Narrating Hit Points - no actual "damage"

[pemerton]

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.

I think there is a more helpful way to look at it, which I will try to explain.

Let's suppose that hit points correspond to some in-game quantity or other - so as hp are marked off on the character sheet, in the fiction the character is being depleted in some fashion; and then as healing occurs, and so hp are added back on to the sheet, the character is restored in respect of that quantity.

What is that quantity?

For obvioius reasons - eg suffering a sword blow can inflict physical injury - whatever the quantity is, it must be the sort of thing that physical injury can deplete.

But for the reason you give, it can't be physical injury - because while physical injuries can be quickly accrued (eg three sword blows in a row), they do not quickly go away. Yet hp can be recovered quickly.

In my view, this is the key: physical injuries trigger events of hp loss, but the hp loss is not itself a measure of physical injury. It's a measure of something that is triggered by physical injury; but which might also be triggered by other things (eg psychic damage); and that can be recovered although the physical injury remains.

What is that "something"? Most simply, although not necessarily that clearly; it's will and capacity to fight. We can break that out a bit: it's stamina, verve, poise, luck, divine favour, etc.

So when your PC suffers a bad fall oir takes a hard blow, and is reduced to zero or near-zero hp, that means that - at that moment - s/hw was nearly all out of luck, and the reserves of stamina and will to go on were depleted. (Think Aragorn at the bottom of the cliff in The Two Towers.)k

When "healing" occurs, that means that your PC's reservs are restored. That healing might be actual physical repair; or it might be a renewal of hope and will. This is why Aragorn, when he remembers Arwen, is able to get back up. He has not healed in any literal sense, but he regains hope and will to struggle on: he gets hp back.

As far as narration is concerned, for the above to work some defntess is needed - it would offfend my own sense of verisimilitude and genre for any amouont of hope to allow someone to get up and carry on despite complete evisceration, for instance. Describing events of hp loss as "blows", "strikes", "cuts", "bruises", etc seems a better fit than pulling out Grey's Anatomy to describe what exactly has been done to which body part.

The main bit of wonkiness the above is likely to lead to in 5e, I think, is that there is an exhaustion track separate from the hit point track. But I think that is going to be wonky whichever narration of hp loss you adopt.

 

[5ekyu]

What does that matter? A save is a defensive roll, which is just the reverse of an attack roll, and it's no different than using a static to hit number and having the target roll to defend. Therefore, DoaM is already baked into the game in a reverse fashion though the half damage on a successful save mechanic.

FWIW i actually use the reverse-roll in my games.

players make all checks. i don't roll.

When my NPC shoots at them they roll an "armor save" (d20+AC) to get missed.
When they throw a spell with a save DC the roll an "effect save" (d20+DC) to get their spells to overcome the target's "save".

odds of success and fail work the same but all rolls are in their hands.

They love it,,, and occasionally hate it temporarily.

I treat the player knowing the roll as the character's confidence in how well they see it went. roll of 19 and you know you were dead on... roll of 3 means you know you were off target, shifted badly, on the run back of the foot - regardless of whether it was success fail.

 

[Ratskinner]

-- Gary Gygax, 1st edition DMG

I don't see anything remotely unclear about that at all. The statement, particularly in the context of the discussion, seems absolutely clear and in fact does seem to meet the standard you are demanding.

Yes, I know that there are area elsewhere in the text that can have readings that complicated or contradict the clarity which is otherwise present in the discussion of hit points, but when he actually sets out to discuss what a hit point is, he is very clear indeed and there is a straight forward non-convoluted reading.

A hit and a hit point aren't the same...and that still doesn't answer why a fighter covered in small nick's and scratches needs a "Cure Serious" or week upon week of healing if he isn't seriously wounded.

I know it seems pedantic, but if we're talking about the narration of damage...well, it can matter.

 

[Lanefan]

I think the hit point recovery portion of the rest mechanics makes it difficult to narrate damage as anything you can't just shrug or sleep off

That problem lies within the rest mechanics, not hit points.

Well, something knocked you out, but we still don't know whether you've been wounded significantly. There's a 15% chance you could bounce back up within the next 18 seconds and be fully healed after 8 hours of sleep. Or you could become stable, regain consciousness in a few hours, and be able to fully recover overnight. I think it boils down to this quote from the Damage and Healing rules: "Unless it results in death, damage isn’t permanent." That leaves us not knowing whether any grievous damage was done until after the death saving throws have been resolved.

Those problems lie within the damage and healing/recovery rules, not hit points.

 

[Lanefan]

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.

To fix this, absolutely nothing needs to change about hit points.

A lot needs to change about the resting and recovery rules.

 

[FrogReaver]

A hit and a hit point aren't the same...and that still doesn't answer why a fighter covered in small nick's and scratches needs a "Cure Serious" or week upon week of healing if he isn't seriously wounded.

I know it seems pedantic, but if we're talking about the narration of damage...well, it can matter.

For 5e there is no more week upon week of healing needed. It's 1 nights rest and your hp is back to max.

5e, the only edition of D&D that you can be beaten so badly you are nearly dead and then recover from that like real people recover from scratches and bruises, in 8 hours of rest overnight.

One solution to this, no matter how badly it plays is to have hp recovery be slow so that being beaten nearly to death takes the proper amount of recovery time. I really dislike this as I dislike how slow recovery times play.

Another solution is to add an injury table that occurs when you are knocked unconscious. A roll to see if you take an injury and roll to see what injury it is and what it does and how long it takes to recover from it. This allows being nearly killed in combat to actually feel like you were nearly killed in combat, but allows hp to handle all the fatigure and luck and minor cuts and bruises etc.

 

[MechaPilot]

For 5e there is no more week upon week of healing needed. It's 1 nights rest and your hp is back to max.

5e, the only edition of D&D that you can be beaten so badly you are nearly dead and then recover from that like real people recover from scratches and bruises, in 8 hours of rest overnight.

Not the only edition. It's the second, consecutive edition where that can happen.

One solution to this, no matter how badly it plays is to have hp recovery be slow so that being beaten nearly to death takes the proper amount of recovery time. I really dislike this as I dislike how slow recovery times play.

Another solution is to add an injury table that occurs when you are knocked unconscious. A roll to see if you take an injury and roll to see what injury it is and what it does and how long it takes to recover from it. This allows being nearly killed in combat to actually feel like you were nearly killed in combat, but allows hp to handle all the fatigue and luck and minor cuts and bruises etc.

If you want to keep a good pace and want to model some type of long-term consequences, some kind of injury track type of mechanic seems the best way to handle that.

 

[FrogReaver]

Not the only edition. It's the second, consecutive edition where that can happen.

Person mentions recovery taking a week to get hp back to max. I corrected poster and said that's not the case in 5e. How does bringing 4e up have anything to do with anything there?

If you want to keep a good pace and want to model some type of long-term consequences, some kind of injury track type of mechanic seems the best way to handle that.

It's not that I want long-term consequences. It's that for being beaten so badly that you are unconscious and dying you need some effect that doesn't just go away the next day.

 

[MechaPilot]

Person mentions recovery taking a week to get hp back to max. I corrected poster and said that's not the case in 5e. How does bringing 4e up have anything to do with anything there?

5e, the only edition of D&D that you can be beaten so badly you are nearly dead and then recover from that like real people recover from scratches and bruises, in 8 hours of rest overnight.

Emphasis added.

Just gently reminding that 5e is not the only edition of D&D where full healing occurs overnight.

It's not that I want long-term consequences. It's that for being beaten so badly that you are unconscious and dying you need some effect that doesn't just go away the next day.

So, consequences . . . that last?

 

[Hriston]

That problem lies within the rest mechanics, not hit points.

Those problems lie within the damage and healing/recovery rules, not hit points.

How are hit points something separate from damage (the way you lose hit points) and healing (the way you get them back), and why do you think the way those systems work in 5e is a problem to be solved?

Personally, I'm fine with a character's hit points being a count down to possible death. When none are left, a character's life hangs in the balance. When a character has plenty, s/he's a "hard man fe dead", as the old Prince Buster song goes. To me, that works just fine and isn't a problem at all.