Warden L6 Utility "Bears Endurance"

[Istar]

Sequence of events:

-You are hit
-You take damage
(damaging action complete and in the past now)
-You drop to 0 (or fewer) hit points <= [TRIGGER!]
-You use Bear's Endurance to immediately interrupt going below 0
-You do not fall down, you do not drop weapons/items, ongoing effects you maintain do not end, no action needs to be spent reviving you, you are not left vulnerable, etc., etc., etc.

But this does not happen *before* you take the damage, it happens before you fall to/below 0.

You interrupt the trigger. The trigger here in not taking damage, it is hitting the 0 hit point mark.

And yes, those are completely different.

So the trigger to the interrupt is not when you take damage, its not “You take damage that would drop you to 0 hit points or fewer”, it’s when you actually drop to 0 or below.

Which means the interrupt takes place half way through the offending damage, so I think my interpretation is now right.

Get hit and take damage, go zero or below, trigger is activated, get HP back equal to surge value, this is added up from zero.

 

[DracoSuave]

Even the spambots agree with me.

 

[S'mon]

I believe the idea here is you can react to the trigger before it's effects are enactted.
Thus a "hit" can trigger a power before it does damage/imposes conditions and "dropping to 0" can trigger an action before it imposes the condition unconcious which would remove the ability to perform actions.
Otherwise a "hit" that imposed the condition stunned would not be able to be a trigger for any "on a hit" triggerings.

I believe that is correct. Contrary to popular belief, Interrupts don't 'turn back time' - they prevent the *resolution* of an action. So in this case it triggers on "fall to 0 hp" but prior to the resolution of fall-to-0hp: unconsciousness, and presumably death(!) are prevented as the healing kicks in.

 

[KarinsDad]

But this does not happen *before* you take the damage, it happens before you fall to/below 0.

Not technically. Technically, the damage never happens until after the Bear's Endurance. Otherwise, Bear's Endurance could not take a PC from bloodied to not bloodied before the damage occurs and prevent a monster effect that occurs due to the PC being bloodied.

An immediate interrupt lets you jump in when a certain trigger condition arises, acting before the trigger resolves. If an interrupt invalidates a triggering action, that action is lost. For example, an enemy makes a melee attack against you, but you use a power that lets you shift away as an immediate interrupt. If your enemy can no longer reach you, the enemy’s attack action is lost.

The sequence is:

1) Damage is calculated and player is informed.
2) Player determines that it would put his PC at zero or below, so he uses Bear's Endurance.
3) PC gets 25% more hit points (plus any other adds for magic).
4) Player subtracts damage from PC's new current hit point total.

Just because the player figures out that the damage would take him below zero does not mean that the damage happens first. For example, the DM might thrown in extra monster damage because the PC is bloodied and if Bear's Endurance brings the PC's hit point total above 50% and out of bloodied, that extra damage has to be subtracted.

This could even result in the PC not getting hit at all. Say that a monster has +1 to hit vs. bloodied foes and rolls the exact number needed to hit. PC is no longer bloodied and monster misses.

Contrary to popular belief, Interrupts don't 'turn back time'

For all intents and purposes from the player's perspective, they do. The event is modified from how the dice indicated that it occurred.

From from the PC's perspective, the original event never happened at all. It's not that time is turned back for the PC, it's that the power prevented something from happening (or minimized an effect) that might have occurred. The PC doesn't necessarily know that the event actually got changed.

The player knows. It's like Doctor Who. The doctor knows what was supposed to happen, the rest of the world knows what ended up happening.

 

[S'mon]

Not technically. Technically, the damage never happens until after the Bear'sJust because the player figures out that the damage would take him below zero does not mean that the damage happens first. For example, the DM might thrown in extra monster damage because the PC is bloodied and if Bear's Endurance brings the PC's hit point total above 50% and out of bloodied, that extra damage has to be subtracted.

This could even result in the PC not getting hit at all. Say that a monster has +1 to hit vs. bloodied foes and rolls the exact number needed to hit. PC is no longer bloodied and monster misses.

Then you would have a recursive loop: never hit, no reduce to 0 hp, no Bear's Endurance.

I think the confusion arises because Interrupts can turn a would-have-hit roll into a miss, and the WoTC writers' terminology is often fairly slapdash. If the enemy rolls high enough to hit me, I can add +4 to AC or shift 3 squares away as an II, then the hit does not resolve, and time is not turned back. The blow was swung, good enough to connect, but did not connect due to the II.

There are no IIs I can think of that trigger off damage and turn a hit into a miss - that would indeed be turning back time.

 

[DracoSuave]

Then you would have a recursive loop: never hit, no reduce to 0 hp, no Bear's Endurance.

I think the confusion arises because Interrupts can turn a would-have-hit roll into a miss, and the WoTC writers' terminology is often fairly slapdash. If the enemy rolls high enough to hit me, I can add +4 to AC or shift 3 squares away as an II, then the hit does not resolve, and time is not turned back. The blow was swung, good enough to connect, but did not connect due to the II.

There are no IIs I can think of that trigger off damage and turn a hit into a miss - that would indeed be turning back time.

All immediate interrupts can potentially invalidate any action they interract with, as ALL immediate interrupts resolve before the action they interrupt.

Basically, an ability doesn't "happen" until it's completely resolved AND no more interrupts have been declared. Interrupts don't turn back time, technically, but they can counter the action causing the trigger, whether the trigger be "hit", "moves adjacent", 'damages", "brings below 0", or "when you are turned into a purple dragon."

There's no time paradox, just like if someone stabs a sword towards you, and you see it's going to hit your face, and you parry it, the fact that it's no longer heading towards your face isn't going to mean you aren't going to have parried it. This is why shield works, why wizard's escape works, why every immediate interrupt works-- because it happens before the action not just the trigger. And the wording in the rules is very clear that interrupts of ANY kind can invalidate actions.

Any argument that says 'If an interrupt can invalidate the action, the action never occurs so the interrupt can't invalidate it' is faulty: The rules say you caninvalidate it. So you can invalidate it. That's how it works.

 

[Infiniti2000]

All immediate interrupts can potentially invalidate any action they interract with, as ALL immediate interrupts resolve before the action they interrupt.

Not before the action, before the trigger. There's a difference. From the on-line compendium:

Interrupt: An immediate interrupt lets you jump in when a certain trigger condition arises, acting before the trigger resolves. If an interrupt invalidates a triggering action, that action is lost. For example, an enemy makes a melee attack against you, but you use a power that lets you shift away as an immediate interrupt. If your enemy can no longer reach you, the enemy’s attack action is lost.
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What you said I think is only true if the trigger == the action, and that's not always the case. In this example, the trigger isn't the action at all, it's the result of the action. So the II is resolved before you go to 0 or below, but the action itself doesn't appear to be invalidated by reviewing the above quoted rule.

 

[Gryph]

I don't believe the state of the player after taking hit point damage is part of the action resolution.


So, when the hit point damage is applied the action is over. The trigger for dropping to 0 hit points is then evaluated after the action finishes resolving and the healing surge would apply from zero hit points but before unconsciousness and the effects associated with unconsciousness.


I believe if the utility had been intended to negate an action or possibly negate an action, the trigger would have been "You take damage that drops you to 0 HP or fewer". The trigger is "You drop to 0 HP or fewer". I read that as clearly happening after damage resolution but interrupting the effects of dropping to 0 or fewer HP.

 

[KarinsDad]

I believe if the utility had been intended to negate an action or possibly negate an action, the trigger would have been "You take damage that drops you to 0 HP or fewer". The trigger is "You drop to 0 HP or fewer". I read that as clearly happening after damage resolution but interrupting the effects of dropping to 0 or fewer HP.

So is the PC at 0 or lower, or not?

If so, then he cannot do an immediate interrupt in the first place. Bear's Endurance would not work at all.

If not, then why does the immediate interrupt not work like all other interrupts which can negate the entire action? If the PC is not technically at 0 or lower, than the heal applies before he goes to 0 or lower.

Just like Shield can interrupt the to hit resolution, Bear's Endurance can interrupt the damage resolution.

 

[Gryph]

So is the PC at 0 or lower, or not?

If so, then he cannot do an immediate interrupt in the first place. Bear's Endurance would not work at all.

If not, then why does the immediate interrupt not work like all other interrupts which can negate the entire action? If the PC is not technically at 0 or lower, than the heal applies before he goes to 0 or lower.

Just like Shield can interrupt the to hit resolution, Bear's Endurance can interrupt the damage resolution.

The PC finds a brilliant scintilla of time where their HP is 0 or lower but they do not suffer the additional effects of that state (not unconscious, auras and zones don't cancel, etc.) because they are not unconscious when this trigger point is hit, the interrupt can still function and since it heals, they never suffer the unconscious condition.

The trigger for this interrupt isn't tied to part of an action resolution. That's why I said if it was intended to negate or partially negate an action the trigger would have included a "you take damage" component that would have moved it up into the action resolution and would have caused the healing to happen before the damage was applied.

Shield's trigger is on hit and so is tied to the action. This trigger is not. In fact this utility would make Vulcan Dirt Diving quite possible as you couldn't possibly die before the healing surge triggered. It certainly wouldn't undo the action of jumping off a cliff, though.