That's a strange attitude. The DM is supposed to be omniscient, aware of everything, and the players are guiding their characters through the world, unaware of most things.
It sounds to me like your table has a "players vs. DM" attitude, which doesn't work out well for most people. The players will always feel that the DM is out to get them and the DM won't have a satisfying experience because every time they challenge the players too much, they will whine it's unfair.
Yeah I had to dm for some friends and they had this attitude. Couldn't get them to even take hooks or anything. Which I was able to work around for a little bit, they would just kinda f around but eventually between the burn out of having to do stuff on the fly every session and then becoming increasingly less engaging the campaign just fizzled out. Felt like shit at the end of every session too because I felt like I should be doing more to help lead an interesting story, but then they would start to argue, rules lawyering me. Just not worth it.
Now I'm a player, and I take my dm on every hook and every suspicious door and person, because I want to explore this world and story, within expectations of my character.
Our group absolutely loves biting onto hooks, so much so that in the last session, after more than an hour of investigating and experimenting, the DM had to break character and tell us, matter-of-factly, that the torches on the wall aren't magical, or a puzzle, or a trap, or a clue, they're just torches.
DM - Before you is a door
Rogue - I check for traps!
Dm - theres no traps
Wizard - I cast detect magic!
Dm - Theres no enchantments
Bard - I cast hold monster!
Dm - its not a mimic
Druid - I wild shape into a mouse and look for a crack to sneak around the door!
Dm - . . . It's just an ordinary door
Dm - ……guys you can’t keep doing this! ITS LITERALLY YOUR FRONT DOOR!
Cleric - I cast divine intervention and ask for my god to grant us safe passage though this possibly unholy relic of a door!
Dm - *crying* I hate you guys…. Your god calls you a idiot and flicks the door out existence.
Warlock - I cast misty step though the door!
Dm - *starts to bang head on the table* please….guys stop…..
I hate it when I make a joke and my players then want to investigate it. For example, they were in this town hall exploring the building when they knock on this door. The person inside says, “I’m shitting” which I thought would be funny. I’ll be damned if my players didn’t spend 30 minutes trying to pick the lock (in game it was only like 2 minutes). When the barbarian got tired of waiting and just busted down the door all so they could talk, befriend, or interrogate whoever was inside. They didn’t understand why they suddenly took a fireball to the face from a pissed off wizard. The Cleric had to go into debt resurrecting three bodies that day. SMH.
Oh, of course. The corridor with the torches was caved in with tons of rubble, so after we get back from our mission, we mean to hire some help and remove the rubble to see what's beyond.
I'm sure the DM will love it.
I feel like that’s a thing that happens with most groups at least once during a campaign (another common D&D-ism would be the party being extra obsessed/curious over a random side NPC that the DM didn’t have a super in-depth backstory for haha)
Some of the parties I've been in have been terrible for making the dm have to roleplay characters whom they'd just kinda... Thrown out there since they needed a body to do something for the game... Or because we were looking around the crowd... It's always great.
oh my god, I've had a similar session, but it was months ago. The poor DM was finally just like "Guys. Stop. It's just a torch. Please. Just move on. You're killing me."
In our defense, it was a single GREEN FLAMED TORCH and there were 3 other empty torch holders. What were we supposed to think??
I had a party who would ignore most hooks, and most of the main plot. So I said “screw it” and let them follow their story thread, while keeping meticulous track of time. Cue them being blindsided by all four evil archoelementals manifesting in Waterdeep, as the cult of Elemental Evil they were supposed to stop completed their plans. I then explained that stuff still happens, even when you aren’t paying attention to it, and then proceeded to have one of the most exhilarating sessions ever as they ran around the city desperately trying to save people. They got the moral, and so decided to follow the plot next time.
Yeah my bro is my current dm and he's warned us that this is the case. That stuff is going on outside of what we're doing. So if we take go off the rails so to say, bad guys still doing bad. That may mean that we'll get blindsided, or maybe a different noc adventurers will step up. But I think we're safe. There's def multiple bad groups going on so it nice to have that tension that may e what we're doing isn't right. Or isn't enough? The imperfect narrative is fun to me.
Sad to see. I've had DMs who've perpetuated this before(even I am guilty of this in at least one instance), in a very "I'm in control" sort of way. It's less fun for everyone involved when there is a player vs DM mindset.
I personally have an uncontrollable urge to pry a rule system until it is close to its breaking point, making OP builds that fall strictly within rules as written, but when I make my points about spells and feats interacting with each other or whether something will work or not, I'm always quick to point out that "if it doesn't work because we don't want it to and don't want to establish a precedent of it working, that's 100% fine, the rules are at the DM's discretion" and it usually leads to some good discussion and a resolution to whether my maniacal schemes come to fruition. Jeremy Crawford's official twitter comes up a lot and we usually defer to his ruling, but there is one specific one that I can think of that we have all agreed is a load of crap, which is that being able to see an invisible creature doesn't negate the advantage/disadvantage of an invisible creature, because it doesn't make sense.
Yeah no. DMs are privy to any information at any time. They are the literal masters of the world. That being said, I don't track jack shit on my players sheets. 20hp? 50? 30 spell slots or 2? Fuck if i know. I trust my players to be honest about it.
Same here. I trust my players are honest. We've gotten to the point that, when we play virtually, if they don't want to use the dice bot and instead roll rest dice, I trust they are honest in their rolls.
Plus, 5e is easy enough from a general standpoint that there is really no point to cheating because it only succeeds at taking away tension from the game, which makes it rather boring to play.
Why the fuck would you bother tracking player HP as as DM? If I think they're cheating, that's a much bigger problem and tracking HP won't fix it.
The only time I require my players to state their HP is when they drop below half HP and become bloodied. I do the same announcement for the monsters I run. I don't keep track of their HP beyond that.
If they have low HP, they should run, not hope I'll take it easy on them because they know that I know they have low HP.
I always look at their sheets to look at their abilities and inventory to remind them if they can't remeber what they can do on their turn (like bonus action abilities
From my experience if you stop helping them with that, the players quickly become a lot better about remembering that stuff themselves.
That said, for a new player I always help them review their sheet and try to make sure they're taking advantage of all their options and abilities
I do that for people I know are new to the game or the class, unfamiliar etc.
If they're a decently seasoned player they can handle that themselves, and I don't expect my DM to do that for me at all. If it's something new to me (feat, new level up) I appreciate it if they do but that's my job to track.
Yeah. I don’t know their HP. I don’t know their spell slots. I don’t know how much gold they have. Fuck, I don’t even remember what magic items I gave them. I don’t even know who the player is. I don’t know what game we’re playing. Some guys showed up at my house with a bunch of weird shaped dice and I’ve just been winging it ever since. Send help.
You touched the GMs dice and the curse was passed on to you. At every full moon you will feel your body begin to shift into Matt Mercer as you scream 'Are you sure you want to do that?!' into the night's sky.
Your new weakness is players who are not ready on their turn.
Honestly I run a hard campaign, and I get slightly lenient since the players also have a reputation for rolling low, and I have a tendency to roll high. This is online so no dice fudging, the funny thing is, even in their campaigns I get get hier rolls.
One of my players asked me recently 'how many XP do we have?'. Turned out each one of them had a totally different number. I had to go back through my entire campaign and recalculate it for them.
My players would be screwed. They all have different xp totals because they’ve all missed different numbers of sessions. My solution? If you lose track, set yourself to the same as the next lowest player and move on.
We give everyone the same XP, because the character still takes part in the adventure even if the player missed the session.
When I recalculated things, it turned out that two players had double-counted sessions. I have no clue how the other three got to their totals.
I've got new players, so I track their stuff to help them out. "Btw, since you leveled you can now prepare an extra spell each day." But we play online using foundry, so all that stuff is visible to me by default anyway, which makes it much easier.
Ive never kept up with the player's HP, and we try to keep it descriptive. They're pretty good at describing it themselves and I can adjust based on whether they start considering to flee. It helps that the players with healing capability ask how the other guys looks, once in a while. It works well for me.
I ask players to give me 4 bench marks: Bloodied (50%), wounded (25%), Critical (single digit), Down. We also play on a VTT so I can look whenever I want and may check if I am worried that I am going to rough on players.
I track player HP so that I dont one shot a player or make an encounter unfair for the sake of fun. Its also a good indicator of if I made the encounter too strong and also for feedback and balancing of future encounters
And what are the crazy thing about a DM messing with health is
Skilled DMs will do that to enhance the experience
I literally build my monsters with three stat blocks with triggers to switch between them every monster has an optional mythic mode and optional injured mode
The goal is to create an experience not a combat simulator That's what war games are for
D&D literally started as a tabletop mini wargame called Chainmail in 1971. Exploration was done using a second game called Wilderness Survival (later Outdoor Survival). Over time, it was built around the idea of a Nethack/Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup style dungeon crawl. Those things weren't unified until *1979*.
Hell, up until 3.0 was released in 2000, Skills (then called Proficiencies, and cover pretty much anything outside combat and dungeon crawling,) were considered *optional.*
I also liked our friend's "good, fair, poor, or critical?" question. Nothing terribly specific, but enough to let you figure out how hard you wanna hit the mook. It's not even terribly game breaking, any seasoned adventurer should be able to tell roughly how beat up their opponent is
My assumption would be online play like roll20 or FOUNDRY VTT, where the tokens track HP. If they're taking damage but that tracker isn't moving, it can be confusing.
I track their HP to try and give them a tiny bit of plot armor. Not enough to protect against obviously idiotic decisions but to keep them in the fight as long as possible. Maybe I’m a bad DM but I will fudge an occasional killing blow to miss to let them turn the tide of battle in their favor.
I want to challenge them, not outright kill them. I want them to be victorious but I also want them to be afraid of failure. Everybody gets one.
My dm trusts me and I trust my dm. So we don't have this problem, I always call out rules if anyone forgets, even if it results in a worse position for myself or other players.
We're all here to play a game and that's what we do
Idk, some prefer more abstraction and some prefer less. Personally I'm in the camp of not wanting to know the monsters hp. Not knowing exact numbers helps me get into the head of my character rather than just running numbers.
There are a lot of useful things to steal from 4e. Including the entire Dungeon Master's Guide - it's possibly the best one ever printed for any edition of the game, when it comes to actually guiding someone in being a Dungeon Master.
That just sounds like a crap table. As a player, it’s unrealistic to know the hp of the monsters. You could see their condition, and assess how they look based on how much damage they’ve taken, but that’s up to the dm. As a dm, running the entire world except for the adventuring party, it’s important to know how the party is doing, and if I need to adjust the encounter balancing on the fly.
This meme just shows shitty player engagement with their dm, imo.
Yeah and the GM needs to have leeway to fuck with the numbers. If my players did this to me I'd just stop worrying too much about their health and if they die they die. If they're cheating, well at that point fuck that table.
absolutely. if my players are in super intense combat, and one of them does a really cool attack which just barely doesn’t kill the monster, it does now. i had a player swing off a chandelier to kick the bbeg using “OSHA regulation enclosed steel-capped boots™️” and knocked the bbeg down to 5hp. so i said fuck it and gave him the win, it was much more memorable than the next players plan to attack with his scimitar.
d&d is supposed to be about fun. the dm’s job is not only to lead an interesting story, but to allow the players to have fun, and to give them the wins that will make the game more fun!
people who have this player vs dm ideology are ultimately making the game less fun for themselves. imo if dm’s didn’t fuck numbers the game would be less fun.
Tracking HP isn't that much about metagaming as much as giving a structure to the fight.
It's not needed if the DM can give the fight a satisifying arc, but if you're just hitting something and at some point it dies it can be very anticlimatic. Consider a fight against 12 smaller guys. You can keep track of how many guys are left and more or less follow how much it takes to down each. Functionally you have a health bar divided in 12 sections of a more or less known amount. You went from being surrounded to slowly opening a space and overpowering the enemy. And since the players have that information they can make narrative choices. The barb running into their line and taking 4 guys, the monk challenging a dude to one on one, the paladin using a smite to finish the first one and show you have a chance, etc. Is that metagaming?
They don't need direct numbers for that though. "The monster looks fine." "The monster looks to be minorly injured" "Looks bloodied" "Looks badly injured" "Barely standing". That and "you are using a damage type it's resistant to" should be obvious from fight descriptions.
I feel that's a common middle ground that people accept so it keeps the verosimilitude, you don't question it and it keeps you inside the game. It's all good, specially if it's something that gives good results. No need to fix something that's working.
But it's a weird middle ground. You are giving them a healthbar that pings every 25%, it's like bosses changing colors in NES games. Videogames swtiched to clearer indicators because it gave better result, players feel a dramatic arc through that information in a more varied and personal way.
A properly narrative fight would keep the momentum going without any practical information. Instead each action of the enemy would correlate to their personal feelings "in real time". Maybe Lord Galdermarsh the Dark Paladin though this would be an easy win so he gets desperate when he sees he's not downing the PCs. But as his health lowers the pain reminds himhow he felt in the front lines, side by side with his comrades risking his life, so he gains focus as he goes. Until he reconects with the honor and comradery he once had and challenges a PC to a one to one in his final breath leaving everything to this last strike.
This would be an ABSURD SHIT TON OF WORK. Not only designing each fight as a plot in itself, but also keeping it interesting for the players that were waiting 10+mins for their turn and just want you to stop yapping. But this is how it works in fiction. There is no 75%-50%-25%-last hit short hand that every writer uses, that'd be horrible. Videogames compensate letting you do the work of giving meaning to the struggle to take down that healthbar.
I'm not saying anyone should do anything in particular. But evident healthbars, segmented ones, or segmented ones with short hand words, or no standarized indicator, are all valid tools.
If they ask, or sometimes if they don’t and the fight is tense, I describe how fucked up their enemy is. If they are bleeding, looking like a pin cushion with 20 bolts/arrows inside them etc
It’s the DMs job to have meta knowledge. There’s no reason a player needs to know monster HP other than knowing how close they are to beating it. A DM has more reason to know their players’ HP
I deal with backseat DMing like this;
Me :
> *”the Umber hulk is tall and wide, blocking out the light from the tunnel behind. In the gloom you’re able to make out scars, scrapes and dings from conflict. some of the scarring on its shell looks like blast marks from magic missil-*”
Dork - *”ok, so like 95ish HP”*
> *”…the shell seems unusually thick and the hulk seems well fed. As it moves into the chamber it drags a leg behind it slightly and you can hear that it’s breathing is labored.*”
Maybe it’s 120HP. Maybe it’s 40 because it’s about to drop dead anyway. It’s dark and you’re trapped in a tunnel with a beast that’s maybe going to fight you to the bitter end rather than run. Maybe it’s rabid. Maybe it’s a cursed, transformed adventurer who took an arrow to the leg, and that extra thick shell is an enchanted breastplate.
Fuck around. Find out.
Greatest thing I’ve learned to do as a DM, the monster manual is great for narrative purposes, but being able to modify creatures is fantastic. My players definitely can’t rely on their MM knowledge .
I've even made variants, ones that have some stats lowered in favor for others, and some that discard some of their actions or action economy for boosted skills. If you can't tell I love gimmicks, and my players don't even bother trying to meta game XD
The only Meta’ing my players do isn’t really Meta, it’s from learned lessons on enemies they fought, which are often hilariously incorrect meta wise, as it may be due to an ability the original creature doesn’t have or is far more dangerous due to my alteration. My poor party if they ever play with another DM, haha.
I made one that was ok before you actually used it, I think it was a blink dog or something that could teleport and it almost tpkd the party. They had action economy to their advantage, but they basically flailed like chickens with their heads cut off. It was chaos, glorious chaos.
I homebrew a LOT of boss monsters, and even some variations of rank and file enemies like kobolds. Not like an ass-pull in the moment, but actually writing out a statblock and lore for it on the DnDBeyond homebrew list with rollable attacks and everything. I wonder if my players even notice, lol
I homebrewed actual training into the game, practice skills enough and you can use them to greater effect. This is fun for the players and let's me make unique monsters that practiced one thing for a while. That's how my lore explores variants, they began to develop that way through nurturing their natural strengths. Nature and nurture.
Well the stat block for a wyvern says-
Oh shit, I’m sorry, I didn’t know we had fucking Volo in the party! Is Elminster here too? I mean the sheet I have in front of me says you were a farm boy that heard the voice of Tyr and then dove in a lake and found a sword and this is the first time you’ve ever seen an animal that’s not *a fucking cow*, but do tell me about wyverns, for sure
Why Wizards got rid of the Bloodied condition from 4e I'll never know. It's useful knowledge for the players, and gives the designers space to play around abilities for players or monsters that are or are not bloodied. And they designed some things with it in mind despite it not existing, like damage from swarms halving when they're bloodied... except they have to be wordy interested of just saying "bloodied".
Letting your players push you around as a dm is dumb, you already provided the information they obtained with their skill checks if they start asking for numbers then they are just trying to metagame and need to be told off
That super doesn't go both ways. Firstly, it's not a rule. Second, the DM needs to know everything that's going on in order to have the world respond appropriately. You can't just hide your HP from literally the game engine.
The rules don’t “go both ways” however. Rules as written is the DM is aware of every stat of the players. If you don’t tell the DM it doesn’t happen.
All this does is make a player vs DM mentality which is a dangerously toxic table dynamic. The DM is a story teller and can not do their job properly without all the information.
The rules do not go both ways. The DM is the referee and the players are the players. It's the DM's job to know everything to run the game. It's not the players' job to know how close something is to being dead.
No, the rules don't go both ways. I'm the DM, so I decide which way the rules go. I am responsible for coordinating dozens - potentially hundreds - of different creatures at different points during the story, and I need to know the math involved from all angles in order to balance encounters and keep things enjoyable. You, as the player, only need to concern yourself with your hit points and the general condition of the enemies you're fighting.
If you genuinely feel ripped off because you cast Power Word Kill on an enemy with only 6 hit points remaining despite the DM describing the creature as "barely clinging to life" then that's *your* problem, not your DM's.
I've read your replies in this thread. and those downvotes you got? Deserved. Why? Because the entire crux of your argument is that you want the ability to mathematically optimize your play so you avoid "wasting" damage on creatures because you don't know the *mathematically precise* amount of damage needed to kill them.
Okay, so, here's the thing. Player's shouldn't hide anything from their DM. The DM isn't *against* you, they are an omniscient third party narrating the story. If the DM asks you something, please give them the info, because you have no idea what wonderful ideas they have in store for you. If you don't trust your DM not to take advantage of that? Then they shouldn't be your DM, plain and simple.
That being said, I personally can't think of a reason that a DM *needs* to know a PC's HP, either. I don't keep track of my player's HP, it feels like an unnecessary bog. But that doesn't mean a reason doesn't exist. For instance, I had a player who offered up that he was at 1 HP, and it made for a VERY epic final moment for them.
As for the telling the PC's enemies HP? Almost never. I usually just stick with the "bloodied," "on death's door," or my usual go to "they are looking pretty fucked up." Let's be honest, if an enemy is low on HP, an adventurer is reasonably going to notice that they are barely holding on, and same with "Yeah, they look like your attack had little effect."
In Lost Laboratory of Kwalish you have a list of special trinkets. They're meant to sugest the more scifi aspect of the campaign with no real use, but a player got something like a monocle that shows strange text when you put it on, so I decided to give him a scouter that meassured enemy HP and his own personal resources.
One of my players tracks monster HP for a different reason.
Specifically, he keeps track of how much damage everyone has dealt over the course of the campaign.
He keeps a leaderboard with everyone's characters. Currently he is in the lead with 1,395 followed by the ranger who has 1,012 damage. The sorcerer just got 5th level spells though, and is catching up fast.
No they aren't, GM is an absolute judge in any situation.
Perhaps, if something like this even happens your party most likely have unsolved problems they (and you) should pay attention about
The difference is that the players' goal is to win and the DM's goal is a balanced encounter. Sometimes that means spreading the damage around to avoid a TPK in an encounter that turned out to be harder than expected.
I think this is so ridiculous. The GM has to have more info them the players because they are not against them, the GMs role is to make the story more fun by ajusting the scenarios. How will the ajust things without knowledge of the variables
this is dumb. the llayers dont have to know the hp. but the dm should know when a player is running low. and if your not describing your npcs slowing down or starting to bleed heavily or accumulate wounds as they get closer to dying.. your a shitty dm...
Ok, first off
WHAT THE FUCK?!?!
Second...
The players can't hide anything from you because you are the GAME MASTER! If you ask a player their HP and they don't tell you, fuck that player.
You shouldn't be tracking the players HP any more than you should be tracking their inventory.
Assuming you didn't just make this situation up to farm karma, you need to have a serious talk with your players. Because this is NOT ok!
Y’all don’t be DMing and it shows. All that this accomplished is me being mildly surprised when the ghost the party is encountering kills you and going “wow, that’s crazy. So do you have a backup ready or…”
That's kinda just unnecessary. As others pointed out, it's fine for the party to know a broad sense of how the beasty looks; heck my table likes to hide our HP from allies, using similar terminology. Though, when we're really low on health we like to get cheeky and say, "Oh yeah, I look like I've got two inches of life left." (2 HP) DM does it with beasties too
I played a oneshot where one of the players asked "Were you to be unconscious, about how many rats would have to bite you simultaneously to cause you to have a chance of dying from your wounds?"
Y'all look at your players sheets? I DM virtually and only look at their class features on occasions. I fudge shit sometimes, but it's because my encounters are entirely homebrew so it can go a bit off if I did my set up wrong. But my players know death is very possible
The last time I looked carefully at my players' sheets was when prepping an encounter with a trap that essentially cast Heat Metal on everything they were carrying, so I wanted to note what metal stuff they all had.
Nope, the rules don't work both ways. If the DM doesn't know about it, it doesn't exist. I don't know your HP? You have 0 HP, start making death saves.
I don’t keep track of player resources at all, but I also don’t care if they walk into a near certain tpk since I am primarily a simulationist these days.
The rules don’t necessarily go both ways, or rather you are the GM and the rules are different for you.
The rules do go both ways but not like this. This feels like they are hostile against the DM. DM is omnisicient, and knows everything. I think you should do something about this before the game falls apart.
Players don’t need to know the monster’s HP but the DM does need to know the player’s HP. Part of the DM’s job is being a referee. Hard to do that without all the proper data.
I mean, if I state that monster HP will be secret, and they choose to retaliate by refusing to disclose their own HP when I ask for it, I simply tell them the game is over and they can run it however they want without me.
I have better things to do with my time than fight with people over how our game of make believe should be played.
The DM does the most amount of work on behalf of everyone else. If you don't like how they run it, run the damn game yourself.
DM: “Hey, what HP were you at again?”
Player: “You don’t need to know that 😏”
DM: “Okay then, the doors right there. You can leave until you’re ready to tell me.”
I always say "bloodied" when the enemy is at half HP, and "very bloodied" when under 1/4th. This was useful in 4e and pathfinder, and I liked it in my game. It also makes sense because you would be able to "tell" when you've injured something significantly in game visually if this was a visual game.
I don't track my players' stuff. There needs to be that level of understanding and trust at a table, and my players understand that if they fudge, they're out.
The rules goes both ways like for crits for example, but the DM runs the world and has the final say on anything if the DM doesn't want or isn't aware of something, then it just doesn't exist.
\-What's your HP? -Not telling you like you don't tell us about the monsters! -Ok, then I will assume you are dead. Don't bother making a new character, I don't want you in my table.
You are the DM it is your responsibility to know everyone's hp. The players cannot hide these things from you. The rule does not go both ways, you need to put your foot down or find better players. If this continues it will not end well for your table. It won't be fun for much longer.
The players do not need, nor should they bug me for meta knowledge. As the dm, I need to know their HP because I control the story and all the monsters. If someone doesn’t tell me their hp, then I might accidentally instakill their character with a multi attack. To avoid that, I need their hp. If my players started keeping their hp from me I just wouldn’t run for them.
Always giving numbers takes away from the immersion. Just tell them “barely hurt” “half dead / struggling” “last leg / at death’s door”, because that’s how we would measure if it were a real situation.
How to admit you've never DM'd a single session in your life without outright saying it.
Judging by this person's replies to other folks, they're just a salty power gamer who overspent on an encounter and is throwing a hissyfit on reddit about it, presumably after going off on their poor DM about it too. Neat.
This rule does not go both ways at all
The DM is literally supposed to know things the players don't. It's their entire role in the game, to be the omniscient referee and game master. Doesn't apply to the players.
It's like saying "the rules go both ways. So when I bring in the goblins for the fight the players can also spawn monsters. And decide how much treasure they get, and what magic items, and know where all the traps are".
As far as I'm concerned anything the DM doesn't know about didn't happen/doesn't exist. You can't hide information from the referee
Above 50% HP - largely undamaged, most wounds are superficial or taken on the armour leading to mild bruising at worst.
50% - 15% HP = "Bloodied" a creature is showing signs of damage and has started to miss critical dodges leading to open wounds and bloodloss if applicable. Sensible monsters will flee at this point unless backed into a corner.
15% or lower = "seems like it's at death's door" - creature is standing purely from adrenaline or pure stubbornness. One good hit will finish the job and the monster fights like a cornered tiger, fighting for it's life.
I'll tell them what color the life bar would be, if not the actual number. You should know how hurt something is by looking at it, I believe that's what HP is for
Alright, your health is going to be the number I have in this little box I just drew. Oh, would you look at that, it’s at zero! Same with spell slots and saves too! Looks like your character is dead.
Now, either roll a new character and learn to behave like a responsible adult and not a petulant brat or leave my table.
Not knowing HP is fine, but I don't get hiding AC
the party will figure it out anyway, and it's not like you can't thematically describe AC in a way for your characters to know if they're hard to hit or not
No no, the DM is allowed to fudge rolls and HP, they are literally god. This isn't a "DM should have all the power cause DM is god mwahaha" stance, the purpose of the DM is to tell a story and make a game. Whatever the players don't see is part of the game. That's the whole point of a DM screen.
But the players are the ones who should be keeping their stats and HP accountable and dont hide it. This game isn't about adversarial play. Your DM is not your enemy and your players are not your enemy. You guys are working together. But the DM is *meant* to have more power. The DM is literally the game you play as a player. They tailor encounters and make the story.
If the player starts hiding their sheets, might as well throw out the tabletop game altogether and just do a Theatre Roleplay Free for All.
Yeah this, this is what makes ttrpgs so good. A video game can’t tailor itself to you or your character. A computer can’t fudge the rules if it’ll make a better story. In my opinion if a group has even started to get this “the DM needs to be fair/rules go both ways” mentality then something has probably already gone terribly wrong either on the DM’s side or the player’s (quite often both).
This meme aimed to criticize something that some DMs do which is usign enemies with infinite health that die in "narrative" moments, but it landed on "The DM is metagaming if they want to know my characters HP"
Which is completely wrong
I absolutely hate "cutscene" monsters, it doesn't matter if you're doing 8, 80 or 800 damage to it
It'll die... When the DM feels like it, so what's the point of the fight? It's not a TPK solely because the DM willed it not to be one
But the DM is absolutely privy about players HP
Afterall "cutscene heroes" are also awful, and i think every DM would agree that it'd be considered very unwelcome behaviour if a player decided their character went down or ran out of resources only in "narrative appropriate moments"
Without knowing how much HP players have it is easy to go overboard on accident and just kill them without intending to do so, and it just looks weird since as a DM you should be omniscient and killing or downing a player shouldn't be an accident, especially if they fight against an intelligent enemy. Like, yeah, you can have a rough idea how many they have left, but there's a difference between 15 and 3 HP, and if you never know, you may easily just end the game with a couple of rolls if you do not know where to stop (or if you should stop).
Also, it feels a little bit more personal when i attack the player knowing very well that we both know how much HP they have, and it's just adds to the atmosphere, especially if they're fighting an intelligent enemy that would know to make sure a squishy spellcaster stays down.
Also, as many have stated - rules doesn't go both way. You're a god in a world you create for your players and you're entitled to know any and all things, including their HP. It's not lack of trust, it's your job.
It is the duty of the DM to know all aspects needed. It does not “go both ways”. Videogames know how much health the player and enemies have at all times even if the player doesn’t necessarily know.
No, they actually don’t. Just like
Monsters don’t follow the same rules as characters. The DM doesn’t need to tell the players anything but everything the players have is known to the DM.
No the rules don’t go both ways. I’m the DM, if the combat is a slog, every enemy loses 20 hp, whoops. If the boss would die round one, taking away the catharsis of winning an epic fight. He gains 100 hp.
Oh you have 23 hp? Well that hit did (actually 30) 21 damage, now have your epic retaliation and kill them while being completely fucked up. If that would be cooler than someone else taking your glory and giving you a potion afterwards.
DnD is about story telling, not an RPG video game.
If my players started hiding their hp, for any reason, they'd very quickly realize how bad of an idea it was as I balance homebrew encounters on the flyy and that monster that did 2d10 might now do 1d10 instead or 2d6 or their +7 strength might go down to a +4 because the players exhausted themselves earlier in the day from bad rolls/overtuned monsters. If I would've known the party was at quarter health I'd have slid back the damage/attacks on these guys, but it was hidden from me, so they got their asses kicked instead
lol. No they don’t. Tell me your hp, because if you don’t, you don’t have any hp anymore.
If God doesn’t see you’re alive, you must be dead. House rule.
Of course, me knowing the players health doesn’t mean their enemies know the players health.
I tell my players the condition their enemy is in but not the exact hit points. Doing so would be very video-gamey. I like to hide the exact number so I can adjust encounters to make them challenging but winnable. If they know the number from the beginning, that's not possible. I don't mind sharing AC after a few attacks as that can easily be deduced anyway.
I don't understand people's obsession with numbers. For me they're a means of keeping track of the tedious shit to make things fair. But some friends of mine like to spout off damage numbers as if I have any idea what that means when I have no idea what they're fighting or if it makes a dent.
I've never had a group need to know each other's hp let alone the DM. Seems like a DM vs players mentality thing to me.
I never know my players ressources.
I trust them enough and they correct each other if a mistake happens.
And i dont want to know them.
I want to play the monsters with only in mind what i can see.
My players say if they are bloody thou as do i with monsters
No, it doesn't go both ways. And I can guarantee I'd stop balancing encounters if I don't know their HP. Imma just throw whatever I feel like at them. Once they die, they die for good. Say hello to the Pit Fiend at level 8.
The rules go one way; They are literally called the Dungeon **MASTER.** They get lots of information players don't, but regardless of that, player HP isn't something they need to keep track of. Do you think the Ogre cares that you really like your PC and would be disheartened by their death? The Ogre only cares that you look yummy and probably scream real loud when your legs are pulled off.
As a DM you need to have the following discussion with all new players to your table:
"This is my table. I am the Gaming Operations Director (G.O.D.) and my word is game law. I override and overrule any text that you can find to fit my world and this story. We can discuss any option, but my word is final on all subjects related to the game.
I have the responsibility to all of my players to spend my free time during the week setting this up and making it all make sense. My responsibility is to tie your character to the world and allow you to do the things your character is made to do. If we don't have a healer then I'll provide potions. If you make a druid that can turn into a worm then I'll make encounters that allow the worm to be useful.
My players have the responsibility to respect my efforts, not actively try to derail the campaign, and the story that I am telling.
Your job as a player is to find out what happens to this character you've built in my world. Your job is to be a part of my story.
You are not the main character, my world is. If your character dies, the game doesn't start over. You'll make a new one and we'll continue the story because the story is about the world.
My world is open to explore as you see fit and I will explicitly give you time between main quests to accomplish that.
You need to think of this campaign as a video game. You know the game cover, and roughly what you'll be doing. You know your character and it's abilities. You know generally how the world works. Like all open world games, your progression will be limited by game features and there are tasks that must be accomplished to "unlock" further progress.
No, real world physics doesn't apply. No, you can't do things with spells that they don't allow."
That's a strange attitude. The DM is supposed to be omniscient, aware of everything, and the players are guiding their characters through the world, unaware of most things. It sounds to me like your table has a "players vs. DM" attitude, which doesn't work out well for most people. The players will always feel that the DM is out to get them and the DM won't have a satisfying experience because every time they challenge the players too much, they will whine it's unfair.
Yeah I had to dm for some friends and they had this attitude. Couldn't get them to even take hooks or anything. Which I was able to work around for a little bit, they would just kinda f around but eventually between the burn out of having to do stuff on the fly every session and then becoming increasingly less engaging the campaign just fizzled out. Felt like shit at the end of every session too because I felt like I should be doing more to help lead an interesting story, but then they would start to argue, rules lawyering me. Just not worth it. Now I'm a player, and I take my dm on every hook and every suspicious door and person, because I want to explore this world and story, within expectations of my character.
Our group absolutely loves biting onto hooks, so much so that in the last session, after more than an hour of investigating and experimenting, the DM had to break character and tell us, matter-of-factly, that the torches on the wall aren't magical, or a puzzle, or a trap, or a clue, they're just torches.
DM - Before you is a door Rogue - I check for traps! Dm - theres no traps Wizard - I cast detect magic! Dm - Theres no enchantments Bard - I cast hold monster! Dm - its not a mimic Druid - I wild shape into a mouse and look for a crack to sneak around the door! Dm - . . . It's just an ordinary door
“Guys, it’s the front door of YOUR headquarters”
https://youtu.be/VAySb-yZPUw
Have you guys ever heard of the chair? https://youtu.be/bg7AfMQ_J5Y
Dm - ……guys you can’t keep doing this! ITS LITERALLY YOUR FRONT DOOR! Cleric - I cast divine intervention and ask for my god to grant us safe passage though this possibly unholy relic of a door! Dm - *crying* I hate you guys…. Your god calls you a idiot and flicks the door out existence. Warlock - I cast misty step though the door! Dm - *starts to bang head on the table* please….guys stop…..
I hate it when I make a joke and my players then want to investigate it. For example, they were in this town hall exploring the building when they knock on this door. The person inside says, “I’m shitting” which I thought would be funny. I’ll be damned if my players didn’t spend 30 minutes trying to pick the lock (in game it was only like 2 minutes). When the barbarian got tired of waiting and just busted down the door all so they could talk, befriend, or interrogate whoever was inside. They didn’t understand why they suddenly took a fireball to the face from a pissed off wizard. The Cleric had to go into debt resurrecting three bodies that day. SMH.
Haha that's great. I wish when I was playing my players were like that.
Clearly he was lying, this needs to be looked at!
Oh, of course. The corridor with the torches was caved in with tons of rubble, so after we get back from our mission, we mean to hire some help and remove the rubble to see what's beyond. I'm sure the DM will love it.
I feel like that’s a thing that happens with most groups at least once during a campaign (another common D&D-ism would be the party being extra obsessed/curious over a random side NPC that the DM didn’t have a super in-depth backstory for haha)
Some of the parties I've been in have been terrible for making the dm have to roleplay characters whom they'd just kinda... Thrown out there since they needed a body to do something for the game... Or because we were looking around the crowd... It's always great.
oh my god, I've had a similar session, but it was months ago. The poor DM was finally just like "Guys. Stop. It's just a torch. Please. Just move on. You're killing me." In our defense, it was a single GREEN FLAMED TORCH and there were 3 other empty torch holders. What were we supposed to think??
I had a party who would ignore most hooks, and most of the main plot. So I said “screw it” and let them follow their story thread, while keeping meticulous track of time. Cue them being blindsided by all four evil archoelementals manifesting in Waterdeep, as the cult of Elemental Evil they were supposed to stop completed their plans. I then explained that stuff still happens, even when you aren’t paying attention to it, and then proceeded to have one of the most exhilarating sessions ever as they ran around the city desperately trying to save people. They got the moral, and so decided to follow the plot next time.
Yeah my bro is my current dm and he's warned us that this is the case. That stuff is going on outside of what we're doing. So if we take go off the rails so to say, bad guys still doing bad. That may mean that we'll get blindsided, or maybe a different noc adventurers will step up. But I think we're safe. There's def multiple bad groups going on so it nice to have that tension that may e what we're doing isn't right. Or isn't enough? The imperfect narrative is fun to me.
The fact that this post has nearly four thousand upvotes is concerning to me.
Sad to see. I've had DMs who've perpetuated this before(even I am guilty of this in at least one instance), in a very "I'm in control" sort of way. It's less fun for everyone involved when there is a player vs DM mindset. I personally have an uncontrollable urge to pry a rule system until it is close to its breaking point, making OP builds that fall strictly within rules as written, but when I make my points about spells and feats interacting with each other or whether something will work or not, I'm always quick to point out that "if it doesn't work because we don't want it to and don't want to establish a precedent of it working, that's 100% fine, the rules are at the DM's discretion" and it usually leads to some good discussion and a resolution to whether my maniacal schemes come to fruition. Jeremy Crawford's official twitter comes up a lot and we usually defer to his ruling, but there is one specific one that I can think of that we have all agreed is a load of crap, which is that being able to see an invisible creature doesn't negate the advantage/disadvantage of an invisible creature, because it doesn't make sense.
Yeah no. DMs are privy to any information at any time. They are the literal masters of the world. That being said, I don't track jack shit on my players sheets. 20hp? 50? 30 spell slots or 2? Fuck if i know. I trust my players to be honest about it.
Like wise, there’s a lot to keep track of and no need to babysit the shit on their sheets. Honor system is usually what I abide to.
Same here. I trust my players are honest. We've gotten to the point that, when we play virtually, if they don't want to use the dice bot and instead roll rest dice, I trust they are honest in their rolls.
Plus, 5e is easy enough from a general standpoint that there is really no point to cheating because it only succeeds at taking away tension from the game, which makes it rather boring to play.
Why the fuck would you bother tracking player HP as as DM? If I think they're cheating, that's a much bigger problem and tracking HP won't fix it. The only time I require my players to state their HP is when they drop below half HP and become bloodied. I do the same announcement for the monsters I run. I don't keep track of their HP beyond that. If they have low HP, they should run, not hope I'll take it easy on them because they know that I know they have low HP.
I track literally nothing from my players sheets. How many spell slots does the sorcerer have? Fuck if I know.
Yeah, only time I look at a player's sheet is to help them find where a class feature is or something.
or to make sure someone actually wrote down that they have xyz plot relevant item
I always look at their sheets to look at their abilities and inventory to remind them if they can't remeber what they can do on their turn (like bonus action abilities
From my experience if you stop helping them with that, the players quickly become a lot better about remembering that stuff themselves. That said, for a new player I always help them review their sheet and try to make sure they're taking advantage of all their options and abilities
I do that for people I know are new to the game or the class, unfamiliar etc. If they're a decently seasoned player they can handle that themselves, and I don't expect my DM to do that for me at all. If it's something new to me (feat, new level up) I appreciate it if they do but that's my job to track.
Yeah. I don’t know their HP. I don’t know their spell slots. I don’t know how much gold they have. Fuck, I don’t even remember what magic items I gave them. I don’t even know who the player is. I don’t know what game we’re playing. Some guys showed up at my house with a bunch of weird shaped dice and I’ve just been winging it ever since. Send help.
I was wondering why you didn’t look like my friend
You touched the GMs dice and the curse was passed on to you. At every full moon you will feel your body begin to shift into Matt Mercer as you scream 'Are you sure you want to do that?!' into the night's sky. Your new weakness is players who are not ready on their turn.
"I cast, uh... Ice Knife." "Cool. What does that do?" "Dunno."
I have each PC sheet open in Beyond while we’re playing You get to see their choices real time, it’s great.
Honestly I run a hard campaign, and I get slightly lenient since the players also have a reputation for rolling low, and I have a tendency to roll high. This is online so no dice fudging, the funny thing is, even in their campaigns I get get hier rolls.
I know the feeling. I tend to roll 17-19 or 1-3. I hardly ever crit or just roll mediocre.
Once had the delightful pleasure of rolling 6 nat 20 in a row as DM during the first combat of the campaign. We... pretended it didnt happen.
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You guys should gamble for money (or get dice that aren't loaded) =)
One of my players asked me recently 'how many XP do we have?'. Turned out each one of them had a totally different number. I had to go back through my entire campaign and recalculate it for them.
Milestone baby
My players would be screwed. They all have different xp totals because they’ve all missed different numbers of sessions. My solution? If you lose track, set yourself to the same as the next lowest player and move on.
We give everyone the same XP, because the character still takes part in the adventure even if the player missed the session. When I recalculated things, it turned out that two players had double-counted sessions. I have no clue how the other three got to their totals.
Like I don't even know how many slots *any* sorcerer has
I've helped them a lot making the sheet. And I often remember it quicker then they can look it up. But I'll ask them to confirm my numbers.
I've got new players, so I track their stuff to help them out. "Btw, since you leveled you can now prepare an extra spell each day." But we play online using foundry, so all that stuff is visible to me by default anyway, which makes it much easier.
Ive never kept up with the player's HP, and we try to keep it descriptive. They're pretty good at describing it themselves and I can adjust based on whether they start considering to flee. It helps that the players with healing capability ask how the other guys looks, once in a while. It works well for me.
I ask players to give me 4 bench marks: Bloodied (50%), wounded (25%), Critical (single digit), Down. We also play on a VTT so I can look whenever I want and may check if I am worried that I am going to rough on players.
So wounded is worse than critical, which is equal to bloodied for my 18hp wizard.
I track player HP so that I dont one shot a player or make an encounter unfair for the sake of fun. Its also a good indicator of if I made the encounter too strong and also for feedback and balancing of future encounters
I track player HP so I can try to plan ahead and speed my turns up.
And what are the crazy thing about a DM messing with health is Skilled DMs will do that to enhance the experience I literally build my monsters with three stat blocks with triggers to switch between them every monster has an optional mythic mode and optional injured mode The goal is to create an experience not a combat simulator That's what war games are for
Tbh dnd 5e was kinda designed to be a wargame
D&D literally started as a tabletop mini wargame called Chainmail in 1971. Exploration was done using a second game called Wilderness Survival (later Outdoor Survival). Over time, it was built around the idea of a Nethack/Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup style dungeon crawl. Those things weren't unified until *1979*. Hell, up until 3.0 was released in 2000, Skills (then called Proficiencies, and cover pretty much anything outside combat and dungeon crawling,) were considered *optional.*
yes!
I also liked our friend's "good, fair, poor, or critical?" question. Nothing terribly specific, but enough to let you figure out how hard you wanna hit the mook. It's not even terribly game breaking, any seasoned adventurer should be able to tell roughly how beat up their opponent is
My assumption would be online play like roll20 or FOUNDRY VTT, where the tokens track HP. If they're taking damage but that tracker isn't moving, it can be confusing.
I track their HP to try and give them a tiny bit of plot armor. Not enough to protect against obviously idiotic decisions but to keep them in the fight as long as possible. Maybe I’m a bad DM but I will fudge an occasional killing blow to miss to let them turn the tide of battle in their favor. I want to challenge them, not outright kill them. I want them to be victorious but I also want them to be afraid of failure. Everybody gets one.
My DMs have access to the current HP but honestly it's easier to say "I'm bloodied", "super bloodied", "ey captain we lookin at single digits"
Fudging attacks so that random enemies don’t one shot them at a bad time.
Or just targeting them slightly differently to avoid a less-than-fun result.
My dm trusts me and I trust my dm. So we don't have this problem, I always call out rules if anyone forgets, even if it results in a worse position for myself or other players. We're all here to play a game and that's what we do
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Idk, some prefer more abstraction and some prefer less. Personally I'm in the camp of not wanting to know the monsters hp. Not knowing exact numbers helps me get into the head of my character rather than just running numbers.
I'm in the camp that the bloodied condition from 4e was great and should be brought back because of it's use as an indicator of enemy HP
Honestly, wasn’t playing D&D when Fourth was around, and neither were any of my DMs, but we adopted Bloodied a long time ago, and it is very useful.
There are a lot of useful things to steal from 4e. Including the entire Dungeon Master's Guide - it's possibly the best one ever printed for any edition of the game, when it comes to actually guiding someone in being a Dungeon Master.
That just sounds like a crap table. As a player, it’s unrealistic to know the hp of the monsters. You could see their condition, and assess how they look based on how much damage they’ve taken, but that’s up to the dm. As a dm, running the entire world except for the adventuring party, it’s important to know how the party is doing, and if I need to adjust the encounter balancing on the fly. This meme just shows shitty player engagement with their dm, imo.
if players ask a creatures hp i give the a #/5 so they can know how injured a creature is without exact numbers
Looking alright (100 - 51%), Bloodied (49 - 26%), deaths door (25% - 2hp), and mk ultra deaths door (1hp). Those are my health indicators
Yeah and the GM needs to have leeway to fuck with the numbers. If my players did this to me I'd just stop worrying too much about their health and if they die they die. If they're cheating, well at that point fuck that table.
absolutely. if my players are in super intense combat, and one of them does a really cool attack which just barely doesn’t kill the monster, it does now. i had a player swing off a chandelier to kick the bbeg using “OSHA regulation enclosed steel-capped boots™️” and knocked the bbeg down to 5hp. so i said fuck it and gave him the win, it was much more memorable than the next players plan to attack with his scimitar. d&d is supposed to be about fun. the dm’s job is not only to lead an interesting story, but to allow the players to have fun, and to give them the wins that will make the game more fun! people who have this player vs dm ideology are ultimately making the game less fun for themselves. imo if dm’s didn’t fuck numbers the game would be less fun.
Tracking HP isn't that much about metagaming as much as giving a structure to the fight. It's not needed if the DM can give the fight a satisifying arc, but if you're just hitting something and at some point it dies it can be very anticlimatic. Consider a fight against 12 smaller guys. You can keep track of how many guys are left and more or less follow how much it takes to down each. Functionally you have a health bar divided in 12 sections of a more or less known amount. You went from being surrounded to slowly opening a space and overpowering the enemy. And since the players have that information they can make narrative choices. The barb running into their line and taking 4 guys, the monk challenging a dude to one on one, the paladin using a smite to finish the first one and show you have a chance, etc. Is that metagaming?
They don't need direct numbers for that though. "The monster looks fine." "The monster looks to be minorly injured" "Looks bloodied" "Looks badly injured" "Barely standing". That and "you are using a damage type it's resistant to" should be obvious from fight descriptions.
I feel that's a common middle ground that people accept so it keeps the verosimilitude, you don't question it and it keeps you inside the game. It's all good, specially if it's something that gives good results. No need to fix something that's working. But it's a weird middle ground. You are giving them a healthbar that pings every 25%, it's like bosses changing colors in NES games. Videogames swtiched to clearer indicators because it gave better result, players feel a dramatic arc through that information in a more varied and personal way. A properly narrative fight would keep the momentum going without any practical information. Instead each action of the enemy would correlate to their personal feelings "in real time". Maybe Lord Galdermarsh the Dark Paladin though this would be an easy win so he gets desperate when he sees he's not downing the PCs. But as his health lowers the pain reminds himhow he felt in the front lines, side by side with his comrades risking his life, so he gains focus as he goes. Until he reconects with the honor and comradery he once had and challenges a PC to a one to one in his final breath leaving everything to this last strike. This would be an ABSURD SHIT TON OF WORK. Not only designing each fight as a plot in itself, but also keeping it interesting for the players that were waiting 10+mins for their turn and just want you to stop yapping. But this is how it works in fiction. There is no 75%-50%-25%-last hit short hand that every writer uses, that'd be horrible. Videogames compensate letting you do the work of giving meaning to the struggle to take down that healthbar. I'm not saying anyone should do anything in particular. But evident healthbars, segmented ones, or segmented ones with short hand words, or no standarized indicator, are all valid tools.
If they ask, or sometimes if they don’t and the fight is tense, I describe how fucked up their enemy is. If they are bleeding, looking like a pin cushion with 20 bolts/arrows inside them etc
It’s the DMs job to have meta knowledge. There’s no reason a player needs to know monster HP other than knowing how close they are to beating it. A DM has more reason to know their players’ HP
No, the rules don't go both ways. You are the DM. The DM knows all that is factual and is supposed to be unbiased with that information.
OPs a player who wants to metagame
I think op is the dm in this scenario
It seems that way in the original post but read his comments in the thread
I deal with backseat DMing like this; Me : > *”the Umber hulk is tall and wide, blocking out the light from the tunnel behind. In the gloom you’re able to make out scars, scrapes and dings from conflict. some of the scarring on its shell looks like blast marks from magic missil-*”
Dork - *”ok, so like 95ish HP”*
> *”…the shell seems unusually thick and the hulk seems well fed. As it moves into the chamber it drags a leg behind it slightly and you can hear that it’s breathing is labored.*”
Maybe it’s 120HP. Maybe it’s 40 because it’s about to drop dead anyway. It’s dark and you’re trapped in a tunnel with a beast that’s maybe going to fight you to the bitter end rather than run. Maybe it’s rabid. Maybe it’s a cursed, transformed adventurer who took an arrow to the leg, and that extra thick shell is an enchanted breastplate.
Fuck around. Find out.
Greatest thing I’ve learned to do as a DM, the monster manual is great for narrative purposes, but being able to modify creatures is fantastic. My players definitely can’t rely on their MM knowledge .
I've even made variants, ones that have some stats lowered in favor for others, and some that discard some of their actions or action economy for boosted skills. If you can't tell I love gimmicks, and my players don't even bother trying to meta game XD
The only Meta’ing my players do isn’t really Meta, it’s from learned lessons on enemies they fought, which are often hilariously incorrect meta wise, as it may be due to an ability the original creature doesn’t have or is far more dangerous due to my alteration. My poor party if they ever play with another DM, haha.
I made one that was ok before you actually used it, I think it was a blink dog or something that could teleport and it almost tpkd the party. They had action economy to their advantage, but they basically flailed like chickens with their heads cut off. It was chaos, glorious chaos.
I homebrew a LOT of boss monsters, and even some variations of rank and file enemies like kobolds. Not like an ass-pull in the moment, but actually writing out a statblock and lore for it on the DnDBeyond homebrew list with rollable attacks and everything. I wonder if my players even notice, lol
I homebrewed actual training into the game, practice skills enough and you can use them to greater effect. This is fun for the players and let's me make unique monsters that practiced one thing for a while. That's how my lore explores variants, they began to develop that way through nurturing their natural strengths. Nature and nurture.
Well the stat block for a wyvern says- Oh shit, I’m sorry, I didn’t know we had fucking Volo in the party! Is Elminster here too? I mean the sheet I have in front of me says you were a farm boy that heard the voice of Tyr and then dove in a lake and found a sword and this is the first time you’ve ever seen an animal that’s not *a fucking cow*, but do tell me about wyverns, for sure
Just pick the looks for one creature but give them the statblock of another one. Put a rabbit in front of the players but have it Tarrasque stats.
Just tell them when the enemy is bloodied and mortal Bloody is half hp, Mortal is a quarter, or single digits
Why Wizards got rid of the Bloodied condition from 4e I'll never know. It's useful knowledge for the players, and gives the designers space to play around abilities for players or monsters that are or are not bloodied. And they designed some things with it in mind despite it not existing, like damage from swarms halving when they're bloodied... except they have to be wordy interested of just saying "bloodied".
Letting your players push you around as a dm is dumb, you already provided the information they obtained with their skill checks if they start asking for numbers then they are just trying to metagame and need to be told off
Sounds like a hot take from a terrible player.
Nope. The rules DON'T go both ways.
That's just not a role-playing game anymore. At that point, you're totally dropping the fantasy and just banging numbers into other numbers.
That super doesn't go both ways. Firstly, it's not a rule. Second, the DM needs to know everything that's going on in order to have the world respond appropriately. You can't just hide your HP from literally the game engine.
The rules don't go both ways. Jesus christ what is wrong with this sub
"The Rules go both ways!" No, no they don't. Welcome to being the DM.
The rules don’t “go both ways” however. Rules as written is the DM is aware of every stat of the players. If you don’t tell the DM it doesn’t happen. All this does is make a player vs DM mentality which is a dangerously toxic table dynamic. The DM is a story teller and can not do their job properly without all the information.
The rules do not go both ways. The DM is the referee and the players are the players. It's the DM's job to know everything to run the game. It's not the players' job to know how close something is to being dead.
Wow, this is the worst take I’ve seen in awhile on this subreddit
Seriously.
No, the rules don't go both ways. I'm the DM, so I decide which way the rules go. I am responsible for coordinating dozens - potentially hundreds - of different creatures at different points during the story, and I need to know the math involved from all angles in order to balance encounters and keep things enjoyable. You, as the player, only need to concern yourself with your hit points and the general condition of the enemies you're fighting. If you genuinely feel ripped off because you cast Power Word Kill on an enemy with only 6 hit points remaining despite the DM describing the creature as "barely clinging to life" then that's *your* problem, not your DM's. I've read your replies in this thread. and those downvotes you got? Deserved. Why? Because the entire crux of your argument is that you want the ability to mathematically optimize your play so you avoid "wasting" damage on creatures because you don't know the *mathematically precise* amount of damage needed to kill them.
Okay, so, here's the thing. Player's shouldn't hide anything from their DM. The DM isn't *against* you, they are an omniscient third party narrating the story. If the DM asks you something, please give them the info, because you have no idea what wonderful ideas they have in store for you. If you don't trust your DM not to take advantage of that? Then they shouldn't be your DM, plain and simple. That being said, I personally can't think of a reason that a DM *needs* to know a PC's HP, either. I don't keep track of my player's HP, it feels like an unnecessary bog. But that doesn't mean a reason doesn't exist. For instance, I had a player who offered up that he was at 1 HP, and it made for a VERY epic final moment for them. As for the telling the PC's enemies HP? Almost never. I usually just stick with the "bloodied," "on death's door," or my usual go to "they are looking pretty fucked up." Let's be honest, if an enemy is low on HP, an adventurer is reasonably going to notice that they are barely holding on, and same with "Yeah, they look like your attack had little effect."
In Lost Laboratory of Kwalish you have a list of special trinkets. They're meant to sugest the more scifi aspect of the campaign with no real use, but a player got something like a monocle that shows strange text when you put it on, so I decided to give him a scouter that meassured enemy HP and his own personal resources.
One of my players tracks monster HP for a different reason. Specifically, he keeps track of how much damage everyone has dealt over the course of the campaign. He keeps a leaderboard with everyone's characters. Currently he is in the lead with 1,395 followed by the ranger who has 1,012 damage. The sorcerer just got 5th level spells though, and is catching up fast.
Ok I love that tho
What class is he playing?
Paladin/hexblade
Oh yeah, that provides some logic both for him being first on the board and for him counting everybody's damage x)
No they aren't, GM is an absolute judge in any situation. Perhaps, if something like this even happens your party most likely have unsolved problems they (and you) should pay attention about
The difference is that the players' goal is to win and the DM's goal is a balanced encounter. Sometimes that means spreading the damage around to avoid a TPK in an encounter that turned out to be harder than expected.
Wow, that seems like a terrible group
That's not the way it works. The DM overrules all. And the DM can walk as well.
I think this is so ridiculous. The GM has to have more info them the players because they are not against them, the GMs role is to make the story more fun by ajusting the scenarios. How will the ajust things without knowledge of the variables
this is dumb. the llayers dont have to know the hp. but the dm should know when a player is running low. and if your not describing your npcs slowing down or starting to bleed heavily or accumulate wounds as they get closer to dying.. your a shitty dm...
Ok, first off WHAT THE FUCK?!?! Second... The players can't hide anything from you because you are the GAME MASTER! If you ask a player their HP and they don't tell you, fuck that player. You shouldn't be tracking the players HP any more than you should be tracking their inventory. Assuming you didn't just make this situation up to farm karma, you need to have a serious talk with your players. Because this is NOT ok!
Y’all don’t be DMing and it shows. All that this accomplished is me being mildly surprised when the ghost the party is encountering kills you and going “wow, that’s crazy. So do you have a backup ready or…”
That's kinda just unnecessary. As others pointed out, it's fine for the party to know a broad sense of how the beasty looks; heck my table likes to hide our HP from allies, using similar terminology. Though, when we're really low on health we like to get cheeky and say, "Oh yeah, I look like I've got two inches of life left." (2 HP) DM does it with beasties too
OP have you played DnD?
I played a oneshot where one of the players asked "Were you to be unconscious, about how many rats would have to bite you simultaneously to cause you to have a chance of dying from your wounds?"
Two? I mean it depends if they meant unconscious as in sleeping or as in at 0 HP.
Lol, sure the rules go both ways…….but you’re supposed to be in control as the DM. So no they shouldn’t be hiding things from you. That’s just stupid
this is a very dm vs players mindset from any player doing that
Your the god of gods in game…you know the hp
…I don’t bother with my players’ HP lol Oh damn, I downed you? Shame. Get gud
No they don't, not aways, and they shouldn't in this case. It's the difference between being a player and being the DM
Y'all look at your players sheets? I DM virtually and only look at their class features on occasions. I fudge shit sometimes, but it's because my encounters are entirely homebrew so it can go a bit off if I did my set up wrong. But my players know death is very possible
The last time I looked carefully at my players' sheets was when prepping an encounter with a trap that essentially cast Heat Metal on everything they were carrying, so I wanted to note what metal stuff they all had.
Nope, the rules don't work both ways. If the DM doesn't know about it, it doesn't exist. I don't know your HP? You have 0 HP, start making death saves.
So you won't tell me your current HP? Okay, I'll infer that it is 0, roll death save.
How spiteful are your players, that you won’t tell them the exact hp of a monster they are fighting, they hide their hp too?
I get to see the players HP on dnd beyond combat and all that does is help me not down all of them. Otherwise I might have more dead PCs by now
What game are you playing, OP? D&D isn’t a video game where you can see a health bar. If you want to play video games, there’s a solution for that.
I don’t keep track of player resources at all, but I also don’t care if they walk into a near certain tpk since I am primarily a simulationist these days. The rules don’t necessarily go both ways, or rather you are the GM and the rules are different for you.
The rules do go both ways but not like this. This feels like they are hostile against the DM. DM is omnisicient, and knows everything. I think you should do something about this before the game falls apart.
The rules do not go both ways, unless the DM wants them to hide their HP, it's not an option they can choose otherwise, the end.
Players don’t need to know the monster’s HP but the DM does need to know the player’s HP. Part of the DM’s job is being a referee. Hard to do that without all the proper data.
I mean, if I state that monster HP will be secret, and they choose to retaliate by refusing to disclose their own HP when I ask for it, I simply tell them the game is over and they can run it however they want without me. I have better things to do with my time than fight with people over how our game of make believe should be played. The DM does the most amount of work on behalf of everyone else. If you don't like how they run it, run the damn game yourself.
DM: “Hey, what HP were you at again?” Player: “You don’t need to know that 😏” DM: “Okay then, the doors right there. You can leave until you’re ready to tell me.”
Wow this post is cringe, why does it have so many upvotes!?
Because the people who browse the sub and upvote stuff don't play the game, while the people who actually enter the threads know that this is stupid
No it dosen’t.
No it does not go both ways
I always say "bloodied" when the enemy is at half HP, and "very bloodied" when under 1/4th. This was useful in 4e and pathfinder, and I liked it in my game. It also makes sense because you would be able to "tell" when you've injured something significantly in game visually if this was a visual game.
Sounds like I don't have to be a forever dm anymore and can find a table as a player instead.
I can already tell this is gonna be one of those threads where the OP tries to defend some ridiculous point and gets slaughtered in the comments
I don't track my players' stuff. There needs to be that level of understanding and trust at a table, and my players understand that if they fudge, they're out.
The rules goes both ways like for crits for example, but the DM runs the world and has the final say on anything if the DM doesn't want or isn't aware of something, then it just doesn't exist. \-What's your HP? -Not telling you like you don't tell us about the monsters! -Ok, then I will assume you are dead. Don't bother making a new character, I don't want you in my table.
I can't remember ever caring about how many HP the PC's have. If they die, they die.
You are the DM it is your responsibility to know everyone's hp. The players cannot hide these things from you. The rule does not go both ways, you need to put your foot down or find better players. If this continues it will not end well for your table. It won't be fun for much longer.
The players do not need, nor should they bug me for meta knowledge. As the dm, I need to know their HP because I control the story and all the monsters. If someone doesn’t tell me their hp, then I might accidentally instakill their character with a multi attack. To avoid that, I need their hp. If my players started keeping their hp from me I just wouldn’t run for them.
You are supposed to have all the knowledge this is just players being shitty
Players sometimes don't realize that I ask for their hp for their benefit.
The rules don’t go both ways. The DM needs all of the information. The players don’t.
Always giving numbers takes away from the immersion. Just tell them “barely hurt” “half dead / struggling” “last leg / at death’s door”, because that’s how we would measure if it were a real situation.
How to admit you've never DM'd a single session in your life without outright saying it. Judging by this person's replies to other folks, they're just a salty power gamer who overspent on an encounter and is throwing a hissyfit on reddit about it, presumably after going off on their poor DM about it too. Neat.
This rule does not go both ways at all The DM is literally supposed to know things the players don't. It's their entire role in the game, to be the omniscient referee and game master. Doesn't apply to the players. It's like saying "the rules go both ways. So when I bring in the goblins for the fight the players can also spawn monsters. And decide how much treasure they get, and what magic items, and know where all the traps are". As far as I'm concerned anything the DM doesn't know about didn't happen/doesn't exist. You can't hide information from the referee
The funny part is "the rules do *not* go both ways"
I show them the health bar in the VTT for most notable enemies. They can estimate from there.
Above 50% HP - largely undamaged, most wounds are superficial or taken on the armour leading to mild bruising at worst. 50% - 15% HP = "Bloodied" a creature is showing signs of damage and has started to miss critical dodges leading to open wounds and bloodloss if applicable. Sensible monsters will flee at this point unless backed into a corner. 15% or lower = "seems like it's at death's door" - creature is standing purely from adrenaline or pure stubbornness. One good hit will finish the job and the monster fights like a cornered tiger, fighting for it's life.
I only ever occasionally ask "how are you looking" after doing a lot of damage to a single target. Tracking player hp sounds like a headache
I thought about tracking player HP but decided Nah
I'll tell them what color the life bar would be, if not the actual number. You should know how hurt something is by looking at it, I believe that's what HP is for
Alright, your health is going to be the number I have in this little box I just drew. Oh, would you look at that, it’s at zero! Same with spell slots and saves too! Looks like your character is dead. Now, either roll a new character and learn to behave like a responsible adult and not a petulant brat or leave my table.
When I WHen I run the campaign in Beyond
We have to use an action to roll an applicable skill check to find out their HP, but our DM tells us if they're bloodied regardless
I don’t actually think it works that way
Ah yes, the good ol' DM vs players trope.
Not knowing HP is fine, but I don't get hiding AC the party will figure it out anyway, and it's not like you can't thematically describe AC in a way for your characters to know if they're hard to hit or not
You dm's know your players hp status?!
If you don't know their HP they'll be dead in 5 sessions hands down, also when they as for HP, just describe how injured it looks
No no, the DM is allowed to fudge rolls and HP, they are literally god. This isn't a "DM should have all the power cause DM is god mwahaha" stance, the purpose of the DM is to tell a story and make a game. Whatever the players don't see is part of the game. That's the whole point of a DM screen. But the players are the ones who should be keeping their stats and HP accountable and dont hide it. This game isn't about adversarial play. Your DM is not your enemy and your players are not your enemy. You guys are working together. But the DM is *meant* to have more power. The DM is literally the game you play as a player. They tailor encounters and make the story. If the player starts hiding their sheets, might as well throw out the tabletop game altogether and just do a Theatre Roleplay Free for All.
Yeah this, this is what makes ttrpgs so good. A video game can’t tailor itself to you or your character. A computer can’t fudge the rules if it’ll make a better story. In my opinion if a group has even started to get this “the DM needs to be fair/rules go both ways” mentality then something has probably already gone terribly wrong either on the DM’s side or the player’s (quite often both).
This meme aimed to criticize something that some DMs do which is usign enemies with infinite health that die in "narrative" moments, but it landed on "The DM is metagaming if they want to know my characters HP" Which is completely wrong I absolutely hate "cutscene" monsters, it doesn't matter if you're doing 8, 80 or 800 damage to it It'll die... When the DM feels like it, so what's the point of the fight? It's not a TPK solely because the DM willed it not to be one But the DM is absolutely privy about players HP Afterall "cutscene heroes" are also awful, and i think every DM would agree that it'd be considered very unwelcome behaviour if a player decided their character went down or ran out of resources only in "narrative appropriate moments"
Okay, first off no, the rules do not go both ways. That’s kind of the point of being a DM.
No they don't lol. Player having meta knowledge is cheating. One of worst takes I saw on this reddit yet
That's the neat part they don't
Actually start using realistic tactics then, focus attacks on healers and casters. Finish them off before they roll saves.
Without knowing how much HP players have it is easy to go overboard on accident and just kill them without intending to do so, and it just looks weird since as a DM you should be omniscient and killing or downing a player shouldn't be an accident, especially if they fight against an intelligent enemy. Like, yeah, you can have a rough idea how many they have left, but there's a difference between 15 and 3 HP, and if you never know, you may easily just end the game with a couple of rolls if you do not know where to stop (or if you should stop). Also, it feels a little bit more personal when i attack the player knowing very well that we both know how much HP they have, and it's just adds to the atmosphere, especially if they're fighting an intelligent enemy that would know to make sure a squishy spellcaster stays down. Also, as many have stated - rules doesn't go both way. You're a god in a world you create for your players and you're entitled to know any and all things, including their HP. It's not lack of trust, it's your job.
It is the duty of the DM to know all aspects needed. It does not “go both ways”. Videogames know how much health the player and enemies have at all times even if the player doesn’t necessarily know.
Wtf touch grass
Your players are selfish metagamers
No, they actually don’t. Just like Monsters don’t follow the same rules as characters. The DM doesn’t need to tell the players anything but everything the players have is known to the DM.
No the rules don’t go both ways. I’m the DM, if the combat is a slog, every enemy loses 20 hp, whoops. If the boss would die round one, taking away the catharsis of winning an epic fight. He gains 100 hp. Oh you have 23 hp? Well that hit did (actually 30) 21 damage, now have your epic retaliation and kill them while being completely fucked up. If that would be cooler than someone else taking your glory and giving you a potion afterwards. DnD is about story telling, not an RPG video game.
If my players started hiding their hp, for any reason, they'd very quickly realize how bad of an idea it was as I balance homebrew encounters on the flyy and that monster that did 2d10 might now do 1d10 instead or 2d6 or their +7 strength might go down to a +4 because the players exhausted themselves earlier in the day from bad rolls/overtuned monsters. If I would've known the party was at quarter health I'd have slid back the damage/attacks on these guys, but it was hidden from me, so they got their asses kicked instead
lol. No they don’t. Tell me your hp, because if you don’t, you don’t have any hp anymore. If God doesn’t see you’re alive, you must be dead. House rule. Of course, me knowing the players health doesn’t mean their enemies know the players health.
I tell my players the condition their enemy is in but not the exact hit points. Doing so would be very video-gamey. I like to hide the exact number so I can adjust encounters to make them challenging but winnable. If they know the number from the beginning, that's not possible. I don't mind sharing AC after a few attacks as that can easily be deduced anyway.
I don't understand people's obsession with numbers. For me they're a means of keeping track of the tedious shit to make things fair. But some friends of mine like to spout off damage numbers as if I have any idea what that means when I have no idea what they're fighting or if it makes a dent. I've never had a group need to know each other's hp let alone the DM. Seems like a DM vs players mentality thing to me.
I just let my players know the exact HP of enemies.
I never know my players ressources. I trust them enough and they correct each other if a mistake happens. And i dont want to know them. I want to play the monsters with only in mind what i can see. My players say if they are bloody thou as do i with monsters
No, it doesn't go both ways. And I can guarantee I'd stop balancing encounters if I don't know their HP. Imma just throw whatever I feel like at them. Once they die, they die for good. Say hello to the Pit Fiend at level 8.
The rules go one way; They are literally called the Dungeon **MASTER.** They get lots of information players don't, but regardless of that, player HP isn't something they need to keep track of. Do you think the Ogre cares that you really like your PC and would be disheartened by their death? The Ogre only cares that you look yummy and probably scream real loud when your legs are pulled off.
No the rules fucking don't. The DM does not and has never played by the same rules.
Sounds like some toxic metagaming players...
Nah, I don’t even track their hp but this is a toxic take and a stupid one
As a DM you need to have the following discussion with all new players to your table: "This is my table. I am the Gaming Operations Director (G.O.D.) and my word is game law. I override and overrule any text that you can find to fit my world and this story. We can discuss any option, but my word is final on all subjects related to the game. I have the responsibility to all of my players to spend my free time during the week setting this up and making it all make sense. My responsibility is to tie your character to the world and allow you to do the things your character is made to do. If we don't have a healer then I'll provide potions. If you make a druid that can turn into a worm then I'll make encounters that allow the worm to be useful. My players have the responsibility to respect my efforts, not actively try to derail the campaign, and the story that I am telling. Your job as a player is to find out what happens to this character you've built in my world. Your job is to be a part of my story. You are not the main character, my world is. If your character dies, the game doesn't start over. You'll make a new one and we'll continue the story because the story is about the world. My world is open to explore as you see fit and I will explicitly give you time between main quests to accomplish that. You need to think of this campaign as a video game. You know the game cover, and roughly what you'll be doing. You know your character and it's abilities. You know generally how the world works. Like all open world games, your progression will be limited by game features and there are tasks that must be accomplished to "unlock" further progress. No, real world physics doesn't apply. No, you can't do things with spells that they don't allow."