Describing Hit Points

[rgrove0172]

Hey gang, experienced GM her but new to the system. I haven't played with the strict Hit Point mechanic in a long long time.

I enjoy a very narrative style of interaction and accompany almost any gamey mechanic with as close to a real world description as I can. I find my players enjoy the approach too.

Im having trouble figuring out how to narrate hit points though, in certain situations.

For example, I understand that a character's hit points don't directly relate to their health but are rather an abstraction of their defensive ability to avoid injury, endurance, paint tolerance, luck, and anything else you want to throw in.

A character with 10 HP that is hit with 8 points of damage took a nasty wound while a character with 60 HP taking the same damage got scratched at best. I can deal with that and adjust my narrative accordingly.

But do you then explain that last HP lost by the 60HP character as an enemy finally getting through his tiring guard and landing an incapacitating blow? So there are no real wounds up to that point?

What about healing. A Cure Light Wounds spell would mend the nasty wound mentioned to the low level character above. I mean it literally closes the wound, stops bleeding, fuses the flesh, attaches the blood vessels etc. While the exact same spell on a high level character does what exactly? Rests them a bit? Makes them feel a bit fresher?

YOu see what I mean? How do you guys explains some of the oddities of hit points?

[Snow_Tiger]

Ya it's weird, I like the way you explain hit points at first.

For your tiring guard scenario, ya it sort of hard to simulate that properly.

I've never really liked the cure spells, too weird, rarely actually prepare them.

[Master of the Dark Triad]

It's how many hits you can take before the gods say, "whatever, he's a goner!"

[rgrove0172]

Without using one of the optional critical hit effects out there or something its impossible to 'wound' an opponent. You basically just batter their guard down until you kill them. Each combat looks exactly the same.

How do you veterans mix it up without including modifiers based on assumed damage to limbs, bleeding, pain and such?

[Jiggy]

Core Rulebook, Combat chapter, Injury and Death, Loss of Hit Points wrote:

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.

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.

I know there are some systems out there where all but your last few hit points are just "heroic dodging" and you're not really getting injured until you're very low on HP, but Pathfinder is not one of those systems. All hit point damage in Pathfinder represents actual injury (a guy with 300HP who takes 1 damage from a poisoned shuriken still needs to make a Fort save), but having lots of HP means you're tough enough to take it and keep going.

As for modifiers for "damage to limbs, bleeding, pain and such", Pathfinder generally doesn't do that. There are effects here and there which can do things like that (and I think Ultimate Combat has some optional "called shot" rules), but those are special cases.

If an accurate representation of physical combat and injury is important to you, Pathfinder might not be the best choice. :/

[Axebeard]

Your explanation of what hit points represent hinges on how you envision a PC. Either they're made of the same flesh and blood that you and your players are, or their extreme heroism makes them possessed of superhuman toughness and able to sustain blows that would have dropped anyone in our universe.

So, are they so tough that can they be run through with swords multiple times and still swing back? Then, by all means, imagine that the number of hit points damage a character has taken directly correlates to the grievousness of physical wounds. We don't fight demons and dragons, so there's no telling what sorts of effects fighting those foes has on your ability to sustain blows and keep on going. Supernatural foes produce supernatural heroes.

Alternately, are they maybe just a bit tougher than you or me, but intensely skilled? Then maybe HP is resolve or energy that carries the hero through the fight instead rather than a pure measure of physical toughness.

Sometimes I think of it as a mix of sustained wounds and "fighting spirit," or ability to avoid blows that would have been "the one" that drops them. When I'm operating with this frame of reference, attacks fall into three categories:

1) Misses AC: Attacks that are executed poorly enough to require no extra exertion on part of the character to avoid.

2) Hits AC, does HP damage: An attack that would have hit or been serious, but the character's exceptional training allows him to, through extra energy (hit point) expenditure, twist out of the way at the last moment and continue fighting. May be a grazing blow, indicating that a blow that would have driven through the heart merely clipped his shoulder instead. Either consumes energy or through physical harm hampers the character's ability to avoid future attacks.

3) Hits AC, kills or incapacitates: Having expended his energy, your character can no longer avoid or compensate for the next blow that is similar to those he was able to cope with earlier in the fight, and this runs him through the gut, dropping him to the ground.

If he's dropped from full HP to zero, then the quality of the attack is sufficient to where at full energy reserves and peak condition, his training was not enough to save him.

[Axebeard]

rgrove0172 wrote:

What about healing. A Cure Light Wounds spell would mend the nasty wound mentioned to the low level character above. I mean it literally closes the wound, stops bleeding, fuses the flesh, attaches the blood vessels etc. While the exact same spell on a high level character does what exactly? Rests them a bit? Makes them feel a bit fresher?

I just now read the extent of your post, and realized that I basically described the tiring guard you talked about.

I feel like tiring guard meshes with clerical magic extremely well. A character's loss in hit points represents wounds and energy, sure, and a clerical spell may very well have the same visible effect on a high-level and low-level combatant: Fusing flesh and all that. I'd say that clerical magic, if you're looking for a narrative, can be said to FIRST fuse flesh and heal wounds, and THEN restore tiring guard.

It also meshes with superhuman toughness, as well, meaning that characters who are just THAT resilient can walk around with gaping wounds and still be surprisingly functional. And then, yes, the clerical magic only closes a bit of the wound, but a character with less hit points would never have been able to sustain that "quantity" of wound in the first place, meaning that while the lower-level guy is fully healed, the higher-level guy receives the same amount of would closure from the magic, but merely is missing a lot more flesh or organ function.

Honestly, my approach is to just let the situation dictate the way hit points are represented. Weapons like hammers can mesh very well with hp loss meaning physical damage, because you can just sort of accept that he's been healed "more" when there aren't visible cuts, instead just blunt organ trauma. With bladed weapons, though, we tend to think of "wow 50 hit points worth of cuts must look a lot worse than 5 hit points worth of cuts" and then we get into trouble trying to reason it out.

[La'Vantis Tuen]

rgrove0172 wrote:

What about healing. A Cure Light Wounds spell would mend the nasty wound mentioned to the low level character above. I mean it literally closes the wound, stops bleeding, fuses the flesh, attaches the blood vessels etc. While the exact same spell on a high level character does what exactly? Rests them a bit? Makes them feel a bit fresher?

huh, I've been DM/GMing for 14 years and never thought of exactly this...

The HP thing I could tell you 100 ways from sunday how to describe, but I'm sure you got that. The real issue is this, and honestly I've got to think about it.

Sorry to not be a productive post... I'll try to bring something to the table SOON!

[Unruly]

rgrove0172 wrote:

But do you then explain that last HP lost by the 60HP character as an enemy finally getting through his tiring guard and landing an incapacitating blow? So there are no real wounds up to that point?

That's how it worked for Achilles. He didn't get hurt until someone busted his ankle on a lucky shot, and then he went down like a sack of bricks.

But, like others have said, that's not exactly how Pathfinder works. I like to think of it a little bit like getting calluses. You work with your hands long enough, and the skin toughens up and becomes leathery and stiff. This makes it so you don't get blisters easily anymore, and so you can keep working longer.

For HP, you're used to getting beat over the head with a stick, so you shrug off the small stuff and your bones/skin are tougher. There's actual science behind that as well, called Wolff's Law and Davis's Law. Basically, as the load your body is subjected to changes, your physical structure will change to adapt. So if you run over hot coals for days on end, eventually your feet will toughen up to where you're not getting cooked with every step. And if you punch that brick wall long enough, the bones in your fist will harden up so that you're not breaking your hand anymore.

Remember, heavyweight boxers and champion martial artists train their body to take those hits. They may have a natural strength that helps them, but without training they'd still go down with just a couple of those high-powered hits. Which is why you don't see brawls between random people last more than a few hits usually.

Quote:

What about healing. A Cure Light Wounds spell would mend the nasty wound mentioned to the low level character above. I mean it literally closes the wound, stops bleeding, fuses the flesh, attaches the blood vessels etc. While the exact same spell on a high level character does what exactly? Rests them a bit? Makes them feel a bit fresher?

Basically, yea. When you get tough enough to shrug off the small stuff like that, the CLW won't do as much for you. You might still be in rough shape, but maybe it stopped that internal bleeding you had while leaving you in a badly bruised condition. It doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing approach. That higher-HP guy might be able to power through a couple broken ribs and keep fighting because he's experienced that level of debilitating pain before. But that lower-HP guy might have never had a broken bone before and be laid out, screaming for his mother, because he broke his wrist. So that Cure Light Wounds might fix a broken wrist completely, but maybe it only mends a single rib out of half a shattered ribcage.

[La'Vantis Tuen]

Unruly wrote:

rgrove0172 wrote:

But do you then explain that last HP lost by the 60HP character as an enemy finally getting through his tiring guard and landing an incapacitating blow? So there are no real wounds up to that point?

That's how it worked for Achilles. He didn't get hurt until someone busted his ankle on a lucky shot, and then he went down like a sack of bricks.

But, like others have said, that's not exactly how Pathfinder works. I like to think of it a little bit like getting calluses. You work with your hands long enough, and the skin toughens up and becomes leathery and stiff. This makes it so you don't get blisters easily anymore, and so you can keep working longer.

For HP, you're used to getting beat over the head with a stick, so you shrug off the small stuff and your bones/skin are tougher. There's actual science behind that as well, called Wolff's Law and Davis's Law. Basically, as the load your body is subjected to changes, your physical structure will change to adapt. So if you run over hot coals for days on end, eventually your feet will toughen up to where you're not getting cooked with every step. And if you punch that brick wall long enough, the bones in your fist will harden up so that you're not breaking your hand anymore.

Remember, heavyweight boxers and champion martial artists train their body to take those hits. They may have a natural strength that helps them, but without training they'd still go down with just a couple of those high-powered hits. Which is why you don't see brawls between random people last more than a few hits usually.

Quote:

What about healing. A Cure Light Wounds spell would mend the nasty wound mentioned to the low level character above. I mean it literally closes the wound, stops bleeding, fuses the flesh, attaches the blood vessels etc. While the exact same spell on a high level character does what exactly? Rests them a bit?

...

I was loving this post till the second part (second part felt forced and clumsy, the exact reason I haven't given advice yet... All my ideas have felt that way thus far).

I honestly think you perfectly and elegantly described the healing part in describing the health part.

ie) yeah bones are mended, but their not back to their enhanced version.
Skin may have closed, but the calluses still need to be replaced.
muscles mended, but still to sore to fully utilize reflexes.

[Unruly]

I'll admit the second part wasn't as elegant.

I also like your interpretation of healing. The CLW has the power to heal things back to normal which is why it works just fine on low-level characters with low HP - those guys are still pretty much normal folks. The higher level people have tougher bodies that are beyond what many would consider normal, so they require more magical power to stitch back into its "normal" state.

I was going to go with the interpretation that CLW is vicoden and bandaids, meant to make you forget about the pain while not really fixing things, while CMW/CSW are magical stitches and surgery. But your way is a lot better.

[rgrove0172]

Good thinking guys but I still dont think it clears it up. Take a high level thief for example. In most cases they have not spent a career taking damage, they avoid it. Their body isnt any more resilient to the hack of an axe as anyone else. Yet, they can be hit a lot more than the normal person and not be affected. The obvious answer to this mystery has always been that they turn solid hits into near misses or minor impacts by way of skill/agility/luck/stamina. So the loss of HP is actually a loss of these things, not physical damage at all.

Therefore any healing magic, or even regular healing for that matter, heals this attribute as well. Thats actually ok too but a bit inconsistent when you consider that the same spell or potion(CLW again) actually brings a low level guy back from the brink of death with his skill caved in and merely restores a little 'zest' or whatever to his higher level buddy.

Dont get me wrong, the system has stood the test of time and from a 'game' standpoint works great. In relating it in roleplay however it gets tough. I suppose it depends on how your group plays however as to how big a deal it is.

I suppose one could assume that any healing, magic or non-magical, addresses the worst injuries first, then in the absence of any traumatic wounds, restores vigor and the like. So a CLW cast on a 60HP PC to restore a handful of HP addresses their fatigue rather than any real wounds for the most part, unless they are at the bottom of their HP total then it might actually be a wound it is healing.

[Fomsie]

For me Hit Points represent a combination of physical well being, stamina and resilience. As attacks bypass your defenses (AC), you begin to tire, wear down and takes cuts and bruises... while a major hit point loss in one shot would be a serious wound, a number of small wound adding up to the same damage would be a matter of physical attrition, your guard gets a little slower, making you more vulnerable(since you have less HP left), you begin to tire and are reaching the end of your reserves, and you are accumulating wounds... cuts, bruises and the like.

Watch a few mixed martial arts matches. In some you will see a continuous back and forth as one or both fighters start showing wear and tear over the duration until one finally goes down... or you might see on fighter land a few(or even just one!) big shot and the opponent goes down.

As for the healing, it is a combination of actual salve for wounds, tonic for vigor and the overall heartiness restores the character's resilience.

[Unruly]

rgrove0172 wrote:

Therefore any healing magic, or even regular healing for that matter, heals this attribute as well. Thats actually ok too but a bit inconsistent when you consider that the same spell or potion(CLW again) actually brings a low level guy back from the brink of death with his skill caved in and merely restores a little 'zest' or whatever to his higher level buddy.

Well, since regular healing takes forever, even at low levels, that makes sense.

But for magical healing, that would mean it's something like a cocktail of cocaine, morphine, and stitches. So you're speedballing and getting surgery at the same time. Sounds fun, and when you die you get to join the ranks of Chris Farley, John Belushi, Mitch Hedberg, and King George V.

[Zilvar2k11]

A fella could write entire essays on hit points and damage and get into huge, distracting arguments with haters and lovers the world 'round. Of course it would be one of my favorite subjects ;)

Everyone's really covered hit points damage and the descriptions of it very well. There are two things I like to say about hit points that have already (more or less) been stated. The first is, of course, that hit points are cinematic. It sounds like the OP has it right on with descriptions of damage and such. Just think of your favorite action movies where the protagonist takes a beating (Predator, First Blood, Daniel Craig Bond movies..you know the type) and keeps on going despite the audience grunting and wincing in empathetic pain. You get that sense of 'Wow, they're running on empty' but they still pull it through.

The second, and less obvious thing, is that hit points scale so that damage doesn't have to be fractional. If we want the cinematic hit points, we can't have a longsword being just as dangerous to Ahnold as it is to his plucky sidekick. Ahnold is a higher level! Instead of having to break out the calculator to figure out that the 7 points of damage that were rolled only did .411 hp, it's a lot easier just to add 160 hit points to the hero's total. You COULD just make it harder to hit him, but if you did that you'd get swingy results, especially with waves of cannon fodder.

With all that said, there are a couple of places where I think things are a little kludgy. The cure line, as implied, is one of them. I love the description of wounds knitting closed but the fact that the spells scale inversely bothers me. That is, a CLW will bring a commoner back from death's door to full health, but won't do much of anything to a barbarian with a few levels under his belt. It's not curing a light wound to the commoner, and it certainly is as you level. My dream line of cure spells would be based off natural healing with bonuses for high wis and level.

The other thing that bothers me is when people apply hit point damage when they probably shouldn't. The coup de grace is a good idea, but you shouldn't have to have a hella-high damage bonus to slit someone's throat and generate a high enough save DC to be a problem.

[La'Vantis Tuen]

rgrove0172 wrote:

Good thinking guys but I still dont think it clears it up. Take a high level thief for example. In most cases they have not spent a career taking damage, they avoid it. Their body isnt any more resilient to the hack of an axe as anyone else. Yet, they can be hit a lot more than the normal person and not be affected. The obvious answer to this mystery has always been that they turn solid hits into near misses or minor impacts by way of skill/agility/luck/stamina. So the loss of HP is actually a loss of these things, not physical damage at all.

Therefore any healing magic, or even regular healing for that matter, heals this attribute as well. Thats actually ok too but a bit inconsistent when you consider that the same spell or potion(CLW again) actually brings a low level guy back from the brink of death with his skill caved in and merely restores a little 'zest' or whatever to his higher level buddy.

Exactly! in this scenario describe it like this:

the rogue has a total of 60 HP, he get hit for a nasty blow off 15 HP. imagine him throwing himself backwards frantically to avoid that mighty swing by a mighty fighter or those vicious claws of that deadly owlbear;

in this situation the attack never hits however he does hurt a few muscles from the strain of throwing himself backwards leaving him a sharp pain in his side, slowing his reflexes for future attacks.

this could easily take a few days to heal normally, or 1 or 2 cure light wounds spells to heal magically. remember you're not just healing a couple of muscles, you're healing the very honed, taught and tough muscles of the high-level very skilled rogue.

[rgrove0172]

Hmm, what if healing magically was scaled as natural healing is? Natural healing is 1HP per level (or twice for the whole day resting), what if a CLW was a die roll x the level of the recipient? That tough, taught, physical specimen of a rogue should be therefore easier to heal than a fat, out of shape innkeeper shouldnt he?

It sounds like its all a matter of scaling, damage and natural healing, but somehow magical healing got left out.

[Jiggy]

I once performed a coup de grace on a sleeping monster. It had lots of HP left, but had been magically put to sleep. Lying there helpless, I took a pick and plunged it into his body for a x4 crit. Lots of damage, but still lots of HP left.

He succeeded on his Fort save, and therefore didn't die and woke up.

What did that damage represent? He sure wasn't dodging.

Pathfinder doesn't use "HP = dodging", and if you houserule it in, you'll get some weird things, such as the above (Did the sleeping remorhaz dodge the CdG? Really?) and my previous example of injury poisons being successfully delivered even if a 300HP monster only takes 1 point of damage from a poisoned shuriken.

Obviously you can describe things as you like, but in the interest of making your life easier, I'm just cautioning you that Pathfinder is built around the assumption that your hit points are your real, physical self; if you change that, you'll have a whole chain reaction of weirdness that you'll have to sort through. Unless you're itching to do a bunch of extra work, you're probably better off either (A) switching systems, or (B) accepting that in Pathfinder, people's flesh hardens. :/

[Zilvar2k11]

rgrove0172 wrote:

Hmm, what if healing magically was scaled as natural healing is? Natural healing is 1HP per level (or twice for the whole day resting), what if a CLW was a die roll x the level of the recipient? That tough, taught, physical specimen of a rogue should be therefore easier to heal than a fat, out of shape innkeeper shouldnt he?

It sounds like its all a matter of scaling, damage and natural healing, but somehow magical healing got left out.

Yes. That'd be a start for my ideal cure spell rewrites.

I would also factor in the level of the caster and/or the wisdom bonuses. I lean toward 'your daily healing rate increases by your con bonus up to the wisdom bonus of the caster (max based on spell, obviously)'

Or maybe

'you channel positive energy that restores hit points to the target as if they had rested for a whole day. The target's daily healing rate is increased by the greater of your wisdom bonus or their con bonus, to a maximum of +5 hp. The spell will do 1d8+level damage to undead' etc etc

Cure Moderate could be 2 or 3 days, and so on. It's probably too wordy, but I like the image it suggests, where a hardy person heals more, or a really good caster heals more, but there are limits.

[voska66]

I've always described hit points as a near misses due extreme exertion, eventually you run out of energy and the blows strike home. The killing blow is the blow that cuts deep causing you to drop to zero or less hit points. All the rest are minor bruises, scrapes and scratches as you avoid the death dealing blow exerting you energy measured in hit points.

So for example the moves into position swinging his great sword in wild arc to maximize the blow, game mechanics it's hit for 35 damage but not enough to get you to below zero, leaving you with 1 hit point. So the you deflect most of the blow letting the sword glances off your armor with a thud that sends you staggering a few steps to regain your balance. The second attack from a the rogues stiletto comes from behind, a hit for 19 damage dropping you to -18 which is 2 past you con stat. The stiletto slip in under you arm pit driving deep puncturing the lunge and piercing the heart.

[Matt Thomason]

Jiggy wrote:

Pathfinder doesn't use "HP = dodging"

Obviously you can describe things as you like, but in the interest of making your life easier, I'm just cautioning you that Pathfinder is built around the assumption that your hit points are your real, physical self;

Hit Points are an abstract system, designed to include dodging, resilience, and sheer ability to shrug off damage. That's why the Wounds and Vigor alternative system was added, to give a physical damage alternative.

So Pathfinder Hit Points are a mix of (some) actual physical damage and (more) dodging ability.

PRD wrote:

Hit points are an abstraction. When a fighter gains a level, his body does not suddenly become more resistant to damage. A sword's strike does not suddenly do proportionately less damage. Rather, hit points suggest that the fighter has undergone more training, and while he may have improved his ability to deal with wounds to a small degree, the hit points gained at higher levels reflect less his capacity for physical punishment and more his skill at avoiding hits, his ability to dodge and twist and turn. Each loss of hit points, in this case, suggests that he is becoming progressively less nimble over the course of combat—in other words, that the decreasing hit points are a marker for his overall endurance and condition.

Source

[Kazaan]

Considering that loss of HP doesn't result in any loss of fighting capacity, I don't really view it as "vigor" or "capacity for fatigue" or "injuries" or anything like that because all those imply the expenditure of some kind of energy on your part which, logically speaking, would lead to lesser combat ability. Instead, I view HP as more of a life shield of sorts and your -Con is the actual vital wounds (which, realistically speaking, taking just one significant sword blow is enough to render you fully incapacitated). So even when you take HP damage, the attack still hasn't really "hit" you so to speak, but it's eating into your plot armor. Once you're sufficiently low on that, all it takes is one good whack to incapacitate you fully and maybe one more to end you.

[Jiggy]

Matt Thomason wrote:

Jiggy wrote:

Pathfinder doesn't use "HP = dodging"

Obviously you can describe things as you like, but in the interest of making your life easier, I'm just cautioning you that Pathfinder is built around the assumption that your hit points are your real, physical self;

Hit Points are an abstract system, designed to include dodging, resilience, and sheer ability to shrug off damage. That's why the Wounds and Vigor alternative system was added, to give a physical damage alternative.

So Pathfinder Hit Points are a mix of (some) actual physical damage and (more) dodging ability.

PRD wrote:

Hit points are an abstraction. When a fighter gains a level, his body does not suddenly become more resistant to damage. A sword's strike does not suddenly do proportionately less damage. Rather, hit points suggest that the fighter has undergone more training, and while he may have improved his ability to deal with wounds to a small degree, the hit points gained at higher levels reflect less his capacity for physical punishment and more his skill at avoiding hits, his ability to dodge and twist and turn. Each loss of hit points, in this case, suggests that he is becoming progressively less nimble over the course of combat—in other words, that the decreasing hit points are a marker for his overall endurance and condition.

Source

That wouldn't be the first time that something in Ultimate Combat contradicted the Core Rulebook. *sigh*

[Matt Thomason]

Jiggy wrote:

That wouldn't be the first time that something in Ultimate Combat contradicted the Core Rulebook. *sigh*

I think the core just tries to describe it as simply (and therefore inaccurately) as possible, with "the ability to turn a serious blow into a less serious one" (i.e. turning so the blade slides off your arm instead of cutting through it) to keep from throwing too many confusing concepts with their first book.

[Jiggy]

That still leaves the "CdG survivor" and "poisoned shuriken" issues unaccounted for though, while the CRB's version of HP doesn't have those problems.

I can't help wondering if whoever wrote that part of UC (possibly a freelancer?) had other systems in mind and just assumed that Pathfinder HP worked the same way.

But hey, what do I know? I didn't write either book. ;)

[Matt Thomason]

Jiggy wrote:

That still leaves the "CdG survivor" and "poisoned shuriken" issues unaccounted for though, while the CRB's version of HP doesn't have those problems.

I can't help wondering if whoever wrote that part of UC (possibly a freelancer?) had other systems in mind and just assumed that Pathfinder HP worked the same way.

But hey, what do I know? I didn't write either book. ;)

Looking into the historical stuff a bit more...

The phrase "the ability to turn a serious blow into a less serious one" comes from the original d20 SRD. Vitality and Wounds system is from OGC in Unearthed Arcana (and the Star Wars RPG before that), but the opening descriptive paragraph in UC is Paizo's.

I'd always assumed the Ultimate Combat description was based on expanding the above quoted line, but you're right, it could also be down to the UC author's intepretation. I've just always gone with "HPs are abstract" for so long I can't really remember where I first picked it up (although it was certainly pre-Pathfinder, but doesn't seem to appear in 3.5)

[Jiggy]

I guess for myself I find "the game world's humans have different physiology than real humans" less immersion-breaking than the combined total of "a poisoned blade can miss you and still poison you" plus "this cure spell is apparently relieving my tiredness but can't un-fatigue the barbarian" plus "I apparently have a tiredness leak that's hurting nearby undead" plus "you have so much HP left that my CdG hit the ground next to you but you dropped dead anyway" plus "a monster with rend can 'latch on and tear flesh' without actually touching me" plus "if I get eaten by a big creature, no amount of stamina-whittling from my friends on the outside will get me out; but if I whittle a little stamina from inside the stomach I can get out without my blade ever actually touching the creature" plus... you get the idea.

I'll just stick with "people in the setting are tough".

[Matt Thomason]

Jiggy wrote:

I guess for myself I find "the game world's humans have different physiology than real humans" less immersion-breaking than the combined total of "a poisoned blade can miss you and still poison you" plus "this cure spell is apparently relieving my tiredness but can't un-fatigue the barbarian" plus "I apparently have a tiredness leak that's hurting nearby undead" plus "you have so much HP left that my CdG hit the ground next to you but you dropped dead anyway" plus "a monster with rend can 'latch on and tear flesh' without actually touching me" plus "if I get eaten by a big creature, no amount of stamina-whittling from my friends on the outside will get me out; but if I whittle a little stamina from inside the stomach I can get out without my blade ever actually touching the creature" plus... you get the idea.

I'll just stick with "people in the setting are tough".

Before I went abstract, I went in the direction of "wounds taking you to half HPs will look about the same no matter what level you are" - so, purely to satisfy my curiosity in how others perceive it - do you do something like that, or does any 10 point wound tend to look the same to you no matter what level the recipient is?

[La'Vantis Tuen]

rgrove0172 wrote:

Hmm, what if healing magically was scaled as natural healing is? Natural healing is 1HP per level (or twice for the whole day resting), what if a CLW was a die roll x the level of the recipient? That tough, taught, physical specimen of a rogue should be therefore easier to heal than a fat, out of shape innkeeper shouldnt he?

It sounds like its all a matter of scaling, damage and natural healing, but somehow magical healing got left out.

Muscle is what? 5x 10x more dense than fat? Also as mentioned, both characters are taken away from death (stablized, wounds closed, etc), your just missing that little part that makes you stand out.

Think of it this way... imagine if 1 person, just 1 person in the world could cast stabalize...

Got it? Ok, now imagine if they could do that infinitely.

That spell closes critical wounds. Really that infinite/day orison is where is all breaks down... Everything else is just healing all your health/vitality/reflexes/pretty face!

Personally I love healing magic because it means no scars!!!

[La'Vantis Tuen]

Jiggy wrote:

I once performed a coup de grace on a sleeping monster. It had lots of HP left, but had been magically put to sleep. Lying there helpless, I took a pick and plunged it into his body for a x4 crit. Lots of damage, but still lots of HP left.

He succeeded on his Fort save, and therefore didn't die and woke up.

What did that damage represent? He sure wasn't dodging.

Pathfinder doesn't use "HP = dodging", and if you houserule it in, you'll get some weird things, such as the above (Did the sleeping remorhaz dodge the CdG? Really?) and my previous example of injury poisons being successfully delivered even if a 300HP monster only takes 1 point of damage from a poisoned shuriken.

Obviously you can describe things as you like, but in the interest of making your life easier, I'm just cautioning you that Pathfinder is built around the assumption that your hit points are your real, physical self; if you change that, you'll have a whole chain reaction of weirdness that you'll have to sort through. Unless you're itching to do a bunch of extra work, you're probably better off either (A) switching systems, or (B) accepting that in Pathfinder, people's flesh hardens. :/

As your DM I'd say you botched it... like pulling someones head back to slit their throat... BAD IDEA!!! That tenses the muscles and hides the jugular and caroted artery.

You pluged with all your might and missed. But don't sweat it, sometimes we all miss the broad side of a barn... especially with muscles, skin, bones and various other tissues in the way!!!

[Zilvar2k11]

Matt Thomason wrote:

Before I went abstract, I went in the direction of "wounds taking you to half HPs will look about the same no matter what level you are" - so, purely to satisfy my curiosity in how others perceive it - do you do something like that, or does any 10 point wound tend to look the same to you no matter what level the recipient is?

That just wouldn't make sense...the latter, I mean. 10 hp of damage is nearly instantly fatal to a low level human. It couldn't possibly look the same to a higher level character (unless you subscribe to 'hit points don't do real, physical damage', which disagrees with game mechanics)

I believe your former description is the more accurate, and also, no wound is dire unless and until you cross the 0 hp boundary.

[Matt Thomason]

La'Vantis Tuen wrote:

You pluged with all your might and missed. But don't sweat it, sometimes we all miss the broad side of a barn... especially with muscles, skin, bones and various other tissues in the way!!!

Damn that cigarello case! That would have been a clean kill if he hadn't got it in that pocket! ;)

[Jiggy]

Matt Thomason wrote:

Before I went abstract, I went in the direction of "wounds taking you to half HPs will look about the same no matter what level you are" - so, purely to satisfy my curiosity in how others perceive it - do you do something like that, or does any 10 point wound tend to look the same to you no matter what level the recipient is?

I generally imagine wounds to be proportional. That is, a guy with 17 HP who takes 11 damage just took a huge gash or got a hole put in him and is screaming for a medic. A guy with 350 HP who took 11 damage just took a minor cut.

Conversely, if a monster Power-Attack-claws a 350HP barbarian for 103 damage, I picture four deep cuts across his chest, enough to definitely let the barbarian know this thing means business. If the same monster clawed a Commoner1 for 103 damage, it went through flesh and bone, flung entrails through the air, and the dead body landed two feet back with most of its torso scattered across the adjacent square.

[Matt Thomason]

Jiggy wrote:

ame to you no matter what level the recipient is?

I generally imagine wounds to be proportional. That is, a guy with 17 HP who takes 11 damage just took a huge gash or got a hole put in him and is screaming for a medic. A guy with 350 HP who took 11 damage just took a minor cut.

Conversely, if a monster Power-Attack-claws a 350HP barbarian for 103 damage, I picture four deep cuts across his chest, enough to definitely let the barbarian know this thing means business. If the same monster clawed a Commoner1 for 103 damage, it went through flesh and bone, flung entrails through the air, and the dead body landed two feet back with most of its torso scattered across the adjacent square.

I like the sound of that. Especially the graphic descriptions! ;)

[Eric "Boxhead" Hindley]

I've always assumed hit points are the ability to turn a serious wound into a less serious one. I always picture Bruce Willis in Die Hard as a mid to high level fighter. He takes dozens of hits, but is still in full fighting form right through the movie. Each of those 10 point hits deals scratches, bruises and the odd bit of damage to his shirt, while not slowing him in any meaningful way.

[voska66]

Jiggy wrote:

That still leaves the "CdG survivor" and "poisoned shuriken" issues unaccounted for though, while the CRB's version of HP doesn't have those problems.

I can't help wondering if whoever wrote that part of UC (possibly a freelancer?) had other systems in mind and just assumed that Pathfinder HP worked the same way.

But hey, what do I know? I didn't write either book. ;)

I don't see the issue. This is just fluff description of combat. I'd much rather describe combat loss of hit points as a combo of doges, luck, skill in use of armor, destiny or what ever. In the end hit point loss is minor injury of scratches, bruising and sore muscles. 30 Damage is not cleaving you in two with no effect to your fighting ability.

So the scratch allows poison to affect you. A CDG survivor was lucky. The attacker just missed the vitals.

[TriOmegaZero]

When the hero dodges the bad guys sword and finds the finest cut on his cheek, he's lost HP.

When the beast rolls to the side so the knife catches on bone, it passed the Fort save versus the CdG.

Edit: aaaaaaaand ninja'd.

[Braingamer]

Evil Lincoln's Strain-Injury rules do a good job of differentiating between the 'dodging, blocking, deflecting' side of HP from the 'physical damage' side. It's primarily a system that adjusts healing rates to decrease dependence on CLW wands and other magical healing, but also changes the way damage is perceived. I recommend at least taking a peek - it addresses pretty much everything that was mentioned so far in this thread.

[rgrove0172]

La'Vantis Tuen wrote:

Jiggy wrote:

I once performed a coup de grace on a sleeping monster. It had lots of HP left, but had been magically put to sleep. Lying there helpless, I took a pick and plunged it into his body for a x4 crit. Lots of damage, but still lots of HP left.

He succeeded on his Fort save, and therefore didn't die and woke up.

What did that damage represent? He sure wasn't dodging.

Pathfinder doesn't use "HP = dodging", and if you houserule it in, you'll get some weird things, such as the above (Did the sleeping remorhaz dodge the CdG? Really?) and my previous example of injury poisons being successfully delivered even if a 300HP monster only takes 1 point of damage from a poisoned shuriken.

Obviously you can describe things as you like, but in the interest of making your life easier, I'm just cautioning you that Pathfinder is built around the assumption that your hit points are your real, physical self; if you change that, you'll have a whole chain reaction of weirdness that you'll have to sort through. Unless you're itching to do a bunch of extra work, you're probably better off either (A) switching systems, or (B) accepting that in Pathfinder, people's flesh hardens. :/

As your DM I'd say you botched it... like pulling someones head back to slit their throat... BAD IDEA!!! That tenses the muscles and hides the jugular and caroted artery.

You pluged with all your might and missed. But don't sweat it, sometimes we all miss the broad side of a barn... especially with muscles, skin, bones and various other tissues in the way!!!

Difference is you COULDNT have succeeded, no matter what. You were perfect and yet it didnt kill the thing. Makes no sense at all.

[rgrove0172]

Matt Thomason wrote:

Jiggy wrote:

ame to you no matter what level the recipient is?

I generally imagine wounds to be proportional. That is, a guy with 17 HP who takes 11 damage just took a huge gash or got a hole put in him and is screaming for a medic. A guy with 350 HP who took 11 damage just took a minor cut.

Conversely, if a monster Power-Attack-claws a 350HP barbarian for 103 damage, I picture four deep cuts across his chest, enough to definitely let the barbarian know this thing means business. If the same monster clawed a Commoner1 for 103 damage, it went through flesh and bone, flung entrails through the air, and the dead body landed two feet back with most of its torso scattered across the adjacent square.

I like the sound of that. Especially the graphic descriptions! ;)

Me too but then a cleric casting CLW on the commoner instantly removes all that damage (assuming he is still alive or raised), reattaching bone and sinew, restoring the circulatory system, mending organs and tissue... yet when he turns to help the barbarian, he cant even heal the cuts completely.

[Jiggy]

Yeah, but maybe the barbarian has more physiology (tightly-packed muscle, etc) such that the CLW is still repairing the same amount of bodily harm, it's just that people have different amounts of "body" packed into their frame.

After all, dwarves (according to the CRB) have a tightly-packed musculature and oh, look, they have more CON and therefore more HP! :)

[rgrove0172]

Tightly packed muscle on that 15th level female halfling too I guess.

Sorry, Im not trying to provoke you but the "Tougher-Skinned" hero just doesnt work in most cases.

[Jiggy]

rgrove0172 wrote:

Tightly packed muscle on that 15th level female halfling too I guess.

If I wanted to be mean, I could start a gender equality rant here. "What, so females should be less sturdy?!"

;)

Quote:

Sorry, Im not trying to provoke you but the "Tougher-Skinned" hero just doesnt work in most cases.

No worries, I don't feel provoked. :)

Now, to be clear, do you mean "doesn't work" or "isn't palatable"?

[rgrove0172]

I feel I have to clarrify Im not attack the rules here, just how to interpret them.

Ill admit I think the roleplaying aspect loses alot from the fact that characters cant be injured. Its a mainstay of fiction where the beaten up, limping, bloody hero struggles to his feet and keeps fighting. The way you guys describe HP, he is fine, dodging and blocking until.. oops, got me! Agggh!

Not very herioc or dramatic.

[Jiggy]

rgrove0172 wrote:

I feel I have to clarrify Im not attack the rules here, just how to interpret them.

Ill admit I think the roleplaying aspect loses alot from the fact that characters cant be injured. Its a mainstay of fiction where the beaten up, limping, bloody hero struggles to his feet and keeps fighting. The way you guys describe HP, he is fine, dodging and blocking until.. oops, got me! Agggh!

Not very herioc or dramatic.

+1

[rgrove0172]

In reference to the female halfling I was trying to present what most would consider a frail character that avoids damage through not being hit rather than enduring damage.

I suppose I meant that in presenting this situation in a game realistically (Which is the whole intent of this thread)I would be hard pressed to explain that Little Emilla, the 10th level halfling, takes the sword stroke that would have slaughtered a 6'4", 210 lb young barbarian and shakes it off because she is tougher. OR that the reason the potion doesnt heal her nearly severed leg (if such a think could happen) is due to her physical soundness.

Im really looking for the easiest solution here. I dont want a whole new damage system (WOunds and Vigor for example) I just want a way to explain the current one in a way that makes sense.

People who get hit with weapons, are burned, fall, or whatever are affected, and long before they die. I can implement GM assigned modifiers for really nasty hits sure (thats a houserule I already use) until healing takes place. Its not so hard to extrapolate how bad a hit actually is by comparing it as a ratio to the total HP, or even the current HP. (A PC with 50HP is hit for 10 damage, thats 20%.. not too bad but if hit again with 10, its 25% of whats left and therefor a little worse and so on)

The healing though, magical healing causes a problem where it appears the effects are not consistent and somehow deliever deminishing returns based on the completely arbitrary abilities of the target. An easy fix would be to simply state all magical healing speeds up natural healing, perhaps to a dramatic degree, but thats it. In this way it would effect everyone more or less equally. IM considering something like that now but dont know the system well enough to anticipate what problems that might bring.

[Zilvar2k11]

rgrove0172 wrote:

I feel I have to clarrify Im not attack the rules here, just how to interpret them.

Ill admit I think the roleplaying aspect loses alot from the fact that characters cant be injured. Its a mainstay of fiction where the beaten up, limping, bloody hero struggles to his feet and keeps fighting. The way you guys describe HP, he is fine, dodging and blocking until.. oops, got me! Agggh!

Not very herioc or dramatic.

It wouldn't be, except he's not fine. He's Stallone in Expendables, or Arnold in Predator, or Statham in (..anything?), walking around with cuts and scraps and blood maybe running down the side of his face, but even though he's hurt, it's not enough to stop him or slow him down. He can still fight, because he's the Big Damn Hero ;)

Of course, all action heroes also have the Diehard feat, for the extra tense moments.

Anyone who supports the 'no hits' paradigm, including UC, really doesn't know the rules. It can't work that way, because if it does then you can be asked to make Fort saves against effects that didn't hit you....which is even more nonsensical than D&D already is.

[Jiggy]

I wonder if you might do better to change up how magical healing works than to focus on what hit points mean, rgrove0172. There was a video game I played once where healing items restored a percentage of your max HP. Maybe you could houserule healing magic to work like that? Though that could also throw off wealth balance in ways that would take some real thought to predict. Hm, there's probably no easy answer.

[Kurik Grandhelm]

rgrove0172 wrote:

Ill admit I think the roleplaying aspect loses alot from the fact that characters cant be injured. Its a mainstay of fiction where the beaten up, limping, bloody hero struggles to his feet and keeps fighting.

I've felt plenty beaten and bruised after some of my fights.

[rgrove0172]

Im beginning to think as you Jiggy, HP are a somewhat outdated mechanic and have their issues but they do work for the most part. (similar to AC I suppose)Being new to the system I certainly dont want to have to get involved in some 'massive reworking of the system houserule' if I can help it.

Adusting the healing potential of the various spells, potions and items seems pretty easy, if addressed as a common rule rather than a case by case change.

A percentage might work but that would involve changing the entries on spells, items etc. Im thinking more along the line of just a modifier based on the total HD of the target. Id want to be careful, I wouldnt want the healing spells to outpace the characters HP progression. The greater heal affects should still be noteworthy.