I've searched the forums and couldn't see this question asked before, so here goes...
How do you deal with players asking how damaged an enemy looks?
Reason I ask is that I have one player who tends to play the damage dealer who regularly asks me this, and it's starting to rub off on the other players. His view is that after taking some damage, you should be able to determine an enemies rough status.
I don't remember seeing any rules on this in any D&D/PF book.
I've kinda come up with my own process that we've used in my previous (3.5Ed) campaigns, where I give them a simple response :
'Fine' - Not hit
'Hurt' - Hit but over 50% HPs'
'Under half' - Under 50% HPs but alive
'Dead'/'Unconscious' - as seen
I know that there is a spell that does almost give this info (Deathwatch) but it's pretty pointless with the houserule I've used above.
We're about to start a new (PF) campaign and I'd like to get this right. Is there a rule I should use? What do my follow GM's do?
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I don't think there's a RAW answer but this is what I do...
In Campaigns where a PC has the Heal Skill, I allow a check -- mostly because I feel that the Heal Skill sucks and anything I can do to make it balance with other Skills helps. .... You could consider making a Heal check the only way for a PC to know. I only do it when a Player designs his PC with Heal.
In other games, PCs with Knowledge: that-monster-type or Favored Enemy: that-monster-type can make Perception checks as a Move Action. I figure a Move Action is what it takes to focus or concentrate for a couple seconds on a monster.
Sounds fine how you are doing it.
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We facetiously use "He falls to one knee!" to represent someone at 1 hp on occasion. (It's more funny with a giant centipede)
I'd be careful not to devalue an (already weak) spell like deathwatch, whose whole point is to give that kind of information.
I'll give a vague impression in my decriptions of combat that can let players pick up on things:
30 damage on 12 hp guy: you cut him in half with your mighty swing!
30 damage on 200 hp guy: The monster shrugs off your blow as if it was a minor inconvenience.
That sort of thing.
Also, (house rule) only characters trained in Heal can ask other party members for their current hp/damage. Otherwise, it's got to be vague - "I look pretty bad off," "I'm only slightly hurt," etc.
In my games, if damage is not obvious, characters can make a DC 15 Heal check to determine general condition, which is only ever given in vague terms ("he's only slightly wounded" etc.) The better the success, the more information I give, though I'm rarely going to give out exact HP.
Last campaign I ran a character had more or less a permanent Deathwatch, so I would notify that PC when someone was close to death (less than 5 HP or so).
As a metagame thing, we also refer to the "Neon Sign" -- that is, when someone is down to one HP, we note the "neon sign of 1 HP" is flying over the creature's head. That's more of a humorous thing--not about player knowledge, but more of an amused chagrin that we often seem to manage to drop a creature to 1 HP rather than get that one more point of damage to drop it that turn.
We do it thusly:
100-90% "They look fine"
90%-75% "They're wounded"
75%-50% "They are bloody"
50%-25% "They are pretty badly injured"
25% or less "They look like they are on their last legs."
That is for easily recognised humanoid races. Creatures with more esoteric or non humanoid physioligy will sometimes require passive knowledge rolls to know how wounded they are.
For example a Knowledge Arcana check would needed to know how badly wounded a golem or dragon is or Knowledge Religion to tell how badly damaged a specific undead might be or Handle Animal for most common animals, since they do not share the common physical functions most humanoid races do.
Generally it should not be TOO difficult to tell how badly injured most opponents are. After all anyone with 3/4 to 1 for 1 BAB is TRAINED in combat, including knowing where to hit to cause the most damage or bloodloss, how to cripple an enemy etc. They are not just folks out there swinging weapons, they are trained killers. Part of that will be anatomy and recognizing how wounded an enemy is. Rogues even moreso with Sneak Attack.
You can even require like a DC 15 Heal check, as a passive test, to tell how badly an opponent is wounded if you do not want it to be simple.
One of my DMs uses heal checks -- with usually hilarious results, since the person most often asking has no ranks in Heal and dumped wisdom. ("He took those five force bombs and looks better than ever!")
It's natural enough that it's made inroads in other games, too, but I think that's the only game where it's an official houserule.
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We do it thusly:
100-90% "They look fine"
90%-75% "They're wounded"
75%-50% "They are bloody"
50%-25% "They are pretty badly injured"
25% or less "They look like they are on their last legs."That is for easily recognised humanoid races. Creatures with more esoteric or non humanoid physioligy will sometimes require passive knowledge rolls to know how wounded they are.
For example a Knowledge Arcana check would needed to know how badly wounded a golem or dragon is or Knowledge Religion to tell how badly damaged a specific undead might be or Handle Animal for most common animals, since they do not share the common physical functions most humanoid races do.
You can even require like a DC 15 Heal check, as a passive test, to tell how badly an opponent is wounded if you do not want it to be simple.
I like your table/wording so I shall borrow it (yoink)
I like your table/wording so I shall borrow it (yoink)
By all means. Feel free to share if you have folks who would find it handy.
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I do tell my players when the monster is bloodied (1/2 HP), but aside from that, the creature's hit points have only moderate correlation with how I describe it. The giant might shrug off dozens of blows and look only moderately annoyed, until the last arrow that brings him to zero goes through his eye and "kills him in one shot."
On the other hand, the werewolf might take hit after hit, becoming increasingly bloody and ragged, even though he's only taken 1/2 his HP in damage.
It's all about making the game interesting. I know I've gotten annoyed at GMs in the past who don't give evocative descriptions of how damaged the bad guys are:
Me: "How beat-up does the orc look?"
GM: "You don't know. You don't have any way to tell his current HP."
Me: "I'm not asking how many hitpoints he has left. I'm asking how he *looks*!"
How do you deal with players asking how damaged an enemy looks?
I say it all depends on how you see hit points.
In my game, I told my players that hit points are more like "adventure points" and less like "health points". You don't necessarly do physical damage each time you hit someone with an arrow... Imagine the 20th level barbarian who's down to 7 hit points (from 189) after a volley of arrows would look like a walking pin cusion. It's more the critical hits and the final hit (the one that brings you below 0) that really do physical damage.
A begining 1st level adventurer, will no doubt die after triggering the first trap in the entrance to an tomb.
Now imagine Indiana Jones (a seasoned 17th level adventurer) with 150 hit points, avoiding most traps, triggering a few (but manages to get missed by the arrows comming out of the walls), makes a lucky jump across a deep pit, barely makes it under a closing stone doorway, and successfully outruns a giant rolling boulder before ending up surrounded by a whole tribe of bush people with around 50 hit points left. He can still run like heck, avoid the tribesmen's darts and swim to the safety of a waiting plain... And still have 23 hit points left. He's not bleeding or anything, but he sure is glad the day is over.
We use the critical hit cards (and the critical fumble cards) to add spice to the fights. They usually describe things like a cut ear, a bleeding arm, a crushed foot, etc... When a few of thos add up, you can pretty well see if someone's at the end of their rope. lol
Ultradan
We don't have figurines/cutouts for the enemies in our game, so we often use six-side dice to represent them (with different colors being different types of enemies or even allies in some cases); when I put dice on the map, they start out at 6 pips if uninjured and work their way down to 1 pip if they look like they're about to die, incorporating heal, wisdom or intelligence checks. While it might be easy to tell when a standard humanoid is about to die, a shambling mound is another thing entirely.
I belong to the old D&D school that says hit points represent luck, skill and all that in addition to damage. Therefore, a huge dragon with one pip might have two dozen arrows lodged in it and a dozen slash wounds, but an enemy fighter down to one pip might be beaten up just a bit, dazed, overwhelmed by attacks and getting fatigued--ready for a killing blow to finish them off.
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We do it thusly:
100-90% "They look fine"
90%-75% "They're wounded"
75%-50% "They are bloody"
50%-25% "They are pretty badly injured"
25% or less "They look like they are on their last legs."That is for easily recognised humanoid races. Creatures with more esoteric or non humanoid physioligy will sometimes require passive knowledge rolls to know how wounded they are.
For example a Knowledge Arcana check would needed to know how badly wounded a golem or dragon is or Knowledge Religion to tell how badly damaged a specific undead might be or Handle Animal for most common animals, since they do not share the common physical functions most humanoid races do.
Generally it should not be TOO difficult to tell how badly injured most opponents are. After all anyone with 3/4 to 1 for 1 BAB is TRAINED in combat, including knowing where to hit to cause the most damage or bloodloss, how to cripple an enemy etc. They are not just folks out there swinging weapons, they are trained killers. Part of that will be anatomy and recognizing how wounded an enemy is. Rogues even moreso with Sneak Attack.
You can even require like a DC 15 Heal check, as a passive test, to tell how badly an opponent is wounded if you do not want it to be simple.
This is definitely going on a cheat sheet.
I belong to the old D&D school that says hit points represent luck, skill and all that in addition to damage.
That's also Pathfinder RAW, actually.
What Hit Points Represent: Hit points mean two things in the game world: the ability to take physical punishment and keep going, and the ability to turn a serious blow into a less serious one.
This is a continuation of the AD&D concept of HPs where natural hit dice and constitution bonuses represented actual physical toughness, hit points gained from levels represented ability to mitigate injury.
So, a 1st level guy has 5hps and takes 15 damage from a sword, he's impaled and dies. 10th level 50hp guy takes the same 15 point hit, he's alive and fine with 35hp left, but he's not running around impaled with a sword sticking out of his chest. The sword actually missed or at most gave him a scratch.
Likewise, for natural HDs the thing's just so big and tough the same hit on a weaker thing is like a scratch, like how a bull in a bullfight can have spears sticking out it's back and all it does is piss it off, while if the matador was stuck like that, he'd be dead.
Effects of Hit Point Damage: Damage doesn't slow you down until your current hit points reach 0 or lower. At 0 hit points, you're disabled.
So, if you want to play RAW, there's no way for a character to really tell something's about to drop until it actually does - because it's not actually noticeably hurt in any serious way until it's staggered at 0hp, or unconsious/dying at <-1.
Metagame, the players can estimate it for themselves by tracking their own damage and making a guess at the creatures hit dice (helped by knowledge checks, gaming experience, and such). In my games I might hint if the thing is about to drop, but generally play it close to the vest.
When we ask the DM... we're really not looking for THAT specific of an answer. What we are REALLY trying to ask is...
1) Are the weapons we're using having ANY effect at all... Between DR and the old +1 or better to hit... we can pound away on a bad guy all day long and he'll just laugh.
sooooo When I hit him with my sword... was there blood? Or did it heal up immediately showing I'm wasting my time..
2)Do we even have a CHANCE of Winning? Really tying into pt 1 there. If the weapons we are using are only allowing 1 pt a rd... and we're at death's door... a simple 'He's taken damage... but doesn't look worried.... says a LOT. Same with, he's bleeding, and not happy.. could mean we have him on the ropes and can end him with one more hit.... or he's got a few more rounds of fight left in him.
I think if the players are able to do the mathmatical equations based on the dm's response... they're being given too much information ;)
When we ask the DM... we're really not looking for THAT specific of an answer. What we are REALLY trying to ask is...
OK here's the rule on that
Some magic creatures have the supernatural ability to instantly heal damage from weapons or ignore blows altogether as though they were invulnerable.
So you'd see it happening. You'd either see the movie special effect of wounds, scratches, bruises, closing and fading before your eyes, or arrows bouncing off, and the thing acting like it's doesn't care you're hitting it.
To the extent some of the damage gets through, you should see some marks stay, feel it connect, and the thing likewise react like it cares it got hit.
I've searched the forums and couldn't see this question asked before, so here goes...
How do you deal with players asking how damaged an enemy looks?
Reason I ask is that I have one player who tends to play the damage dealer who regularly asks me this, and it's starting to rub off on the other players. His view is that after taking some damage, you should be able to determine an enemies rough status.
I don't remember seeing any rules on this in any D&D/PF book.
I've kinda come up with my own process that we've used in my previous (3.5Ed) campaigns, where I give them a simple response :
'Fine' - Not hit
'Hurt' - Hit but over 50% HPs'
'Under half' - Under 50% HPs but alive
'Dead'/'Unconscious' - as seenI know that there is a spell that does almost give this info (Deathwatch) but it's pretty pointless with the houserule I've used above.
We're about to start a new (PF) campaign and I'd like to get this right. Is there a rule I should use? What do my follow GM's do?
I do exactly what you do. And extend this to the players too , our group made a table in the exel that shows all pcs and npcs conditions in this manner.
When we ask the DM... we're really not looking for THAT specific of an answer. What we are REALLY trying to ask is...
OK here's the rule on that
Some magic creatures have the supernatural ability to instantly heal damage from weapons or ignore blows altogether as though they were invulnerable.So you'd see it happening. You'd either see the movie special effect of wounds, scratches, bruises, closing and fading before your eyes, or arrows bouncing off, and the thing acting like it's doesn't care you're hitting it.
To the extent some of the damage gets through, you should see some marks stay, feel it connect, and the thing likewise react like it cares it got hit.
Exactly.
When we ask the physical state or the enemies condition THAT is what we're hoping to get.
Especially when you get into things like Demon immunity to cold or fire or lightging... THe question 'does that look like it worked' is a common enough question.
We're not trying to analyze the exact perchentage of hp left to the monster...
Though that may be NICE... I think it would take you out of the game too much...