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

[Elf Witch]

I'm not super component at 5e yet, but that seems like an artifact of unimaginable power in all versions of D&D.

I think his plan was to give it to one of the players with hopefully most of the charges used up. It was a costly item because it had the protection from magic missiles as well as the spell protection from arrows on it and he added protection from rays. I thought it was overpowered and said so at the time. But he took it as sour grapes on my part. I know I would not have a magic item like that in my game.

Though reading all this and reading some of the comments I do wonder if in hind sight he was trying to provide a counterpoint to the bow. Not just the magical aspects but I was a ranger and it was my major weapon. Not to totally screw me over there was no way he could have known that I would I almost fall into a chasm and lose almost everything except my bow and a few arrows from another PC. I really flubbed that save. You know to make it hard for me to take the guy out easily. But I will never know at this point and it was eight years ago.

I do know that DMs can screw with a PC if they are having issues with them and I think he had been unhappy with me because the session before I had totally misunderstood something and that caused a screw up he had planned for another player.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I can't help but notice the join dates of people in the die hard "... that's cheating!" camp and wonder if this attitude is mostly prevalent in the 4E/WoW generation.

Maybe, maybe not. I've been anti-fudging since the Spelljammer era, if you'd like a data point.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Yeah I've found the opposite to be true, in my experience old schoolers tend towards running it like a simulation and letting the dice fall where they may.

But I doubt sweeping generalizations help the conversation.

I started in 3e and love 4e, and am a dirty cheater.

I started in 1980. I'll prioritize the fun of my players over RAW & Rolls.

 

[DMCF]

I try not to because I go through the trouble of rolling them. Sometimes though (last night) 3/8 players made it to my roll20 game. Likewise my encounters may fluctuate since 6pm is ridiculously early to start for anyone who works a normal job. People show up late and pop up into a fight that is going on unexpectedly.

It is more important to me (and my players seem to agree) that we are building a story, not playing "fantasy chess". Even the meta/power gamers in my groups seem to be more happy with the spectacular and strange that comes from acting like heroes instead of letting the dice rolls making fights epic.

Today in session 2 encounters I informed my group that we are about 1/3 through what all 5 other tables did in session 1. They all insisted "But we're having fun actually playing our characters!". Yes I take them down, but its the sense of danger I'm creating. Thrills and chills, wonder and excitement, epic heroics and blunders.

On blunders I think it is less memorable to face a TPK then witnessing near annihilation and missing out on phat lootz (player greed is awesome in a way) or causing a memorable plot twist.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

Yeah, this one started playing in 1980.

Yeah, me too. Started December 1980. And I'm definitely not a 4E fan either.

 

[S'mon]

So essentially all you are as a DM is a dice roller and the voice of the NPCs?

This is the problem with so many of the responses in this thread. You make it seem like it is the DM vs PCs and in order to make it 'fair' you roll in the open, so regardless of the outcome you can just throw your arms up and say "well I didn't cheat!" D&D isn't a tabletop wargame. There is no such thing as cheating.

Is it cheating to play with Legos and not build what is on the outside of the box?

Is it cheating to play with Play-doh and not make what is on the outside of the package?

D&D is a game of make believe. Treat it as such. Again, it isn't DM against PCs, it is a bunch of friends hanging out having fun playing make believe.

I can't help but notice the join dates of people in the die hard "omg that's cheating!" camp and wonder if this attitude is mostly prevalent in the 4E/WoW generation.

No, I've been playing since 1983 and it feels like cheating to me.
I think the fudge-for-story assumption is most common with people who started in the late '80s and especially the 1990s, when it seemed to be all about the GM's 'story' and ensuring it played out as intended.

 

[Blackbrrd]

So essentially all you are as a DM is a dice roller and the voice of the NPCs?


This is the problem with so many of the responses in this thread. You make it seem like it is the DM vs PCs and in order to make it 'fair' you roll in the open, so regardless of the outcome you can just throw your arms up and say "well I didn't cheat!" D&D isn't a tabletop wargame. There is no such thing as cheating.

Is it cheating to play with Legos and not build what is on the outside of the box?

Is it cheating to play with Play-doh and not make what is on the outside of the package?

D&D is a game of make believe. Treat it as such. Again, it isn't DM against PCs, it is a bunch of friends hanging out having fun playing make believe.

This is not at all what I am saying. What I am saying is that I am trying to let the PCs actions really affect the game, even if it's not going where I planned. It isn't about cheating, but letting the game have in-game consequences.

If I have messed up an encounter and haven't given good hints about the difficulty about it in advance, one way of fixing it would be to just say: "Hey guys, I messed up here, this encounter was completely off the chart due to my inexperience with this monster/new to the system/I wasn't thinking. What do you say, shall we just pretend this encounter never happened?". I think that's a better, more open approach than "secretly" fudging the dice. Mostly because I can tell when the DM is fudging and it sucks the thrill of combat right out of it.

I have played with a DM that after a random encounter where he killed my PC asked if I wanted to just treat it as my character just going down, not dying (due to one huge crit). I chose to let my character live, since it was totally random and really nobody's fault. The DM isn't throwing his arm up saying "I didn't cheat", but it isn't fudging either. I know that if my PC had done something stupid, or if I was seeking trouble, the DM would never have let me have the option to "not die".

Saying no to fudging isn't the same as the DM not having the chance to take responsibility for running a smooth, fun game. There is no conflict there.

I can't help but notice the join dates of people in the die hard "omg that's cheating!" camp and wonder if this attitude is mostly prevalent in the 4E/WoW generation.

Now, I have been playing/DM-ing since about 1990, so no, it isn't a "new generation" thing. It's people with a different opinion than yourself.

 

[wedgeski]

Nope. Not missing anything. That DM is a dick.

It was a bad decision, not a character flaw.

 

[PnPgamer]

I started in late 2000s and i fudge rolls for story. Am i a bitchy teen?

 

[S_Dalsgaard]

Oddly enough, while I don't mind fudging rolls and changing monster HP on the fly, I don't think I would ever roll back/retcon an encounter if something unforeseen happened. When the dice have been cast, there is no way back, for good or bad.