Cure Minor on self when disabled

[HellHound]

Good call.

Pursuant to further reading of the terms of the rules proper as well as a sound convincing by Hypersmurf, I am hereby in a position of having to rescind my prior support for the proposition made by the other player and then supported by HeapThaumaturgist.

 

[Vigwyn the Unruly]

I would 100% agree with you if the SRD stated

but if you perform any standard action (or any other strenuous action) you take 1 point of damage after the completing the act if you are still disabled.

How about if it said: "unless you were never disabled in the first place"?

There's a fine but exceedingly important point here. It's not just that you are not disabled anymore; instead, it's as if you never were. If you never were disabled, you didn't act when disabled, and you don't lose any hp.


GM: You lose a point.

PC: Why?

GM: You were disabled when you cast that spell.

PC: No I wasn't--because the spell healed me, it's like I wasn't disabled when I cast it.


Does this make sense? Think about when people get convicted, then the conviction is overturned on appeal. The person is not an ex-con. Instead, legally it's like they were never convicted in the first place. Same idea here.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Healing is an instant. You instantly go from 0 to 1 hp and upon reaching 1hp are no longer Disabled. Being no longer Disabled the clauses that occur AFTER (specifically AFTER) the standard action would no longer apply. You instantly left Disabled behind when the spell raised your HP beyond 0.

You're still wrong.

Apply the effects in order.

When your current hit points drop to exactly 0, you’re disabled.

Do you have exactly 0 hit points? Check.

Therefore you are disabled.

You can only take a single move or standard action each turn (but not both, nor can you take full-round actions).

Therefore, you are limited to a single move or standard action.

What happens if you take a move action?

You can take move actions without further injuring yourself,

Okay, what if you take a standard action?

you perform any standard action (or any other strenuous action) you take 1 point of damage after the completing the act

Okay, so if I do a move action, I remain at 0 HP. If I do a standard action (or any other strenuous activity), I take a point of damage after completing the action.

So, let's say, for purposes of argument, I cast a Cure Minor Wounds spell. It's a standard action that heals one point of damage.

So, as soon as I complete the action, I take a point of damage. I go from 0 to 1 back to zero. But wait, you say:

Healing that raises your hit points above 0 makes you fully functional again, just as if you’d never been reduced to 0 or fewer hit points.

Doesn't that mean I don't take the point of damage? Aren't I "fully functional" as soon as I cast the spell?

Nope. You have to follow them in order.

You cast Cure Minor Wounds, gain 1 hit point, and then immediately lose one hit point for completing a standard action you started while Disabled.

You fail the first part of that clause you're so enamored of:

Healing that raises your hit points above 0

The healing didn't raise your hit points above 0 - it kept them *at* zero.

If you'd cast a stronger healing spell - say, CLW, with a minimum of 2 points of healing - you'd go from 0 to 2 and back to 1 - and *then* that rule would take effect.

As it stands, you've wasted a healing spell.

That's my reading, anyway.

 

[Vigwyn the Unruly]

You have to follow them in order.

You cast Cure Minor Wounds, gain 1 hit point, and then immediately lose one hit point for completing a standard action you started while Disabled.

Problem is, that order doesn't make sense. Once you gain the hit point, you don't then immediately lose it because it's as if you were never disabled to begin with. Simply gaining the hit point stops the whole cascade.

 

[Hypersmurf]

How about if it said: "unless you were never disabled in the first place"?

There's a fine but exceedingly important point here. It's not just that you are not disabled anymore; instead, it's as if you never were. If you never were disabled, you didn't act when disabled, and you don't lose any hp.

My reading of that is that it emphasises that there are no ill effects for being in a having-been-disabled state.

I'll need to check my 1E DMG, but from memory, with the Death's Door rule, if someone went to negative hit points and was cured back to consciousness, they were effectively in a non-combatant state (regardless of current hit points) until after resting.

"As if you were never disabled" to me says "There are no lingering effects". If you have positive hit points, the fact that you were disabled earlier in the day is irrelevant.

Doesn't change the fact that the standard action you took while you were disabled costs you a point of damage.

("As if never" causes problems elsewhere as well - like True Strike and Improved Trip, for example. The FAQ took a clear side on that one, but the wording leaves plenty of room to argue the other way...)

-Hyp.

 

[Vigwyn the Unruly]

"As if you were never disabled" to me says "There are no lingering effects". If you have positive hit points, the fact that you were disabled earlier in the day is irrelevant.

Isn't losing a hit point a lingering effect? After all, the SRD says it happens after the action.

I would replace the words "earlier in the day" in your quote with "an instant ago".

 

[thalmin]

I have bounced around a bit on this one. Good debates here. But in the end, I have decided to rule in favor of the players. Cure spells are there to help the PCs. Help them they shall.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

I'd say it's up to WotC to make a ruling, beyond that it's pretty obviously individual DM fiat. Some people read it one way and others another. I don't see how either camp could really state their point more explicitly. It's sort of down to that "as if you had never been disabled" thing. Personally I don't see as it would be addressing a 1st Ed rule that isn't addressed otherwise in the rules. There's two bits there on healing, both of them potentially applying to the earlier condition about dropping an HP to dying after completing a standard action. My PERSONAL opinion is that the "AFTER" portion of that statement is in there to allow characters to perform one last heroic action before they succumb to their injuries ... as opposed to "performing a standard action causes you to lose one hit point" and starting a whole argument about whether that standard action occurs BEFORE or AFTER you lose an HP and start dying. As opposed to the "after" sticking with you regardless of what kind of HP you have from that standard action as a final lingering "bugger-ya" from our passing friend Disabled

--fje

 

[Aliro]

I have bounced around a bit on this one. Good debates here. But in the end, I have decided to rule in favor of the players. Cure spells are there to help the PCs. Help them they shall.

In my opinion, this is what really matters. Give the players a break. There is enough other stuff out there you can use to make their pitiful lives more miserable , so cut them some slack on this one. It allows the cleric/healer to be just that little bit more heroic, before you pull another evil DM trick out of your hat to make the party groan!

As always, the DM is always right, so go with what makes you (and your players) happy. Never forget 'Rule 0'.

Lisse`alus ent laema`lalaith tenna lle aelouva,
Aliro

 

[D+1]

DISABLED (0 HIT POINTS)

When your current hit points drop to exactly 0, you’re disabled. You can only take a single move or standard action each turn (but not both, nor can you take full-round actions). You can take move actions without further injuring yourself, but if you perform any standard action (or any other strenuous action) you take 1 point of damage after the completing the act. Unless your activity increased your hit points, you are now at –1 hit points, and you’re dying.

Healing that raises your hit points above 0 makes you fully functional again, just as if you’d never been reduced to 0 or fewer hit points.

You can also become disabled when recovering from dying. In this case, it’s a step toward recovery, and you can have fewer than 0 hit points (see Stable Characters and Recovery, below).

That's the whole thing. As you'll see, the "Healing that raises your hit points above 0 makes you fully functional again, just as if you’d never been reduced to 0 or fewer hit points." part is right there in the Disabled description.

Which is to say that most standard actions aren't going to increase the characters hit points at all - they will simply result in the 1hp loss. If the action increases the hp by only that minimum of 1hp the effect would be a wash (0 hit points) because NOTHING is said about eliminating the penalty for casting the spell that gives you that single hp to PUT you above 0. Only an increase of more than 1hp would manage to offset the 1hp penalty for taking a standard or otherwise strenuous action. Casting a spell that only heals 1 hp to offset the penalty for the casting itself clearly doesn't qualify as "Healing that raises your hp above 0," because it doesn't effectively raise your hp at all.

In point of fact the rules do not specifically address the unanticipated possibility of both healing ONLY 1 point of damage when at 0hp while simultaneously incurring 1 hp of damage for taking the action that GIVES you that 1 hp. The rules are attempting to address two seperate situations - not BOTH at the same time:
A) doing yourself damage for taking actions while disabled, and
B) becoming fully functional by no longer being at 0 hp.

It does not say that accomplishing B completely invalidates A retroactively; that any healing which accomplishes getting you even just 1 hp eliminates any penalties that are still due for the way in which you go about getting that healing. It seems pretty apparant that the possibility that both the healing and the additional damage might apply at once was not actually considered or it would have been addressed more specifically.

Healing is an instant. You instantly go from 0 to 1 hp and upon reaching 1hp are no longer Disabled. Being no longer Disabled the clauses that occur AFTER (specifically AFTER) the standard action would no longer apply. You instantly left Disabled behind when the spell raised your HP beyond 0.

Instantaneous: The spell energy comes and goes the instant the spell is cast, though the consequences of the spell might be long-lasting.

As I said it says nothing about invalidating the consequences of casting under given circumstances - but the section on Disabled that you yourself quoted is quite specific about when the penalty for standard actions is applied. The healing of an instant spell applies immediately, fine. But BOTH effects still apply. It's irrelevant that the results of the spell alone are a gain of 1hp. Whether you gain the 1hp from the spell first and then take 1hp for the actual casting, or take 1hp first for the act of casting and then gain the 1hp for the spell result matters not a whit. The result of the whole business is you end up at 0hp where you started because it IS specified - without mention of any exceptions - that the result of casting while disabled is a 1hp loss AFTER THE ACTION IS COMPLETED. Even if you ARE, at some point in that process, to be considered as "fully functional" because you are at 1hp above 0, the 1hp penalty WILL be applied after the completion of your action and the net result is ZERO.

This is not a matter of being unnecessarily harsh on players and needing to give them a break either. It's an uncommon if not outright RARE event that's being discussed here. It's a simple matter of knowing the trivial fact that casting a Cure Minor Wounds spell to cure your own Disabled status is going to be a net waste of your spell because it cannot counteract the penalties that nonetheless must be applied for being disabled. If the physician is going to cure himself he needs to do more than repeatedly apply Bandaids as he tears open new wounds BY APPLYING the Bandaids.