Hit Points, the DM or the players?

[Steven]

I hope this question hasn't bee posted before.

For most of the time I have been gaming I have been keeping track of the player's hit points during a game for them. This is not easy to do, as instead of telling a player that you took this much damage after describing the blow, spell, etc. you then have to explain how the character feels at that moment. Quite a few players over the years have disagreed with the idea at first, but after trying it once or twice they preferred that I keep track of the hit points of their character (at least during my games). It is a little extra work for the DM, but for me and the people I have played with it has been worth it. How do you handle hit points in your game, and why (if there is a why)?

 

[DragonLancer]

The same thing was tried by an old DM of mine. We tried it for a number of sessions but we dropped it. It was too much paperwork for the DM and the players never felt comfortable with it.

 

[shilsen]

In games I've been in, and when I've DM-ed previously, the players always tracked hit points themselves. Saved time and effort for the DM, and the players preferred to have some "tangible" idea of their PCs' health.

But I am seriously considering keeping track of PC hit points myself, when we get back to my current campaign (am on a break now while someone else DMs). I want to see if the players get more or less into the characters when they have to judge health (and by extension, risks) by my descriptions than by numbers on a sheet.

 

[I'm A Banana]

My players do it, mostly because I trust them.

Plus, I've got enough bookeeping to do without having to keep track of their hit points, too.

I still describe how they feel, though. The two aren't mutually exclusive.

 

[Gothmog]

Steven, I go a little further than you do. I started a campaign 12 years ago in 2E, converted to 3E. The entire time, I have kept track of PC hit points, saves, AC, magic item abilities and plusses- basically anything that is numerical in nature. The PCs do not know how many HP they have, exactly what their AC is, what plus thir weapons are, etc. I did it to cut down on the meta-gaming and power-gaming two guys in my group used to engage in- but once we got used to it, all of my players perfer it. All they have in front of them is a sheet of paper with their history, gear list, feats, and skills. I have found it improves the quality of role-playing a lot when people don't have easy access to the numbers to distrac them. However, a word of caution- don't do this unless you know your players well and they trust you- it could easily backfire.

 

[Zappo]

I prefer players managing their HP. It saves work for the DM, and I don't agree that not knowing my exact HP total can make the game better.

 

[caudor]

Hit point tracking in my games is done on a tally sheet in the open (usually at the edge of the table). Once we used a white board, but it was too hard to reach.

It works out well because both the players & dm can reference it, and it help cut back on confusion.

 

[Thaumaturge]

I tried this for a while. The main complaint was characters would drop below 0 and players would feel there hadn't been enough warning. For me it was difficult to give the players a feel for exactly how desperate the situation was becoming.


Thaumaturge.

 

[Gothmog]

What I do to keep the player dissention down is at the end of every round, give the players a rough % of how far gone they are. It allows them to have a rough idea of how much fight they have left (just like in real life- you don't know how many hit points you have), and increases the suspense over "Oh, I have 23 hp left, I can take at least 3 more swings from the gnoll, so heal the thief first." Blech.

 

[Richards]

I use a system like caudor's - tally sheet that everyone can reference.

Johnathan