Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
I just don't buy the "it's semantics" argument. Sorry. That's kind of like saying "it's just the rules."
Only when the rules can be interpreted multiple ways like the situation we are discussing.
Let's compare other ways of dying with one hit. Take instant death from massive damage."When damage reduces you to 0 hit points and there is damage remaining, you die if the remaining damage equals or exceeds your hit point maximum."
To the vampire"The target dies if this effect reduces its hit point maximum to 0. "
Both are worded as "the target dies if [condition]". I've never seen anyone claim that if you die from massive damage you can't be raised. We know you can be alive at 0 HP and there is no rule that says you can't be raised from the dead if you have 0 max HP. The vampire "curse" can't reduce you to 0 max HP because you can't be raised above 0 max HP.
This is a False Equivalence. The first example has no ongoing condition. The second does, so the two examples are treated differently.
Run it the way you want*, but to me it's not just "rules lawyering semantics".
*And if this happened in a game I'd briefly question it because I don't see it at all but go with the DM's call.
Fortunately for us, it doesn't matter what it is to you. Your opinion on the matter doesn't stop what you are doing from being rules lawyering semantics. You are stuck on trying to prove meaning of words in order to prove your argument and prove someone else wrong. Arguing meaning is semantics and doing so to try and prove yourself right and someone else wrong is rules lawyering. What our side doing is just semantics, since the words used can also be interpreted differently and mean other things, but we are open minded enough to admit that your side can interpret it the way you guys see it, so we are not rules lawyering.