FrankTrollman said:
No. The general rule is stated on page 9 of the PHB: that a Constitution penalty can never drop the results of any hit die below 1.
That's not what's written there. It says, that during level up, when you roll your hit die, you always gain at least 1 hit point, nothing else.
You can't just take half a sentence and say, there's the rule!
It applies to the actual roll of the hit die, a roll, that only happens during level up to increase the hit point total. It's also quite clearly written, what that rule means in the part you omit so generously: "..., that is, a character always gains at least 1 hit point each time he or she advances a level."
I don't have to extrapolate the restatement of the general rule as reagrds a specific case to another specific case - there's still nothing in the rules that says that Constitution reduction can ever drop hit points below 1 for a hit die.
Not specifically written, because basic mathematics allow for negative numbers; that's also not necessary. If the score could not drop below zero, they would have to say so, but they don't, only for three distinct cases (determination of the new hit point total during level up, Con damage and drain)!
That says, what I totally agree with as written above, that Con modifier is added to each hit die roll. Never said that this is not the case.
Right. So the modifier from Constitution is a named bonus, and follows the rules of a bonus - including that it does not stack with like bonuses and that it applies as a single monolithic number, rather than as a series of discrete differentiable units.
Yes.
So Constitution is a named bonus or penalty applied seperately to each hit die and it can't lower any individual result below 1.
No. You - again - drop half the sentence and just use part of it.
If a character's Constitution score changes enough to alter his or her Constitution modifier, the character's hit points increase or decrease accordingly.
So the modifier is recalculated every single time the modifier changes.
Actually, I understand accordingly different. Accordingly is in context to the alteration mentioned, so the hit point score is changed according to the difference in Constitution.
You are way over thinking this. You just have a series of hit die rolls from 1st level on to 20th and each of them is modified by your current Constitution. Nothing fancy - no special rules take over if you have a reduced Constitution when you go up in level, and you don't have some kind of whacky "partial Constitution modifier" ever.
That's right so far.
Now going further, you have a hit point total, which is a single number, not a series of numbers added together, altho - over the course of time - it's derived like one, because changes are applied in the way mentioned above and not by recalculating the total.
Whenever you go up a level, you add hit points to this total (as quoted above). Whenever your Constitution changes, you also change this total accordingly (as quoted above and in the glossary in the back of the PHB (also quoted above)). That's also why you add hit points multiplied with level, when your Con changes (like with Rage).
Dunno, but I think my view of the rules is heavily supported by quotes, which you say are merely mathematical shortcuts, as they don't fit into your view, like the part on page 9, which limits the application of your "general rule" to a very specific case.
Bye
Thanee
