How Obvious is Fast Healing?

[Zathraas]

The characters are fighting a group creatures they have never encountered or heard of, so they start the battle not knowing that the creatures have fast healing. Assuming combat goes for several rounds, how readily do characters notice that wounds are healing themselves?

It seems to me that once a character has scored a hit on a dekanter goblin for instance, it would be noticeable that the arm would is now gone. And, kind of disconcerting too.

 

[Darklone]

In our groups the DM usually tells the players that the enemies wounds are closing.

 

[Zathraas]

Does he have the players make any checks (Spot check), or does he consider it obvious enough that he just tells the players right off the bat?

 

[kigmatzomat]

Depends on the wounds and the fast heal. Somebody who just gets a bruise in a bar fight (1hp subdual) is pretty noticeable that it heals the next round. On the other hand, it's hard to tell when a 10+ hp wound is healing due to blood and the generally minimal per-round improvement.

 

[reanjr]

I would probably give each character fighting them in melee a spot check each round DC (20 - fast healing rate)

 

[Zathraas]

Clothing does seem like it would have some effect on how noticeable the healing is, and it does make sense that Fast Healing 1 is not going to be quite as obvious as Fast Healing 3. Regeneration 5 in action on a monster without any kind of clothing would certainly be more readily noticeable than the Fast Healing 1 in use on a standard fighter in armor, cloak and clothing.

 

[Anguish]

I would think it's much like most monster abilities; relative to experience. A 1st-level party that encounters something with fast healing or regeneration probably won't recognize what's happening and will be surprised when a troll gets back up. On the other hand, a 10th-level party has probably seen it all, and know what signs to look out for. They should recognize subtle details that tell them what's happening.

Think of it like DR or resistances. Once the characters know about those features, they can understand them. They might not know Creature X has a given ability, but they know what it means when a hard hit deals barely any damage.

 

[Patlin]

With my group, the DM normally says something along the lines of "the monster looks a little healthier" when the monster's fast healing kicks in. This is consistent with "the monster doesn't seem as hurt as you would expect" from DR or elemental resistance, which we also do.

Describing things that your characters are seeing makes some things more obvious and some things less. I figure it balances out.

 

[Slaved]

To make it easier I would likely just tell the players that the creature is healing incredibly fast, or obviously has fast healing, unless the creature was actually trying to hide its ability in some way.

Hiding the ability would be some sort of disguise check with the difficulty class modified by how much fast healing the creature had and the fraction of its total hit points that are being healed. Any creature very serious about hiding this ability should get a Hat of Disguise.

 

[Elemmakil]

Hit points are abstract enough that I'd say that it's entirely arbitrary.

Consider human hero with fast healing and a lot of hp. Chances are that the hp represents (primarily) endurance: a hit that deals 10 damage looks like a glancing blow. The same is probably not true with a giant: the hp reflect physical toughness, and so a much more minor hit would leave a physical wound.

Also, keep in mind that you can flavour fast healing however you want. It could just take care of primarily internal damage, so even obvious wounds could be mostly healed before anything visible happens. Likewise, fast healing could close the skin first, then handle internal wounds. It would then be very obvious.

In short: feel free to do whatever. It's justifiable, and based more on flavour text than hard rules.

I normally find some way to tell the players about it after at most 3 rounds. Keep in mind that most adventurers should have a decent instinct for combat, and if a creature recovers significantly faster than it should, they will notice whether or not the physical wounds remain.

-Elemmakil