How much psychic damage can a player take before they have real consequences, like being slowed down, losing part of their INT/WIS base score, etc.? Could it eventually kill them? Is it simple and just mirrors the physical HP?
According to the devs, not every reduction of HP leaves a mark. And hp is a combination of luck, willpower, and toughness. Not exactly supported by the mechanics within the game, but...
Anyway, yeah. Psychic damage basically 1 to 1s any other damage type. A little can just be a headache (like a physical attack that won't even bruise). A powerful psychic attack could cause hemorrhaging and bleeding arouns the eyes, nose, or ears. You get the idea.
The same amount of fire damage you can take before one of your limbs gets definitely burned off.
There's a lot of ways to interpret damage, it doesn't necessarily mean something that "hits". Psychic damage that doesn't reduce you to 0 could be played as "you feel your senses numb and your vision gets blurry for a second as you start to feel a sharp pain behind your eyes. After an instant, you manage to block out the pain and recover your senses".
Hit points are an abstraction of a lot of factors, so psychic damage can be considered being demoralized and losing the will to fight. The person who is conscious but decides to stay down.
Questions like these are where we have to remember what the "G" in RPG stands for. This is a game, not a simulation. At some point we have to accept less than 100% realism and just go with it :)
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How much psychic damage can a player take before they have real consequences, like being slowed down, losing part of their INT/WIS base score, etc.? Could it eventually kill them? Is it simple and just mirrors the physical HP?
RAW: Unless the ability that deals the psychic damage says otherwise, all it does is deplete their hit points, like any other damage type.
According to the devs, not every reduction of HP leaves a mark. And hp is a combination of luck, willpower, and toughness. Not exactly supported by the mechanics within the game, but...
Anyway, yeah. Psychic damage basically 1 to 1s any other damage type. A little can just be a headache (like a physical attack that won't even bruise). A powerful psychic attack could cause hemorrhaging and bleeding arouns the eyes, nose, or ears. You get the idea.
The same amount of fire damage you can take before one of your limbs gets definitely burned off.
There's a lot of ways to interpret damage, it doesn't necessarily mean something that "hits". Psychic damage that doesn't reduce you to 0 could be played as "you feel your senses numb and your vision gets blurry for a second as you start to feel a sharp pain behind your eyes. After an instant, you manage to block out the pain and recover your senses".
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I think it's just a more rare damage type so, less likely to have a source of resistance to it, as well as a DC save often tied to INT.
Hit points are an abstraction of a lot of factors, so psychic damage can be considered being demoralized and losing the will to fight. The person who is conscious but decides to stay down.
Questions like these are where we have to remember what the "G" in RPG stands for. This is a game, not a simulation. At some point we have to accept less than 100% realism and just go with it :)