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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aberzanzorax" data-source="post: 5708545" data-attributes="member: 64209">What I tend to do, as player and as DM is to describe wounds differently depending on dropping, clear death, and not dropping a character or monster. e.g I pretty much always assume bleeding out from -1 to -9. It's corrected by bandaging/a heal check/any magical healing at all and it's continuous damage that accrues over time. I generally assume characters in this health bracket have a life threatening injury that can be corrected fairly easily. I'll answer the challenge with a couple of examples: 1. The troll's claws scrape across your wrist, opening up an artery. 15' spurts of blood jet out from the arm with each pump of your heart. You go down. 2. The troll pummels your head. Things go black, along with a trickle of blood coming out of your nose and eyes. There may be internal bleeding. It could be mitigated, perhaps by some repositioning, stuffing gauze into your nose, or some other factor.   That's generally how I narrate wounds at this level. If the troll killed the pc outright, it'd be more like: It rips your arms from your body; It turns your head into bloody pulp like a squashed orange; It picks you up and bites out your entrails. And of course, regular (non negative) wounds are bruises, scrapes, cuts, sprains, contusions, lacerations, etc.    EDIT TO ADD:  Describing auto stabilizing. 1. You fall to the ground grotesquely, your body a marionette with suddently cut strings. The weight of your body falls upon your bleeding arm, but is not enough to staunch the flow of blood. (Then in two rounds they stabilize.) It seems the blood pooling under <the character> has ceased to expand at such an alarming rate...either they've bled out entirely, or by some miracle, the pressure on the arm, and the decreased blood pressure from so much loss has acted as a tourniquet, possibly allowing minimal clotting as well.  2. Each round you flop around, seizure-like, slow blood oozing from several orifices in your head. (Then in two rounds they stabilize.) Your flopping and siezing seem to have somehow repositioned your head or the musculature has pressed against the microtears in your organs, or perhaps inflammation has kicked in and closed the wounds. You got lucky this time. I woudn't go around banging my head against anything for a couple of weeks, though.  Describing healing to disabled: 1. You don't know how long you've been out. There's crusty blood on the floor below you. Your blood. Your arm has a giant scab on it, is still bleeding, albeit very slowly, and you feel very, very woozy.  Anything more than the most timid and gentle actions could cause a fall, or could increase your heart rate and bleeding...and you're in no position to open up this wound or take any more blood loss.  2. Your eyes open. The splitting headache is painful and dizzying. Take it easy...sudden movements could cause another loss of consiousness...or worse. Whatever plug has stopped the internal bleeding could easily be loosened if you try much more than a slow walk.</blockquote>

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