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

[iserith]

I don't think it's hit points that cause grind though. Fudging them can end the scene which ends the grind, but it might be good to look at what the table is doing (players and DM both) that caused the grind in the first place and fix that going forward. I never have grinds in our games, even in the supposedly slow D&D 4e and thus never have to fudge to end the scene.

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

I don't, but I change tactics or introduce additional elements if need be.
For example, if the monster I wanted to be a challenge is getting taken apart - that's ok, unless he is a Monster of Valuable Plot, in which case I bundle that MVP into the DM Fiat and turn the ignition. One example from years ago - the Orc chief was going to be a (one or two episode, in tv terms) recurring villain and due to some spectacularly good rolls by the PCs, was about to meet his maker in the opening credits, so to speak. So, I ruled that that last max damage hit knocked him backwards into the cave wall with huge force, causing the wall to collapse and seal that end of the chamber off. Orc chief sensibly got on his toes and legged it, ready to come back as required - and I didn't care if he did whiff of cheese in so doing.
On the other hand, when the monsters are pedalling party posterior and it looks like a TPK, especially if it's down to rotten rolls rather than dumb tactics, I will be inclined to have them spare the party, or capture them rather than kill them, or (though I haven't done this one yet) deploy Classic Villain Fail Number 1 and start to ease off, taunting these obvious weaklings with his superior power and give them a chance to regroup as he cackles delightedly to himself.
That said, the whole party investing in agricultural land is one thing, but a single PC buying the farm is much more doable, so long as it's not a really crappy death. It's one thing to be slain by Psycho McMurder, champion of Chaos, on the battlements in the climactic showdown, but to be killed by a fall or a couple of lucky-rolling kobolds is a bit...weak. This is fantasy. Your players' characters deaths should be glorious, not whoops-I-failed-my-save-and-fell-into-the-goblin's-privy.
In the case of Elf Witch...man, I feel for you. The key thing there seems to have been the super cool magic weapon that was essentially rendered useless for so long that when the chance finally came it got blown up out if all proportion and expectations for the payoff had reached sky high levels. It feels a bit like the old D&D cartoon... 'Ranger (cool bow)! Acrobat (funky staff)! Wizard (magic hat)!... Accountant (typewriter +1)..."
That particular problem wouldn't have been so bad if you'd had the chance to use it a decent amount beforehand. Seems rather odd to give you this item at character creation, baking it into the character from the get go and deliberately deny you the chance to use this, presumably, defining item...and then to shrug it off so wilfully when finally given a chance.

 

[Unwise]

I can and do change monster HP all the time. I'm really surprised to hear that so many others object to doing so. I'm coming from such a different perspective that I have a hard time even seeing the common ground in the far distance on this one.

I will often play up how badly the BBEG has got his butt kicked and that he has to pull out some hidden healing potions, or tap into some unsafe power to stay alive. I want the PCs to feel like they were indeed spanking his sorry butt, but I want the fun and conflict to continue. More commonly though, I fudge HP to lower amount needed to take somebody out. My NPCs run away a lot, very few people fight on at very low HP. So it is sometimes simpler to have them die than clutter up the battle with guys faking death, surrendering or running away.

 

[The Human Target]

PC1 has been badly hurt by a monster, that also happens to be connected to his character's story. He wants to bring the pain to that monster, and manages to get him down to 8 hit points.

There is no chance the monster won't be killed by someone else in the party before PC1's next turn.

Do I kill that monster off "early?"

Absolutely!

I'm not big on DM fiat, and I like the game part of RPG as much as the roleplaying part.

But as a DM, its my job to help build the fun where I can.

And that involves tweaking things here and there as we go, both narratively and mechanically.

 

[Sunseeker]

Yes I have and I will do so in the future. Sometimes I'll even skip a whole mob if the other 8 or so I dropped on the field already died. Since I home-brew a lot of my creatures and my groups vary in size on a regular basis, I can't always predict if something, especially "solo" fights, will be too strong or too weak once they hit the table.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

As the title asks: it's the middle of an encounter, would you change a monster's hit points?

This might be during a boss fight where the PCs roll well and it looks like the big bad is going to die before taking a turn. Or maybe during a long fight that looks like it might drag. Or perhaps a tense fight where the party is toeing on a TPK.

Would you?

No. It's contrary to sandboxing.

Edit: in case of Monster of Valuable Plot, I probably still wouldn't keep the monster alive because it is contrary to sandboxing, but if I wanted to do so for some reason I would award my players a karma point, congratulate them for beating him so badly that the Fates intervened to keep him alive, and proceed from there. Players can use karma points to rewind TPKs ("it was a dream of warning") and make other retcons to the story, like "I guess I had a backup spellbook that I can still use now that my main spellbook got incinerated."

 

[Elf Witch]

Nope. I might design adventures around PCs, but once I create (or randomly roll) something it has its own "life" and I don't alter it in the middle of the action, either for or against the PCs. As a DM, I focus more on being a steward of the game world than I do on being a storyteller. I make stories, but that's really in the player's hands at the end of the day, because they have all the choices. The most important thing only I can do is create a world with integrity where they know that everything they find or interact with exists regardless of them, and can be explored from that perspective. (Which is exactly how I'd prefer DMs to run it for me.)



That being said, that is one tough example! I'd probably let the dice fall where they may, and then (greatly) increase the odds of running into other hostile elves fairly soon after, and/or specifically design an adventure with hostile elves to fight.

The DM did end up putting more evil elves in the game and you know what at that point it was anticlimax.

The DM had a golden opportunity to allow something awesome to happen in the game you know one of those moments players talk about later. And a chance to reward a player for being patient and not complaining about the bow.

As a DM I think that allowing what is cinematic moment to stand in spite of what you have written is more important than being a slave to the rules or you written encounter.

 

[Tony Vargas]

As the title asks: it's the middle of an encounter, would you change a monster's hit points?

This might be during a boss fight where the PCs roll well and it looks like the big bad is going to die before taking a turn. Or maybe during a long fight that looks like it might drag. Or perhaps a tense fight where the party is toeing on a TPK.

Would you?

In the context of 5e (since this is a 5e forum), not just yes, but Hell Yes!

Not only would I change a monster's hps without batting an eye if it meant delivering a better play experience, I'd go into the fight without quantifying its hps to begin with.

Not to try to claim that there's OneTrueWay to play 5e, but, between the playtest, what's written in the rules themselves, and what the developers have said publicly, it seems very clear, to me, that the philosophy of this edition is, something like that of 1e, to just sort of throw out ideas in print that DMs can use in the lose framework provided by the rules, if they like, as they like.

Call it 'DM empowerment' call it making game-design lemonade when Hasbro gives you layoff lemons, call it 'capturing the feel of the classic game,' call it total incompetence - it doesn't matter. The bottom line is DMs have carte blanche in 5e. Changing monster hps mid-encoutner hardly scratches the surface of what DMs can - and should - consider doing to make the games they run /better/.


(If I sound like I'm preaching with a convert's zeal, here, maybe I am, just a bit. In years of playing 3.5 and running 4e, I got used to leveraging and even trusting the system to get the numbers right and deliver a good - or good enough - play experience, only tweaking things when the players did something that monkeywrenched the whole thing or the Dice Gods started performing perverse miracles. On top of that, when I ran the playtest, I ran it as a /test/, so stuck strictly to the numbers I was given, no tweaking at all. The first few sessions of 5e I ran, I was still stuck in that mode, and it was a train wreck. Once I limbered up and dusted off some classic DMing techniques, things got a /lot/ better.)

 

[I'm A Banana]

Really does depend on the Agenda - what the group has more fun with. Most of my groups stand more on story than on mechanics, so enemy death is more a matter of pacing than of addition and subtraction, so there it's fine (but should still be done consciously). But a group more focused on challenges or on smart play or on emergent events I wouldn't, because the rules interactions is part of the fun for that group. In a mixed crowd, I generally err in favor of not doing it - stories can adapt themselves to the circumstances.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Really does depend on the Agenda - what the group has more fun with.

But a group more focused on challenges or on smart play or on emergent events I wouldn't, because the rules interactions is part of the fun for that group.

Might go with a more technically solid system in that case - 3.x/Pathfinder, 4e, etc, heck even GURPS or something like that - or create a definitive house rules document for 5e, tightening up all the wiggle room, and sticking to it.

...But, OTOH, what they don't know won't hurt them - well, won't hurt their enjoyment of the game.