Pathfinder 1E Pathfinder Monster Hit Points

[Beginning of the End]

Anyone know of some place I can read about the design decision in Pathfinder to significantly crank up the hit point totals for monsters? (Particularly those with a challenge rating of 10 or higher, although I'm seeing a few at lower CRs that have also been drastically increased.)

I'm just interested in seeing the deeper thought process if it's been shared anywhere, but my googling isn't turning anything up.

 

[jasin]

I don't have a source, but it seems reasonable to assume that the increase in hit points is intended to keep pace with the increase in the PCs' damage output.

 

[Papa-DRB]

In the Bestiary, Appendix 1 talks about this. It gives tables on how to build a monster for various CRs, etc.

Here is a link to the information online at Paizo:

Monster Creation

-- david
Papa.DRB

Anyone know of some place I can read about the design decision in Pathfinder to significantly crank up the hit point totals for monsters? (Particularly those with a challenge rating of 10 or higher, although I'm seeing a few at lower CRs that have also been drastically increased.)

I'm just interested in seeing the deeper thought process if it's been shared anywhere, but my googling isn't turning anything up.

 

[Walking Dad]

Have they done it?

I know they changed some racial HD and undead can now add cha mod to HP, but is this a general change to more HP?

 

[Beginning of the End]

Have they done it?

I know they changed some racial HD and undead can now add cha mod to HP, but is this a general change to more HP?

Well, for example, if you ignore the odd-ball tarrasque and look at CR 20 creatures from the original 3.5 MM you have a pit fiend (290 hp) and a balor (225 hp). Pathfinder, OTOH, says that CR 20 creatures should be aiming for 370 hp.

In general, it looks like the target numbers for Pathfinder hp totals are pretty close to the average values from the original MM for CR 1 thru CR 10. But after CR 10, the Pathfinder target numbers suddenly skew much, much higher than the average values from the original MM.

(Several creatures below CR 10 in Pathfinder also have their hit point totals increased. For example, the gynosphinx shoots up from 52 hp to 102 hp with no shift in its CR. Although others have slight decreases instead.)

What I'm curious to learn is whether:

(a) This was due to a shift in PC damage-dealing in high-level Pathfinder; or

(b) If this was due to a late-3.5 shift in understanding how higher CR opponents should be designed.

The difference is significant for me, because I frequently use Pathfinder material in my 3.5 campaign. At lower levels I haven't had any problems just using the material and not even worrying about conversion.

So, if it's just a better understanding of what high CR monsters need to be challenging to high level PCs, then I should be fine. If it's an adjustment to make the monsters tougher because Pathfinder PCs are tougher, however, then I've got a problem and will need to back-convert when using higher level Pathfinder material.

 

[billd91]

It was a bit of both, I'd say. They declared that they set out to revise the monsters to better fit the CR assigned to them in 3.5. But did it with use in PF play in mind. Characteristics of the monsters could change a bit, but the CR would be considered fixed in place.

They did that so they could be as backward compatible as possible - in the sense that if you use PF PCs with an older module, you can plop the PF monster in the module in place of the 3.5 one without making any further changes. The CRs would be the same as the expectations in the original mod, but they'd now be more appropriate for their CR and for the PF characters.

I think you can see the push to make monster powers fit the CR a bit better in the cockatrice and basilisk, both of which turn a character to stone more slowly or with an easier remedy than the spell stone to flesh (the iconic medusa's petrifaction power is functionally unchanged) which would be harder to get for parties squaring off against CR 3 and 5 creatures. They apparently also felt, and I agree, that many of the creatures at higher CR levels were somewhat weak in the hit point department given what characters can dish out at them. The CR 7 medusa more than doubles in hit points with 2 additional HD and more Con from a weak 33 to 76. That may seem like a lot, but she's still pretty easy to hit. Just about everybody who attacks her will be damaging her, fighter-types more than once/round.

From the playtest discussions and the Bestiary guidelines, they spent a fair amount of time with the idea of trading off hit points and armor class. The medusa, compared to average CR 7 creatures, is actually low on both counts, significantly for AC. The danger of her offense probably makes that a worthwhile tradeoff.

 

[Scurvy_Platypus]

In my opinion, bumping monsters HP up because you've powered up clases is stupid. Period.

Hit points, AC, DR... these are things that increase the length of time in combat; damage output etc lowers combat time.

This means that classes _shouldn't_ have gotten a power bump in the first place. If there's _other_ reasons for bumping HP, that's something else to be dealt with. But bumping HP because you also bumped classes? No, that's flawed design from my perspective. Not unless you're deliberately trying to ensure a minimum amount of grind/time spent in combat and the _unaltered_ classes were already blowing past that.

 

[ThatGuyThere]

Not unless you're deliberately trying to ensure a minimum amount of grind/time spent in combat and the _unaltered_ classes were already blowing past that.

This is my suspicion.

I suspect - pretty strongly - that the Pathfinder values, if used with "unenhanced" characters from 3.5, would still be significantly more accurate. It was not unknown that, in 3.5 games I ran with "optimized" characters, CR 15+ creatures were taken down in one to two combat rounds. Upping the HP of such creatures is (among the) best "absolute" protections to make sure they get to do, say, "three things" before they die.

So, to me / my experience, the "tougher" Pathfinder monsters are actually based on years of play experience with what a CR 20 encounter "should" be to drain a level 20 party of 20% of their resources.

Note that I understand your argument - "The Pathfinder classes are stronger, and the monsters are stronger, and that cancels each other out". But I don't find it true. The Pathfinder classes that <are> noticably stronger were under-perfoming in the 3.5 rules; the Pathfinder changes bring them up to speed; a Lvl 20 <class A> and a Lvl 20 <class B> are now both much more likely to contribute to each encounter - allowing, if not requiring, a more accurate CR system - and part of making that system more accurate was allowing the high-mid to very-high level monsters more (sometimes a fair bit more) survivability.

 

[Scurvy_Platypus]

I suspect - pretty strongly - that the Pathfinder values, if used with "unenhanced" characters from 3.5, would still be significantly more accurate. It was not unknown that, in 3.5 games I ran with "optimized" characters, CR 15+ creatures were taken down in one to two combat rounds. Upping the HP of such creatures is (among the) best "absolute" protections to make sure they get to do, say, "three things" before they die.

So, to me / my experience, the "tougher" Pathfinder monsters are actually based on years of play experience with what a CR 20 encounter "should" be to drain a level 20 party of 20% of their resources.

Hmmmm.

So the problem I see is that this then means that Pathfinder has been designed with the _explicit_ expectation that everyone is a character optimizer.

Because if they're not, you've just severely increased the amount of time that non-optimizers are going to be spending in combat, as well as potentially increased the chance that non-optimizers are going to have their character brutally butchered.

I'm not saying that's Pathfinder's design. I'm not speculating how many people that play Pathfinder are optimizers. All I'm saying is that if you design your game to that portion, you've automatically excluded everyone else.

I dunno. I just sorta wind up with more questions the more I think about it. *shrug*

 

[ThatGuyThere]

So the problem I see is that this then means that Pathfinder has been designed with the _explicit_ expectation that everyone is a character optimizer.

50%, yes.

But, they also eliminated or improved the bottom 20% of "core" Feats, getting rid of some trap options (Toughness and Skill Focus, I'm lookin' at you). They improved the classes that are most affected by poor optimization choices, so that they're "pretty good" out of the box.

Also, in Paizo's defense, 10+ years into a game system, I'm not sure "is aware of the balance of choices" is an unreasonable expectation of your audience. I would certainly have to look pretty hard to find a gamer who can't discern between "good choices" and "bad choices" pretty quickly - and decide if a "bad choice" is worth in for flavour reasons.

And regarding "new" players -

First, Paizo hasn't yet released Pathfinder Basic, so we don't know how they'll get new players up to speed on system mastery; Pathfinder, the core game, is not, I would say, an "introductory" game - not that it's particulary hard to learn "the basics", but there's a whole lot of spells, rules, feats, and pages to that book...

And second, most (not all) new players are coming into established groups, that can warn them about "bad" options (even if the new player isn't sure why they're bad yet). If the group is entirely new, well, presumably they're starting at first level, where the "bad guy improvements" havn't started (or at least, aren't as in-depth).

Do most 3.5 groups find a Balor a CR 20 encounter? Is a Marilith really CR 17? I'm saying those numbers are <more accurate> in Pathfinder - and it seems that the counterargument is, "Drat, that means I'm going to need to be more optimized!"