Secret hit points?

[Mistwell]

I think you should try it for a session or two and report back and tell us how it worked out.

 

[FrogReaver]

I was unaware that PCs could literally feel the monster's pain? How the monster is having to hold back because the last attack bruised it's bones etc.
Y'know, stuff logically only that person would know.

You can tell if you badly youve hurt something by how it acts and reacts.

 

[jgsugden]

In the 80s I ran a game where I kept all hp hidden. PCs never knew how many hps they had... everything was described and PCs had to guess how close to death they were. It worked amazingly well ... for that group. I tried it again with another group and it blew up before one session was over. I think any 'hidden info' idea is going to highly depend upon the player group.

 

[Yunru]

You can tell if you badly youve hurt something by how it acts and reacts.

Sure, but that's a vast difference between "I can see if it's badly hurt" and "I can tell it's exact hitpoints."

 

[Maxperson]

I tried secret hit points many years ago and it was far more headache than it was worth. Did add some realism? Yes, but I have so much going on behind the screen already that the extra tracking that I had to do just wasn't worth it. On the player side of things they had different ideas of what status descriptions I was giving them meant, causing them headaches as well. I suppose they would have eventually learned my descriptions, but the experiment didn't last that long. The pain in the butt it represented just wasn't worth a little bit of added realism to us.

 

[Shadowdweller00]

I was unaware that PCs could literally feel the monster's pain? How the monster is having to hold back because the last attack bruised it's bones etc.
Y'know, stuff logically only that person would know.

You can tell if you badly youve hurt something by how it acts and reacts.

I don't give out numbers, but one can certainly describe monster health levels in qualitative terms: "It's breathing heavily with exertion." "It's got quite a number of nicks and bruises." "It's trembling in pain, heavily favoring one leg." "Doesn't seem like it has even noticed your attacks." I tend to prefer giving out this information because....it feels more immersive? And because I LIKE to see the PCs reacting to it.

 

[dco]

I find the combat of D&D very unrealistic, lots of hits, damage, binary consciuous-unconscious... and because of this I find descriptions uninteresting. I also think you should have better ways to build tension as someone said.
But that's me, ask your players and if they want try it, perhaps it improves your experience.