Hiding NPC Health in the Combat Tracker.

[turelus]

Is there a way to hide the NPC health from players entirely?
The options seem to be showing full HP of NPCs or Healthy, Light, Bloodied, Dying, Dead. Not sure if I am missing the option or it simply doesn't exist.

[JohnD]

IIRC the Healthy, Light, Bloodied, Dying, Dead" option is the least amount of information you can provide. When you think about it, for most adversaries, PCs would be able to tell if they've been injured or not.

[Moon Wizard]

I thought about implementing an option to block all NPC health status.

One of the main things I worry about are players constantly asking the GM, "Is this one wounded at all? Did I hit this one last round? Which one looks the most wounded?" These are common questions in my face-to-face games.

Can you give me more on your thought process of hiding health status from players completely?

Thanks,
JPG

[Nickademus]

My personal thoughts on completely hiding hp from the players is that it's in the same boat with hiding their position in the initiative order. If you want that much separation of what the players can see, just make them invisible on the tracker.

I've considered both the hp and the initiative and decided it's not worth the hassle for the reason JPG stated.

[Griogre]

If you only want to hide one monster's status for some reason then you can stop the status for that monster by not having a max HP for that monster in the tracker. Since there is no max you'll never get the reports. However, like Moon, I've always found one of the most common question I get in a face to face game is how wounded is a monster? - so always hiding the info just leads to lots of questions.

I mostly agree with Nickademus on the initiative as well. Though on the first round of combat I won't show monster initiatives *until* they have gone, and then I reveal the monsters on the tracker.

For special monsters/objects/situations I have had success with the removing of the max HP in FG so the player's can't tell exactly how damaged the thing is to increase the tension in an encounter.

[turelus]

I have mixed feelings about hiding it as I agree it makes some sense that the characters would be able to see the state of an NPC in combat.

It was actually one of my players who bought it to my attention and requested it because he wanted why there were spells (Deathwatch) which tell you about the status of NPCs. Some of them also felt it was effecting their RP/Comabt choices because of being able to clearly see who is close to death.

Initiative being hidden could be an interesting choice as well.

[Trenloe]

Currently the wound categories shown in the CT are calculated as follows (For the "simple" wound categories):

• Healthy - 0 damage.
• Wounded - damage >= 1 hp and <50% of total
• Heavy - damage >=50% and < HP total.
• Disabled - damage = HP total.
• Dying - Wounds > HP total.
• Dead - Damage = HP total + CON (Pathfinder) or Damage = HP total + 10 (3.5e)

IMHO, knowing if a creature has less than 50% of their HP left is realistic - surely you'd know if they've taken any damage or not and if they've taken lots or just a few scratches. A 50% demarcation isn't that accurate - especially in higher CR encounters, you wouldn't know that much of how close to 0 HP the foes are. If you use the "Detailed" wound categories then the status is displayed in 25% increments which may be too detailed for some people.

To confuse things, the wound categories that are shown in the chat window after doing damage are calculated differently:

• [MODERATE DAMAGE] - Damage > 33% of total HP but <66% total HP.
• [HEAVY DAMAGE] - Damage > 66% total HP but not equal to total HP.
• [DISABLED] - Damage = total HP.

This is a little more granular (giving an idea in thirds rather than half) but is only displayed after doing damage AND only when you cross the the boundary between statuses.

[JohnD]

Personally, I'd think some obfuscation is realistic. Most adversaries you will be able to tell if they've not been scratched yet vs. a good shot claymore to the ribs. For foes where you wouldn't be able to tell, simply don't enter HP information on the CT (apparently).

One thing I'd be in favor of is not having automated messages in the CT when damage has been resisted. People will see foe X is being beaten on, but the health indication just doesn't seem to change is enough of a hint in my opinion.

[Trenloe]

One thing I'd be in favor of is not having automated messages in the CT when damage has been resisted. People will see foe X is being beaten on, but the health indication just doesn't seem to change is enough of a hint in my opinion.

You mean messages in the chat window when damage is resisted?

I think seeing [PARTIALLY RESISTED] or [RESISTED] is OK. Surely you'd know if that swing of your sword did any damage or not? If it was [RESISTED] then it didn't even scratch the target - you'd know that right? Similarly, if you swing with all your might and it only did a small amount of damage you'd get an idea that you should have done more damage but only a little got through.

Adventurers are above the average person in society and they spend a lot of their time in combat - they'd soon get to know the effect of their weapons and how much visible damage they'd expect to do with a swing of their sword, an arrow from their bow, a burning hands spell (if not a single hair on the targets head was harmed then you have a pretty good idea that fire isn't going to work here).

From recent polls on this website it is clear that there are quite a few people that run their games primarily in text chat. Having these automated feedback indicators to the players makes the GMs job that much easier - they don't have to type after each damage roll "Not all of your damage affected the target".

But, each GM likes to run their games their way - so if you don't like these messages then you can turn all results displayed to the players off: Options -> "Chat: Show Results to client" = Off. Of course, this also turns off results like whether the player hit or not as seen by the players (the GM still sees results) - but that is not much of an overhead if you want to keep the PCs in the dark and may well be your preference anyway.

[dplehwalder]

I love the fact that players can see the conditions of monsters/structures/NPC's on the map. I turn on the bar so they get a good idea of it. However, there is situations where the player should not be able to see this. For example its pitch dark, players are blind or a creature is obscured in shadows. I would like an option to turn off the info on an individual basis, so a mob that would not show damage can be played in a mixed group with mobs that would show visible damage to the players.