Minimum Damage. "A PC is pricked by a needle..."

[Dachimotsu]

A PC with 10 HP is pricked by a needle. The minor injury is enough to cause physical pain and draws enough blood that the PC cannot realistically regenerate it over the course of the next encounter. How much damage does the needle inflict?

If you choose to make it cause 0 damage, you create a scenario in which a PC will eventually lose all of their blood without taking 1 HP of damage.

If you choose to make it cause 1 damage, you create a scenario in which a PC can die after being pricked with a needle a measly 10 times, even if none of the puncture wounds were lethal.

How do you handle silly situations like this?

[Kid Jake]

By using a little personal judgement. PnP isn't like a computer game where everything has to conform to either A or B; it's ran by an actual person that can look at a ridiculous situation as it unfolds and rule based on human reasoning. The first time somebody pokes themselves with a needle and draws a little blood it wouldn't really do anything worth representing mechanically. If they keep doing it then hit them with a cumulative fatigue/exhaustion penalty. Still getting drained? Now they're dead.

[Koo Rehtorb]

It deals a fraction of an HP in damage. Once you take enough fractions of an HP it becomes 1 HP.

[The Glyphstone]

At least in 3.5, and I think in PF, Blood Loss would be represented by Constitution damage/drain. Enough of that kills you without ever touching your HP total, so no houserules necessary when that needle just deals 1 Con damage per hit (which seems reasonable if it causes them to bleed so much that they can't regenerate it in a reasonable time).

[TheIronGolem]

A PC with 10 HP is pricked by a needle. The minor injury is enough to cause physical pain and draws enough blood that the PC cannot realistically regenerate it over the course of the next encounter. How much damage does the needle inflict?

If you choose to make it cause 0 damage, you create a scenario in which a PC will eventually lose all of their blood without taking 1 HP of damage.

If you choose to make it cause 1 damage, you create a scenario in which a PC can die after being pricked with a needle a measly 10 times, even if none of the puncture wounds were lethal.

How do you handle silly situations like this?

I say it does zero hit points damage, and I reject your implication that this means the PC can survive massive blood loss.

If it caused enough physical trauma that there's any chance of significant blood loss, it's not a "pinprick" (unless it was in the jugular or something, but that's obviously not the type of "wound" you're putting forth here)

And if it is a mere pinprick, it's not an injury significant enough to model as lost HP even if it's a bit of a bleeder.

[Deophaun]

A PC with 10 HP is pricked by a needle. The minor injury is enough to cause physical pain and draws enough blood that the PC cannot realistically regenerate it over the course of the next encounter. How much damage does the needle inflict?

So, basically, they are denied access to a juice box and maybe some iron supplements.

If you choose to make it cause 0 damage, you create a scenario in which a PC will eventually lose all of their blood without taking 1 HP of damage.

I fail to see how. A normal human body suffers injury and repair at inconsistent rates all the time, just by existing. It's only a problem when bodily functions are damaged enough to actually be impaired; that's what I'm interested in.

[legomaster00156]

Don't think of a needle as a needle. Think of a needle as a pixie's lance.

[RazorChain]

Unless stuck with 100+ needles, it's not going to affect you much. The average human has around 5 liters of blood (1.3 US gallons) and after losing 40% you are in danger of dying.....that's 2 liters and that's a lot.

We're talking about if stuck with a needle you aren't even going to lose a centiliter of blood unless there is a syringe attached drawing blood so we are literally talking about hundreds or even thousand of needles before someone succumbs to bloodloss.

[ExLibrisMortis]

For a needle and needle-wielder sized for the creature being pricked, roll d%. On a 1, the prickee is unlucky enough to receive a point of damage.

If the needle & wielder are larger, increase the damage range for each additional category, first to 20, then 50, then 100. For example, an ogre has a 20% chance to deal damage when pricking a human, a 50% chance when pricking a halfling, and simply cannot safely prick a pixie.

[halfeye]

In the bad old days, a puncture wound could be fatal. Sleeping beauty was let off, but the initial curse was death. Without anti-septics or anti-biotics, any infection could finish off a person.

[Ruslan]

Should someone use a needle as an improvised weapon in combat against a PC, I'd rule that it deals at least as much damage an an unarmed strike, ie 1 damage.

Should a PC just randomly prick his finger with a needle, this will be for fluff only, no damage.

If you choose to make it cause 0 damage, you create a scenario in which a PC will eventually lose all of their blood

If an enemy is in a position to repeatedly stab the PC (with a needle, or anything else), and the PC cannot defend himself in any way (shackled, imprisoned, unconscious, whatever) for a very long time, I'll just tell the player, "he kills you while you're helpless". We're not roleplaying each individual needle prick.

Same if a PC has an NPC at his mercy. He can just kill the NPC and that's that.

[Strigon]

In the bad old days, a puncture wound could be fatal. Sleeping beauty was let off, but the initial curse was death. Without anti-septics or anti-biotics, any infection could finish off a person.

I'm fairly certain a literal pinprick is an exception. It's hard for something that sized to become a meaningful infection.

[Erys]

A PC with 10 HP is pricked by a needle. The minor injury is enough to cause physical pain and draws enough blood that the PC cannot realistically regenerate it over the course of the next encounter. How much damage does the needle inflict?

If you choose to make it cause 0 damage, you create a scenario in which a PC will eventually lose all of their blood without taking 1 HP of damage.

If you choose to make it cause 1 damage, you create a scenario in which a PC can die after being pricked with a needle a measly 10 times, even if none of the puncture wounds were lethal.

How do you handle silly situations like this?

I honestly can't imagine this ever coming up in a game.

For grins and giggles I would have each stick do no damage, but the PC has to make a con save that starts at 1 and is cumulative. On a failed save they have poked themselves enough to take one point of damage.

Save resets after each failed save.

Every 5th fail, they lose a con instead to show, while they are not doing a lot of physical damage- they are starting to lose a lot of blood.

[halfeye]

I'm fairly certain a literal pinprick is an exception. It's hard for something that sized to become a meaningful infection.

Rare sure, impossible? Nope, happened all the time, just very infrequently. Tetanus is still a killer, but rarely in developed countries now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetanus

[Dimers]

Don't think of a needle as a needle. Think of a needle as a pixie's lance.

Hey, now. I've got a pixie with a lance that can deal 3d10 + 2d8 + 13 with every charge, and that's in the lower half of heroic tier without any Christmas Tree Effect going. Tiny amounts of damage, my butt!

[Excession]

Don't think of a needle as a needle. Think of a needle as a pixie's lance.

If you're dealing with a swarm of pixie lancers, that's what swarm mechanics are for. Each attack roll made by the swarm represents a number of attacks required to be threatening or at least worth calculating. Swarms aren't always a perfect abstraction, but then neither is anything else, and if nothing else they save you a lot of dice rolls.

Hey, now. I've got a pixie with a lance that can deal 3d10 + 2d8 + 13 with every charge, and that's in the lower half of heroic tier without any Christmas Tree Effect going. Tiny amounts of damage, my butt!

Ah, the old "bullet with dragonfly wings" archetype.

[Remmirath]

Unless this is an unusually nasty needle prick, I would say that the PC takes no damage. They're not losing enough blood to make an impact, and compared to the other things that typically deal a one or more hit points, a prick from a needle shouldn't even register. You could call it a quarter hit point, but that implies that a weak slash from a knife wielded by a person with average strength is only the equivalent of four such pricks, and that doesn't make much sense.

I could see temporary CON loss if they lost quite a bit of blood but have no current wound (such as, perhaps, a character in a D20 Modern game donating blood), but any ordinary needle and ordinary mishap with a needle isn't going to cause anything of note. If in a more typical D&D fantasy setting and for whatever reason I wanted there to be some consequence to this, there's always a FORT save versus some kind of disease.

As far as the premise that not calling a needle prick one hitpoint of damage could lead to a character bleeding out without taking damage goes, I don't think that makes sense. You'd have to solve this issue in a computer game, but in a face-to-face game you could always change how you're calling it if the situation changes -- as in, if for some reason the character was submerged in a pit of needles, you would treat it distinctly differently. Or if they were helpless and being jabbed repeatedly over every inch of their body, or what have you. If you instead decide the needle is going to do one hit point, that implies that the average person will only take four needle pricks before falling unconscious, and I'd say that's pretty obviously not true. People prick their fingers and get normal scrapes and bruises all the time without that kind of thing happening. In my view, hit point damage is for wounds that are severe enough to be a cause for concern -- the sort of thing one might need stitches or other medical attention for at the least.

[Vinyadan]

Rare sure, impossible? Nope, happened all the time, just very infrequently. Tetanus is still a killer, but rarely in developed countries now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetanus

Margaret Fuller Slack

I would have been as great as George Eliot
But for an untoward fate.
For look at the photograph of me made by Penniwit,
Chin resting on hand, and deep-set eyes—
Gray, too, and far-searching
But there was the old, old problem:
Should it be celibacy, matrimony or unchastity?
Then John Slack, the rich druggist, wooed me,
Luring me with the promise of leisure for my novel,
And I married him, giving birth to eight children,
And had no time to write.
It was all over with me, anyway,
When I ran the needle in my hand
While washing the baby’s things,
And died from lock-jaw, an ironical death
Hear me, ambitious souls,
Sex is the curse of life!

(From the Spoon River Anthology).

[halfeye]

If you instead decide the needle is going to do one hit point, that implies that the average person will only take four needle pricks before falling unconscious, and I'd say that's pretty obviously not true.

Fainting counts?

[Grod_The_Giant]

By using a little personal judgement. PnP isn't like a computer game where everything has to conform to either A or B; it's ran by an actual person that can look at a ridiculous situation as it unfolds and rule based on human reasoning. The first time somebody pokes themselves with a needle and draws a little blood it wouldn't really do anything worth representing mechanically. If they keep doing it then hit them with a cumulative fatigue/exhaustion penalty. Still getting drained? Now they're dead.

This. Not everything "injury" means hit point damage. I'm pretty sure I'm a commoner with no Con bonus, and I don't think bashing my shin four times will kill me, nor falling on my face, nor poking myself with a needle.

[Vinyadan]

You could give the character a small malus for handling minute objects, though. Maybe a concentration check if you have to pick a lock.

About pointy death, what about thorns? Woodland stride allows you to get through them with no damage, but the SRD doesn't seem to specify what damage you are supposed to suffer.

[Jay R]

If she pricks her finger on a spinning wheel, she makes a saving throw. If she fails it, she falls asleep until she is awakened by loves first kiss.

Really - am I the only one who consults the historical documents?

[Deophaun]

You could give the character a small malus for handling minute objects, though.

No.

No. No. No. No.

That word has a meaning. It is not as a synonym for "penalty." George Orwell did not actually believe that the destruction of words was beautiful.

[Vinyadan]

No.

No. No. No. No.

That word has a meaning. It is not as a synonym for "penalty." George Orwell did not actually believe that the destruction of words was beautiful.

You know it's the opposite of bonus, right?

[Jay R]

The serious answer is that you are correct that D&D hit points attempt to model something continuous as if it were discrete. This is a limitation of the model, so that the model will be simple enough to play.

Don’t model needle pricks with hit points, because the granularity of the model is wrong for that purpose. In an actual game, the DM simply treats a single needle prick as no damage, and a huge number of needle pricks as an aggregate damage.

[Deophaun]

You know it's the opposite of bonus, right?

No it's not. Penalty is the opposite of bonus. A malus is compensation for poor performance. It is used in investments. It is not a -1 on a die roll.

[ngilop]

You know it's the opposite of bonus, right?

Uhmm.. not quite. But you keep thinking that :)


also.. I think the OP is trolling hard core

Every Human in existance has pricked their finger on a needle, got stuck by a thorn or gotten a scrape.

I have never known anybody to die from blood loss from getting a little prick, the body repairs the damage done before any thing close to a fraction of significant blood loss occurs.

ANybody thinking that a needle prick causes a human to die from blood loss barring extreme circumstances is either 1) completley ignorant on how the body works, or 2) trolling to get lulz.

[Hawkstar]

No it's not. Penalty is the opposite of bonus. A malus is compensation for poor performance. It is used in investments. It is not a -1 on a die roll.

Malus is the opposite of bonus. The investment term is derived from that - a penalty/malus (And revocation of a bonus) for failing to perform.

It's a synonym for penalty, but Penalty doesn't have a monopoly on its own definition, and Investments don't have a monopoly on the definition of malus.

Furthermore, "Penalty" means "Punishment", and is not strictly the antonym of Bonus.

[Deophaun]

Malus is the opposite of bonus. The investment term is derived from that - a penalty/malus (And revocation of a bonus) for failing to perform.

It's a synonym for penalty, but Penalty doesn't have a monopoly on its own definition, and Investments don't have a monopoly on the definition of malus.

Furthermore, "Penalty" means "Punishment", and is not strictly the antonym of Bonus.

No. A malus is a type of penalty. The investment term is the only definition it has. It is not the opposite of bonus.

A lobster is a type of invertebrate, but you don't get to invite someone over for lobster and try to serve locusts.

[ngilop]

No actually deophuan is correct

A bonus is 'in addition to/over what is expected'

a malus is 'you did not good enough/subpar'

a penalty is 'take away from what is'


these of course are simplified definitions

in order for something to be the opposite of getting extra in addition to what you actualy achieved (bonus) is to have something taken way from what you achieved (penalty)



unless you guys are rocking latin then youd be correct, but latin is a dead language and so therefore i default to the english definitions.