Describing Non-Physical Hitpoint Loss?

[Caliban]

But like almost every other resource I've seen on this subject, these givesno examples or advice on how to actually narrate non-lethal hits.

What are you talking about? There has been a lot of advice and examples on how to do it in this very thread. If you are looking for something official, or a chart of some kind, then it doesn't exist.

I'm starting to think you are trolling at this point, since you are ignoring or dismissing everything everyone is saying.

But on the off chance you aren't here's a link to an episode of Critical Role where the DM has a one-on-one combat between the party barbarian and an NPC, and narrates the hell out of every attack, every hit, and every miss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FM6L4tuyXq0&t=1485s

 

[Calion]

As a DM, you distinguish between them as much or as little as you care too. Whatever feels right at the moment. There are no rules or guidelines governing this, other than "at half hit point you are taking visible damage".

I'm always frustrated by answers like, "You're the DM, you can do whatever you want!" to questions like these. Of course I can. But that doesn't tell me how to run my game in such a way that maximizes both verisimilitude and playability.

If you want to figure out if the hit missed due to dodging, parrying, blocking with a shield, glancing off armor, or plain dumb luck...then you need a system other than D&D because all those factors are abstracted into AC and Hit Points, with the description of what actually happened left up to the DM and/or player.

Except that that's pretty clearly not the case, as I explained in the post that resurrected this thread. The mechanic of hit points pretty clearly tells you which of those things happened, if you care to calculate it. The gameworld has logic. If I have a +2 to AC through Dex, and an attack misses my AC by 1, that's an attack that would have hit someone wearing identical armor, but with inferior dexterity. Therefore, it's quite reasonable to interpret that as a near miss due to dodging the attack. The mechanics give a window to the functioning of the gameworld.

We can throw that out, of course, and take a "whatever you want" approach, but in my experience that leads either to bland narration, pure gamespeak, or, more often, difficulties in play. If I say, "the arrow barely misses you! Take four damage," and then say, "the arrow goes by your head, missing you," there will be confusion, at least. A narrative technique that makes sense with both the mechanics and plausibility solves these problems.


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[Calion]

What are you talking about? There has been a lot of advice and examples on how to do it in this very thread. If you are looking for something official, or a chart of some kind, then it doesn't exist.

I'm starting to think you are trolling at this point, since you are ignoring or dismissing everything everyone is saying.

There have been exactly two sets of examples of actual narration techniques in this thread, and I started this conversation with my objections to one of them. Regardless, neither of the resources in the post I quoted have any actual examples, just like nearly every other resource I've seen on the subject, which is what I said. This thread has, in two posts, literally had more examples of actual narration than I've seen elsewhere, in toto. That's pretty sad.

But on the off chance you aren't here's a link to an episode of Critical Role where the DM has a one-on-one combat between the party barbarian and an NPC, and narrates the hell out of every attack, every hit, and every miss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FM6L4tuyXq0&t=1485s

I'll take a look.



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[Caliban]

I'm always frustrated by answers like, "You're the DM, you can do whatever you want!" to questions like these. Of course I can.

Too bad. It's the only real answer your going to get.

But that doesn't tell me how to run my game in such a way that maximizes both verisimilitude and playability.

There is no rulebook or chart for that. Or at least none that YOU will find satisfactory, based on your responses so far. You have your own sense of what "verisimilitude and playability" means and seems like no answer we give will measure up, and somehow that's our problem.

At this point you are just complaining about free advice - advice that you asked for. I've given you my advice, it wasn't acceptable to you. So...figure it out for yourself instead of expecting other people to hold your hand and spoon feed it to you. I've got a game to run.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Yes, that's exactly my problem. I need to find a narrative technique that neither describes hits as wounds, nor as misses, nor even as impacts on armor or near misses.

Why can't you describe a hit as an impact on armor? If you're wearing armor, and someone hits you directly, then it will cause a physical injury that is not severe enough to cause issues with suspension of disbelief. My go-to analogy is that a weapon impact against someone in armor is like a boxer punching someone without armor.

Note how anyone with enough HP to survive a strong hit is probably wearing armor and/or is some sort of wizard.

 

[Caliban]

Except that that's pretty clearly not the case, as I explained in the post that resurrected this thread. The mechanic of hit points pretty clearly tells you which of those things happened, if you care to calculate it. The gameworld has logic. If I have a +2 to AC through Dex, and an attack misses my AC by 1, that's an attack that would have hit someone wearing identical armor, but with inferior dexterity. Therefore, it's quite reasonable to interpret that as a near miss due to dodging the attack. The mechanics give a window to the functioning of the gameworld.

Oh, and this whole section here is based on false assumptions.

You don't know that the "last 2 points of AC" are due to their Dex, and that is what causes it to miss. That's an assumption that you are making, not one that the game makes. AC bonuses aren't added in a specific order, there no range of AC that is assigned to a particular piece of equipment or ability (except possibly things like the Shield spell, which are added at the last possible moment to stop a hit).

You have a base AC calculation, which can be 10+Dex, or Armor+Dex, or 13+ dex due to mage armor or natural armor, but even that doesn't mean the AC from the armor is "first". It's just listed that way for ease of calculation.

Your Dex bonus could be what pushes you from AC 10 to AC 12, and 13 To 14 is due to a shield, and 15 to 18 is due to scale mail, meaning anything that misses by 4 or less is due to your armor. Or any other order you want to use. And what if you have a Ring or Cloak of Protection, or any number of other things that can add to your AC in addition to (or in place of) your equipment?

AC is abstracted to a single number that represents multiple ways of avoiding damage - some passive (armor, ring of protection), some active(Dex for dodging, the shield block - if you've ever seen a real sword and board fighter the shield doesn't just hang there, it's actively used to block), and so on.

It's all very much up to the DM and the player to describe how it functions, because the game mechanics only give you a single AC number to represent all those things. And Hit Points are part of it as well - they are equally vague and abstract and leave it up to the DM to describe a hit as "blow landing on your armor, but you feel the bruise forming underneath" or whatever you feel is appropriate. Or it may have been a psychic attack and the DM describes the headache and a trickle of blood from your nose as you drop below half hit points. Or hemorrhaging across your face as the mind flayers blast drops you to single digits and blood vessels burst in your skull. Or none of the above.

There are so many damage types in D&D that trying to create a single way of narrating hits, misses, and damage would be way too complicated and cumbersome. Which is why it's left up to the DM and players to narrate as much or as little as they see fit during combat.

 

[jasper]

The bard's cutting words hurt so much you feel like you just spend 3 hours listening to your grandma about the days when she was a flapper.

 

[Hrothgar Rannúlfr]

here's a link to an episode of Critical Role where the DM has a one-on-one combat between the party barbarian and an NPC, and narrates the hell out of every attack, every hit, and every miss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FM6L4tuyXq0&t=1485s

Thank you! That's some great D&D being played. Never watched Critical Role, before. Great narration!

 

[Caliban]

Thank you! That's some great D&D being played. Never watched Critical Role, before. Great narration!

Indeed. It inspired me to improve my own attempts at combat narration.

 

[MichaelSomething]

One time when I dmed, a player threw a shuriken at a t rex. When he missed the attack roll, I said , "you hit it, and it doesn't care." I imagine it isn't hard to hit a T rex with a throwing star, but very hard to actually damage it. This is reflected in its natural armor bonus.

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