RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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One of my favorite parts of D&D is describing combat scenes in great detail and portraying scenes of conflict as believably and artistically as I can.
My question is a matter of cinematic description: How do other DMs handle the matter of describe the injuries that occur to various characters over the course of a battle?
Say you've got a 3rd level fighter with 24 hp. He gets hit with a greataxe for 20 damage. What does that blow look like? Did it crush his clavicle and nearly tear his arm completely off? Was it a sideways swing that caught him in the gut and made him bleed all over his own feet? What if he gets CRITICALLY hit by a rapier for 20 damage? Did it go all the way through his chest and out the back? In the throat?
Now, take a 20th level fighter with 240 hp. He gets hit with a greataxe for 20 damage. Was it a glancing blow? Did it barely scratch him? Or was it the same blow that it was for the 3rd level fighter yet the 20th level fighter is completely unphased? What about crits? Does the 20 damage rapier crit still punch all the way through the fighter? Was it just a flesh wound? If it was "just a flesh wound," why was it a critical?
I'm curious to see other peoples' takes on this matter. I know what my thoughts are already and I'll share them after some discussion gets started. I'm wanting to get input and examples rather that "agree" or "disagree" posts.
Oi, I try not to think too much about hit points. They just don't work well with my sense of fluidity, for so many reasons. I describe blows as on a sliding scale; 20 damage to a 3rd level is a slam to the face while 20 to a 20th level is just a nick in the arm. The only constant is that even 1 hp damage is ALWAYS some direct injury from the opponent's weapon.
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Fatespinner,
That's more or less how I handle it; however, I usually keep the wounds more minor. If a hit takes, say 75% of a PC's hitpoints, it's a major flesh wound. If it takes 10%, it's a minor scratch. My system assumes that having a few minor wounds presents a lapse in ones defenses and enables the truly grisly blows to land.
A blow that does very insignificant damage might represent a muscles strain or a bruise from narrowly avoiding the attack. It could also represent some sort of fatigue or a lowering of defenses.
I do not, however, change any game stats based on wounds until HP reach zero. My system is for narrative purposes only.
I'm actually thinking to create an alternate system w/o or at leats a more realistic use of hp..don't know if it's gonna work though, but hey don't help a lot to describe a fight. Anyways, I try to make it looks realistic; if you get hit by a crit, no matter how many hp you have you feel a horrible pain. Some times i tell the pc to make a fortitude save, etc..Depends on the situation
I drop the whole HP thing and go with Vitality/Wounds. So I always know when something is a real physical injury versus "battle strain" or what have you. I've got another thread hereabouts with some other customizations I use (including Called Shots) because the current system just doesn't suit me--i.e. hacking away at something to reduce it to 0 or less HP is silly. Parrying and bluffing until you get an open shot, then driving home one killing blow works better for me.
So, for the question, I match my cinematics to the mechanics as best U can by using another system.
I tend to describe most hit point damage as bruising, fatigue, strain and small cuts. A 75% blow (20 HP of 24, or the like), would be described as a nasty gash, a leg that you're thankful is numb at the moment, hearing ribs crack. 20 damage to a 240 HP guy would be "he rocks you with a forceful blow, but your skill keeps it to a painful bruise", "a few long spikes poke through your chainmail, but you're basically intact", and the like.
If a blow takes you to negative HP, it's described vividly, as long as it wasn't a 1 or 2 HP blow.
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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I drop the whole HP thing and go with Vitality/Wounds.
If it works for your group, great, but I *HATE* the Vitality/Wounds system and here's why:
Crits are WAAAAAYYY too deadly. The PCs are going to be exposed to more critical hits over the course of a campaign than any monster ever will. Plus, there are a great number of monsters that are IMMUNE to critical hits. Let's look at a 20th level fighter with this system:
Let's assume he's got 300 Vitality. Not bad. Let's also assume he's got an 24 Constitution. That's fairly high. He wants to survive this system, so the player took Toughness TWICE. He's got 30 wounds, 300 Vitality. Okay.
Now, said fighter gets into a scrap with a 12th level rogue. The rogue is using a longsword, the fighter's got a greataxe. The fighter comes in and lands a 'hit' for 42 damage to the rogue's Vitality. Yikes! The rogue makes an exceptional dodge but knows that this fighter means business now. He makes his Improved Feint check, Bluffs the fighter, and sticks the longsword through... oh! It's critical! Lucky day for the rogue! 1d8+4 from the sword's enchantment and the rogue's strength + 6d6 sneak attack ALL DELIVERED TO WOUNDS. The average on that roll would be 30 exactly. Hmmm... the 20th level fighter goes down in one shot from a rogue 8 levels lower than him. Fair? No way in hell.
Now let's look at monster Wounds versus character Wounds. The average character will end up with somewhere between 10 and 20 wound points. There are a great many monsters (especially in the higher levels) who will have 20, 30, or even 40+ wounds, even if they have a fair Vitality for their level/CR.
My way of managing the hit point system in a realistic way is to use what I call the 'psuedo-Vitality' system. I eliminate 'Wounds' entirely. Crits reduce your hitpoints the same as any regular hit, they just reduce it MORE. During the first 30% of your HP or so, you are narrowly avoiding blows, absorbing blows with armor, etc. During the next 30%, they're landing solid hits that are starting to open wounds, damage armor and break some bones. During the NEXT 30%, the blows are getting more severe. Bones are breaking, gashes and bleeding wounds are happening, and combat starts to look ugly. The last 10% of your HP, the blows are nearly fatal. Arrows in the throat, greatclubs to the side of the head, blurring vision, sword blows that punch all the way through the body, etc.
As stated by someone above, I never impose mechanical penalties for injury either, but the narration is much more believable and vivid when done this way, imo.
I drop the whole HP thing and go with Vitality/Wounds.If it works for your group, great, but I *HATE* the Vitality/Wounds system and here's why:
I agree, actually--that's why I've got those customizations I mentioned above. For instance, in my games, Critical Hits aren't random luck of the dice (i.e. happen to roll a threat, then happen to confirm it). Instead, an attacker consciously decides to try to Wound someone, taking a -20 penalty on the attack roll. If the attack hits, every 10 points of damage equals 1 Wound. Feats are available that allow an attacker to focus on specific damage (i.e. called shots) rather than just Wounding to kill. Toughness also works much differently in my games, largely due to the fact that everyone gains Racial HD only--no HP are gained for gaining class levels, but rather the Toughness feat (which can be taken multiple times) grants a percentage of racial HD every level. The feat also grants bonus on Wound-related saves, instant death attempts from damage, etc.
This thread has some of the customizations I mention above. I should probably really write-up/post the whole thing as it'd make more sense. I've been playing for a while (22 years or so) and HP have just started to lose their appeal over the last 5-6 years. So I use a model that works out better for me. Now, it does indeed make combat deadlier, but I'm okay with that (my players know that trying to fight everything to a solution is a VERY bad idea...and I award full or more XP for non-violent solutions). However, it also gives combat classes a better chance against spellcasters at higher levels.
Now, I've also got an entirely variant system that does away with classes, makes everything (including spellcasting, attack, defense, and saving throws) into skills, and turns all class abilities into feats. I mention this to illustrate that I'm favorable to tinkering with the system to get a better "fit" for my games...
I have caught myself, in trying to make things sound exciting in gameplay, as describing nearly every "hit" as a hit. Its hard to tell players that their PCs have lost hit points while still saying that they weren't actually damaged. Still, a low damage roll will usually call for, "he barely scratched your shoulder."
A roll that barely hit on the d20 and does low damage is usually "a scratch that you barely notice." And a critical hit that does a lot of damage, without killing the PC is usually "a horrendous blow that leaves you bleeding badly, and likely would have killed you if not for your skill in battle."
But the really funny thing is that when I write up the campaign journals later, I often times go back to the original thought process, i.e. that not every blow that did hit points damage actually hit a character. In other words, in describing the battle in hindside, perhaps only one or two telling blows really hit, the first one putting the opponent off guard, and the second one landing the killing blow.
Hit points really have always been meant to describe the same thing that vitality points have. If you go back to the first edition description, it points out that its not all physical ability to resist damage, but general energy (one good reason not to include fatigue rules in combat situations), luck, and combat survival skills, as well as physical well being. You might loose hit points because you strained a muscle dodging a killing blow that didn't actually hit, for example.
As far as cinematic escapades in combat goes, it sound like there may be some interesting rules for this in Complete Scoundrel, and I hope that they are fairly easy to incorporate into existing rules, as they sound like they may be fun. I just don't want it to feel like a whole new system tacked onto the existing one.
Keith Baker wrote an article about Swashbuckling Combat here - it's a good read.
You can also find some nice mechanics for cinematic combat in Monte Cook's Iron Heroes.