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

[Charlaquin]

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.

That sounds like a very difficult thing to police.

 

[beancounter]

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...

Maybe I misunderstood the OP question, but I thought it was about the DM hiding the PC's hit points from the player.

 

[beancounter]

Duplicate post.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Maybe I misunderstood the OP question, but I thought it was about the DM hiding the PC's hit points from the player.

No it wasn't. It is about what the character knows. Presumably the player knows the precise HP total in all the scenarios.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Maybe I don't understand the question?

It feels like it was written with an underlying premise of which answers were right and wrong.

 

[beancounter]

No it wasn't. It is about what the character knows. Presumably the player knows the precise HP total in all the scenarios.

That seems like a distinction without a difference. The character is going to know their hp because the player knows.

I think it would be challenging for the player not to act on that knowledge. And, IMO it's an unnecessary attempt to avoid metagaming.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

That seems like a distinction without a difference.

No, not at all.

The character is going to know their hp because the player knows.

Are they? How does this knowledge manifest? If your fighter with 54 total HP is down to 23 HP, how do they feel, and how will they communicate their state to the other people in the setting in-character? That's what the poll is about.

 

[beancounter]

No, not at all.


Are they? How does this knowledge manifest? If your fighter with 54 total HP is down to 23 HP, how do they feel, and how will they communicate their state to the other people in the setting in-character? That's what the poll is about.

Yes, and what I was saying is that the player would say "I only have 23 hp left". IMO, indicating exact hp isn't too metagamy. I've never met anyone IRL that had a problem with it.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Yes, and what I was saying is that the player would say "I only have 23 hp left". IMO, saying that isn't too metagamy.

But does the character say that? Do the people in your setting have a concept of hit points, do the people in the setting talk using game mechanical terms? Also, how does the character know that they have 23 hit points? How does it feel to them to have 23 hit points? How does that feel different from having 40 hit points?

 

[Yaarel]

I went with option 2, because "fresh", "bloodied", or "downed", are the defacto conditions to roleplay.

But in a sense, option 4 applies as well, because between "fresh" and "bloodied", the character knows exactly how fatigued and careless one is getting. And between "bloodied" and "downed", one knows how beat-up and sloppily punch-drunk one is getting. So, the character knows exactly what the hit points are. Meanwhile, when being "downed" at zero hit points, the character becomes unable to defend against a lethal injury, and that too is unambiguous.