How do you describe hp loss?

[Tequila Sunrise]

Ugh, just thinking about this subject gives me a head tick; D&D hps are just too vague of an abstraction. I do feel strongly that to describe hps as anything less than actual physical injury is rediculous, given DR, poisons and magic weapon enhancements. "If I dodged his sword of wounding, how come I still lose Con?!"

 

[Nadaka]

I intend to use a slightly modified version of W/VP in my next game.
1Vitality = standard, heals fast, represents scratches, bruises, dodges and turning blows.
2Armor = Hardness/bonus hp
3Wounds = mostly standard, pain tolerance and some physical toughness. Fort save or take 4status effects fatigue, exaustion, unconciousness.
5Mortal = negative wounds, with mortal wound damage you are disabled, dieing amd possibly crippled.
When mortal wounds are at 0 you die.

Critical hits let you bypass one layer of defence (except for the hardness aspect of armor). A threat on your confirmation roll allows you to roll additional confirmation checks and bypass additional layers of defence.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Ugh, just thinking about this subject gives me a head tick; D&D hps are just too vague of an abstraction. I do feel strongly that to describe hps as anything less than actual physical injury is rediculous, given DR, poisons and magic weapon enhancements. "If I dodged his sword of wounding, how come I still lose Con?!"

Yes, it's amazing just how many holes one can find in that whole "losing HPs doesn't represent being hit!" argument one tends to hear a lot of.



It's a dog of a game mechanic, IMO. But then, the same could be said of many game mechanics in many systems. I'm not picking unduly on D&D here.

 

[Slife]

Hp is physical damage. People who aren't battle trained or hardy (low level or low constitution) go into shock easily. Battle-hardened warriors can push their bodies farther with the same wounds that would kill a commoner from systemic shock.

Temp HP is a limited amount of instant healing. The sword will still stab you, but you'll instantly heal up.

The temporary bonus to CON from a barbarian's rage is treated slightly differently. The rage allows the barbarian to temporarily ignore what would be otherwise fatal wounds. That's why barbarians might die or fall unconsious after leaving their rage.

The main problem I'm trying to avoid is curing spells being less effective on stronger characters.






The only problem with this is winding up with epic characters who are still able to fight after losing gallons of blood and being almost reduced to mincemeat. But it is epic, after all, so reality has already left the building.

 

[IceFractal]

I use the standard HP system (with more or a dying threshold than -10 though), but when describing it I use a Durability score, which is based purely on the target's Constitution and size:

HP > Durability: Bruises, exhaustion, but no actual physical injury yet.
HP < Durability: Actually taking physical damage, although not fatal.
HP < 0: Taking fatal damage, almost dead.

For a character with more HP than durability (most mid and high-level ones), they can block for a while before they start really getting hurt, and continue fighting until they're practically destroyed. For someone with less HP than Ddurability though (low-level characters, commoners, and sometimes really large creatures), they start getting hurt right away and will drop from system shock or a fatal wound long before their body actually wears out.

 

[Hairfoot]

I usually keep it as a reference to magnitude - "you take a big hit'/sound blow/light cut" - unless it's a critical. Then I like to get creative, with arrows through shoulders, deep stabs that barely miss organs etc.

 

[Thanee]

I like your concept of making the damage seem more 'real' instead of just numbers, but as a player I'd want to be the one determining what condition my character is in ...

I suppose there's a little mix-up as to what I meant with condition.

Condition is {scratched, lightly wounded, ..., disabled, dying}.

A is severely wounded is just somewhat less precise and more evocative for saying A is at 10 of 23 hit points.

... or more importantly, how my character conveys his condition to the other characters. You can't always tell how badly hurt someone is by a visual assessment, and injuries that bleed a lot aren't necessarily serious.

That might be, yes, but it's also a means to give the players a good idea as to how badly wounded the NPCs are, without telling them their exact hit point totals.

I don't like the idea of the GM telling me what my character is doing except when absolutely necessary as with a spell effect, for example.

I surely do not do that. I only give a description of what happens to the character, not how the character reacts to it. That's the players responsibility.

I have one GM who usually gives a one-line description of damage based on how well the NPC rolled, such as "his sword skitters off your armor" for a failed to-hit roll, or "you feel a sharp pain in your left leg as his blade pierces your thigh" for a minor wound. I like that sort of description. It's short and sweet.

That's actually fairly close to what I use for descriptions. I generally also base descriptions on the actual attack rolls and how it relates to the AC composition of the target (a near hit gets deflected by the armor, while a bigger margin might be blocked, and even more is a total miss).

Here are a few examples, in case anyone is curious...

CLICK (#98+)
CLICK (top)
CLICK (#456+)
CLICK (top and #510+)

While the concept of including fatigue or some type of ability modifier for heavy damage appeals to the realist in me, D&D isn't a realistic game and making such modifications slows the game down in a way that I don't personally enjoy. I'd prefer to keep the effects of damage to simple description and roleplay rather than game mechanics.

I only use that in my PbP here so far, and PbP is slow enough, so you would never notice the difference.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Yair]

The only problem with this is winding up with epic characters who are still able to fight after losing gallons of blood and being almost reduced to mincemeat. But it is epic, after all, so reality has already left the building.

I played a game once that admitted fully to D&D's superheo flavor by making the PCs godlings. You simply kept on going, despite multiple wounds that would have felled any mortal. (You also had supernatural abilities instead of magic item.) It was fun.

 

[Yair]

I only use that in my PbP here so far, and PbP is slow enough, so you would never notice the difference.

That's a good point.

 

[Thanee]

The only problem with this is winding up with epic characters who are still able to fight after losing gallons of blood and being almost reduced to mincemeat.

That's only if damage is used in an absolute fashion, not relative to the hit point total.

A 20 damage hit just means different things, depending on who you hit, the 1st-level wizard or the 20th-level fighter.

Bye
Thanee