I know that hitpoints are just a convention. but I like to imagine and describe the action going on in a battle.
but how do you imagine damage dealt by little things to big things.
your halfling rogue with a dagger and a ton of bonus damage sneak attacks a storm giant... for 40 damage.
how does one think of or describe that you did almost a quarter of the giants hit points and you berly reach his calf.
your ranger shoots a gargantuan dragon with a few arrows for 1/3 of his hitpoint. how do you explain murder by toothpick at 100 yards?
blue, in these situations both as a player and a GM I tend to get cinematic.
"As the giant lunges forward to attack the barbarian I leap upwards and jab my dagger through the gap in his armor under his arm, sinking the dagger deep into his side and hopefully nicking an artery or something".
It's fairly routine for small characters fighting big things to be described as leaping or climbing onto the larger creature, while at the same time the larger creature is having to bend down or bring it's head (and teeth) into range of the smaller characters in order to complete their attack. Remember the rounds are broken into turns as an abstraction for playability reasons, the attacks are all happening at once in the game world.
The ancient and honorable Halfling combat art of ankle-fu
Well it is just a game remember, not a real life simulator. Making it more cinematic doesn't necessarily make it more interesting of fun.
No reason to slow everything down to describe things that way in my opinion at least.
Hm... my players tend to enjoy descriptive combat, and I don't recall it actually slowing things down much, if at all. It just makes things more... descriptive.
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Arteries, hamstringing and just stab stab stabbity stabbing. Plus, maybe he's doing some kind of insane 360 dunk stab and just catching the giant straight in the twig and berries.
Okay now I'm having sympathy pains.
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Hm... my players tend to enjoy descriptive combat, and I don't recall it actually slowing things down much, if at all. It just makes things more... descriptive.
Different groups enjoy different things after all. I and my group personally dislike that style of GMing. Don't like to be told what my character does too often and it cropping up a lot during combat.
Hm... my players tend to enjoy descriptive combat, and I don't recall it actually slowing things down much, if at all. It just makes things more... descriptive.Different groups enjoy different things after all. I and my group personally dislike that style of GMing. Don't like to be told what my character does too often and it cropping up a lot during combat.
I don't think I presented a GM as telling a player what their character did. My example was a player describing what their character did to the GM.
As the GM I am very sensitive to the risk of telling a player what their character did. But describing how their attack was resolved is within the GM's realm.
In general I don't have a lot of halflings battling the Tarrasque situations so this doesn't come up a lot. When it does I will suggest to the players that in order to land a blow in a critical spot, they might have to tactically maneuver a bit, including leaping, climbing or grabbing onto something. Usually they take the hint.
In moments like these, especially if the damage is high or there's a crit or something, I like to also include something specific to the character. For example I had a barbarian in one game pull off a grappl on something the size of a VW bug while it was taking flight. With his free hand the next round he critted with a hand axe. The description went as follows:
You hurl yourself onto the beast's shoulderblades, your arm coiling through its fur and finding its grip round the joint of its wing. It's still gaining altitude albeit painstakingly, but the height doesn't deter you from cocking back your free hand. The gleaming steel of the axe head fairly begs for the taste of its flesh and you oblige it, plunging the hungry axe deep into the side of its throat. A gurgled roar instantly issues forth, accompanying the spout of blood as you retrieve your weapon; it's thirst slaked for the moment.
If the rogue is a sneaky devil, have him take out the achiles (or darn near); if he's more about his acrobatics skill, have him bounce between giant and wall, Jackie Chan style until the dagger is embedded in his ribs.
In the archer example...well that one's just plain fun. You could hit an eye, sever a nerve in a wing, or even catch it in a rare soft spot there, just under its belly. You could even describe the man saying to his ammo: "Black Arrow, you have served me well and I have ever recovered you. Fly now and STRIKE TRUE!"
The key is not to think in terms of size or HP damage, but in percentage of life lost IMO. If a giant has 80 HP and the rogue just inflicted, say, 31 (more than 1/3 of its total) in a single SA, I'd give him just about any description he wanted. If however he doesn't get the SA and instead just inflicts 9 HP (just over a 10th its total) I'd describe more the impact than the actual hit: a more inexperienced opponent would've crumpled under the blow, but this thing is so massive that you just manage to scratch the surface of its flesh, like the thons of the wood as you run past.
Insane 360 dunk stab
We need an MLG Pathfinder spoof video.
On topic: We don't use descriptors except to gauge how much health an enemy has left, even then we have to ask what kind of state the creature is in. That said...
I kind of associate bonus dice with weak points, lots of static bonuses with skill and large weapon dice with sheer mass of the weapon.
So... think of an archer like a machine gunner firing a rain of hot death? (He already fires faster than is humanly possible) And he knows where to aim to do the most damage.
Think of a rogue as a guy who waits (non-SA) for an opening to stab home (SA), compared to a fighter who swings as hard as he can and as fast as he can(consistent damage)? Moving, hitting lightly every so often then slashing open the calf to bleed the artery.