Describing Non-Physical Hitpoint Loss?

[Rechan]

So, in D&D hit points represent two things:

1) The meat and flesh of your body.

2) Some sort of cosmic luck, will, endurance, and other non-physical, non-tangible ranking system.

So here's my question: When you're at the table, and you roll damage on the orc's ax... how do you describe the loss of #2? Do you call it damage? Do you say "He swings by your head, and this takes some of the fight out of you, due to fear"?

I just want a way to fluff up my vocabulary and explanations in a way that makes it not feel like a Tarantino movie. (Also, there's only so many times someone can be hit in the shoulder/hip/arm ).

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

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

 

[hong]

When the character is bloodied is when you move in for the Sergio Leone-style closeup on the eyes.

 

[Psion]

I always thought of the effect of ballooning HP not as meaning that a hit didn't cause damage, but the effects of the hit were mitigated (and there are some historicial HP descriptions that back this up). As such, I consider how much of the character's total HP are lost when describing the effect, but if you lost HP, some actual physical damage occurred.

 

[el-remmen]

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. . ."

 

[el-remmen]

BUMP!

I don't want this thread to die b/c it was posted during low traffic times.

I was hoping more people would post some more I could cop.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

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

Um, I thought this was a Grandma approved site and here you're talking about furry blows

 

[el-remmen]

Oops!

Fixed.

 

[el-remmen]

I want to try and give this thread one more chance with another bump. . . I would really love to be ableto compile a list of these types of description for use and creating variations on them. . .

 

[LostSoul]

So, in D&D hit points represent two things:

1) The meat and flesh of your body.

2) Some sort of cosmic luck, will, endurance, and other non-physical, non-tangible ranking system.

So here's my question: When you're at the table, and you roll damage on the orc's ax... how do you describe the loss of #2? Do you call it damage? Do you say "He swings by your head, and this takes some of the fight out of you, due to fear"?

• A bone-jarring parry.
• A heavy block with your shield that leave you seeing stars.
• You parry at the last second, and turn a killing blow into one that deflects off your armour.
• You are forced off-balance to dodge his swing.
• You barely dodge his vicious axe.
• The orc swings his axe and forces you into a bad position.
• You parry the blow. Sweat trickles into your eyes and your arms burn with fatigue.
• The axe misses your face by a fraction of an inch and your life flashes before your eyes.

edit: Here's Conan taking some hp damage:

Heimdul roared and leaped, and his sword flashed in a deathly arc. Conan staggered and his vision was filled with red sparks as the singing blade crashed on his helmet, shivering into bits of blue fire.