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General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Would you change a monster's hit points mid-fight?
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<blockquote data-quote="Pibby" data-source="post: 6598277" data-attributes="member: 6789849"><p>There was only one time I actually raised a creature's HP during battle (the original AP said to half it for a party of their APL), and that was when the Assassin in the party was smart enough to always get in his surprise round AND lucky enough to be first on the initiative. It turned out that mattered very little. The next encounter was the final battle and the druid more or less one shotted the BBEG. That AP was one of the most memorable ones I ran for D&D Encounters.</p><p></p><p>In all honestly, the "randomness", as far as how uncontrollably swingy the encounters are, is mitigated by the time PCs reach tier 2. Recently I took part in a tier 2 module in Expeditions. It was pretty tough. Our party rolled really badly, made some dumb decisions, and above all that our DM "somehow" got a bunch of crits on our party (and I know he doesn't lie about crits or misses because my dice are as swingy as his whenever I DM with open die rolls). But we still beat the module despite all the setbacks due to great forethought and intelligent battlefield strategies.</p><p></p><p>So with this real world experience to back up my point, I see no reason to change a monster's HP mid battle because TPK or total dominance by the party, at least for tier 2 or higher parties, is determined less by the dice and more by the players themselves. If problem of randomness of dice is felt a lot in tier 1 adventures, that's because the game actually was designed to be that way on purpose for tier 1. Even then I regret the decision and advise against changing monster HP in game, because that's the same as fudging dice. As a DM I feel that altering reality behind a DM screen is doing a disservice for the players. From previous experiences, I've learned that it's more fun to let RNGesus take the wheel in tier 1 games.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Pibby, post: 6598277, member: 6789849"] There was only one time I actually raised a creature's HP during battle (the original AP said to half it for a party of their APL), and that was when the Assassin in the party was smart enough to always get in his surprise round AND lucky enough to be first on the initiative. It turned out that mattered very little. The next encounter was the final battle and the druid more or less one shotted the BBEG. That AP was one of the most memorable ones I ran for D&D Encounters. In all honestly, the "randomness", as far as how uncontrollably swingy the encounters are, is mitigated by the time PCs reach tier 2. Recently I took part in a tier 2 module in Expeditions. It was pretty tough. Our party rolled really badly, made some dumb decisions, and above all that our DM "somehow" got a bunch of crits on our party (and I know he doesn't lie about crits or misses because my dice are as swingy as his whenever I DM with open die rolls). But we still beat the module despite all the setbacks due to great forethought and intelligent battlefield strategies. So with this real world experience to back up my point, I see no reason to change a monster's HP mid battle because TPK or total dominance by the party, at least for tier 2 or higher parties, is determined less by the dice and more by the players themselves. If problem of randomness of dice is felt a lot in tier 1 adventures, that's because the game actually was designed to be that way on purpose for tier 1. Even then I regret the decision and advise against changing monster HP in game, because that's the same as fudging dice. As a DM I feel that altering reality behind a DM screen is doing a disservice for the players. From previous experiences, I've learned that it's more fun to let RNGesus take the wheel in tier 1 games. [/QUOTE]
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Would you change a monster's hit points mid-fight?
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