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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tovec" data-source="post: 5935736" data-attributes="member: 95493">I have to say I rarely narrate the actual effect of HP loss. I assume you aren't talking about making sure people know they lost HP but instead the effect of "a cut in simon's arm" kind of narration.I do if it is important, if it is the last gasp of a character, sometimes if it is a crit or other important hit. Otherwise it is just much simpler to allow the game to keep going.I think this evolved due to necessity. When I started playing and when I first started DMing we often had 7-8 players during games. When the average fight lasted 5 rounds that would get quite lengthy to narrate every hit from every character.Now that I'm running a heavily modified (hoping to make it officially OGL) game I am trying to narrate things more than I used to. In my variation hits are actually hits, as opposed to hits absorbed by armor or avoided by dodge. I like the feeling I provoke when the fighter is hit by a crit and has a wound in his side, between the plates, that just keeps bleeding.I think the other problem is that with armor and AC working the way it does, along with HP being as high as it is - that HP loss is hard to narrate. How do you describe that the fighter got hit hard (let's say 20 damage - enough to kill lower level characters) but is still fine and able to keep going? How do you do it routinely. Do those attacks just become less and less effective.. that a 20 HP hit (from 100) is the same as a 2 HP hit when he has 10? Or that he is able to exercise more skill and control, opening himself up for less of an attack.My problem with either explanation is that it lacks consistency. It can be narrated that he avoids the attack the first time, but half as much damage can drop him later and you have to narrate it differently. That is part of the benefit in my system, where if it is a recurring wound that I can narrate it as such and if it is a hard hit that it remains a hard hit even if he is still standing.Kind of nonsensical, I know, but that's what I do.</blockquote>

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