What are some common guidelines people use to talk to each other at the table about their current hit points? Do people just say the number, or is that too meta gamey? Are there commonly used code words for 50% or 25% health, etc?
Bloodied is a condition from 4e that you got once you were below half your maximum amount of hit points. Basically, it just let people know if you or any other creature in the game was damaged significantly enough to be below half your hp maximum. I use it in my games, and it works like a charm.
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Bloodied is a condition from 4e that you got once you were below half your maximum amount of hit points. Basically, it just let people know if you or any other creature in the game was damaged significantly enough to be below half your hp maximum. I use it in my games, and it works like a charm.
I really do that. Or just a three stage of system of "Taken a hit but but AOK" to "I'm shakey on my feet but would love some healing" to "Hey, the lights fading"
Basically just phrases to kind of code 75-50, 50-25, 25-0 without saying the actual number.
As a DM, I established that humanoid creatures (and others that dont appear physically bulky enough to just take hits straight-on) don’t show any signs of damage until half health. At 25%, I say that they are heavily wounded, and below 10% I describe as heavy wounds, exhausted, and close to collapse.
I tried to encourage my players to describe their characters that way, but it didn’t stick, so we just say if they are “fine”, “around half”, “low”, or “hey guys, I’d kind of like to not die, please heal me”, which works out fine for us.
Such things translate poorly in a system where hit points aren't really a measure of the physical integrity of the body. Hit Points are a measure of combat skill and endurance. Luck and the favor of the gods can weigh in. You don't so much get wounded as you get tired from dodging near misses and maneuvering for position. You get winded, you slow down, and then that one final hit nails you and you drop to the ground and make Death Checks.
A character with even one hit point technically hasn't even been scratched. They might be bruised and battered, but could just be worn out. This is why characters recover entirely with a Long Rest. Normal people in the real world don't take 30 seconds of multiple blows with a sword to bring down. One will do it. It's the same in D&D really.
Monsters can actually be wounded in the more traditional sense. Some of them. Even then, the game has no hit location rules, and only very powerful magic removes limbs or does permanent injury. Weapons practically bounce off Dragons.
If you don't want to just tell people your current hit points, roleplay things. Talk about how your character is panting for breath and unsteady on their feet. Comment about how their armor is dented, or the chainmail links are damaged. If you are under 10 hit points, that is cause for alarm. Maybe you really do have a minor cut at that point. Wipe the blood out of your eyes and call for the healer.
Hit points are an abstraction and don't necessarily translate directly to specific physical conditions that can be easily described. Low HP could be from being tired from dodging hits, or physically bruised and/or cut, it could come from being chilled by cold damage that would "realistically" manifest as symptoms of severe hypothermia, and necrotic damage straight up drains your life force which could be represented any number of ways depending on how you and/or your DM wants to describe it. In a single combat encounter it's quite possible to take multiple types of damage that would all manifest differently but have the aggregate effect of your HP total being dropped to 4 out of 37, which means that one way or another, you're in danger of being killed by any real hit.
Personally, I'm fine with just saying how many hit points a character has, as out of character table talk, rather than artificially enforcing strict "realism" between players when somebody's trying to decide if they should heal an ally or attack an enemy or whatever else they might do. I also think it's good to add some in character banter for flavor, like "I'm fine, I can walk it off," or "Oh, hey, lookit the birdies flyin' round m'head..." As a DM the in character stuff is what I like to think of as just part of good role playing, and will award inspiration for particularly good examples and add marks to my tally sheet that I keep for purposes of awarding bonus XP for consistent good roleplaying.
Basically I say don't overcomplicate things and allow just saying the hit point totals for simplicity, but encourage the in character explanations to keep the proper mood going.
As a DM I have no issues with players saying what hit points they are on, it is far easier then trying to create a system explaining that then leads to ambiguity. I am happy if one of my players tells the cleric, I have lost 15 hit points, the cleric can then judge what level spell to cast. We don’t say that healing spells take you from hurt to wounded, so to my mind I shouldn’t expect to hamstring my players by making them guess if they should waste a 6th level healing word spell at this moment in time.
Agreeing with Scarloc, I have no problem players telling other players their hit point level. Sometimes I flavor, and appreciate players flavoring their conditions, but hit point deficits are sort of useful for a Cleric or other character's healing magic triaging.
Now if a character seeks aid from an NPC healer and their entreaty consists of "Help me, I have # hit points" ... that's going to raise eyebrows and or scuttle whatever role playing transaction could have taken place. It's also why I, like many I think, don't give PCs their opponents' hit point status, I just narrate the action (some players will keep a tally of damage dealt, but it's never broken the game) and use descriptors to talk about how heavy the hit is, but I see no need to blindfold the players from each other. They're a team and healers should be aware of what's going on in a fight and assess their comrades' needs.
As a player, I would generally just say things along the lines of "That hurt, but it's OK", "I'm suffering a bit, now", or "OK, I'm really bad. I mean, like, really really bad, if somebody had any way to help now might be the time! Seriously, please, somebody, I didn't even know I had this much blood in my body or that my entrails would be this slippery, help!!!!!"
As a DM, I would prefer my players don't talk in terms of numbers of hit points at the table, but I don't stamp down on it unless they are starting to meta-game too hard. I, and most of my players, find it more fun to try to describe things without telling their stats outright, but sometimes the numbers slip out.
As a DM I have no issues with players saying what hit points they are on, it is far easier then trying to create a system explaining that then leads to ambiguity. I am happy if one of my players tells the cleric, I have lost 15 hit points, the cleric can then judge what level spell to cast. We don’t say that healing spells take you from hurt to wounded, so to my mind I shouldn’t expect to hamstring my players by making them guess if they should waste a 6th level healing word spell at this moment in time.
Same. I do, however, avoid using Hitpoint values when describing NPC health values, whether friendly or enemies. I don't adhere strictly to "bloodied" or whatever other description, but just try to ad-lib in the moment something descriptive that gives the players a good hint of the state of their enemy.
One of my favorites was an old comic calling out people getting too uppity over the "METAGAMING DX!!" aspect of HP. A fighter, when queried by a cleric on how he was feeling after the DM sassed the table for announcing HP totals, yells to said cleric: "On a scale of 0 to 63, I'm feeling like about a 14." We've used that gag ourselves a few times in our games - "How're you holding up, Star?" "Well, on a scale of zero to sixty-five I'm feeling roughly like a twenty-three. Not great." it's good for an occasional laugh, especially since our table doesn't bother with the whole "HP are an abstraction of combat stamina, defensive prowess, and sheer luck" nonsense. If you're missing HP, you're bruised and/or bleeding. Or whatever else'd. You're physically wounded and healing magic unwounds you, it doesn't refill your essential sword luck or whatever.
'Bloodied' is a thing that should've stuck around, it's a useful marker and something that can and should tie into both PC and monster abilities. I believe Avrae has a similar system - "Uninjured / Injured / Bloody / Near Death / Dedskies", which should be self explanatory. I don't see the harm, most of the time, in people giving each other their HP, though. You tell your friends your armor class, the types and general numbers of damage you deal, your spell lists, and a bunch of other game-y things. Just let players use their HP numbers if that's what works best for them.
As a DM I have no issues with players saying what hit points they are on, it is far easier then trying to create a system explaining that then leads to ambiguity. I am happy if one of my players tells the cleric, I have lost 15 hit points, the cleric can then judge what level spell to cast. We don’t say that healing spells take you from hurt to wounded, so to my mind I shouldn’t expect to hamstring my players by making them guess if they should waste a 6th level healing word spell at this moment in time.
Another vote for this. It’s a game with lots of numbers, why play coy about what yours are?
In some cases, the game actually encourages this, like the life cleric ability that can heal people, but only up to half their hp, so we end up going around the table saying, I can take 16, but no more. Or a pally laying on hands, and knowing how much the target needs, so they can fine tune what they heal to a single point so they don’t give a person more than the max. Or keeping multiples of 5 around in case someone gets poisoned or diseased.
My players use game terms with each other all the time. Their characters use terms that make sense to people living in an actual world and not just as game pieces. But my players aren't typically the types to act out their PCs' dialogue. So at the table it comes across as "yeah, I'm down to 10 HP" or whatever.
As the DM, I describe the status of enemies more organically, mainly to create some uncertainty and try to seat the players' imaginations in the world rather than in the game. So I'll say "he's looking hurt" or "she seems to be doing okay" or "he's hanging on by a thread" to get the idea across. Sometimes I'll drop the actual HP number, but usually when the creature is so low that one hit is likely to do them in. Mainly to provide some satisfaction for the player making the kill.
As a DM I have no issues with players saying what hit points they are on, it is far easier then trying to create a system explaining that then leads to ambiguity. I am happy if one of my players tells the cleric, I have lost 15 hit points, the cleric can then judge what level spell to cast. We don’t say that healing spells take you from hurt to wounded, so to my mind I shouldn’t expect to hamstring my players by making them guess if they should waste a 6th level healing word spell at this moment in time.
Same. I do, however, avoid using Hitpoint values when describing NPC health values, whether friendly or enemies. I don't adhere strictly to "bloodied" or whatever other description, but just try to ad-lib in the moment something descriptive that gives the players a good hint of the state of their enemy.
Oh my players have no idea how many hit points are left on the creature I will tell them it is looking pretty rough towards the end but that’s about it.
45%, Eh, he got some pepper on him but he's fiiiiiine
80% About as spicy as salt.
I don't think I'd personally use this, but I like spice in continuum with saltiness. So at full capacity HP, a PC is "Salty" and then gets seasoned from there till they're reduced to a puddle of salsa.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
One of my favorites was an old comic calling out people getting too uppity over the "METAGAMING DX!!" aspect of HP. A fighter, when queried by a cleric on how he was feeling after the DM sassed the table for announcing HP totals, yells to said cleric: "On a scale of 0 to 63, I'm feeling like about a 14." We've used that gag ourselves a few times in our games - "How're you holding up, Star?" "Well, on a scale of zero to sixty-five I'm feeling roughly like a twenty-three. Not great." it's good for an occasional laugh, especially since our table doesn't bother with the whole "HP are an abstraction of combat stamina, defensive prowess, and sheer luck" nonsense. If you're missing HP, you're bruised and/or bleeding. Or whatever else'd. You're physically wounded and healing magic unwounds you, it doesn't refill your essential sword luck or whatever.
'Bloodied' is a thing that should've stuck around, it's a useful marker and something that can and should tie into both PC and monster abilities. I believe Avrae has a similar system - "Uninjured / Injured / Bloody / Near Death / Dedskies", which should be self explanatory. I don't see the harm, most of the time, in people giving each other their HP, though. You tell your friends your armor class, the types and general numbers of damage you deal, your spell lists, and a bunch of other game-y things. Just let players use their HP numbers if that's what works best for them.
So, at what HP level does your character start loosing limbs then? If all of your HP damage descriptions are superficial damage until you die, then, spoilers: your table does bother with the whole "HP are an abstraction of combat stamina". Technically, HP is an abstraction of how many hits an ironclad can take and remain afloat, so one abstraction is as accurate as another.
Heh. I mean, funny you should ask the one-armed artificer when she starts losing limbs. Her answer would be "At eight years old, the first and worst time. A couple of times after that, because it turns out having an artificial limb you can sacrifice to the ancient death-tomb of Whoever-Hates-Us-Now has saved civilization a few times. Or at least local townships."
In a more reasonable answer? Nobody's lost limbs yet (outside backstory) other than the one NPC who lost the limb offscreen in a fight we didn't get to quite in time, but people have been impaled, taken heavy weapon wounds, suffered burns and frostbite. My gal in particular seems to attract arrow wounds to a degree she is not at all happy with. We simply accept that all characters in D&D 5e have Wolverine-like super regeneration, because that's the only explanation for long rests. And we only do that because DDB won't let us use any of the Gritty Realism or Slow Natural Healing rules. If the DM'd had his way we would've used the Slow Natural Healing rules from the start and dispensed with magical Wolverine regeneration, but DDB doesn't let us do that without a ton of fuss. Which sucks. We really wanted to use that rule.
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What are some common guidelines people use to talk to each other at the table about their current hit points? Do people just say the number, or is that too meta gamey? Are there commonly used code words for 50% or 25% health, etc?
Bloodied!
Bloodied is a condition from 4e that you got once you were below half your maximum amount of hit points. Basically, it just let people know if you or any other creature in the game was damaged significantly enough to be below half your hp maximum. I use it in my games, and it works like a charm.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
I really do that. Or just a three stage of system of "Taken a hit but but AOK" to "I'm shakey on my feet but would love some healing" to "Hey, the lights fading"
Basically just phrases to kind of code 75-50, 50-25, 25-0 without saying the actual number.
As a DM, I established that humanoid creatures (and others that dont appear physically bulky enough to just take hits straight-on) don’t show any signs of damage until half health. At 25%, I say that they are heavily wounded, and below 10% I describe as heavy wounds, exhausted, and close to collapse.
I tried to encourage my players to describe their characters that way, but it didn’t stick, so we just say if they are “fine”, “around half”, “low”, or “hey guys, I’d kind of like to not die, please heal me”, which works out fine for us.
Such things translate poorly in a system where hit points aren't really a measure of the physical integrity of the body. Hit Points are a measure of combat skill and endurance. Luck and the favor of the gods can weigh in. You don't so much get wounded as you get tired from dodging near misses and maneuvering for position. You get winded, you slow down, and then that one final hit nails you and you drop to the ground and make Death Checks.
A character with even one hit point technically hasn't even been scratched. They might be bruised and battered, but could just be worn out. This is why characters recover entirely with a Long Rest. Normal people in the real world don't take 30 seconds of multiple blows with a sword to bring down. One will do it. It's the same in D&D really.
Monsters can actually be wounded in the more traditional sense. Some of them. Even then, the game has no hit location rules, and only very powerful magic removes limbs or does permanent injury. Weapons practically bounce off Dragons.
If you don't want to just tell people your current hit points, roleplay things. Talk about how your character is panting for breath and unsteady on their feet. Comment about how their armor is dented, or the chainmail links are damaged. If you are under 10 hit points, that is cause for alarm. Maybe you really do have a minor cut at that point. Wipe the blood out of your eyes and call for the healer.
Have fun with your games.
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Hit points are an abstraction and don't necessarily translate directly to specific physical conditions that can be easily described. Low HP could be from being tired from dodging hits, or physically bruised and/or cut, it could come from being chilled by cold damage that would "realistically" manifest as symptoms of severe hypothermia, and necrotic damage straight up drains your life force which could be represented any number of ways depending on how you and/or your DM wants to describe it. In a single combat encounter it's quite possible to take multiple types of damage that would all manifest differently but have the aggregate effect of your HP total being dropped to 4 out of 37, which means that one way or another, you're in danger of being killed by any real hit.
Personally, I'm fine with just saying how many hit points a character has, as out of character table talk, rather than artificially enforcing strict "realism" between players when somebody's trying to decide if they should heal an ally or attack an enemy or whatever else they might do. I also think it's good to add some in character banter for flavor, like "I'm fine, I can walk it off," or "Oh, hey, lookit the birdies flyin' round m'head..." As a DM the in character stuff is what I like to think of as just part of good role playing, and will award inspiration for particularly good examples and add marks to my tally sheet that I keep for purposes of awarding bonus XP for consistent good roleplaying.
Basically I say don't overcomplicate things and allow just saying the hit point totals for simplicity, but encourage the in character explanations to keep the proper mood going.
As a DM I have no issues with players saying what hit points they are on, it is far easier then trying to create a system explaining that then leads to ambiguity. I am happy if one of my players tells the cleric, I have lost 15 hit points, the cleric can then judge what level spell to cast. We don’t say that healing spells take you from hurt to wounded, so to my mind I shouldn’t expect to hamstring my players by making them guess if they should waste a 6th level healing word spell at this moment in time.
Agreeing with Scarloc, I have no problem players telling other players their hit point level. Sometimes I flavor, and appreciate players flavoring their conditions, but hit point deficits are sort of useful for a Cleric or other character's healing magic triaging.
Now if a character seeks aid from an NPC healer and their entreaty consists of "Help me, I have # hit points" ... that's going to raise eyebrows and or scuttle whatever role playing transaction could have taken place. It's also why I, like many I think, don't give PCs their opponents' hit point status, I just narrate the action (some players will keep a tally of damage dealt, but it's never broken the game) and use descriptors to talk about how heavy the hit is, but I see no need to blindfold the players from each other. They're a team and healers should be aware of what's going on in a fight and assess their comrades' needs.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
As a player, I would generally just say things along the lines of "That hurt, but it's OK", "I'm suffering a bit, now", or "OK, I'm really bad. I mean, like, really really bad, if somebody had any way to help now might be the time! Seriously, please, somebody, I didn't even know I had this much blood in my body or that my entrails would be this slippery, help!!!!!"
As a DM, I would prefer my players don't talk in terms of numbers of hit points at the table, but I don't stamp down on it unless they are starting to meta-game too hard. I, and most of my players, find it more fun to try to describe things without telling their stats outright, but sometimes the numbers slip out.
Same. I do, however, avoid using Hitpoint values when describing NPC health values, whether friendly or enemies. I don't adhere strictly to "bloodied" or whatever other description, but just try to ad-lib in the moment something descriptive that gives the players a good hint of the state of their enemy.
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We use Spicy for ours lol.
10% HP left, Reeeeally spicy, like habanero spicy
45%, Eh, he got some pepper on him but he's fiiiiiine
80% About as spicy as salt.
One of my favorites was an old comic calling out people getting too uppity over the "METAGAMING DX!!" aspect of HP. A fighter, when queried by a cleric on how he was feeling after the DM sassed the table for announcing HP totals, yells to said cleric: "On a scale of 0 to 63, I'm feeling like about a 14." We've used that gag ourselves a few times in our games - "How're you holding up, Star?" "Well, on a scale of zero to sixty-five I'm feeling roughly like a twenty-three. Not great." it's good for an occasional laugh, especially since our table doesn't bother with the whole "HP are an abstraction of combat stamina, defensive prowess, and sheer luck" nonsense. If you're missing HP, you're bruised and/or bleeding. Or whatever else'd. You're physically wounded and healing magic unwounds you, it doesn't refill your essential sword luck or whatever.
'Bloodied' is a thing that should've stuck around, it's a useful marker and something that can and should tie into both PC and monster abilities. I believe Avrae has a similar system - "Uninjured / Injured / Bloody / Near Death / Dedskies", which should be self explanatory. I don't see the harm, most of the time, in people giving each other their HP, though. You tell your friends your armor class, the types and general numbers of damage you deal, your spell lists, and a bunch of other game-y things. Just let players use their HP numbers if that's what works best for them.
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Another vote for this. It’s a game with lots of numbers, why play coy about what yours are?
In some cases, the game actually encourages this, like the life cleric ability that can heal people, but only up to half their hp, so we end up going around the table saying, I can take 16, but no more.
Or a pally laying on hands, and knowing how much the target needs, so they can fine tune what they heal to a single point so they don’t give a person more than the max. Or keeping multiples of 5 around in case someone gets poisoned or diseased.
My players use game terms with each other all the time. Their characters use terms that make sense to people living in an actual world and not just as game pieces. But my players aren't typically the types to act out their PCs' dialogue. So at the table it comes across as "yeah, I'm down to 10 HP" or whatever.
As the DM, I describe the status of enemies more organically, mainly to create some uncertainty and try to seat the players' imaginations in the world rather than in the game. So I'll say "he's looking hurt" or "she seems to be doing okay" or "he's hanging on by a thread" to get the idea across. Sometimes I'll drop the actual HP number, but usually when the creature is so low that one hit is likely to do them in. Mainly to provide some satisfaction for the player making the kill.
Bloodied was a great mechanic from 4e, we still use it in 5e, though there aren't mechanics that trigger off of it like there were in 4e.
Oh my players have no idea how many hit points are left on the creature I will tell them it is looking pretty rough towards the end but that’s about it.
I don't think I'd personally use this, but I like spice in continuum with saltiness. So at full capacity HP, a PC is "Salty" and then gets seasoned from there till they're reduced to a puddle of salsa.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I use Bloodied and Beeping when telling my players how injured a creature looks (if they can ascertain it).
Bloodied is like the 4e Bloodied- whenever something is below 50% HP, it is Bloodied.
I had a DM I played with once describe a creature at low health as "Beeping" like a Nintendo character, and so I use that for anything below 10% HP.
So, at what HP level does your character start loosing limbs then? If all of your HP damage descriptions are superficial damage until you die, then, spoilers: your table does bother with the whole "HP are an abstraction of combat stamina". Technically, HP is an abstraction of how many hits an ironclad can take and remain afloat, so one abstraction is as accurate as another.
Heh. I mean, funny you should ask the one-armed artificer when she starts losing limbs. Her answer would be "At eight years old, the first and worst time. A couple of times after that, because it turns out having an artificial limb you can sacrifice to the ancient death-tomb of Whoever-Hates-Us-Now has saved civilization a few times. Or at least local townships."
In a more reasonable answer? Nobody's lost limbs yet (outside backstory) other than the one NPC who lost the limb offscreen in a fight we didn't get to quite in time, but people have been impaled, taken heavy weapon wounds, suffered burns and frostbite. My gal in particular seems to attract arrow wounds to a degree she is not at all happy with. We simply accept that all characters in D&D 5e have Wolverine-like super regeneration, because that's the only explanation for long rests. And we only do that because DDB won't let us use any of the Gritty Realism or Slow Natural Healing rules. If the DM'd had his way we would've used the Slow Natural Healing rules from the start and dispensed with magical Wolverine regeneration, but DDB doesn't let us do that without a ton of fuss. Which sucks. We really wanted to use that rule.
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