Fake health
Fake health is a bug that occurs in multiplayer games. Occasionally, when hit, the heart gauge will not appear to decrease, yet the health is indeed lost. Most weapons can cause fake health in a laggy server, but RFs do this most frequently
Causes
RFs has the unique ability to hurt players through its explosion alone. The shockwave can even ‘pass’ through solid 1-tile thick walls and hurt any player touching that wall. Fake health happens to a player when the explosion of the missile hurts them (RF can make damage without the player having to be actually hit by the missile), causing them to flash (a supposedly clear sign that damage has been done), but not lose any hearts.
Fake health is not caused by RFs alone. Sometimes a player will get a carrot when they are timing out, which will cause them to get a “fake” carrot and, although their health will appear to increase, it will in reality stay the same. Also, multiple carrots may appear to spawn in on one place (especially in laggy servers). Only 1 of these carrots will be the right one, the rest being fake, so proceed with caution.
The only “definite” way to give someone fake health, however, is to use TNT on him. TNT works surprisingly well in CTF, where you can hurt players without them knowing it. When a player is killed by TNT, he will receive a ‘You killed yourself’ message, while everyone else will get a ‘(Name) ate it’, implying that the player’s last meal was a TNT charge.
Consequences
This bug often causes people to exclaim “3hk“ when roasted because they are killed with 3 hearts when the maximum damage you can do, with any weapon, is 2 hearts. Also, players with fake health cannot pick up carrots, since players with 3 hearts is the maximum you can have in Multiplayer (CTF), even when they are fake.