Comment on “Stand Back - I'm Going to Try Science”

If we follow through your final paragraph to its conclusion, then over a period of generations the humanoid population has a higher and higher percentage of high-HP individuals.

There's nothing wrong with that. It just is.

It makes me think of quantifying the difference between primitive and advanced sub-species with the subrange (within the die range) that their HP can have. Perhaps the Cro-Magnon orc has 1-3 HP and his more-evolved Neanderthal cousin has 4-6 and the modern one has 7-8.

Maybe I'm taking "evolution" a bit too literally?

Having read the last two days' posts and comments, I'm inclined to simply split NPC HP into two camps: those with cushy lives and those without. Cushy-lifers get the average of the bottom half of their species HD; hard-lifers get the average of the top half. For instance, since the orc HD is 1d8, an orc tailor gets (1+4)/2 HP, while an orc soldier gets (5+8)/2 HP. Both quantities are before assigning HP for mass, which I use (in my own way.)

(There is no dice roll here. Frankly, I've been leaning that way for a while. Why not just assign fixed HPs to monster types, e.g. "orcs get 3 or 7 HP per HD"? If the players take note through trial and error, then they've simply learned how to judge that type of opponent, no?)

I would also assume that unless the DM chooses otherwise, enemies encountered are at full HP. So a band of orc raiders would normally all be at full HP (which would be the fixed value of 7 plus whatever for their mass - probably also all about the same, if you ask me.)

Of course the numbers can change, especially if one throws dicing for monster HP out the window.

I hope none of this is off-topic.