How many hit points do you have?

[Balesir]

For me, hit points are a player-knowledge proxy for an understanding of the nuances of their condition that the characters know but may find very hard to express clearly. It's a bit like knowing how able you might be to play football; you have a pretty good idea within yourself, but you might not be able to define it precisely to a coach or physician.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Players do not know the specific HP of anything other than their own character though...except for that stupid 4e ability that lets them know the exact number​. >.>

I am not familiar with this one. Can you explain?

 

[Halivar]

I am not familiar with this one. Can you explain?

"Bloodied" status is when a creature falls below half hit-points. The players often need to know this because they have abilities that key off of this. Alternatively, most solo creatures have special abilities of traits that activate at bloodied status.

 

[Grogg of the North]

It depends. In the middle of combat, my group tends to lean towards things like "He's bleeding badly" or "The monster looks hale and hardy". Out of combat, when healing is being dispensed, things become more number specific. "How are you doing?" "I'm fine, I'm at 27 of 30."

 

[Sunseeker]

I am not familiar with this one. Can you explain?

It's been some time and I don't have their sheets anymore, all I recall is that it was a utility power that allowed him to find out the specific health of an enemy. Power even specified that he got to know the exact HP total of the enemy, not just "Bloodied or not" or "kinda hurt".

 

[Jacob Marley]

It's been some time and I don't have their sheets anymore, all I recall is that it was a utility power that allowed him to find out the specific health of an enemy. Power even specified that he got to know the exact HP total of the enemy, not just "Bloodied or not" or "kinda hurt".

3.5 had a similar ability with the Combat Awareness feat. So long as the character was maintaining his combat focus, he could learn the exact current hit point total of each adjacent enemy and ally.

 

[Lanefan]

3.5 had a similar ability with the Combat Awareness feat. So long as the character was maintaining his combat focus, he could learn the exact current hit point total of each adjacent enemy and ally.

Which, all too obviously, just begs to be narrated as:

"You invoke your Combat Awareness, and around you little red-green bars shimmer into view above each of your foes. With each successful strike, the proportion of red in that opponent's bar increases."

Lanefan

 

[Celebrim]

Which, all too obviously, just begs to be narrated as:

"You invoke your Combat Awareness, and around you little red-green bars shimmer into view above each of your foes. With each successful strike, the proportion of red in that opponent's bar increases."

Lanefan

Pretty much.

Though I'm of the impression that late 3.5e and 4e did not feel anything had to be narrated or explained in game. The intention is to communicate entirely through the metagame path.

I will say that I am finding narration to be somewhat hard when it comes to creatures that have alien physiologies. I recently ran a battle with Abballin (water oozes), and had a very very hard time narrating what a damaging blow was like or what was happening as the creature became injured (or died). In particular, the problem with narrating an unsuccessful edged attack versus a successful bludgeoning attack (they have immunity to edged weapons) became acute. I'm inclined to reverse that in the future, simply because narrating unsuccessful bludngeoning attacks as opposed to successful cleaving attacks is a lot easier.

 

[billd91]

I will say that I am finding narration to be somewhat hard when it comes to creatures that have alien physiologies. I recently ran a battle with Abballin (water oozes), and had a very very hard time narrating what a damaging blow was like or what was happening as the creature became injured (or died). In particular, the problem with narrating an unsuccessful edged attack versus a successful bludgeoning attack (they have immunity to edged weapons) became acute. I'm inclined to reverse that in the future, simply because narrating unsuccessful bludngeoning attacks as opposed to successful cleaving attacks is a lot easier.

Sure, the narration can be tricky sometimes, but the edged vs bludgeoning attack vs a water ooze doesn't seem so difficult to me. You could say an edged weapon slices through the watery creature without much disruption while a bludgeoning attack causes water to splash out all over the place and causes the creature to reel in response. That may at least convey the information that bludgeoning weapons are where it's at with respect to affecting the creature.

 

[Manbearcat]

The players in my game and myself (as GM) have (for 28 years) assumed that HPs are in no way knowable by characters. They are a metagame marker for heroic staying power. We post-hoc justify ablation and restoration of HP by referencing the current, and recent past, fictional positioning and use the abstract composite of martial skill/luck/morale/fatigue/divine favor/magic with a very tiny smidgeon of superficial meat (a minor tweak of an ankle/knee/wrist, perhaps a few mm deep laceration, insignificant shrapnel/fragmentation, a bruise, or a topical burn whose only relevance is pain). The last HPs lost before unconsciousness are rarely, if ever, narrated as potentially terminal as well (only if clearly and presently the case...or if definitively so; as in death). If I want to put a lasting injury on a player's character in my 4e game, I'll leverage the condition/disease track rather than using HPs.

This usage doesn't affect our sense of versimilitude. I'm certain the antithesis would.