid-fight?

[Tony Vargas]

I despise the idea of DMs fudging things with the idea of just not letting me know. That's a complete violation of the social contract from my perspective. So, sure, if the DM is a good enough liar that I never catch on, feel free. But if I catch on I am not going to be happy.

Sure. But the DM is also there to run a game, the point of which is to be fun - not boring, not frustrating, not futile - as a DM, I see that as part of the social contract, too.

So, when the system can't deliver, I have a choice - run a bad campaign that's no fun for anyone, run a different system (just try getting a whole group to agree on /which/ other system), or break one part of the social contract to save the rest. Yes, there's a risk players will catch on and a risk that, if they do, some of them may react badly.

I figure, ultimately, it's just a game, and I'm not 'cheating' to 'win' it at a cost to everyone else, but 'adjusting' it to keep it going and keep it fun. Many RPGs recognize the need of the DM to do that sort of thing, with a 'golden rule' or 'rule 0' escape clause of some sort. D&D is among those games, and most eds require quite a lot of intervention - and, it's just easier to intervene on the fly than to re-write the rules up-front to try to avoid such issues.

 

[S'mon]

Or hardcore simulationist. Only a narrativist would intervene.

I disagree - it depends what you're trying to simulate.

 

[S'mon]

sacrificing storyline, just because of amazing rolls, and great damage isn't going to make my players happy in the long run.

Have you asked them? If they said they preferred to stick with the rolls, would you go with that?

 

[S_Dalsgaard]

No.

Subjectively, it feels like cheating to me. As a DM I'm free to make up whatever I want, but once it's there I feel like I need to deal with it's "reality" through the rules, just like the players. Sure, no one will know but me, but it just doesn't feel right to do otherwise.

If I need to alter the course of an encounter, there are plenty of more palatable options available, the simplest being that reinforcements arrive for one side or another.

I fail to see the difference between adding a few hit points to an opponent NPC in trouble or suddenly giving him reinforcements, that weren't planned in advance. To me both would be fine, but neither is more fair or "right" than the other.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

What some people apparently aren't getting is how different those 2 tactics are from the perspective of certain playstyles. In this case you are explicitly "deactivating" the normal parameters and fast-forwarding--in plain view of the players. Everyone is in on it....

This is a perfectly wonderful playstyle that I quite enjoy in a story driven system, and which I thoroughly despise in D&D. D&D isn't the "every game." Some types of games (in the case of D&D, I think those would be narrativism, highly balanced gamism, or tactical combat simulationism) are poorly suited for some systems.

I'm a bit confused, because I don't run a story-driven game (except in the "emergent") sense, and also because the thing you're saying you despise here is essentially the same as what you approve in paragraph one above (fast-forwarding in full view of the players, unless they object and want to play things out). Is that second paragraph really addressed to me, and if so, what about "you throw a few more Call Lightnings and then the kobolds are all dead or fled" is objectionable in D&D?

 

[DEFCON 1]

Heck, I not only adjust hit points up or down mid-fight... I'll adjust monster statblocks mid-fight too. I'm an inherently lazy DM and I hate having to waste time re-writing all manner of statblocks to add or subtract abilities to the monsters so that they're down on paper (and thus "real"). If I know what I want my enemies to be able to do during a fight, I'll just 'Yes And' my scenes and give or take things as I imagined they probably would have had in the first place.

Do I need to write down before-hand whether that hobgoblin had a potion of healing on him? Nah. If at some point I feel as though the fight scene would be more fun and exciting that he does, then he will. And he'll either drink it to heal himself, or not get a chance to drink it and the party will then find the potion on him.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I mean, I get the differences. I just think one is vastly superior to the other.

Some players I'm sure don't want to see the handwaving up front. I am one of them. Hearing the DM say "blah blah blah you kill the rest of the kobolds moving on" kills it for me. It glosses over the game aspect. It punches a hole in my immersion in the stakes of the game. It makes me wonder what the point if the battle was if its end is meaningless. It would make me wonder if the DM is invested in making this a fun game for the players, and not just some sort of rote D&D exercise.

If the point of the battle is "will the Iron Golem ambush kill Prince Harry?" and there are three golems surrounding Harry at the start of the fight, and Harry has winged boots, then once Harry has escaped to open air and so have the PCs, there's no more dramatic question. At that point the encounter is trivialized. Either the party can hurt the golems or they can't, either the golems will chase them or they won't, but there is no need to do it in combat time if the players are no longer feeling excited. If they are enjoying spending sixty rounds plinking away while the golems roar and futilely chase after them on their horses, every round, then have at it. My experience though is that the players don't really care about round-by-round combat once it's clear they're winning. They do like declaring actions though, so if this iron golem ambush happened in my game (hmmmm) I'd probably say, "once out of the catacombs, the golems chase you determinedly, beady iron eyes fixed on Rupert flying above the whole time, but your horses are too fast and Rupert is flying for all he's got. Roll ten rounds of attacks," and then I'd extrapolate from those ten attacks to say how long it took to kill them and who did the must damage. But I wouldn't play out ten rounds of combat normally, because the combat rules at that point (initiative, etc.) are just getting in the way of the new dramatic question, which is "which PC is best at an iron golem turkey-shoot?"

 

[JeffB]

Heck, I not only adjust hit points up or down mid-fight... I'll adjust monster statblocks mid-fight too. I'm an inherently lazy DM and I hate having to waste time re-writing all manner of statblocks to add or subtract abilities to the monsters so that they're down on paper (and thus "real"). If I know what I want my enemies to be able to do during a fight, I'll just 'Yes And' my scenes and give or take things as I imagined they probably would have had in the first place.

Do I need to write down before-hand whether that hobgoblin had a potion of healing on him? Nah. If at some point I feel as though the fight scene would be more fun and exciting that he does, then he will. And he'll either drink it to heal himself, or not get a chance to drink it and the party will then find the potion on him.

This is me.

Especially when cold dice or wonky numbers are causing issues. I did this several times in my 13th Age sessions, and my initial 4e forays.

One of the things I love about Dungeon World is that by nature of the mechanics, this type of thing is expected to be done. I.e. hard and soft moves.

 

[Umbran]

Most, but not all. Some DMs hold themselves to a higher standard. I am one of them.

Ah, yes. And now the moralizing begins.

It isn't a "higher" standard, EW. Just a different standard.

 

[Blackbrrd]

I don't fudge dice. Mostly because I roll in the open. I quite often WANT to fudge the dice, mostly because I don't want to kill a character.

Not only am I rolling in the open, but I keep the sheet with the monster hp in the open as well. Keeps me from cheating there too.

Now, I do think my players enjoy the style. They know if their character dies, it was up to the dice and the monsters they met, not adjustments I did on the fly.

Personally, I think that adjusting the HP of a monster down is the least bad fudging and maybe something you should do if the encounter is much to hard, because you messed up as a DM. It's probably better to have the monster flee because it sees that even it gets to kill a character or two, it will die too.

I really dislike DMs that adjusts the encounters up in difficulty mid-encounter. It makes using strategies to get as easy fights as possible pointless and in my opinion, that's really detrimental to the game.

My players know that if they had an easy fight, it was most likely due to good planning and execution, not dumb luck. Like the last session when they staged an commando attack on the leader of a small army. Killed the leader and got away, only fighting his personal bodyguards while the rest of the army was distracted with burning supplies and arrow fire by the river when they went to get water to put out the fire. Really fun stuff.