My party is, well, a little over the top. But, I'm happy to let the players play what they want. Thing is, with a table full of humanoid typhoons, keeping opponents alive for long enough to really call many things a challenge. Long story short, I'm looking for opinions a plan to increase monster HP perhaps up to the maximum that a given creature would have if it rolled the top value for its hit dice. Obviously makes large fights have a better chance of lasting, but would this be a drastic enough change to increase challenge ratings too?
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Because a creature with, say, 8d8 HD could conceivably have 64 HP, I wouldn't adjust the CR just because it's one of the lucky few to have max HP just like I don't give my players XP as if they're a higher or lower level just because a few of them roll well or poorly on their HP rolls.
I'm pretty fluid where HP totals are concerned for my NPCs though. I'll usually figure out what a monster can have for its maximum and then decide when to let it die based on either how the party is doing against it or how important the creature is to the plot without going over that total. A mook is going to nearly always have average or below average hit points while the Lynchpin BBEG is going to nearly always have maximum hit points and maybe even Delayed Death or Immunity to Cheese if it's getting completely punked by the PCs.
I'd think it'd depend on your party's composition and tactics. A crazy wizard that shuts the fight down through battlefield control or debuffing on the first round can do that just as effectively against full HP opponents as half HP opponents. A bunch of crazy ninjas and barbarians would have more trouble.
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My favorite tool for extending those fights that I felt needed more drama was in the World of Warcraft tabletop RPG rules. The template for "Elite" in that system was like a modification of "Advanced." Instead of a +4 on all stats and a +2 to natural armor, it modified as follows:
Quadruple HP
add Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, Great Fortitude.
I still sometimes do this for fights I find exciting. It doesn't increase offensive potecy at all, which I find useful. When you just increase ALL of a monster's stats, you run the risk of actually SHORTENING fights by making every round a HUGE damage fest.
To explain:
In one game where I got to be a PC, the GM had allowed 25 point buy and gave everyone an EXTRA 20,000 gp on top of starting wealth by level... everyone was out of control powerful. To compensate, the GM just started giving monsters extra class levels. By increasing firepower on both sides, we came to a mutually assured destruction scenario in almost every fight. The barbarian had such amazing weaponry and strength that he could probably 2-hit kill a boss, but he was only lvl 5, so the CR 9 boss could easily 2 hit kill him as well.
My character died in that game at lvl 5 because the cleric in a group of 6 evil kobolds happened to be lvl 9 with access to flamestrike.
SO I guess, in the end, mechanically I support the idea of a template that DOESN'T increase offense, and instead heavily increases defense. That way, your party is still encountering level-appropriate spells, save DCs, and attack/damage rolls, but you get a chance to use all your monster's cool abilities, strategies, and of course, BANTER!
the Trailblazer templates of Elite (double hit points and 1 hero point) or Boss (multiply hitpoints by number of PCs and 1 hero point per PC)
has always worked well for me, lets you beat up on them and have long epic fights, without overpowering the players. After a couple of games of using these though, I found you don't want to add Elite to anything 3 or more CRs higher than the party and making a Boss of a creature with a CR diffrence of above 2 or so can unbalance a fight as well.
I've always maxed my monsters HPs and never had a problem, so I don't think you need to adjust anything CR-wise if you do so as well, especially if your group is a bunch of cuisinarts.
Since PF parties tend to be pretty strong against challenging (APL + 1) encounters, as a GM I sometimes let the monster die when I feel like it. It might live a round or two longer, depending on the situation. I don't do this if the party is in true danger though.
Note: slapping on a bunch of extra hit points is a quick way to make poorly designed encounters really boring. It also makes suboptimal characters seem abysmal.
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If you guys are really into RAW, which I assume not since you don't mind them building "over the top" PCs, then stick with HP according the Bestiary.
But I'm a big voice for "fun play" trumping RAW.
And PCs without a real challenge ain't fun.
Killing the orc too quickly and winning the pie too easily ain't fun.
Start with giving all monsters max HP.
And Toughness for free.
A DM can make a legitimate adjustment to the Bestiary with those changes. You can also give your BBEGs and other main villains Improved Initiative for free.
Play that for a bit and then decide if you need to occassionally do more fudging to make the game better.
I already give everything in the games I run max HP. Less obnoxious dice rolling for me, longer fights for the players to enjoy. Win-win!