Describing Non-Physical Hitpoint Loss?

[The Crimson Binome]

Which leaves me in the aforementioned pickle. How should we distinguish between hits and misses in combat descriptions, in a system in which many "hits" are in fact misses?

The easiest method, although it's not my favorite, is to assume that wounds are proportional. Instead of assuming that the top 90% of your HP are metaphysical and the bottom 10% are structural, assume that every hit takes a proportional amount of both - a hit for 10 damage against someone with 100hp is identical to a hit for 1 damage against someone with 10hp - and you should have a good idea of how to describe that. Ignore the possibility that a mechanical-hit could actually be a narrative-miss, because it causes far more problems than it solves.

 

[Calion]

The easiest method, although it's not my favorite

Well…what's your favorite?

 

[MNblockhead]

I talk about damage and hit points, here, and have some examples of how I describe combat, here.

Links no longer work. Do these resources still exist anywhere other than, perhaps, the Wayback Machine?

 

[MNblockhead]

Dorks of Yore have a really good series of videos on the science of hit points that I found very helpful as a Dungeon Master. They break up the series into:

Real Life Hit Points

Hit Points and the Body

Hit Points and the Mind

Hit Points and Skill

For me, loss of hit points, involve a mix of physical injury, physical and mental exhaustion, and the wearing and breaking down of weapons and armor. Resting gains back hit points not only because you are resting your body and mind, but also performing maintenance on your armor and weapons.

So, as the fight progresses, I might comment that the player is hit and the weapon cuts into the armor but doesn't cut into the character's flesh. The character blocks the blow but is heavily jarred, and as the hit points drop, the descriptions become more about the physical and mental stress.

When discussing mental stress, however, I focus on exhaustion. I don't want to tell players how their character feels. The character feels themselves losing strength. They are in great pain. But whether they are frightened, for example, that is up to them to role-play, unless they fail a saving throw against a spell or effect that specifically inflicts the frightened condition.

 

[Calion]

Links no longer work. Do these resources still exist anywhere other than, perhaps, the Wayback Machine?

I just used the Wayback Machine.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Well…what's your favorite?

I'm not sure if it has a common name, but I refer to it as absolute damage capacity, because it assumes that a hit point of damage represents a consistent value. If someone with 10hp goes down from a single wound, however you want to describe it, then someone with 100hp could stay up until they'd suffered ten wounds of similar severity. If a normal person passes out and might die when you shoot them in the shoulder, then a hero can keep going through nine such shots before dropping from the tenth.

The down side is that you have to calibrate the scale on your own, so either a normal person is just a chump who dies from a stubbed toe, or a hero is clearly supernatural in their ability to keep going. (Personally, I see nothing wrong with the fighter being Beowulf by the time the Wizard can teleport and the Cleric can raise the dead.)

The up sides are that you can easily describe any injury, it's easier for the players to understand what's going on by the way you describe the hit, and it requires a consistent amount of mojo to fix a given wound.

 

[Calion]

Speaking of external resources, "You're (Probably) Doing It Wrong" is probably the best description of how hit points actually "work" in D&D that I've ever seen. But it still doesn't explain how to actually run them in play.

 

[Caliban]

For the most part I don't worry about it. "They take 15 points of damage. Not bloody yet." Not every attack has to be described in detail.

But if I feel like being dramatic, anything above half health is no visible damage, but I might say the creature (or character) is looking scuffed, bruised or winded, or describe a blow as glancing off their armor and knocking them back a step, or barely being deflected or sidestepped and leaving them out of position for a follow up attack.

Below half hit points is when you break the skin and cause visible cuts and blood loss (or whatever the equivalent is for the monster).

 

[discosoc]

I run the game with certain assumptions, but the main one is that during combat you are constantly look for openings to exploit, even if the game mechanics say you're only making a single attack. The stuff that actually gets rolled for simply represent the most important attacks your character commits to. Otherwise, there's a constant duck-and-weave to combat not unlike two boxers who make several probing shots before going all in.

Next up is to understand that HP do not represent how much actual damage you can take, but instead represent your character's ability to turn otherwise fatal hits into glancing blows. I mean, let's face it: a single sword stab is generally enough to drop a man right there. At best, he might pose a risk while bleeding out, but he's more likely going to writhe around screaming in pain until someone sticks him with a spear moves on. But with D&D, your character can learn to roll with the hits or position himself at the last second to take it in a non-vital location, etc.. That ability/skill/luck/etc is what HP really is.

So how do you narrate it? It can vary a bit, but I generally like to identify a point where the damage is no longer superficial, meaning the next one or two hits could very well drop the character. Some DM's assign a static value, like 10 HP, and anything that goes below that is "real" damage. Others might do percentages of total HP. I personally set the value at roughly the amount of damage the biggest attack can deal, so if there's an Ogre that can hit for a steady 16 damage, then that's about where threshold is for that battle. If the Ogre hits a full health fighter (38 HP) with 16 points of damage, I know that the next such hit could be back news and can use that to better narrate the attack:

"The savage smashes you in the side with its great club -- you hear your shield splinter as it absorbs the blow, but you're not sure if you can take another such attack."

That's how I'd describe most actual combat hits that deal damage. If the Ogre just missed, narration is easier because I just describe how the beast wildly swings its great club into the table next to you, shattering it into pieces.

Anyway, it's also very easy to simply fall into the "the Ogre hits you for 16 damage, who's next?" mentality. But that's when HP makes the least sense.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Speaking of external resources, "You're (Probably) Doing It Wrong" is probably the best description of how hit points actually "work" in D&D that I've ever seen. But it still doesn't explain how to actually run them in play.

To summarize the article, Gary adapted a mechanic from wargames, because he didn't actually care about internal consistency or how the world worked, and he rationalized it by calling it plot armor.

Later, people actually started caring about consistency and how the world worked, at which point the game mechanics proved woefully insufficient. Reactions to this involve figuring out a new definition of Hit Points and/or extensive house ruling.