Creature hp(nublet help)

[chopsy the overlord]

Hey I'm sorta new to the whole pathfinder thing and I,m looking to run a game soonish. Im running a premade module(crypt of the everflame) and are setting things up as I go. I noticed on the first encounter the monsters hp is 6 with (1d10+1) does that mean i'm suppose to roll to determine how much in total it'll have or would it just be 6? Any help is greatly appreciated !

[Tempestorm]

The monster, as written, has 6 hp. The 1d10+1 would be the maximum. Pathfinder uses average hit points for its npc's. So 1d10 becomes 5.5, round down to 5 plus 1 (mos likely from a constitution score of 12-13) for a total of 6.

You could increase it to 11, the creatures maximum, but keep in mind that this is a power increase.

[chopsy the overlord]

ah I think I understand this means that he cant be over 11 hp or hell explode or something funny like that?

[Zhayne]

I'm not aware of a way for any creature or character to have more HP than its normal maximum. Typically, any such effect gives them temporary HP instead.

[Orfamay Quest]

chopsy the overlord wrote:

ah I think I understand this means that he cant be over 11 hp or hell explode or something funny like that?

No, it's just that that particular monster isn't that tough, so he wouldn't have that many hit points. If for some reason he worked out in the gym and gained four class levels in Badass and six constitution points, he'd get more hit dice and more bonus hit points per die.

The usual measure of monster toughness is hit dice -- more hit dice means more hit points means more staying power. Back in The Day (uphill both ways, et cetera) you rolled 8-sided dice for every monster's hit points. This was lame for two reasons: first, it was a lot of dice and a lot of work for the DM. Second, sometimes you'd get really stupid results like a dragon with 10 hit points commanding an ogre with 40, or an orc king with half the hit points of his wife.

So Paizo simply publishes "average" hit points for each monster, along with the range from which that average is derived.

As a game master, you have three choices. First, you can use the exact hit point total listed, which saves you a lot of time rolling dice and doing math, but it makes the monsters carbon copies of each other. Second, you can roll the dice for each monster, which will make some unusually strong, some unusually weak, but they'll average out more or less correctly. Third, you can pick specific numbers -- "I think this monster should have 20 hit points" -- but this means that you're specifically making encounters harder or weaker the designers' intended.

This may or may not be a problem -- if your players are really new, you might want a way to scale down the challenge, and cutting two hit points off everything is an easy way to do it. Or maybe they're scary commando type who work as a perfectly coordinated team and the only way to to stop them is with kryptonite -- or with really powerful monsters with max hit points. They're your players and you know them best.

[shiiktan]

The "1d10+1" is just letting you know where the monster's 6 HP came from - in this case, an averaged d10 (5) plus 1.

In case of spells like Color Spray or Daze which affect monsters of X Hit Dice or lower, you would know theis guy only has 1HD (a d10).

And some GMs don't like all their monsters to be cookie-cutter copies, so they will actually roll the d10+1 to determine what HP the creature will have.

ALSO: nothing happens if you get healed past your max. And this guy's max is 6.

[chopsy the overlord]

Now everything makes sense :P Since this is my first real module ill stick to the book stuffs. Thanks guys! expect more questions from the overlord in the future!