D&D 5E The "everyone at full fighting ability at 1 hp" conundrum

[ninjayeti]

The answer is that hit points are both "meat" and an abstraction at same time. How they behave in any situation depends on what works in that context.

It is like how light is either a particle or a wave depending on what experiment you run. Yeah, it doesn't make any sense, but that just seems to be how the universe works.

 

[3catcircus]

Like cinematics? Stay with hp.

Want something closer to reality? You'll need to implement some kind of wound level/injury system.

My favorite implementation of such a system is contained in the Twilight: 2013 rules. There are numerous different ways to do an injury system. None are 100% ideal because magic scales so much different than physical attacks.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I'm not asking for realism. I'm asking for things like a difference between how a magic missile is causing injury, but a firebolt does not. There's no way of knowing that from a PC's viewpoint, which is the main way PCs learn about various monsters and what works better than others. If you're hitting it with magic missiles, and the narrative is the same as when you hit with a firebolt (that doesn't do anything), how can you as the caster troubleshoot and find out what works better? Just keep with one until all the sudden the enemy drops dead with no clues beforehand?

 

[Tony Vargas]

I'm not asking for realism. I'm asking for things like a difference between how a magic missile is causing injury, but a firebolt does not.

It's really up to the DM to narrate in a way that communicates effectively with his players. I don't mean that in the sense of "this is how it should be," just, that's exactly what 5e says: "Dungeon Masters describe hit point loss in different ways. " That's it. You have complete freedom to describe things in a way that makes sense to you and your players, given the "fictional positioning" (pemerton! Campbell! get outta my head!), situation, and interaction of the various applicably systems & sub-systems.

So, if a magic missile is causing injury (to a creature what's showing signs of injury at that point) and the firebolt not, you'd describe them doing something - maybe punching holes in it, maybe scuffing it's carapace, whatever - while the flames wash off it without effect.
If it's /not/ showing physical signs of injury yet, it could still react differently: If it's a tiny/annoying creature, for instance, like a stirge or a gnome paladin, that happens to be immune to fire but not magic missile (because, IDK, it's a magma stirge or a Paladin of Kakatal), you could narrate it reacting to the latter (faltering in it's flight, deflecting them with a sacred sign), but not the former (again, just washes off, it's not even trying to dodge).
You could also get into things like an intelligent foe (so /not/ a magma stirge or a gnome paladin of Kakatal), trying to fool you by faking a wince of concern when subjected to something it resists, while betraying no such fear when taking attacks more dangerous to it. Deceit. Insight. Maybe even a use for a BM ribbon here or there.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

The DM could always just tell the players how many HPs each monster has left if they ask, there's no rule that this has to be a secret.

 

[Lanefan]

I'm not asking for realism. I'm asking for things like a difference between how a magic missile is causing injury, but a firebolt does not. There's no way of knowing that from a PC's viewpoint, which is the main way PCs learn about various monsters and what works better than others. If you're hitting it with magic missiles, and the narrative is the same as when you hit with a firebolt (that doesn't do anything), how can you as the caster troubleshoot and find out what works better? Just keep with one until all the sudden the enemy drops dead with no clues beforehand?

If the caster states they're trying to assess whether a spell had any effect or not, give a check - could be Perception, could be Arcana, could be whatever - to determine whether the caster can correctly assess what's working and what isn't.

 

[iserith]

I'm not asking for realism. I'm asking for things like a difference between how a magic missile is causing injury, but a firebolt does not. There's no way of knowing that from a PC's viewpoint, which is the main way PCs learn about various monsters and what works better than others. If you're hitting it with magic missiles, and the narrative is the same as when you hit with a firebolt (that doesn't do anything), how can you as the caster troubleshoot and find out what works better? Just keep with one until all the sudden the enemy drops dead with no clues beforehand?

I mean, for me, I take the instruction from the rules of "Narrate the results of the adventurers' actions" and am sure to include the specific impact of the attack the character makes, especially if one method is more efficacious than another. But I gather from your example not everyone does that. It seems reasonable to me that the effect on the monster is noticeable if, say, a magic missile does more damage to it than a firebolt. So that'll be in my narration. And even if I don't want to describe it as a direct hit ("non-meat damage), then I could say something like that monster scrambles to get the heck out of the way of that force missile, expending its reserves in the process, which may be distinct from how I described it reacting to the firebolt.

 

[BookBarbarian]

I have decided that HP somehow just represent the ability to move and act, and it's binary. You either can or can't.

Then I don't think about it. I will resume stuffing my fingers in my ears and saying "la la la la" now.

 

[Lanefan]

The DM could always just tell the players how many HPs each monster has left if they ask, there's no rule that this has to be a secret.

Unlike video games (and, by the sound of it from earlier this thread, at least one online RPG host) monsters in the game world don't run around with little health bars over their heads.

That said, it's on the DM to narrate a monster's general condition, preferably before she's asked to, as in:

It's still in pretty good shape
It's looking a little beat-up but still has more to give
(if using the mechanic) It's bloodied
It's starting to wobble noticeably
It's in bad shape, bleeding all over the place and ready to fall

The actual descriptions and remaining hit-point %-ages at which they're used will, of course, vary from monster to monster. And there's some monsters - e.g. many undead and quite a few oozes-slimes-jellies - where you really can't tell the difference between perfect condition and 1 h.p. left.

 

[darjr]

HP are a paradox. A fine one. You can RP how bad hurt you are when in rules terms HP loss doesn’t hurt your performance. Or the monsters performance.

it’s probably the single best abstract paradox game idea ever.

It’s clear and concise and very simple, yet it’s a hard to grasp thing that can be many things at once, even contradictory things, mostly in the RP of the game.

I wouldn’t trade it for another mechanic.

Bloodied was a great idea and could be applied to PCs in a proverbial game but as a generic default rule for D&D it was to much.