Narrating Hit Points - no actual "damage"

[darkrose50]

Harry Houdini could ready himself and take any punch to the gut from anyone in the crowd. Somehow he had more meat then the rest of us, I guess something like that.

I would not frame 8-points of damage to a first level fighter as the same amount of wounding power as 8-points of damage to a second level fighter (people can, but I would not). They do not have more meat, they have more training, luck, story, heroic umph, godly attention, or whatnot.

A blow that would bring a first level fighter from from 13 to 5 hit points, but a second level fighter down from 22 to 14 is ~62% and ~37% of their totals. The second level fighter has better training (and at some point we need to add a dose of suspended belief).

 

[Azzy]

To the OP, play it how you like and then come back to and tell us how it went. Whatever happens, I hope you and your group enjoy yourselves and have fun.

 

[FrogReaver]

Harry Houdini could ready himself and take any punch to the gut from anyone in the crowd. Somehow he had more meat then the rest of us, I guess something like that.

I would not frame 8-points of damage to a first level fighter as the same amount of wounding power as 8-points of damage to a second level fighter (people can, but I would not). They do not have more meat, they have more training, luck, story, heroic umph, godly attention, or whatnot.

A blow that would bring a first level fighter from from 13 to 5 hit points, but a second level fighter down from 22 to 14 is ~62% and ~37% of their totals. The second level fighter has better training (and at some point we need to add a dose of suspended belief).

But your proposed system separated out the meat hp from the training/luck/whatnot hp. So the extra meat hps in your system cannot be explained by additional training or luck or whatnot. That's the issue.

 

[darkrose50]

But your proposed system separated out the meat hp from the training/luck/whatnot hp. So the extra meat hps in your system cannot be explained by additional training or luck or whatnot. That's the issue.

I see where you are coming from.

It depends how you frame it. You have an attacker and a target. The target in D&D effects how hurt the target becomes from an attack. A hit that causes 8-points of damage against a first level fighter can be seen as more damaging than 8-points against a second level fighter because the target has more combat experience to lesson the attacks effect.

 

[Hriston]

The recovery is the problem - it's way too fast; and the believability and narrativity issues get worse the closer you get to dead before being right as rain the next morning.

If loss of hit points is narrated as bringing one closer to death because of sustained physical injuries, then you've got the problem of explaining how the body becomes whole overnight. On the other hand, if one is relatively unharmed as long as hit points remain, and only when they reach zero is it even possible that serious injury has occurred, then you don't have that problem.

The resolution mechanic for finding out if serious injury has occurred that requires more than a night's rest is not the damage roll. It's the death saving throw, which is, of course, also the resolution mechanic for finding out if you're alive or not. What this means for the game is that, unless you add it, there's no serious injury in D&D without death.

 

[Lanefan]

If loss of hit points is narrated as bringing one closer to death because of sustained physical injuries, then you've got the problem of explaining how the body becomes whole overnight. On the other hand, if one is relatively unharmed as long as hit points remain, and only when they reach zero is it even possible that serious injury has occurred, then you don't have that problem.

Quite true.

The resolution mechanic for finding out if serious injury has occurred that requires more than a night's rest is not the damage roll. It's the death saving throw, which is, of course, also the resolution mechanic for finding out if you're alive or not. What this means for the game is that, unless you add it, there's no serious injury in D&D without death.

Also true by RAW, which only points out how poor the RAW are in this instance in that no matter what you do you end up with a problem; be it the problem of unexplainably fast recovery or the problem of no serious injury without death.

And both problems are quite easy to solve at once with just a paragraph or two in one of the PH or DMG introducing rules for much slower recovery if a character is reduced to (10%? 20%? some number of percent, anyway) of one's full h.p. But the designers chose - one must suppose intentionally, if IMO badly - not to do this, preferring instead to (1) have PCs recover unnaturally fast and (2) to have virtually no 'distance' between fully-functional and dead.

(1) is a carry-over from 4e; before 4e recovery rates were much slower, with more reliance on magical healing if a party wanted to get moving again quickly.

(2) has been a problem all the way along. 4e, oddly enough, came closest to trying to fix it; the idea of 'bloodied' at 50% h.p. had loads of potential but they shied away from having hit points below bloodied be harder to recover or cure. Had they done this or something like it (maybe an 'injured' condition at 10%?) they'd have more or less solved the problem, and largely put these hit point debates to bed.

 

[Psikerlord#]

I could never run the game the way the OP does with zero physical impacts. My preference is the opposite. If an attack roll is a hit, I will always describe it as a hit of some kind, even if it just bangs into your armour and causes pain, or a bruise, or scrape, or cut or whatever. Little bangs and nicks until half hp - at which point I like the bloodied rule - it's a decent cut or gash or hammer bruise, etc. Then at zero hp, it's another big hit, something bloody.

Having said all that, I consider HP to effectively be "Fight Points" - how much fight the PC has left in them. This is a combo of armour, meat, skill, luck, fatigue, etc. So when a fighter gets banged up properly at zero hp (or bloodied), after a short rest and he is back to max hp - he still has all those cuts and bangs and wounds. But his HP is max again because he's got his second wind and is ready to fight again, just as hard as before.

Being physically injured doesnt necessarily mean you cant be max hp. At the start of the adventure the PC's max hp reflected well rested, armour in good condition and no injuries. Max hp half way through a dungeon - after being reduced to zero hp twice - means finding that second wind, digging deep, harnessing their iron will to fight on, refusing to be defeated, binding wounds, heroic inspiration from the party members or important cause etc, mending armour/shield, bolstering effect of healing herbs and/or probably some magic healing too.

Hope this makes sense.

 

[Bitbrain]

Reply to Opening Post.

I also do narration of hit points.

As far as the PCs dropping to 0, I'm pretty sure I do something along the lines of what the Fable video games do, and expand upon it.

If you are reduced to 0 hit points, you gain a permanent scar, dependent upon the nature of the attack that brought you to 0 hit points. Also, if you should ever encounter a situation similar to the one where you received that scar, you need to make a Charisma save or be haunted by the memory. On a failure, your movement is halved, and all of your weapon attacks deal only half damage for the next round.

 

[Hriston]

Also true by RAW, which only points out how poor the RAW are in this instance in that no matter what you do you end up with a problem; be it the problem of unexplainably fast recovery or the problem of no serious injury without death.

Well, I don't have the first problem, because I don't have damage represent injury that requires more than a night's rest to heal, and I don't see the second problem as a problem. If I did, I'd add in something like the optional Lingering Injuries rule in the DMG and leave hit points alone.

And both problems are quite easy to solve at once with just a paragraph or two in one of the PH or DMG introducing rules for much slower recovery if a character is reduced to (10%? 20%? some number of percent, anyway) of one's full h.p. But the designers chose - one must suppose intentionally, if IMO badly - not to do this, preferring instead to (1) have PCs recover unnaturally fast and (2) to have virtually no 'distance' between fully-functional and dead.

(1) is a carry-over from 4e; before 4e recovery rates were much slower, with more reliance on magical healing if a party wanted to get moving again quickly.

(2) has been a problem all the way along. 4e, oddly enough, came closest to trying to fix it; the idea of 'bloodied' at 50% h.p. had loads of potential but they shied away from having hit points below bloodied be harder to recover or cure. Had they done this or something like it (maybe an 'injured' condition at 10%?) they'd have more or less solved the problem, and largely put these hit point debates to bed.

1. They aren't recovering "unnaturally fast" if they aren't sustaining injuries that require more than an eight-hour rest to heal. As DM, you're fully in control of how severe you describe a PC's injuries to be. If you want damage to represent more serious injury, there's always the Gritty Realism option. Playing with that dial could allow you to use damage to represent injuries that take up to a week or more to heal. The Slow Natural Healing option, on the other hand, requires the expenditure of hit dice to heal at all without magic. So options are available, but theoretically you could still describe injuries so severe that a rules-based solution would be difficult. I don't think that's a problem with the rules, however.

2. I think injury has never been a feature of the game because it's considered un-fun to try to play with a PC that's only partially functional. Lethality, however, is something that provides a lot of dramatic tension to the action, so the idea is you get to play your PC all the way up until s/he's dead, and you don't have to sit on the sidelines with a bum leg or whatever.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

2. I think injury has never been a feature of the game because it's considered un-fun to try to play with a PC that's only partially functional. Lethality, however, is something that provides a lot of dramatic tension to the action, so the idea is you get to play your PC all the way up until s/he's dead, and you don't have to sit on the sidelines with a bum leg or whatever.

If we take it as a given that nobody wants to play a mutilated character who can't contribute, then that leaves us with two options:

1. It's impossible for anyone to get seriously injured. You're either perfectly fine (maybe slightly tired), or you're dead.
2. You can suffer significant physical injury, but we choose to not model it mechanically.

Both fourth edition and fifth edition are solidly in the first camp, and even third edition was leaning strongly in that direction. It's very difficult to reconcile significant physical injury with overnight healing.

Earlier editions were more open to interpretation. When you only heal 1hp per night, it's easier to say that you're actually physically beaten up. We're not necessarily talking spear-through-the-chest physical injury, but the sort of injury that would take a week or two to heal. There's a wide range of possible injuries between things that can heal overnight and things that can heal in two weeks.