The Hpmon or HPmon patch adds a color display to your HP meter. This patch is only for tty users. As you fight monsters, if your HP meter turns yellow, then turns red, then becomes highlighted or blinking, then you know that you are approaching death and requiring healing or rest. This patch makes no change to gameplay but can save your life! HPmon is also popular because nethack.alt.org has it. (The version there sometimes fails to color the HP meter; this might be a bug after resolving the conflict with the dumplog patch.) GruntHack has an expanded version of it.