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

[Imaculata]

Once in a very hard fight, we had the situation that our wizard was out of spells and all down besides the BBEG and our ranger. The ranger shot the BBEG and left him standing with 2 hp or so. The retaliation downed the ranger and the wizard, without weapons threw the lamp he was carrying and could only hit with a 20. And he rolled a 20 in the open. The most awesome ending ever.

Now imagine that exact same scenario, only after being hit by the lamp the big bad still has 1 hp remaining... why would you simply not let the creature die at that point?

 

[ExploderWizard]

Now imagine that exact same scenario, only after being hit by the lamp the big bad still has 1 hp remaining... why would you simply not let the creature die at that point?

If one is DMing a fair game the answer is simple- because the big bad still has 1 hp remaining. The thing about playing the campaign as a game first, means that actual play and what comes from it matters.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Please don't move the goalposts for my post. I realize the assertion has been made in this thread that fudging happens occasionally without player knowledge. However, no where in the post I was replying to was that statement made.

I haven't moved any goalposts. You read the whole thread--by your own admission. You knew the context into which you were posting. If you wanted to avoid the association with concealing it, you really should've said something.

There's still the other concern, which you completely ignored: how can I make choices that matter, when my reasons for making those choices--the information my character obtains about the world--not only can, but will shift under my feet without my knowledge? Changing a monster's hit points counts. Even if I cannot directly access that number, I can and will attempt to get information about its condition over the course of a fight. Changing its status abruptly, whether for or against me, distorts my information, perverting my ability to make reasonable choices. GIGO.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Now imagine that exact same scenario, only after being hit by the lamp the big bad still has 1 hp remaining... why would you simply not let the creature die at that point?

Because the BBEG has 1 hp left...

Actually I most probably had knocked the BBEG out in that scenario. But it really is a last resort. You don´t want to fudge if there still is any chance that the PCs will win without fudging. If you fudge too early, you deny yourself a lot of fun. YYMV

 

[Sunseeker]

Now imagine that exact same scenario, only after being hit by the lamp the big bad still has 1 hp remaining... why would you simply not let the creature die at that point?

I think it could go either way, the dragon lashes out in a rage of death throes, or the lamp hit the dragon's fire-gullet-thing just as it was about to breathe and blew its head off.

It really depends on how you want the scene to play out. Sometimes killing it with a lamp is a great ending to a climatic battle, sometimes it's not. That's really something that should be decided on a fight-by-fight basis. Not every battle should be able to be won by the party fool tossing his lucky coin at it. A low-HP vampire choking to death on the fool's lucky silver coin may be a great finish. A low-hp dragon getting hit for 1 damage by a coin to finish them off....eh I just don't see it as quite as climatic.

 

[S'mon]

Look at it this way: Suppose the party is fighting a dragon, and the barbarian rolls a critical, and does a huge amount of damage to the beast. He describes how he leaps from a nearby rock and plunges the sword down into the neck of the beast.... blood is spraying everywhere.... but statistically the dragon still has 1 hp left.

The next turn, someone throws a rock at the dragon it hits and deals 1 damage, thus slaying the dragon.

Why not have the dragon die from the attack the barbarian did? It's an epic moment, and from a story telling point of view, that is when the dragon should have died in my opinion. The remaining 1 hp is irrelevant. I think a DM should give his players their well earned victory, and occasionally fudge the numbers a little.

Different strokes - I LOVE telling my players "Sorry, it has 1 hp left!" and they all lean
forward in delicious anticipation of the final kill.

 

[Sunseeker]

Different strokes - I LOVE telling my players "Sorry, it has 1 hp left!" and they all lean
forward in delicious anticipation of the final kill.

It's one reason not to tell people the HP of a monster, which is one reason I often don't go with by-the-book HP. (+/-10% is enough to throw people off)

 

[S'mon]

I believe in non-fudging rolls. I lost one group, because some players were expecting me to fudge. In my other group I was actually told not to fudge rolls. So it is a matter of preference and you should maybe just talk with your players how they want to play.

I've encountered a very small number of players who believe the GM should fudge - in
favour of their PCs, only. GMs who believe it's ok to fudge are still a minority, but a much
larger minority (sometimes encouraged by rulebook advice). I've encountered lots of players who seriously hate fudging and are desperate for the GM not to fudge - I once took over from a fudgist GM and there were tears of joy in the players'
eyes after the first session Total Party Kill. Finally, their choices actually meant something!

 

[Maxperson]

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?

Yes. I've done it. Never for my sake, though. I will add hit points if the fight would be more enjoyable to the players to go an extra round and there's no chance of death to a PC. It's very rare for me to be in that situation, though. Somewhat more common, but still rare, I misjudge an encounter and the party will TPK over my mistake if I don't lower the hit points and make it a fair fight.

 

[jrowland]

*The context is DM-chosen. I freely admit this. However, the fact that it is DM-chosen is irrelevant. Either the context is accessible in some manner to me, through the lens of the character I play, thus allowing me to acquire information and make an informed choice, which will be good or bad based on all of the information including some I could not access even in principle; or the context is not accessible to me, in this case because the context can be rewritten not only without my awareness but specifically so that I won't be aware of it, in which case my choices are fundamentally invalid from the get-go, even if they lead to the goals I sought.

It's Schroedinger's cat. pull the trigger all you want, and scream to the heaven's the cat is dead, but unless you open the box, you won't know. Only the DM knows what's in the box. Take that away from DMs, then you relegate DMs from Dungeon Master to Referee.

That is the relevant distinction. Do you want a master storyweaver to adjust, craft, and lay out the antogonists to your protagonist? Or do you want a referee to adjudicate the antogonists actions and walk away.

Be careful what you ask for: It's my experience that DM burn-out is one of two forms: writers block for the DM and sheer boredom for the referees. The latter is harder to correct.