There is a large part of me questioning the wisdom of me commenting on a SorcererVictor thread, but I have never considered myself particularly wise, so I will go ahead and do so.
#1: What is HP Bloat?.
To even begin to have this discussion we need to define what HP Bloat is. Without having a definition of HP Bloat, we have no metric to determine whether or not HP is indeed Bloated in BG 3. In an attempt to speed the discussion along, I offer 2 potential definitions for HP bloat:
1. When the HP of enemies is different from that defined in the D&D Rulebook. 2. When the HP of an enemy is sufficiently high relative to the damage output of the party such that the fight becomes tedious.
Obviously, the second definition requires a definition for sufficiently high, which we can quibble about as well. I will throw 2 potential definitions of that at you, from an argument I have had with someone else over this topic, over in another thread.
1. If the monster's Hitpoints are double the stated value within the Monster Manual (MM). 2. If each combatant is able to act more than 4 times within a single fight.
If you do not like either of these definitions, feel free to insert your own and we can continue from there. Right now my discussion will take place assuming that one of these has been used.
#2: Why the deviation from the MM Argument is poor?. The MM itself is a guideline, it isn't supposed to be taken verbatim. Even the people who wrote it will tell you, if your campaign needs a boss goblin, add a boss goblin with slightly higher stats. Furthermore, most of the Goblins within the game technically have lower stats than they potentially could in the MM. The MM allows for a 12 HP 15 AC Goblin, the average Goblin in the EA has ~11.75 HP and lower than 15 AC, if you average the HP across all goblins within the EA. If you distributed HP equally among all of the goblins, they would fit within the 2d6 HP range.
With that being said, if you are unwilling to accept any deviation at all from the monster manual, then I feel I am wasting my time argument with you and so I will bow out at this point here. Please do tell me if I should do so.
#3: The High HP Relative to Damage Argument. If this is the route you want to take, then to some extent I am in the same boat as you. If a fight takes too long and combat feels non lethal, I also get very bored. My favorite example of HP bloat would be this fight here.
If this ooze is not bloated, I don't know what is.
So, if we go with the 2 potential definitions above, what do we find? Well, the first definition is not very good, because what matters is not the absolute HP of the enemy, but how long it takes to kill them. If an enemy had a base HP of 10,000, but a player did 100,000 damage with every hit, it would not matter that it had 10,000 HP, because it would still be dying in a single hit. This means that this is not a very good definition to use. If we go with the second definition, which does take that into account, you will find that almost every single fight in the EA can be resolved within the definition, unless you deliberately pull more enemies into a fight than is required for the fight to be completed (for example, fighting the entire goblin camp at once rather than just 1 group at a time). In my opinion, if you go with this definition, the HP within the game is not bloated at all, because the time to kill is very short. Most enemies within the game will die in either 1 or 2 hits if you fight them at their intended level and combat has a high degree of lethality to it.
Now, if there was actually bloat in the game, I would be in agreement but I strongly suspect that the people who are experiencing "HP Bloat" are either people who fall into that first definition there and just want to complain about any deviation at all, or they are people who are going into fights they are not ready for due to being under leveled, or they are not taking advantage of many of the character's features available to them which can dramatically shorten fights. Perhaps a lower difficulty would make them happy?
