D&D General How does your PC interact with hit points?

[John R Davis]

None of the above I guess.
Everyone knows their HP's, they react as they wish to whatever damage and I don't recall the folks I play with getting narrative about their hp?

We play plenty games with specific crits that have affects.

Maybe I don't understand the question?

 

[Shiroiken]

Odd setup of a question, because it blurs the line between player and PC. As a player, I know my HP, so some level of metagaming is likely to occur, even if I don't intend to do so. Healing is always an OOC discussion, since the math is a game construct that has no direct fictional representation. This perspective generally makes the question fairly meaningless.

If you want to know purely from a narrative sense how a character feels, the game is pretty straightforward about that (re: the section about HP). You might feel a bit of exertion and bit battered before hitting 50% max HP, while below that you've taken some actual light wounds, and you suffer a serious wound if you drop to 0 HP.

 

[beancounter]

I see no problem with players knowing their hit points. It's just a numerical representation of the damage they took, and it helps them make strategic decisions rather than some vague, non specific condition.

For those who don't reveal PC HP, how do you handle healing spells or short rests?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

The last one. When you lose HP, you're actually hurt in some manner and you know it. The luck/skill aspect of HP comes from similar blows resulting lesser injuries to more epic characters.

This makes more sense with gritty rests and healing kit dependency though, as then you don't also need to imagine every character being Wolverine. (Not that healing times are remotely realistic that way either, but at least then it is close enough that my disbelief suspenders can handle it.)

 

[GMMichael]

I see no problem with players knowing their hit points. It's just a numerical representation of the damage they took, and it helps them make strategic decisions rather than some vague, non specific condition.

I hope players know their hit points. How else would they mark them on the sheet?

For those who don't reveal PC HP, how do you handle healing spells or short rests?

As a player, I express my HP with whatever specific attacks I've faced, defaulting to stamina. So if I take a short rest, it's because I'm "exhausted." If I need a healing spell without a specific injury, it's because I'm "in pain." This seems to equate healing spells with Tylenol...

I'd like to vote in the poll, but the 3rd and 4th options sound equivalent to me. Knowing your health means acting on your health...and health = HP.

 

[Cadence]

I hope players know their hit points. How else would they mark them on the sheet?


As a player, I express my HP with whatever specific attacks I've faced, defaulting to stamina. So if I take a short rest, it's because I'm "exhausted." If I need a healing spell without a specific injury, it's because I'm "in pain." This seems to equate healing spells with Tylenol...

I'd like to vote in the poll, but the 3rd and 4th options sound equivalent to me. Knowing your health means acting on your health...and health = HP.

As I understand it, for the 3rd, some/many play that the characters themselves have no idea how close to death they are since there is no required in world narration or consequences for damage besides hitting 0. So, if the character acts differently based on a hit or hit point total it is purely metagame action by the player.

 

[Blue]

The character knows exactly how they are doing, and it's not metagame information.

I picked the metagame option, but that's a real bias since "metagame" carries negative connotations to many. HPs happen in world - they are as observable as gravity is in our world. It is character knowledge, not player knowledge.

 

[el-remmen]

All the players know exactly how many hit points their characters have remaining.

In past games we used a system for expressing that to others, in which the XP total is divided in four and correspond with being "lightly," "moderately," "seriously," or "critically" wounded, which were used to communicate with other players (without using hp totals for that purpose).

However, my current group isn't into that, so they just tell each other how many points they've lost/have left. Since they don't care about that degree of ambiguity/immersion, I am not gonna force them (even though it is my personal preference).

On the other hand, when it comes to their opponents I never say how many hps they have left and still use the descriptive categories above when narrating results of hit point loss.

 

[Cadence]

The character knows exactly how they are doing, and it's not metagame information.

I was picturing that as being 4 - my wording was definitely sub-optimal.

I picked the metagame option, but that's a real bias since "metagame" carries negative connotations to many. HPs happen in world - they are as observable as gravity is in our world. It is character knowledge, not player knowledge.

I was using metagame based on a discussion in another thread where it was argued the characters would have been on knowledge of how bad hits were or how close to zero they were based off of anything in world. (Repeat phrase about my wording being not good).

 

[GMMichael]

As I understand it, for the 3rd, some/many play that the characters themselves have no idea how close to death they are since there is no required in world narration or consequences for damage besides hitting 0. So, if the character acts differently based on a hit or hit point total it is purely metagame action by the player.

If you're right, that sounds like some type of reverse-metagaming. Very Tron.

The character knows exactly how they are doing, and it's not metagame information.

Would be odd if the character didn't, huh?

HPs happen in world - they are as observable as gravity is in our world. It is character knowledge, not player knowledge.

If an HP is simply the event of getting hit, sure. There's no other cause, in D&D anyway, for the character to have HP knowledge because losing a hit point has zero effect on a fifth edition character. What's to know if nothing has changed? At least in fourth edition a bloodied-event might occur. That's something the character would notice.

The solution to this is for the PC to recognize, in some fashion, the dwindling of hit points with role-playing. Then it makes sense for the character to change its behavior as HP get lower. But a PC who fails to role-play this has no cause for the character to ask for healing, and as it happens, is also the type of player to say something in-character like, "hey cleric, I need a heal. I only have 6 hit points left."