Narrating Hit Points - no actual "damage"

[Celebrim]

It is pretty much the official definition since 1ed.
As we can read in ADnD phb:

Each character has a varying number of hit points,' just as monsters do. These hit points represent how much damage (actual or potential) the character can withstand before being killed. A certain amount of these hit points represent the actual physical punishment which can be sustained. The remainder, a significant portion of hit points at higher levels, stands for skill, luck, and/or magical factors. A typical man-at-arms can take about 5 hit points of damage before being Killed. Let us suppose that a 10th level fighter has 55 hit points, plus a bonus of 30 hit points for his constitution, for a total of 85 hit points. This IS the equivalent of about 18 hit dice for creatures, about what it would take to kill four huge warhorses. It is ridiculous to assume that even a fantastic flghter can take that much punishment.The some holds true to a lesser extent for clerics, thieves, and the other classes. Thus, the majority of hit points are symbolic of combat skill, luck (bestowed by supernatural powers), and magical forces.

- bolded part added

I always find it interesting that people can read that passage and come to conclusions that are exactly the opposite of what is stated in the text.

The bolded part explicitly states that a certain amount of hit points represents damage the character is capable of sustaining. The part you don't quote makes it clear that every hit normally depletes a combination of both the physical and non-physical proportion of a character's hit points, and therefore always produces some sort of nick, cut or bruise as well as depleting the character's luck, provenance, destiny, prowess and stamina (or whatever the non-physical points are made of).

 

[MechaTarrasque]

I tend to go with 100-75% of hps: the hit hits, but adrenalin takes over and no effect or only minor outward damage (the PC will feel it after the fight is over, but not during the fight), from 75-50%: bruises, small cuts, maybe an inspiration point if the PC wipes some blood of his/her face on his/her finger and looks at it, gets mad, and attacks again, 50-25%: at this point the pro wrestling commentator would be saying something to the effect of "he should give it up and live to fight another day" or "he is shortening his career", while the face wrestler is still fighting hard (or the heel is running for the hills knowing the title can't be lost on a count out), and 25-0: major blood flow or burns all over the body.

The adrenalin things is an important consideration. If you have ever had surgery, you know the day after everything feels good, because you are still doped up on pain killers (and the day after that, when the pain killers wear off, then you feel terrible). I figure in combat healing is mostly like adrenalin/pain killers--it covers the pain, and out of combat healing is more like fixing things that got broken. I admit this largely works because D&D has never been big into "the fighter took a sword swipe to the hand and now he can't hold his sword in that hand anymore."

 

[Doc_Klueless]

I describe HP loss as a combination of energy loss (exhaustion (but not the Exhaustion condition), bumps & bruises, etc.). There is some minor wounding going on (scrapes and such) to accommodate the poison/necro/etc. damage. It's only when the HP dip below 10 that blows really start to land solid. But, in reality, it's all just narrative fiction as characters are up and completely functional until they hit 0 HP per the rules.

(Part of the problem, I think, is the term "To Hit" roll. It's not really that if we take HP as defined in the PHB of every edition and what is described as happening when we roll "To Hit" by the game system against the AC which is parries, positioning, dodging and causing exhaustion. The best description of the roll is the "to attack" roll, but even that doesn't quite meet the fiction presented by the PHB.

In addition, calling it a Damage Roll also doesn't quite fit the fiction being presented.

However, I can't think of terminology that fits that would still be as evocative.)

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

Spitballing...
CON bonus per level (min. 1 per level even with negative Con) = actual ‘meat’
Narrate any Attack that deals that amount of damage or more as a wound
Ask players to announce when they are within their Level 1 HP range as being “Ok, I’m bloodied”
You just need a couple of numbers for each PC on a post it to help with your narration, to distinguish grazes and glancing blows or wearying shoves away with your shield from actual cuts.
Any damage they take once inside their Level 1 number can be narrated as a cut (you’re so tired now that the goblin manages to get past your weary guard and cuts you deeply in the thigh)
As they are the heroes, feel free to describe their hits that they land on the monsters of whatever damage in any way you like to make them feel heroic.

Obv, at low levels they will be getting ‘cut’ more frequently.

Thinking as I type, mind you.

Let’s example it.

Fighter 16 CON:
L1 Total HP 13. Meat 3. Bloodied at 13.
L2 Total HP 22. Meat 6. Bloodied at 13.
L3 Total HP 31. Meat 9. Bloodied at 13.
L4 Total HP 40. Meat 12. Bloodied at 13.
L5 Total HP 49. Meat 15. Bloodied at 13.

At Level 1, they’ll be effectively bloodied on the first hit they take. Good! Give them the fear! They ARE squishy! That goblin dagger really hurt! And if the damage roll was 3 or more, it was a cut, too. Fairly quickly they’ll arrive at L3, where now it takes 9 damage to be a cut or wound, and they have to have taken 18 before they’re even bloody.

Might help with drama purposes - I think I’ll try it next time.

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

For those with +0 CON it’s a bit harsh so you could add their Level + Total CON bonuses to make up the ‘meat’/wound narration.

 

[Celebrim]

Hit points support two of the three most common pillars of gameplay very well.

First, they support 'challenge' or 'gamist' gameplay because they offer very predictable math. You can make estimates of how much damage per round a given party can on average inflict on a given monster based on their assumed capabilities and the monsters defenses. You can make estimates of how much damage the monster can inflict on a PC per round based on the PC's defenses. You can use these numbers to produce well balanced somewhat predictable encounters that support tactical play. A relatively large amount of hit points relative to amount of damage produced in a round mitigates against luck. The fact that the loss of some hit points doesn't alter the math on subsequent rounds makes the whole system more predictable.

Secondly, they support 'thespian' or 'narrative' goals in play because they don't impose a description on the player. Even better, the very fact that they are a predictable buffer against death means that they tend to act as a sort of plot protection for the character, allowing the character to persist through multiple trials and a long story arc in a mostly predictable manner especially if the game is 'fair' or the GM is deliberately prioritizing narrative over challenge. If you are going for verisimilitude to fantasy stories, the ability to narrate abstract hit point loss in a variety of concrete ways depending on scale or situation allows the GM wide latitude to simulate a lot of fantasy and action adventure type stories where as a trope the protagonist receives minor injuries but is rarely actually handicapped by this and is frequently restored to health with the flip of a page or a wave of a magical hand. Yet on the other hand, gritty injuries can be narrated when the character receives sufficiently high damage to be threatened by death by the system.

Compared to almost every other system that has ever been invented - wound tracks and wound as condition systems are two that come to mind - hit points just flat out outperform those systems in terms of supporting 'challenge' and 'narrative'. I say this not as theory crafting, but after having actually played such systems and experienced the upsides and downsides. And one big piece of evidence that this observation is true or at least widely held is that none of the alternative systems have ever really caught on in the world of video games, which ubiquitously use 'hit points' across a wide variety of video game genera's including virtually all RPGs. If hit points didn't out perform other systems, some adventurous designer would have utilized some other system. In those rare cases where they have done so (Dwarf Fortress and War Thunder come to mind), I strongly encourage you to compare the sort of gameplay with non-hit point systems to what you've come to expect from hit points.

Where hit points break down is supporting simulation in an RPG. Hit points will never give you any sort of sense of what it is actually like to be injured and in pain, and help you explore that and play that out in the game. While you can narrate hit point loss in a way that doesn't break suspension of disbelief, you can never from the mechanics learn about injury and pain because hit points just aren't interested in those things and don't model them in any way.

I suggest that there is a very good reason for that. Injury and pain aren't particularly fun. Not only do most narratives only pay lip service to injury and pain only to show that the protagonists are touch and heroic, but being injured and acting it out isn't particular fun. In fact, real injuries are debilitating and crippling and tend to sideline you so that you are only an observer and not participant in the action. Not only does this work against the other two aesthetics that are otherwise playing together fairly nicely, it works against the game as a whole by removing agency from the player. Finally, no one playing the game is completely unacquainted with pain. They've either been injured themselves or they've been sufficiently hurt to imagine what being in crippling pain or having a crippling injury is like. We've all probably been 'gimped' at some point or experienced physical agony to some degree. Even if we simulated these things, it's not clear that the game would be offering to teach us by way of simulation anything we couldn't really learn by other means. There might be some educational merit to RPing out the horrors of combat, but you wouldn't do it over and over.

So, in short, hit points are the worst system in gaming until you compare it to everything else.

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

Bravo!

 

[The Crimson Binome]

In addition, calling it a Damage Roll also doesn't quite fit the fiction being presented.

Calling it a damage roll fits the fiction of it being physical damage to your structural meat body, which also explains why all of the factors that affect the damage (strength, size, flaming, poison, etc) are things that would increase or reduce the amount of trauma inflicted.

If not for the ludicrously inflated HP values, and the default natural healing rate, everything would make perfect sense.

 

[Doc_Klueless]

Correct, which is why I said the term "damage" don't quite fit the fiction being presented [by the game]. For it to fit the fiction of it being of it being just physical damage, how HP are presented and defined by the PHB would also have to be restructured. In which case, it's no longer the fiction as presented currently by D&D.

The PHB presents it as such:

HP: Luck, Stamina, Possible Meat Points, Blessings of the Gods, etc.
Damage: Reduction of Luck, Stamina, Possible Meat Points, Blessings of the Gods, etc.

So it's more of a Reduction Roll instead of a Damage Roll. Which was the point I was trying to make and why I think there is so much sway in how people present HP and Damage to them.

This is not a criticism of D&D. I think of it as a pro, not a con.

 

[hbarsquared]

I don't think redefining portions of hit points as representing something different, narratively, quite solves the (perceived, self-inflicted!) problem.

The idea of "healing back to full" after a long rest clashes with the idea of hp representing anything more than luck, reserves, bumps and scrapes. This is the crux.