I was thinking the other day (dangerous I know) about the relativity of our characters mods to each other. this thought mainly occurred to me when my character got knocked out for the second time in our campaign, and nobody else in the party did. now my character is a brawler with a con of 12. I know its not high, but it is above average and I thought I could compensate by having a high AC.
Anyway, my point is that I had the lowest con in my party. other members all had a minimum of 14, even our arcanist and so the enemies we faced had been adjusted to that. if the whole party has a high con, the GM would ajust accordingly. so it got me wondering. why invest in con then? or at least, why should everyone invest in con?
its kinda like the saying, if everyone is special than no one is. and if everyone has a high con, str, int etc. than no one does. does anyone else feel this way?
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Anyway, my point is that I had the lowest con in my party. other members all had a minimum of 14, even our arcanist and so the enemies we faced had been adjusted to that. if the whole party has a high con, the GM would ajust accordingly.
GM difficulty adjustment is rarely that precise. They're not going to say, "OK, all the characters have Constitution 2 higher than the average PC, which means they have about 12% more hit points than average, so I'll need to increase monster DPR by the same amount to compensate. I'll give this ogre an extra +2 damage per hit."
Higher Con usually means lower Dex or whatever, so the GM shouldn't really need to adjust at all.
Not to mention that 12-14 con is rarely more than 10 hit points at a level where monsters can do far more in a single hit.
I tend to view 12 as a minimum con for PCs, and try to get a bit more if I can for melee-heavy types (through items if nothing else).
Favored class bonus usually goes to HP too.
I'm Currently running a game with a few players who all but one have Con over 14. The one with the lowest is the groups Sorcerer. (who also has no armor.)
From what I've seen so far Having a high Con only helps in encounters if you expect to be hit. So I make no adjustments beyond what the party CR is and meeting that. If I change it too much People will die instantly due to a unexpected roll.
This happened in a previous game one I was playing where the GM had made the enemies have a higher hit and damage to counter my character who had a very high AC and hitpoints. But because of this when the other players got hit they'd almost die or be knocked down.