Describing Non-Physical Hitpoint Loss?

[Scurvy_Platypus]

Part of the problem is, I don't see a whole lot of stuff that does Hit Point damage _except_ physical stuff.

Morale and so forth always seems to be described as a penalty to the dice roll, not as damage to hit points. It's an argument that's been going on for years. The system itself basically treats it as a strictly physical thing, even though they say it's an abstract measurement that includes other factors.

Part of the other problem I've run into when trying to deal with non-physical hit point loss is, "Nuh uh, that wouldn't bother my character."

People don't like to be told how their character is feeling/reacting to something. You can phrase it in terms of "other people would be..." or something like that, but telling someone how their character is reacting and then tagging them in the Hit Points on top of it... I've never had a group that responded to it well.

To be honest, it's only when I started poking around forums that I saw anyone acting like Hit Points were something other than physical damage. A long time ago someone said, "What, so a Cure Light Wounds is really just a pep-talk? I have to cast a spell to pep-talk you into feeling better?" I really couldn't argue that, as I agreed with it myself.

Of course the name doesn't help either... "Hit Points" sounds pretty descriptive.

Mongoose went with "Endurance" for their Lone Wolf game, and then went further in powering stuff using Endurance. So it makes it pretty clear that "Endurance" is a measure of more than just getting popped in the side of the head.

I'm not trying to start an old argument that's never going to be resolved, I'm just saying that part of the reason why #2 is so difficult and so few people have any concrete suggestions is because _most_ people out there don't actually _do_ #2. They use modifiers to abilities and dice roll penalties instead.

Sorry I haven't been more helpful.

 

[Nadaka]

As the bullet whines past, you feel a sting on your cheek. A thin red line opens up and a single drop of blood flows out.

in 3e/d20 modern any attack that deals hp damage can carry an effect (like injury poison) so anything that deals hp has to touch the target in some way. Mostly it results in scratches and bruises accompanied by some heavy dodges that sap your endurance.

 

[el-remmen]

in 3e/d20 modern any attack that deals hp damage can carry an effect (like injury poison) so anything that deals hp has to touch the target in some way.

Right, that is why you tailor the response to the total effect.

 

[Agamon]

My story hour has lots of examples of how I describe it, but some of them are things like:

"That last duck to avoid the killing blow reminds you of how winded you are getting. . ."

"The parry of the orc's huge axe sends reverberations down your arm that are nearly numbing!"

"The blow against your shield throws you off balance and you'll be working harder to defend yourself from that position."

"Your armor absorbs the worst of the blow, but you can feel a deep bruise forming beneath."

"You barely manage to beat back the flurry of blows, and you feel cold sweat drip down your back as your situation becomes dire. . ."

"The blow rings off your helmet!"

I also have a bunch of more "physical" one with wrist cuts, more bruising, descriptions of damage to armor, etc. . ."

Yup, this. I don't even describe a blow that drops a PC as very bad. If they die from it, it was worse then it looked, but if they have a chance of being fine the next day, it wasn't so bad.

Monsters get more gory descriptions, as would a PC that dies outright from a blow.

 

[Cadfan]

I don't describe "non physical" hit point loss. I describe "no visible wound" hit point loss.

So after a particularly bad hit I might say, "That's 28 points of damage. Your armor holds, and stops the orc's ax from opening your intestines to the air, but the sheer force of impact rips the air from your lungs. You can't take much more of this abuse."

Now that I'm in 4e, suppose the warlord shouts encouragement to the wounded character. I'd expect the warlord's player to say something (doesn't have to be shakespeare, just something), and I might add something like "You grit your teeth in determination. He's right. It may hurt, but you'd rather take the punishment than die in this place."

See the difference? If I'd said that the character was physically maimed by the ax in a visible way, I'd have to justify why he shook it off. That might be hard. So I use a non visible injury, which by its nature is of indeterminate severity.

I also just handwave a lot of it. I can't describe every single attack an enemy makes in an interesting way for the simple reason that I have only a finite amount of material, and if I run through it too fast my players will notice on the repeat.

 

[Rechan]

Well in 4e, everything does hit point damage. Fear effects do damage, etc. So being able to describe stuff is useful.

 

[hong]

A giant sweatdrop appears next to the character's head. The more damage they take, the bigger the sweatdrop.

 

[el-remmen]

Well in 4e, everything does hit point damage. Fear effects do damage, etc. So being able to describe stuff is useful.

C'mon Rechan, we should both have learned by now that people would rather post about why such description are not useful than either help out and provide some potential examples (even they do not personally agree), or simply pass on the thread because they have nothing useful to contribute.

 

[hong]

A giant sweatdrop appears next to the character's head. The more damage they take, the bigger the sweatdrop.

PS. I do actually say this. But my players don't believe me.

 

[Calion]

My story hour has lots of examples of how I describe it, but some of them are things like:

"That last duck to avoid the killing blow reminds you of how winded you are getting. . ."

"The parry of the orc's huge axe sends reverberations down your arm that are nearly numbing!"

"The blow against your shield throws you off balance and you'll be working harder to defend yourself from that position."

"Your armor absorbs the worst of the blow, but you can feel a deep bruise forming beneath."

"You barely manage to beat back the flurry of blows, and you feel cold sweat drip down your back as your situation becomes dire. . ."

"The blow rings off your helmet!"

I also have a bunch of more "physical" one with wrist cuts, more bruising, descriptions of damage to armor, etc. . ."

Here's my problem with this: These descriptions closely mirror how I describe misses in combat. The armor class system actually provides a very nice template for this. Your AC consists of: Your natural ability to avoid attacks based on your size (smaller creatures are harder to hit), your armor, a shield if you have one, your Dex bonus, representing your specific ability to dodge attacks (which can be lessened by heavy armor), and finally, any additional bonuses, such as taking a Defend (or Parry) action, class bonuses, magical effects, the fact that you have a sword to parry with, etc. I use these various components of AC to narrate misses. So if a character has, say, a 17 AC, 10 of that is going to be from just being human-sized, 3 of it might be from a chain shirt, 2 from a shield, and the remining 2 from your Dex bonus. So if you are fired on by a goblin archer, and he rolls a 9 on his attack roll, I might say, "The arrow flies by your ear." If he rolls a 12, I may say, "the arrow bounces off your armor." If the roll is a 14, I will tell you that the arrow hits your shield, and if it's a 16, I will say something like, "you see the arrow flying at you, and you barely manage to duck out of its way." Now, I don't (usually) actually calculate all of this; I eyeball it and guess. A low roll means he misses you through lack of skill; a roll near your AC value is a near miss, and a medium roll is probably absorbed by your armor. This not only provides interesting narration in combat, it accurately reflects the game world as revealed by the die roll.

But given how the abstract hit point system in D&D has always worked, those descriptions are very similar to what happens when you are hit, unless the blow is sufficient to reduce you to 0 hit points. So what is a DM to do? Really, with the way that hit points work, even "misses" that hit your armor, or that you parry or dodge, should deplete your store of HP; those things should just absorb some of the damage. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense that some hits that land on your armor should cause HP depletion, but that others do not. I could (and may, at some point) come up with a damage-absorption rule, but there's a reason it doesn't already exist; it slows down combat, which is damn well slow enough already.

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?