Author Topic: Temporary HP and Cheating Death  (Read 2052 times)

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Negative Zero

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Temporary HP and Cheating Death
« on: June 05, 2010, 05:22:37 PM »
Crack open the Rules Compendium, and head to page 72. Seriously, why did you even buy that book? Are you going to wow them with your barbarian's grasp of the rules? Anyway. Check out the section on temporary hit points. Most importantly, this line:

Quote from: Rules Compendium

Now, what this means in the context of the paragraph is clear; if you have temporary HP, and you take damage, the damage doesn't 'overflow' past your temp HP and hurt your real HP. If you have one temporary HP and get punched in the face by the Tarrasque, you lose your temp HP and you're still at full health. I'm likely not the first one to notice this, but it's clearly not widely known on these boards, else some things (see: Minor Shapeshift reserve feat) would be much more highly touted. Think about it; Minor Shapeshift gives you a handful of temp HP as a swift action with no other cost. That on its own is a very limited form of invulnerability. Hell, the orison Virtue gives the target one temp HP that lasts one minute, meaning the first attack that the target takes in the next minute deals no damage. Also, a bunch of undead creatures just became much more annoying to kill.

Any problems with my logic, any better optimization? I'm all ears.

snakeman830

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Re: Temporary HP and Cheating Death
« Reply #1 on: June 05, 2010, 05:32:28 PM »
The language there is confusing, but I'm pretty sure it's just stating that when temporary hit points are lost (such as the duration of the effect giving them to you expires), your hit point total doesn't drop because of that.

For example, you're 10th level and use Minor Shapeshift with Polymorph fueling it.  Now, in combat, you lose all of your temporary hp through absorbing damage and now you're sitting at, say, 15hp 4 rounds after activating Minor Shapeshift.  The duration expires, but you have already lost all of your temporary hp.  You're still at 15hp.
« Last Edit: June 05, 2010, 05:35:02 PM by snakeman830 »
I am constantly amazed by how many DM's ban Tomb of Battle.  The book doesn't even exist!

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Negative Zero

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Re: Temporary HP and Cheating Death
« Reply #2 on: June 05, 2010, 05:40:44 PM »
Yeah, that is confusing. So you're saying that if you lose all of your temporary HP and then take more damage to your HP, that this line is trying to say you don't lose more HP when the duration would run out? I considered that as an interpretation, but I thought against it because it specifically said your temp HP would 'go away'. If you already lost them, how could they go away? But the paragraph does make a bit more sense with that interpretation, so I suppose the logical thing to do would be to chalk it up to WotC writers doing what they do best.

So yeah, you're probably right, damage flows past temp HP just fine.

Shadowhunter

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Re: Temporary HP and Cheating Death
« Reply #3 on: June 05, 2010, 09:04:30 PM »
What I believe is the intended target for this, is something I've read about from various sessions.
The barbarian rages. Gains Temp. HP. Takes a lot of damage.
Temp. HP vanish. Damage remains.

Bob the level 10 barbarian have 120 HP. Rages for +20 temp. HP.
Takes 130 points of damage, have 10 left.
Rages ends.
Now goes down to -10 and instantly dies.

I've read about this numerous times and I think this rule is to clarify that the above scenario is not the correct way to handle it.
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Negative Zero

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Re: Temporary HP and Cheating Death
« Reply #4 on: June 05, 2010, 09:10:36 PM »
What I believe is the intended target for this, is something I've read about from various sessions.
The barbarian rages. Gains Temp. HP. Takes a lot of damage.
Temp. HP vanish. Damage remains.

Bob the level 10 barbarian have 120 HP. Rages for +20 temp. HP.
Takes 130 points of damage, have 10 left.
Rages ends.
Now goes down to -10 and instantly dies.

I've read about this numerous times and I think this rule is to clarify that the above scenario is not the correct way to handle it.

Ah, but those are slightly different. The HP gained from Rage are caused by an increase in Con, and they are not actually temp HP. I think that the situation you described is actually correct.

snakeman830

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Re: Temporary HP and Cheating Death
« Reply #5 on: June 05, 2010, 09:44:11 PM »
That is the correct situation.  The PHB even specifies that those are not temporary hp and are not lost first (they're just regular hp).
I am constantly amazed by how many DM's ban Tomb of Battle.  The book doesn't even exist!

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weenog

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Re: Temporary HP and Cheating Death
« Reply #6 on: June 06, 2010, 01:49:35 PM »
Regarding temporary hp, if you've already taken some damage and you gain temporary hp after the fact, they won't refill your normal hp, will they?

Now and then I've heard it suggested to use Vampiric Touch for healing on arcane gish types, that's never really made much sense to me.  As a buffer the enemies have to get through before they reach your actual hp, sure, but am I missing something?
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McPoyo

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Re: Temporary HP and Cheating Death
« Reply #7 on: June 06, 2010, 02:49:33 PM »
It's useful to "heal" damage so you don't take more. It's not technically healing in the commonly used sense.
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veekie

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Re: Temporary HP and Cheating Death
« Reply #8 on: June 07, 2010, 01:55:09 AM »
Functionally it's a decent combat heal though. since it does it's job of keeping your skin in one piece, damaging an opponent, and has the bonus of ignoring 'overheal' and wasting power.
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