Contingency Healing

Artoomis said:
See also the massive damage rule wherein you must make a save (or die) if you take 50 points from one blow. You don't take 1, then another, then another until it adds up to 50, they happen all at once.

Sorry, but this one is history. Your character died - get over it. Learn from it.

Set you contigency either as:

"If I will be killed by the damage, heal me first" (I am not sure this would work), or set a higher threshold, but choosing the number is tricky. Too high, and you kind of wasted a heal, too low and you're dead.

I also think there is a higher level spell that is set up to keep you from dying, but I do not know what it is.

And if you read the thread, instead of skipping, you would realize i am talking in hypotheticals, that this is a discussion I am having with my DM.
Also, based on your assumption (what it is so far) your wording will not work.

"If I will be killed by the damage, heal me first". Ok, so prior to taking the damage you are healed. You still take the damage, and if that damage was enough to drop you to -10 you are dead.

Ignore massive damage rules for this argument, i am not questioning that rule.
 

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I replied to something similar to this, but here we go again:
SRD said:
Damage reduces a target’s current hit points.
Infiniti2000 said:
So, your hit points are 20-50=-30. It's not 20-1-1-1-1-1...-1 = 19,18,17,...-30.

This rule states damage reduces your current hit points, not how it reduces the hit points.

SRD said:
If the character’s hit points drop to -10 or lower, he’s dead.
Infiniti2000 said:
At -30, you're dead.

I know this, but I am saying a person doesn't even get to this point, so it is irrelevant. If I am correct, the person will never get to -2, let alone -10 or lower.
 

AviLazar said:
This rule states damage reduces your current hit points, not how it reduces the hit points.

I know this, but I am saying a person doesn't even get to this point, so it is irrelevant. If I am correct, the person will never get to -2, let alone -10 or lower.
So, using that idea you could say that if you have 20 hp and take 50 damage, you go first from 20 to 100 and then back down to -30. After all, it doesn't say you go first through 100, so therefore it's legal, right? Here's a quote form the glossary on "damage":
D&D Glossary said:
Damage points are deducted from whatever character attribute has been harmed -- lethal and nonlethal damage from current hit points, and ability damage from the relevant ability score).
When you read this, how can you not assume normal subtraction methods?
 

The theoretical contingency point for the Heal spell was too low - if 50 point attacks are flying around, you need to set the cutoff at (or above) 50 hit points.

The fact that PCs are loved and cared for has granted us a buffer between 0 hit points (Disabled), the length of -1 to -9 hit points (Dying) and ending right there at -10 hit points or less, (Dead). You want to keep characters out of the (Dying) buffer zone. Really, you do.

Now, to quote you:

I thought the purpose of contingency was to word it on what "might" happen. My original statement was "If I reach negative hit points heal me". Well it MIGHT happen that I reach negative hit points. That is the basis of contingency - IF something happens. Obviously, the thing could not have already happened.<br><br>

Another way to get contingecy as a cleric is to have the Time Domain which gives contingency.

BTW: I am not playing a cleric, my DM and me just like to have discussions about rules and so forth - even if they do not come into play in our game.

--If you are fortunate enough to land within the (Dying) buffer range of -1 hit point all the way down to -9 hit points, then this spell's contingency will be triggered and you will be healed. Take more damage than that in one whack, you're fertilizer.

There is no evidence to suggest that melee weapon damage ever has to move along a one-point-applied-at-a-time continuum. It tends to travel in hefty chunks. An Ogre swinging a 2d8 axe can hit a 3 hit point commoner, do 13 points of damage to him (dropping him from 3 to -10 in one shot), and move his status to from "Alive to "Dead" just like that.

If you are coming up against foes who prefer to kill you by inches (Acid drips, repeated minor electrical shocks, chained to a wall and nibbled to death by rats), then a contingency Heal of 150 HP in one chunk (triggered by "When my hps go negative) is dandy. Otherwise, leave a healthy margin, and keep your characters as healed up as you can manage.

Your DM is right. Cry, accept it, move on.

(Change, Contingency trigger specified.)
 
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AviLazar said:
And if you read the thread, instead of skipping, you would realize i am talking in hypotheticals, that this is a discussion I am having with my DM.
Also, based on your assumption (what it is so far) your wording will not work.

"If I will be killed by the damage, heal me first". Ok, so prior to taking the damage you are healed. You still take the damage, and if that damage was enough to drop you to -10 you are dead.

Ignore massive damage rules for this argument, i am not questioning that rule.

The massive damage rule is an example of how you take the damge ALL AT ONCE. There is NO place in the rules where you take the damage 1 point at a time.

Your DM is correct, you are wrong. Move on...
 

AviLazar said:
Delemental: Nowhere in the rules does it say the damage is taken all at immediately.

Neither do the rules say anything supporting your interpretation. But as Infiniti has already pointed out, the rules do say to subtract damage from hit points. In the absence of anything in the rules requiring a different way of doing math, the logical assumption is to perform the operation as you would any other subtraction problem.

And before you ask, if they'd intended differently, they'd have said so. After all, they do define rules for combining damage multipliers which differ from 'normal' math. (x3 + x2 = x4)

When you're in grade school, and you get a math test where you're required to show your work, if one of the questions is "47-12=?", do you have a long column down the side of your test paper that reads, "47-1=46. 46-1=45. 45-1=44." etc?

And, as long as we're dealing in hypotheticals, how about this?

My cleric has developed a Cure LIght Wounds spell that can be cast as an immediate action. By the rules, immediate actions can be taken at any time, even outside your turn. If damage works the way you describe, then there has to be a span of time, however infinitessimal, in which all those -1 hps are being inflicted on me. In theory, I can use my new spell to heal damage to myself in the midst of taking it.

Heck, who needs a new spell? "I ready an action to cast Heal on myself the instant that the damage I'm taking from the minotaur with the greatsword reaches 1 hp, but before it reaches 0 hp." Readied actions are defined as being able to interrupt another character's actions.
 

Delemental said:
Neither do the rules say anything supporting your interpretation. But as Infiniti has already pointed out, the rules do say to subtract damage from hit points. In the absence of anything in the rules requiring a different way of doing math, the logical assumption is to perform the operation as you would any other subtraction problem.

Heck, who needs a new spell? "I ready an action to cast Heal on myself the instant that the damage I'm taking from the minotaur with the greatsword reaches 1 hp, but before it reaches 0 hp." Readied actions are defined as being able to interrupt another character's actions.

Yea, apparantly the rules do not support it either way (hey we are talking about a system that has many missing explanations). Here is what brought my thought process into being.

You have a knife, you start cutting your body - as the knife penetrates the first inch of skin you take 1 dmg, then next inch is another 1, the next inch is another 1. So every inch is one point. When someone attacks you with the knife, the knife isn't six inches in your body instantly - quickly but not instantly - so you take that damage as the knife goes deeper and deeper. So that is where my thought process comes in.
 


AviLazar said:
Yea, apparantly the rules do not support it either way (hey we are talking about a system that has many missing explanations). Here is what brought my thought process into being.

You have a knife, you start cutting your body - as the knife penetrates the first inch of skin you take 1 dmg, then next inch is another 1, the next inch is another 1. So every inch is one point. When someone attacks you with the knife, the knife isn't six inches in your body instantly - quickly but not instantly - so you take that damage as the knife goes deeper and deeper. So that is where my thought process comes in.

I think we all understand what you are saying. It's got a certian amount of logic to it, but it's just plain not the way the rules work. The rules either state or imply that you get all the damage at the same instant from any one blow. There is not even a hint it might work the way you'd like it to.
 

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