Do you describe HP abstractly?

[Asmor]

It's commonly stated that hit points are not actually damage in D&D, but rather a combination of many, many factors including, but not limited to, toughness, luck, experience, ability, etc. When someone with 10 HP gets hit for 8, he may have just lost a limb. When someone with 50 HP gets hit for 8, maybe he instinctively turned so that the blade's path is deflected, turning a telling blow into a glancing one. When someone with 100 HP gets hit for 8, he may not actually have been hit at all, but instead he jerked out of the way with battle-hardened reflexes, tiring himself but otherwise he's no worse for wear.

Don't get me wrong, I follow this paradigm myself. Nonetheless, when I'm running a game and describing a battle, all this abstraction sort of flies out the window and I describe every blow as actually connecting and drawing blood.

I'm curious if this is common, or if I'm just a lousy, rotten hypocrite.

 

[Wik]

I often describe what would be "hits" as "near-misses". So, when a character with 50 HP is hit for 5 or so, he actually ducked out of the way quickly - but has been put out of position, giving his opponent an advantage in combat or something.

I also describe armour being hit a lot - that fighter with 90 hit points that gets hit for 20 would have been killed - were it not for the plate mail that, while now quite dented, absorbed most of the blow.

 

[TheCrazyMuffinMan]

Given that luck is already counted by the dice, and dodging is already counted by a part of one's AC, it seems to make more sense to go by the Tough As Nails concept of HP than the Abstract concept. A long time of adventuring has led to vastly increased durability and staying power on the part of the adventurers, in addition to new knowledge.

Granted that's already counted (to an extent) by CON, but CON does affect HP directly, so that helps a lot.

 

[Arkhandus]

Yeah, I always describe hits, and some of the misses too. But a hit should always involve actual contact and at least a scrape or bruise, otherwise it wouldn't make much sense that it could be delivering a contact or injury poison, or energy draining, or other such effects.

I just describe the significance of the hit based on how many HP the character normally has at maximum. And usually mention how much they managed to dodge and avoid a worse injury, if they're not just barely-damaged and low-level.

 

[Fifth Element]

It's really all just a confused mess that you probably shouldn't think about in too much detail.

To some extent, AC, DR and hp all kind of represent the same thing, not to mention Fort and Ref saves. It's problematic to think "this part represents only this, while that part represents only that." It's all just an abstraction of reality using a variety of game mechanics.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

As I've stated in a couple of other threads, to me a hit that does hp damage always inflicts an injury. It may be described as a lesser injury as the comparative hp pool it's impacting gets larger, but it is never getting tired, your luck running out, being thrown off balance, your armor absorbing the blow, etc. Partly because D&D is, to me, far too micromanaged to maintain the illusion of being abstract, partly because so many special abilities trigger when you hit and do damage (in the STAP, I can barely remember our last fight where getting hit didn't have a follow up grapple check, fort save, whatever), and partly because every other thing hp are said to represent is already represented by other factors, so why confuse the matter by being lucky, quick or well armored twice?

Also accepting a hit as a hit allows you to fully use those other factors in your descriptions - if a blow would have hit touch ac but not regular, you can say how it was deflected by armor, if your dodge buddy misses you by one, you can say how your attention him paid off, if the difference could be measured in the protection from [alignment] bonus you can describe the creature seeming to be held just at bay and give that clue, etc. I enjoy it when the mechanics and narrative mesh, and I think treating armor as armor, dex bonus as dodging, a bad roll on the other guy's part as luck and hit points as the amount of injury you can sustain does that better than abstracting out hp.

 

[Glyfair]

It's really all just a confused mess that you probably shouldn't think about in too much detail.

I tend to agree. While hit points are supposed to track more than just wounds, pretty much everything that restores it points are supposed to heal wounds. It creates some oddities if a player wants to cast a healing spell on someone who hasn't been wounded, for example.

Now, I like the approach. In fact, in Heroquest the "hit points" used during combat specifically just deal with how much advantage a side has. Then again, the tactical side is very light in HQ going for a more narrative, descriptive approach.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

(Note: the following assumes hit die values that may not hold true for 3E/your campaign, but the general concept would still apply.)

I base my description of hit point loss on idea that an average man could be killed with a single damage roll from just about any weapon. IMC, an average "normal man" would have 1-6 hit points. Thus 4-6 points of damage means a potentially mortal wound for most people. A PC with many hit points beyond the 6 point range is picking up additional points from luck, determination, skill, increased endurance, etc.

For a PC with a lot of hit points, I describe the initial points of damage as near misses, blocked blows (parried, taken on shield or armor, etc), loss of confidence (i.e. "he barely fends off your assault, and you see surprise and maybe even a little fear in his eyes"), et cetera. Mid-range damage becomes bruises, fatigued muscles, sweat and panting, nicks and cuts, et cetera. Only when damage approaches the "normal man" range do I describe more serious injuries: deep cuts, sprains, damaged bones, et cetera. Mortal wounds come at the end of the hit point pool.

An interesting side-effect of this approach is that my players tend to judge how potent a foe they face based on my descriptions of the combat. If they're hitting a lot and doing decent damage, but I'm still describing near misses and blocked thrusts "that would have run through a lesser warrior," they know that this guy has some serious hit points. On the other hand, if their first hit of 5 damage "lays open a bleeding gash on his hip, causing him to cry out and stagger in pain," they know this fellow is probably not a 10th level Ranger Knight.

Not a perfect system, but it works well, for me.

 

[painandgreed]

If pressed, I'm in the camp that HP damage is real damage. A heroic character can take the sword thrust to the abdomen and not bleed out where a lesser person would. That's what it means to be a heroic character and part of the genre. If a DM is going to bother explaining it too much, it's the only solution that really makes sence in my mind. Otherwise you have issues with poisoned weapons that always cause a save if damage was done and area effect instances where experienced characters survive without making saves while weaker ones don't even if they do make their saves.

 

[Obergnom]

On player demand, we play with the abstract description, where wounds besides bruises and scratches only happen after you lost roughly 3/4 of your HP total. But, as I as a DM do not want to follow every players HP, I let them describe the hits (and the defensive maneuver that was so exhausting it made them loose 50hp, for example)
Works great, gives the players more to do while it is not their turn.