Strange question? What I mean to say is, when a character has bonus hitpoints, he still gets hit, he still takes damage. But, when the spell effect fades, he might still be at full health. So, I'm just wondering how some people describe that visually when fluffing out combat.
I tend to describe it as a type of barrier that appears around the character that disappears once all the temporary hp is gone.
I tend to describe it as a type of barrier that appears around the character that disappears once all the temporary hp is gone.
That's valid. But, that strikes me as more like how I think of a DR spell like stoneskin, or resist elements. With bonus hp, you are actually taking wounds/damage. You just don't get lose what you had before. It's like playing with the house's money.
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Depends on the source, for me.
False Life and other necromantic effects: You take the hit, but until you run out of temp HP it heals just as fast as it is taken. Looks like extreme fast healing to the uneducated.
Morale-based or otherwise abstract: More like the force-field Lyra mentions. You appear to take only trivial damage, enough to open minor wounds but not enough to cause real lethal damage. Looks like DR to the uneducated.
I don't use hitpoints as "getting hit in the face".
When my characters get hit, perhaps they didn't bleed out, but they felt the impact. They lose hitpoints, they are aware they just got hit. Maybe they have a ton more hitpoints and the character says "meh, that was a lucky shot, I'm cool"...
but if they go down low in hitpoints, they don't have a gashing wound on their chest... instead, their heart rate starts pumping, their nerves get tense, they blink more, they have a harder time standing up, their legs quiver...
A player with low hitpoints is more prone to just book it because of that, they know they are not in a good spot.
Imagine a player with 20 hitpoints gets 20 temporary hitpoints somehow. For the duration of that spell, that guy's body feels extremely well -- he may receive tons of punches, but he feels his body respond much better than ever to those attacks.
Now, how does this allow a level 12 character to survive a huge fall? No f@+$ing clue.
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It depends on the source of the temporary hit points. The false life spell draws on the power of undeath, for example, so I figure watching someone with temporary hit points from that would be like watching someone get nearly run through with a sword thrust, yet they'd just stand there without flinching, and the incision wouldn't bleed a drop. It would be spooky, obviously unnatural. Temporary hit points from greater heroism, on the other hand, would be more subtle, like getting hit appropriately hard but clearly not slowing down any as a result, or a few more lucky dodges than you'd expect out of that character. Temporary hit points from vampiric touch might come with a maniacal gleam in caster's eye, or a slight ultraviolet glow to their surface veins; these would fade in due course, but not necessarily on a 1-for-1 basis with the mechanical loss of hit points.
Remember always that hit points are an abstract; hit point damage doesn't always mean blood is being drawn (especially in the first few rounds of a fight). A good exercise for any gamer would probably be to observe movie fights, or even boxing matches and predator/prey struggles on nature shows, and think to yourself as you watch: How would each moment, motion, and injury be represented on pen-and-paper?
Now, how does this allow a level 12 character to survive a huge fall? No f++&ing clue.
Remember the climax of The Naked Gun 2 where
Using Evil Lincoln's fantastic Strain-Injury rules, it's pretty straightforward. Temp HP is like a surge of energy that allows you to better avoid a lethal blow. Kind of like a rush of adrenaline, it lets you push a little harder than you normally could. I'm pretty sure it would behave like that for all sources (only false life has come up in my games so far).
I don't describe them. A creature with more hit points simply doesn't get as wounded by an attack.
I don't know what they look like, but they definitely smell purple.
Since hit points are an abstract concept, I view bonus hit points more as a bit of extra luck and actual extra meat on the bones. When an attack subtracts from a character's bonus hit points I'd describe it as a deadly blow turning into a grazing strike. The character gets hit but thanks to his bonus hit points (luck) the character moves or the strike hits in such a way that the character hardly feels it. That's just my interpretation though.
I always assumed it was a layer of cake that covered your body to take the blows.
I don't use hitpoints as "getting hit in the face".
When my characters get hit, perhaps they didn't bleed out, but they felt the impact. They lose hitpoints, they are aware they just got hit. Maybe they have a ton more hitpoints and the character says "meh, that was a lucky shot, I'm cool"...
but if they go down low in hitpoints, they don't have a gashing wound on their chest... instead, their heart rate starts pumping, their nerves get tense, they blink more, they have a harder time standing up, their legs quiver...
A player with low hitpoints is more prone to just book it because of that, they know they are not in a good spot.Imagine a player with 20 hitpoints gets 20 temporary hitpoints somehow. For the duration of that spell, that guy's body feels extremely well -- he may receive tons of punches, but he feels his body respond much better than ever to those attacks.
Now, how does this allow a level 12 character to survive a huge fall? No f&!$ing clue.
Might be a good house rule to increase damage from falling, depending on the amount of dice rolled for the fall, counting for acceleration, much like with a braced weapon against a charge.
Maybe add a modifier to fall damage.
10 feet = standard 1d6
20 feet = 2d6 + 1 (Slightly increased damage from acceleration)
30 feet = 3d6 + 2
40 feet = 4d6 + 4
50 feet = 5d6 + 8
Continuing from there, doubling every level?
Of course you'd eventually reach Terminal Velocity (Depending on character size, shape, etc. But accounting for a medium humanoid, without any distinctive changes, we can use a human's terminal velocity.
Terminal velocity is usually a function of shape and mass, not distance, for a normal free fall, we would need about 12 to 14 seconds to achieve terminal velocity, that translates to around 1800 -1900 feet.
So there's hardly any chance you'll end up going that fast, but once you hit that marker, the damage increase would have to stop.
This may also teach players to fear the most powerful force in the universe, compound interest.
So a fall of 50 feet would be 1d6+2d6+3d6+4d6+5d6=15d6? Am I understanding that right?
That makes sense.