Conscious below 0hp?

[Conaill]

Ok, I thought I had this figured out beyond any doubt, but last weekend I got into an argument with my DM over the following:

When a PC has dropped below 0 hp, and is then Cured (CLW) but still below 0 hp, does he become Disabled (i.e. conscious but only non-strenuous partial actions allowed)?

Here are the relevant sections of the SRD (emphasis mine):

From the Condition Summary:

A character with 0 hit points, or one who has negative hit points but has stabilized and then improved, is disabled.

From Death, Dying & Healing:

If any sort of healing cures the dying character of even 1 point of damage, the dying character stops losing hit points and becomes stable.

Healing that raises the dying character's hit points to 0 makes the character conscious and disabled.

So... it is possible to be at negative hitpoints and be disabled, hence conscious. But you need to stabilize and improve.

My interpretation is that CLW makes you stable (is that the same as stabilize?), and obviously you improve. But then why is that last paragraph in the quote so overly specific?

 

[whatisitgoodfor]

No, magical healing while you are below 0 HP does not make you disabled.

The portion you are looking at refers to natural healing.

If a character makes the first stabilize check is stable. If they make the next one, which occurs in one hour, they are then disabled.

At least that is what I get from reading the PHB.

 

[Henrix]

If you have taken damage and have been healed (or otherwise stabilized), but are still below 0 hp, you are stable and unconscious.
An unconscious character that is tended has a 10% chance per hour to wake up and be just disabled.

 

[Drew_Bear]

Ok, I thought I had this figured out beyond any doubt, but last weekend I got into an argument with my DM over the following:

When a PC has dropped below 0 hp, and is then Cured (CLW) but still below 0 hp, does he become Disabled (i.e. conscious but only non-strenuous partial actions allowed)?

No. I think it says that you are disabled ONLY if you are at zero hp exactly. If you are in negative territory, you are stable but unconcious. Thats how we play it, anyway.

 

[Conaill]

Re: Re: Conscious below 0hp?

I think it says that you are disabled ONLY if you are at zero hp exactly.

No, at least that part is unambiguous. The SRD "Condition Summary" section explicitely states you can be Disabled at negative hitpoints. Let me show you the quote again:

A character with 0 hit points, or one who has negative hit points but has stabilized and then improved, is disabled. He is conscious and able to act but horribly wounded.

This is from the Disabled entry of the Condition Summary (http://www.wizards.com/d20/files/srdconditionsummary.rtf)

whatisitgoodfor: There's nothing in that section to suggest that this only refers to natural healing. In fact, the "and then improved" part of the quote above is somewhat puzzling in the case of natural healing, because you don't actually need to gain any hp to be upgraded to Disabled, you just roll your d%.

 

[whatisitgoodfor]

As we all know, the SRD is full of small typos and ambiguities.

Here is the relevant section from the PHB PP 129.

"Recovering with Help: An hour after a tended, dying character becomes stable, roll a d%. He has a 10% chance of becoming conscious, at which point he is disabled (as if he had 0 hit points). If he remains unconscious, he has the same chance to revive and become disabled every hour. Even if unconscious, he recovers hit points naturally. He is back to normal when his hit points rise to 1 or higher."

The next section is "Recovering without Help:" and has some special case rules for when a character isn't tended, but the basic stuff is the same.

So, a character must succeed the secondary stabalization roll (the one that happens every hour) in order to regain consciousness. I suppose that if your fights last that long (approximately 600 rounds) this could come up during combat. However, I find that to be extremely unlikely.

 

[hong]

In the combat example in the PHB, note how Mialee, who gets taken down to -5 hp, is still unconscious after being stabilised with a cure minor wounds.

 

[Conaill]

conclusion

After reading through all the relevant sections in the books and the SRD yet again, I've come to the following conclusion:

The "has stabilized and then improved" language (which occurs both in the DMG and the SRD!) is WRONG. It should be "and then recovered", or even better "and then regained consciousness"

Essentially, if you stabilize naturally or gain at least one hp, but are still below 0 hp, your status changes from Dying to Stable. This means you're still unconscious but no longer lose 1 hp per round.

Once you're stable, you have a 10% chance per hour to regain consciousness. The only way to circumvent this using Cure spells is to heal the character to 0 hp or above (excepting other magical or alchemical means, of course). In fact, the DMG section on "Stable characters and Recovery" (I believe, don't have my books at hand) has very specific language regarding negative hp characters that were healed through magical means.

From this, it is abundantly clear that the "and then improved" does not refer to regaining hitpoints, but rather to the 10% chance per hour of regaining consciousness.