Body destroyed at -x hp? (Hide Life)

[EvilGM]

At what point is your body totally destroyed and considered unusable?

I bring this up because my character has hidden his life force in his (severed and well hidden) pinky finger via the Hide Life spell (Sor/Wiz 9, Necromancy) from Tome & Blood page 91. This spell takes a day to cast, costs the caster 5000xp, and has a duration of instantaneous.

The effect is... If damage or a spell effect would normally render you disabled, dying, or dead, you ignore the usual effects. Instead you are staggered (only able to take partial actions).

How far into negative hit points do you have to go before your body is no longer useful?

And what happens if your body is destroyed? Your life force is still in your finger, but you have no body.

Any ideas?

 

[Geoff Watson]

The DM was a fool to allow that spell in the first place, as was WotC for including it in T&B.

There shouldn't be a spell that allows anyone to ignore hit points completely.

Geoff.

 

[Derren]

There is no offical ammount when a body gets destroyed (for example a Frenzied Berserker can fight and fight and fight as long as his frenzy goes no matter how many thousands of negative HP he has).

There are some methodes which destroys a body like disintegration, but no HP limit for it.

 

[Darklone]

I could offer some houserules...

Made a table some time ago that gave a chance for semi-permanent and permanent damage (e.g. broken legs, severed limbs, lost eye)... The more you got into negative hitpoints, the more often you had to roll and the more severe the deformations got.

After two major (permanent) "hits" at one limb or the torso, the relevant thing was utterly destroyed...

 

[Someone]

About -26. That´s -10 (dead) plus the hit points of a medium size zombie.

 

[wingsandsword]

Several DM's I know house rule that at -30 HP the body is completely obliterated, too badly destroyed for Raise Dead to work. The body is reduced to indistinct, gory bits if the damage is done by weapons or physical trauma. If done by spells or energy attacks, the body is turned to ash, vapor, dust or other insignificant remains.

Not official, but it's always worked for us in cases like this.

 

[andargor]

So for a 9th level spell and 5000 XP, you get 30 extra HP. Huh.

Andargor

 

[UltimaGabe]

So for a 9th level spell and 5000 XP, you get 30 extra HP. Huh.

Andargor

Exactly. You all have to take into account the amazing costs this spell uses up, and actually think of a way to make it better than just say "you're dead a -40". There's understandably a power issue with the spell, which is the fault of the creator- there should probably have been some time limit where you have to get healing or else, or something- but you have to be reasonable, and you have to remember that it costs just as much XP as a Wish, but as it doesn't have unlimited options (as Wish does) the individual effect has to be much greater.

Andargor's right. 30 extra HP for a 9th level spell and 5,000 xp is ridiculous. Try to come up with something reasonable rather than just nerfing it to nothing.

 

[LGodamus]

I would say when the body reaches negative X where x= original full HP. it is totally destroyed.

 

[Someone]

Doesn´t have to be "dead", just that the body desn´t work util it´s healed.