[Poll] Reporting the enemy's HP damage

[patransom]

Could we verify something please?
In round #10, Gerag summoned his Spiritual weapon, which inflicted 3 HPs to Bold of the North. You tagged this as 'slightly injured'.
In round #12, Gerag's Spiritual Weapon did another +9 HPs of damage to Bolt. In the round #12 validation, Bolt is still tagged as 'slightly injured', even though he should have received 3+9=12 Hps of damage. Is he really just 'slightly injured'? I am not too sure how your system works for describing the condition of damaged people/creatures - Is this covered somewhere? (i.e. what you mean by 'slightly injured' and such...) Do you have a table explaining these conditions I could check out?

thanks!
admin

You are correct that Bolt has taken 12 HPs of damage. I haven't been using some strict set of categories in describing injuries or fixed percentages that put someone in a specific category. I will say that "slightly injured" definitely means he has more than half his HPs left.

I'm not going to tell you how many HPs an enemy has left, nor am I going to establish a strict set of categories. Doing either would make it more like a video game than a role playing game. Still, I thought these ad hoc descriptions might be useful to you. I'm trying to just give descriptive hints, without putting a "health meter" over every bad guy's head.

If the descriptions are more confusing than helpful, however, I will drop them and just report how much damage you've done to each enemy. What do you think?

[admin]

You are correct that Bolt has taken 12 HPs of damage.

I wanted to check if you had missed the total damage done to Bolt, as his 'status' did NOT reflect this (same condition after loosing 3 hps, and 12 hps)
The current system does not allow the player to 'confirm' the total damage done to enemies (as a secondary validation - we all miss stuff from time to time!)

Perhaps loosing 3 HPs could have been tagged as 'barely injured'? I certainly like these descriptions and I would think that also adding the total damage done would allow us to 'validate' your validation! lol

admin

[CGM3]

The GM in my campaign uses general descriptions, like "it's bloody but not slowed down", "it's weaving but still fighting", and "you think one or two good hits could bring it down", to give a rough idea of how badly injured a foe is.

[Duniagdra]

I always show the total damage taken by an enemy, for my record in game and for my players to know how successful their efforts are. I would like to see a total damage taken for enemies, as keeping a mental record just doesn't work. Aside from that, I like the descriptors. I try using them from time to time when I think of it for flavor.

[Benji]

I really don't mind, but I use a similar system in my tabletop games:

Uninjured: What it says on the tin.
Slightly injured: Anything up to 25%hp down
Hurt: 25% - 75%
Badly injured: 75%-99%
Ray of Frost country: 3 or less hp left.

[admin]

Ray of Frost country: 3 or less hp left.

LOL

[Omegaman]

I use GRACE points and Hit Points so until it has taken away all their GRACE points there is no physical damage unless they are minor fluff scratches or bruises. GRACE heals at a rate of 1 per minute so it's like fatigue almost. When you get to HIT POINTS, then the descriptions get graphic and bloody. So most fights are just getting winded and near misses until that couple of final shots actually bites into HP and then drops the foe. Seems to go more with how the movies work that I watch. Big fight, lots of work, little scratches, then BAM! somebody's dead from the fatal sword wound.