Man, haven’t thought about this in a very long time…but how do you folks like your hit points. Is every hit point loss literally a scratch, bruise, cut, etc? Are your characters bloody messes, persevering under the weight of a sanguine hell until they cross that threshold?
Or are they psychological/karmic in nature? Hit points being the measure of close calls, erosion of awareness and opportunity. With the loss of the final one indicating the strike that found its lethal destination?
Combination? I think I’m gonna lean heavily towards the latter with some scratching and bruising thrown in. I like the idea of “Cure Wounds” being as much about calming the mind and refocusing as it is about wounds growing shut. Fits well with getting most of your hit points back with each rest too.
In the second case, I don’t mean entirely karmic. I’m thinking heavily influenced by stamina and general body awareness too. But at some point, the jig is up.
In DW I tend to narrate them literally. There are so few that any damage is scary.
No fictional hiccups at camp time Josh?
Sounds like my second case; is that right Pavel?
Not when we are living in a world where gods hand out spells like candy.
Same as Josh Mannon , every HP loss is a physical wound, in my book. Players must feel them go away as much as their characters do.
Very cool. So “natural healing” is just as fantastical as the rest of it then. Neat interpretation! For me, I like to keep some realistic stuff in there for touchstones. If I throw it all out it becomes so alien I have trouble connecting with any of it.
Oh definitely…even in my second case I think the character is very aware that death is approaching. They know that they’re shaken up and not at peak.
Suggestion: above and equal to a certain threshold, the lost HP represents physical and psychological fatigue or karma or whatever. If you HP goes below the threshold, then it’s real wounds.
How much should the threshold be? Two options:
a) Half your maximum HP. Since you regain half when you rest, you can go from fatigued to full in one night, or from wounded to just fatigued;
b) Your Constitution score is the threshold. The bonus from class represents your training in avoiding dangerous wounds. A wizard will be wounded after 5 damage, but a fighter is only wounded after sustaining 11 damage. It also has the benefit of representing high Constitution characters as actually powering through serious wounds.
The idea comes from a Mike Mearls post, if I’m not mistaken. He suggested the half HP approach, but I like the second one best.
It sounds kind of fiddly, but since its purely narrative, you may pay attention to it only when it matters.