Does False Live Stack with Itself

[Peter Gibbons]

Your analogy is not relevant because these two spells have rules on how to function together. They are not the same effect; they are different effects that operate together in a special way.

Poppycock. You claimed that both false life spells take the damage "by virtue of them overlapping." Resist energy and protection from energy explicitly overlap and do not stack. The analogy is perfectly apt. Furthermore, they do have the same effect: both spells reduce the amount of damage one takes from energy attacks. That is, in fact, why they overlap and do not stack.

Your request also is not relevant. No one is saying that damage is applied twice to a target. The damage is applied only once, but both of the false life spells react to the damage.

You're playing semantic games. When I get hit with a broadsword, the relevant question isn't whether I "react to the damage," it's whether the damage accrues to me. Applying the damage to both spells is akin to applying the damage from a Sunder "only once," but having both the sundered weapon and its wielder "react to the damage" by losing HP.

Now, please explain to me why my conclusion does not follow and then explain how the two spells cannot stack.

Your conclusion does not follow because there is (AFAIK) no example in the game of damage "counting twice" in the way you're proposing.

 

[Caliban]

Your conclusion (that damage is subtracted from both spells at the same time) does not follow. Consider resist energy and protection from energy, which overlap and do not stack with each other. If my protection from energy (fire) spell has 5 points of protection left and my resist energy (fire) spell gives me fire resistance 10, and I get hit with a fireball for 25 points of damage, how much damage do I actually take?

If the damage is applied to both spells simultaneously, I'd take 15, making the protection from energy (fire) spell irrelevant--but that's clearly not the intent, because the spell states that it "absorbs damage until its power is exhausted." So what should happen is that the protection from energy spell absorbs 5 points of damage and is exhausted, at which point the resist energy spell (which has been laying "beneath" the protection from energy spell until now) kicks in and reduces the 20 remaining points of damage to 10.

If anyone can point to a clear example in the RAW of the same point(s) of damage being applied twice to a particular target, please do so.

You're example is irrelevent. Those are not identical spells, and have a non-standard way of overlaping, as specified in the spells themselves.

In the instance of two identical spells in effect on the same person, each spell would react the same way, and provide the same benefit, and be reduced by the same amount.

 

[Peter Gibbons]

15 and the Protection from Energy is gone.

If I took 15 points of damage, the protection from energy can't have "absorbed" any of the fireball's 25 points of damage.

 

[Peter Gibbons]

You're example is irrelevent. Those are not identical spells, and have a non-standard way of overlaping, as specified in the spells themselves.

Perhaps.

In the instance of two identical spells in effect on the same person, each spell would react the same way, and provide the same benefit, and be reduced by the same amount.

Cite one clear example in the RAW of single-target damage being simultaneously applied to multiple ablative targets and I'll concede the whole argument.

 

[Caliban]

Perhaps.

Not perhaps. The resist/protection spells clearly spell out how they overlap.

Cite one clear example in the RAW of single-target damage being simultaneously applied to multiple ablative targets and I'll concede the whole argument.

Sometimes you have to think for yourself instead of having the rules spell it out for you in tidy little examples.

 

[Thanee]

If I took 15 points of damage, the protection from energy can't have "absorbed" any of the fireball's 25 points of damage.

Why not?

It absorbs 5 points, what is left, because it is the top level of overlapping (higher spell level). Then Resist Energy absorbs another 5. 15 left.

Maybe you can understand it this way?

Fireball 25 damage
------------------------>
Protection from Energy 5
---->
Resist Energy 10
--------->
Remaining Damage 15
--------->-------------->

Bye
Thanee

 

[Thanee]

You claimed that both false life spells take the damage "by virtue of them overlapping." Resist energy and protection from energy explicitly overlap and do not stack. The analogy is perfectly apt. Furthermore, they do have the same effect: both spells reduce the amount of damage one takes from energy attacks. That is, in fact, why they overlap and do not stack.

For what it's worth... I agree that False Life (or temporary hit points in general) stacking acts very similar to the energy protection spell stacking.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Hypersmurf]

If the damage is applied to both spells simultaneously, I'd take 15, making the protection from energy (fire) spell irrelevant--but that's clearly not the intent, because the spell states that it "absorbs damage until its power is exhausted." So what should happen is that the protection from energy spell absorbs 5 points of damage and is exhausted, at which point the resist energy spell (which has been laying "beneath" the protection from energy spell until now) kicks in and reduces the 20 remaining points of damage to 10.

That looks to me like a description of Protection from Energy stacking with (and not overlapping) Resist Energy - the benefits of both spells are applying.

I read "overlaps (and does not stack with) Resist Energy" in exactly the same way Thanee does - the two spells both apply to the same damage source.

Thanee's arrows overlap each other; if you were to draw a similar diagram of your description, one arrow would originate where the other terminates. That's exactly the diagram I'd draw if someone asked me to illustrate an example of two ablative spells stacking.

-Hyp.

 

[Thanee]

Overlapping:

Fireball 25 damage
------------------------>
Protection from Energy 5
---->
Resist Energy 10
--------->
Remaining Damage 15
--------->-------------->

Stacking:

Fireball 25 damage
------------------------>
Protection from Energy 5
---->
Resist Energy 10
---->--------->
Remaining Damage 10
-------------->--------->



Bye
Thanee

 

[FEADIN]

Overlapping:

Fireball 25 damage
------------------------>
Protection from Energy 5
---->
Resist Energy 10
--------->
Remaining Damage 15
--------->-------------->

Stacking:

Fireball 25 damage
------------------------>
Protection from Energy 5
---->
Resist Energy 10
---->--------->
Remaining Damage 10
-------------->--------->



Bye
Thanee

It's written :"Note: Protection from energy overlaps (and does not stack with) resist energy. If a character is warded by protection from energy and resist energy, the protection spell absorbs damage until its power is exhausted

For me from the 25hp, 5 are absorbed by the PFEnergy and the remaining 20 are subject to the resistance.
The rule for stacking is about not reducing the amount absorbed by tha PFEnergy like 25-10=15hp absorbed, in our case it would have been the same damage left but with a PFEnergy more charged it's very different as you can see.

For the stacking of spells SRD says:

Stacking Effects: Spells that provide bonuses or penalties on attack rolls, damage rolls, saving throws, and other attributes usually do not stack with themselves. More generally, two bonuses of the same type don’t stack even if they come from different spells (or from effects other than spells; see Bonus Types, above).
Different Bonus Names: The bonuses or penalties from two different spells stack if the modifiers are of different types. A bonus that isn’t named stacks with any bonus.
Same Effect More than Once in Different Strengths: In cases when two or more identical spells are operating in the same area or on the same target, but at different strengths, only the best one applies.Same Effect with Differing Results: The same spell can sometimes produce varying effects if applied to the same recipient more than once. Usually the last spell in the series trumps the others. None of the previous spells are actually removed or dispelled, but their effects become irrelevant while the final spell in the series lasts.
One Effect Makes Another Irrelevant: Sometimes, one spell can render a later spell irrelevant. Both spells are still active, but one has rendered the other useless in some fashion.

Two choices