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Narrating Hit Points - no actual "damage"
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<blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 7354183" data-attributes="member: 1465"><p>What conclusion?</p><p></p><p> </p><p></p><p>I am not really sure. When the monster initiated the fight then yes, because it presumably had a purpose (as you mentioned: hunger, greed, sport or something more complicated if intelligent): even in these cases a pursue wouldn't necessary be unlimited, it could very likely stop once it kills <em>one</em> for food or once it acquires what he's greed about, ignoring the rest. When the monster is attacked by the PCs, once the threat is no more its main purpose (survival) is fulfilled, it won't necessarily pursue even if winning. If it has something else to defend other than itself, I actually think it would not pursue at all (would a group of guards leave their post to pursue?).</p><p></p><p>I tend to see the discussion more from the point of view of the monsters, because as a DM I am not going to tell the players what they should do, so when talking about fleeing/retreat I have in mind the <em>monsters </em>doing so. The tiger example I brought up, was actually in my mind meant as a <em>random </em>encounter, so that the PCs don't have any special motivation of their own for truly killing it. I think that most typically a DM would just have the tiger (or whatever) fight to the death. But wouldn't it make sense that the tiger attacked the PCs for food? And then after being wounded (not much problem here narrating the HP loss of a <em>random</em> encounter monster as real wounds) the predator would probably realize its mistake and run for its life.</p><p></p><p>Anyway, we ended up over-discussing something that was not my main intention... fleeing was just <em>one</em> but not the <em>only </em>combat outcome alternative to a fight-to-the-death that I wanted to consider, there are also for example voluntary surrender, forced capture (e.g. with restraining) and truce/parley (the latter in case no side is clearly winning). Not that the D&D combat rules supports these options very well unfortunately, especially the last one, but my original idea was just to think whether trying to use some alternatives to have less than 100% combats to the death (and consequently also PCs less frequently dropping unconscious) could help mitigate the narrative problems of HP... mainly because combat would then be less frequently fatal.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Li Shenron, post: 7354183, member: 1465"] What conclusion? I am not really sure. When the monster initiated the fight then yes, because it presumably had a purpose (as you mentioned: hunger, greed, sport or something more complicated if intelligent): even in these cases a pursue wouldn't necessary be unlimited, it could very likely stop once it kills [I]one[/I] for food or once it acquires what he's greed about, ignoring the rest. When the monster is attacked by the PCs, once the threat is no more its main purpose (survival) is fulfilled, it won't necessarily pursue even if winning. If it has something else to defend other than itself, I actually think it would not pursue at all (would a group of guards leave their post to pursue?). I tend to see the discussion more from the point of view of the monsters, because as a DM I am not going to tell the players what they should do, so when talking about fleeing/retreat I have in mind the [I]monsters [/I]doing so. The tiger example I brought up, was actually in my mind meant as a [I]random [/I]encounter, so that the PCs don't have any special motivation of their own for truly killing it. I think that most typically a DM would just have the tiger (or whatever) fight to the death. But wouldn't it make sense that the tiger attacked the PCs for food? And then after being wounded (not much problem here narrating the HP loss of a [I]random[/I] encounter monster as real wounds) the predator would probably realize its mistake and run for its life. Anyway, we ended up over-discussing something that was not my main intention... fleeing was just [I]one[/I] but not the [I]only [/I]combat outcome alternative to a fight-to-the-death that I wanted to consider, there are also for example voluntary surrender, forced capture (e.g. with restraining) and truce/parley (the latter in case no side is clearly winning). Not that the D&D combat rules supports these options very well unfortunately, especially the last one, but my original idea was just to think whether trying to use some alternatives to have less than 100% combats to the death (and consequently also PCs less frequently dropping unconscious) could help mitigate the narrative problems of HP... mainly because combat would then be less frequently fatal. [/QUOTE]
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