discovering remaining HP's of a monster

[gjnave]

Is there a check to see if you can do this? I cant remember if i read something about that or not, and cant find anything in the books. I do know that a nature check doesnt tell number of HP's.

 

[abyssaldeath]

I don't believe there is a check to handle that, but there is a head slot item (Goggles of Aura Sight) that has an encounter power that will tell you that.

 

[Nebten]

No there isn't, but you should be notified when a creature is bloodied which is at 1/2 hps or less. If you keep totals of how much damage you've dealt, you can get a rough estimate about how much HPs it has.

 

[Evilhalfling]

I tell players when a monster is bloodied (as required for lots of rules)
and also frequently announce when a monster is "Clinging to life" sometimes with a graphic description of a nearly severed limb, disembowlment, etc.

Clinging to life is notoriously vague, but it serves as an encouragement to stick to a low damage power, either an at-will or automatic damage. One of the players tried to peg it down to 10% remaining heath, but it is far more random and arbitrary than that.

 

[Shadowslayer]

I tell players when a monster is bloodied (as required for lots of rules)
and also frequently announce when a monster is "Clinging to life" sometimes with a graphic description of a nearly severed limb, disembowlment, etc.

Clinging to life is notoriously vague, but it serves as an encouragement to stick to a low damage power, either an at-will or automatic damage. One of the players tried to peg it down to 10% remaining heath, but it is far more random and arbitrary than that.

This.

When a monster is down to less than 10 hp I usually just tell the players that they've got him on the ropes. They'll already be marked with bloodied tokens so that's usually all the PCs need to make a decision.

As far as actual rules, no I don't think there's a way unless its via magic item.

 

[SparqMan]

I use all of the above regarding being "on the ropes".

I suspect that a really successful skill check of the appropriate type (Nature, Dungeoneering, etc.) could yield some of that information if it was really important.

 

[moxcamel]

Depends on the monster.

With "natural" monsters such as humanoids or beasties, I'll tell the PCs about what level of health they have left. When I'm using a virtual table such as d20 Pro, I'll let the players see the health "meters."

For something like a ghost or other incorporeal beings, I don't usually let them in on how much health it has left, unless it's story-line based. ("the ghostly girl's visage changes from menacing to fearful..."). Same for zombies or skeletons, I don't give much in the way of clues about how damaged they are. For more advanced undead, such as a vampire, there will be a mixture of physical and storyline clues, and I'll let them know when one is bloodied at the very least.

I've had players roll skill checks (dungeoneering, arcana, etc depending on the monster) to see if they could get an idea of how damaged a non-natural beast is, with the difficulty set based on the manifestation of the creature. In my mind, ghosts and other incorporeal things are amongst the hardest to figure out.

It was pretty fun the first time I used these techniques at the virtual table. For all of 1st level, they'd only fought things where I'd let them see the health meter. When we hit the first incorporeal monsters, they asked me if the VT was bugged because they didn't see the meters. "Everything is working as designed," I replied, and the looks on their faces was priceless.

 

[Blue]

Same - bloody gets announced (and marked) for everyone and is considered in game-knowledge (including by foes). I'll try to give hints with my combat descriptions. And I usually let a free Heal check tell more, like who's the most or least hurt or the 1/4 and 3/4 points. This will often come up with a PC wanting to know if it's worth it to throw healing on an unbloodied PC, or which of several bloodied monsters to try to take out first.

 

[moxcamel]

And I usually let a free Heal check tell more, like who's the most or least hurt or the 1/4 and 3/4 points. This will often come up with a PC wanting to know if it's worth it to throw healing on an unbloodied PC, or which of several bloodied monsters to try to take out first.

Ah well when it comes to PCs, I allow all PCs to know the hit points of every one of their allies. I justify this by considering that as a free action the PC will be able to let the Cleric (or whoever) know exactly what their situation is, and that the PCs are familiar enough with each other that they'll just always know the condition of their allies. And I figure that the characters will constantly be chattering amongst themselves, so allowing them to know their own party's hit points seems fair. And if there are conditions (such as silence) that don't allow communication between PCs...eh, I let them have this knowledge anyway. Quite frankly it's too much book keeping otherwise.

 

[Dice4Hire]

My party tells each other their healing needs OOC, for the most part.

As for monsters, we are pretty vague, unless we miss killing the monster by one hit point, whereupon the DM (me) is sure to let them know.