D&D 5E Keepiing Current HP from players...

[Satyrn]

Rule 1: Monster Damage is hidden from players. Hits will be narrated by the DM but damage numbers not given.
Rule 2: Players will only be told when their hp is at hp maximum so they don't waste resource for nothing at that point. Players will know their hp maximum since their is no way to hide that from them.

So I think it would be fun to run a game this way sometime. Has anyone ever tried? What was your experience? If you haven't would you like playing in a game with these rules or not?

I personally think it would do a lot to give uncertainty and fear to the players for their characters which D&D currently lacks. My hope is it would lead to more immersion by diminishing the unnatural safety net that hp represents for players playing their characters.

So is this just you wondering about the idea, or are thinking of trying this and looking for advice on how to handle it?

Because if your looking for advice, the only bit I have is "If your players are up for it, give it a try."

I'd be up for it for a one shot or an encounter or 2 if my DM really wanted to try it, but it doesn't appeal to me in the least (I track monster hit points in front of the players, and I noticed last session that my fellow DM has picked up the habit - or was at least giving it a try. )

 

[GMMichael]

"Hey, I noticed that the system has no penalties to picking locks in gauntlets. Since there is no mechanical penalties of the sense of touch, obviously characters can't feel anything."

The point wasn't that characters can't sense anything. It was that there is no reason for a PC to say, "I've really taken some horrible punishment." Because the only indicator of that punishment is an abstract, metagame measurement. Think about this: a character at full hit points can be, in-game, bleeding profusely directly from the heart, with a spear pierced straight through his body, and a character with a single hit point can be in pristine shape, not a scratch on him, and still get a clean bill of health from his in-game doctor.

That doctor might give a different prognosis if the PC had disadvantage on all of his doctor-visit checks.

The idea that D&D characters have no way to gauge their wounds because the system doesn't penalize their actions mechanically at low HPs is an ... interesting ... leap of logic that I do not believe is warranted. The rules support the narrative and are subservient to it, they do not define nor encompass the entirety of play.

Sure, but what happens in this situation:

DM: The frost giant grips its deathmaul with two hands and smashes your head. (Rolls) 28 is a hit, (rolls) for 42 damage. Your character's neck is broken, and you have one hit point left.

PC: Um, not it's not. I feel fine. In fact, since it's my turn now, I'll make a Tumble check to avoid an opattack, and haul ass until I'm out of range of that thing. Neck's not so broken now, is it?

My guess is that the DM would proceed to say "I'm the DM, so your neck is broken," and the player would say "well, it's not in the rules, so you're cheating me, and I'm going to go play in a different game."

 

[Blue]

The point wasn't that characters can't sense anything. It was that there is no reason for a PC to say, "I've really taken some horrible punishment." Because the only indicator of that punishment is an abstract, metagame measurement.

No, it's not. You are horribly confusing "having a mechanical descriptor in-system" for something and "characters beign able to sense things". If I was a DM and I said "The room smells of lilacs" (to give a hint about a woman they met earlier with lilac perfume), you can't say "There is no 'liliac smell' number so it can't exist."

Yet that is the argument you are using here - that because there is not a specific numeric that represents the pain the characters are in, they can't sense it nor be aware of any harm or injury they are taking. That's really a load of nonsense. Just the term "damage" implies that there is an in-game effect of taking HPs.

Page 6 of the PHB, the How to Play section - very very basic and foundational. The 3rd of the 3 steps is "The DM narrates the results of the adventurers' actions". There is a narrative to the results of the rolls, such as running out of steam, getting wounded, bleeding, what-have you. It is not magically transparent to the PCs until the keel over dead.

If you'd like to debate the point, please come back with citations from the core books that the characters feel no effects, not just a lack of a mechanical rating.

Sure, but what happens in this situation:

DM: The frost giant grips its deathmaul with two hands and smashes your head. (Rolls) 28 is a hit, (rolls) for 42 damage. Your character's neck is broken, and you have one hit point left.

PC: Um, not it's not. I feel fine. In fact, since it's my turn now, I'll make a Tumble check to avoid an opattack, and haul ass until I'm out of range of that thing. Neck's not so broken now, is it?

My guess is that the DM would proceed to say "I'm the DM, so your neck is broken," and the player would say "well, it's not in the rules, so you're cheating me, and I'm going to go play in a different game."

Sure, I'll bite your straw-man argument. The DM was describing a lethal or at least paralyzing injury at a time when the character was not either of those situations. That's poor description. It also is rather irrelevant to the point we are describing, that a character can know that they are hurt and how badly. That doesn't involve DM intervention at all.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Rule 1: Monster Damage is hidden from players. Hits will be narrated by the DM but damage numbers not given.

Rule 2: Players will only be told when their hp is at hp maximum so they don't waste resource for nothing at that point. Players will know their hp maximum since their is no way to hide that from them.

So I think it would be fun to run a game this way sometime. Has anyone ever tried? What was your experience? If you haven't would you like playing in a game with these rules or not?

We have, way back when. Since monster damage is variable and hit points were variable, it just led us to having no clue about what might happen when a monster swung at us.

Now you'd think that would make us nervous whenever a monster came along. All it made us do was avoid taking damage as much as possible. We basically gave up on melee characters and cheesed every encounter as much as we could, sticking to ranged combat and non pc meat shields like charmed ogres, hirelings and animals.

I personally think it would do a lot to give uncertainty and fear to the players for their characters which D&D currently lacks. My hope is it would lead to more immersion by diminishing the unnatural safety net that hp represents for players playing their characters.

Nope. Uncertainty and fear come from knowing you're on 3 hit points and holding your breath every time a giant spider swings at you, and that if you go down to it it's not just going to leave you alone so your buddies can heal you back up from 0 next round, it's going to drag you away and eat you.

Uncertainty is already in the dice. Fear comes from having control taken away from you. Doing what you describe just takes that control away all the time, so the players will become inured to it, while at the same time making every interaction with hit points take 10 times as long, because the players have to have a game of 20 questions to work out whether they can afford to drop down a 10ft ledge, or have to break out a rope and climb down carefully.

 

[Shasarak]

Well said, x2. Disadvantage on all rolls after 50% HP (maybe physical rolls only?) would be a great way to say "hey, you're wounded" . . .
but the game expects players to know how many hit points they have, and is very much written around that idea (which is why we've seen so many arguments against HP hiding in this thread).

I think I would rather have the DM keep track of hps then to introduce death spiral mechanics.

It is not as if DnD needs more incentives to adventure for only 5 minutes per day.

 

[Queer Venger]

Rule 1: Monster Damage is hidden from players. Hits will be narrated by the DM but damage numbers not given.
Rule 2: Players will only be told when their hp is at hp maximum so they don't waste resource for nothing at that point. Players will know their hp maximum since their is no way to hide that from them.

So I think it would be fun to run a game this way sometime. Has anyone ever tried? What was your experience? If you haven't would you like playing in a game with these rules or not?

I personally think it would do a lot to give uncertainty and fear to the players for their characters which D&D currently lacks. My hope is it would lead to more immersion by diminishing the unnatural safety net that hp represents for players playing their characters.

Hope it works for you my man; for me, I keep it RAW; I think on the contrary, it creates more drama and tension when my players know when they are going to die.

 

[redrick]

I think there's two ways to approach this kind of rule which could have very different outcomes. One is to make the game harder for the players by reducing the information they have to make good decisions, and leading them to make more bad decisions. (Getting into fights they shouldn't, wasting healing potions they shouldn't, etc.)

The other is to increase narrative immersion by getting the players to spend less time thinking about numeric, mechanical constructs on their character sheet.

I think the two of these are mutually exclusive. If the players feel like they are making bad decisions because they don't have enough information, and their characters are getting creamed as a result, you'll get into the game of twenty questions, which will slow down game play and break immersion as players keep trying poke enough holes in the DM's narrative language to get to the actual numbers. On the other hand, if you want to increase the immersion by getting the players to take their mind of game-ist hp, cut them a little slack with their hp. Let them know, in story language, when they have something to really worry about, and if they are about to do something colossally stupid only because they don't know how many hp are on their sheet, find a way to clue them in. They won't be trying to peel the casing off your narrative because they'll trust the internals to be working soundly.

 

[Maxperson]

The point wasn't that characters can't sense anything. It was that there is no reason for a PC to say, "I've really taken some horrible punishment." Because the only indicator of that punishment is an abstract, metagame measurement. Think about this: a character at full hit points can be, in-game, bleeding profusely directly from the heart, with a spear pierced straight through his body, and a character with a single hit point can be in pristine shape, not a scratch on him, and still get a clean bill of health from his in-game doctor.

5e says otherwise. A DM who describes things as you suggest above is working at odds with the way the game says to describe hit point damage AND at odds with what makes sense. Below is a direct quote from the 5e PHB. Other editions were similar.

Dungeon Masters describe hit point loss in different ways.
When your current hit point total is half or more of your hit
point maximum, you typically show no signs of injury. When
you drop below half your hit point maximum, you show signs
of wear, such as cuts and bruises. An attack that reduces you
to 0 hit points strikes you directly, leaving a bleeding injury or
other trauma, or it simply knocks you unconscious.

 

[GMMichael]

I think I would rather have the DM keep track of hps then to introduce death spiral mechanics.

It is not as if DnD needs more incentives to adventure for only 5 minutes per day.

I'm going to read into your word choice a bit, and guess that you're equating "adventure" with "combat." I hope your DM includes more in his adventures than just combat; that would be horribly boring.

Some people in this thread have noticed that players become more cautious when they don't know what their hit points are, exactly. I'd expect the same result from "death spiral mechanics." Your preference is obviously your own, but I would actually like to see both rules in a game - it sounds like it would be incredibly gritty and intense.

 

[GMMichael]

5e says otherwise. A DM who describes things as you suggest above is working at odds with the way the game says to describe hit point damage AND at odds with what makes sense. Below is a direct quote from the 5e PHB. Other editions were similar.

You're right, but your example is Rules As Intended, and mine is Rules As Written. The problem with RAI is that the designer can't be there to watch every D&D game and explain how it's supposed to work.

Dungeon Masters describe hit point loss in different ways.
When your current hit point total is half or more of your hit
point maximum, you typically show no signs of injury. When
you drop below half your hit point maximum, you show signs
of wear, such as cuts and bruises. An attack that reduces you
to 0 hit points strikes you directly, leaving a bleeding injury or
other trauma, or it simply knocks you unconscious.

Note that the first sentence here does not support your claim. Also note that you're not going to be showing any "cuts and bruises" if you're wearing any intelligent amount of armor (which is full coverage). And there is a significant difference between "bleeding injury" and "simply knocks you unconscious." So I wouldn't say that the 5E book is being terribly specific here, or that it's completely disagreeing with me.

The point, for those of you just joining in, is that DMs cannot give any description of a character's health that ties directly to the amount of hit points a character has, as the rules are written. The best thing you could do, to implement the OP's idea, would be to agree on and define several statuses that describe a range of hit points.