Conaill said:
One suggestion I've heard in the past (but never seen in practice) is to use glass beads to track HP. Put them in a transparent cup or bowl, and you can track at a glance how much is remianing. Can be useful for the party cleric to decide who to heal first, of for the DM to decide who to attack first.
For higher HP totals, add significantly larger beads to count for 10's. That way, you can still do the "at a glance" thing (as opposed to when you're using a different color bead).
Exactly what I use. Each player has a glass bowl to put the stones in and the following is how we use them.
Definitions:
RED stone - represents 1 hit point
GREEN stone – represent 10 hit points
CLEAR stone - represents 1 temporary hit point
BLACK stone - represents -1 hit point (used for tracking dying)
BLUE stone - represents 1 subdual damage point
DAMAGE PILE - Right side of the bowl – used to indicate actual damage taken; it may contain only RED/GREEN stones, or in other words actually hit points of damage taken.
SUBDUAL PILE - Left side of the bowl – used to represent subdual damage; it may contain RED/CLEAR and BLUE stones, or in other words subdual damage taken. There are always at least (sometimes more) a number of BLUE stones equal to the number of RED/CLEAR.
BOWL - used to current non-damage hit points
State 1 - RED/CLEAR stones in bowl, character is conscious
State 2 - bowl is empty
State 2a – stones only in the DAMAGE PILE, character is disabled
State 2b – stones in the SUBDUAL PILE where number of BLUE equal number of RED/CLEAR, character is staggered
State 2c – stones in the SUBDUAL PILE where number of BLUE is greater than number of RED/CLEAR, character is unconscious
State 3 - BLACK stones in bowl, character is dying
Applying Normal Damage:
Applying normal damage is essentially the removal of CLEAR stones from the BOWL or SUBDUAL PILE and/or the movement of RED stones from the BOWL or SUBDUAL PILE to the DAMAGE PILE. CLEAR stones must be removed first as these represent temporary hit points.
Remove a number of stones, WHITE(first)/RED, from the BOWL equal to the amount of damage taken. Place WHITE stones removed in the master token pool and RED stones in the DAMAGE PILE. If you can not remove the required number of stones from the BOWL, remove what you can and check for WHITE/RED stones in the SUBDUAL PILE. If there are WHIET/RED stones in the SUBDUAL PILE, remove a number of stones, WHITE(first)/RED from the SUBDUAL PILE equal to the remaining amount of damage taken. If you cannot remove the required number of stones from the SUBDUAL PILE, remove what you can and place a number of BLACK stones into the BOWL equal to the remaining amount of damage taken, unless the number of remaining amount of damage is 10 or more, in which case the character is dead. Remember, BLACK stones represent negative hit points.
Applying Subdual Damage:
Place a number of BLUE stones equal to the amount of subdual damage taken in the SUBDUAL PILE. If the amount of stones in this pile equals the amount in the BOWL, you are staggered; if the amount of stones in this pile is greater than the amount in the BOWL, you are unconscious.
Loss of temporary hit points:
If the necessary conditions are met that result in the losing of granted temporary hit points, remove any WHITE stones from the BOWL and place them in the master token pool.
Healing damage can be done in one of four ways:
a) natural healing of subdual damage which occurs hourly,
b) natural healing of normal damage which occurs daily, and
c) magical healing which occurs instantaneously (which heals an equal amount of normal and subdual damage)
d) temporary granting of hit points such as using an aid spell
Note 1: At the point in time when natural healing of normal damage occurs, natural healing of subdual damage also occurs.
Note 2: If the healing being performed would result in healing both normal and subdual damage and if there are stones in the SUBDUAL PILE, heal subdual damage first.
Granting Temporary Hit Points:
If there are no BLACK stones in the BOWL, follow the procedure outlined in (a), otherwise (b).
(a) Add a number of WHITE stones to the BOWL equal to the number of temporary hit points granted.
(b) Remove a number of BLACK stones from the BOWL equal to the amount of temporary hit points granted and place them in master token pool. If the number of BLACK stones removed from the BOWL are less than the number of temporary hit points granted, remove all of them and place a number of WHITE stones into the BOWL equal to the amount of temporary hit points granted minus the number of BLACK stones removed from the BOWL.
Healing Subdual Damage:
Remove a number of stones from the SUBDUAL PILE equal to the amount of damage healed and return them to the master token pool.
Healing Normal Damage:
If there are no BLACK stones in the BOWL, follow the procedure outlined in (a), otherwise (b).
(a) Remove a number of stones from the DAMAGE PILE equal to the amount of damage healed and place them in the BOWL. If the amount of damage healed is greater than the amount of stones in the DAMAGE PILE, excess points of healing are lost.
(b) Remove a number of BLACK stones from the BOWL equal to the amount of damage healed and place them in master token pool. If the number of BLACK stones removed from the BOWL are less than the amount of damage healed, remove all of them, then move a number of stones from the DAMAGE PILE to the BOWL equal to the amount of damage healed minus the number of BLACK stones removed from the BOWL.
