After session 2, I discussed with my players my use of static damage for creatures. They asked if that was how 5e did damage. I explained that I opted to use static damage for the first level or two as a way to aid survivability for the PCs. While I don't mind if PCs die to their own poor choices, I don't want a TPK due to variance.
As an example a goblin does 1d6+2 damage on a hit with a Scimitar. Using static damage that is 5 damage on a hit. If the damage were rolled it would be 3-8 damage on a hit. At first level the PCs have about 13 HP, so they are able to take 3 hits with static damage. With rolled damage they could take 2-5 hits.
I read a lot of articles and forum posts about this before making the decision to use static damage in my campaign. After the discussion with my players, I will move to rolled damage starting in session 3. They felt that it was easier to meta-game the static damage, and that the rolled damage would prevent that type of meta-gaming, in addition to bring more suspense to combat.
