On their face, temporary hit points are simple enough: they’re hit points that stack on top of your “normal” hit points, and go away first when you take damage, serving as a buffer against harm. However, they can create some confusion due to how they interact with a few other mechanics. Here’s a few of these specific interactions:
This is the part of a weekly series of articles by a team of designers answering D&D questions for beginners. Feel free to discuss the article and add your insights or comments!
Additionally, temporary hit points, though they can be treated like hit points for the sake of easier math, are still tracked separately. This is most important in the case of power word kill, which instantly kills the target if it has fewer than 100 hit points. Even if the target creature has 99 hit points and 15 temporary hit points, they would be killed by power word kill, as temporary hit points are explicitly not hit points.
This is the part of a weekly series of articles by a team of designers answering D&D questions for beginners. Feel free to discuss the article and add your insights or comments!
- First of all, temporary hit points can exceed your hit point maximum. For example, let’s say you’re a 3rd-level sorcerer with a hit point maximum of 12, and 10 hit points currently. Your bard buddy casts heroism on you, which grants you 3 temporary hit points at the start of each of your turns. You would have 10 hit points, and 3 temporary hit points, giving you, effectively, 13 hit points.
- Secondly, temporary hit points are lost after accounting for resistances and immunities. Taking our previous example, let’s say a fight breaks out, and you cast blade ward to protect you from a foe who’s levelled a crossbow against you. They take their shot, hit, and deal 5 piercing damage to you. First, that 5 damage is reduced by half, thanks to your resistance to piercing damage, turning it into 2 damage. It knocks off 2 of your temporary hit points, leaving you with 10 hit points, and 1 temporary hit point. As you haven’t lost any “real” hit points, you’re effectively unharmed by the attack!
- Third, temporary hit points never stack with other temporary hit points; you decide which source to keep. So, at the start of your next turn, you have 1 temporary hit point, and gain 3 temporary hit points from heroism. You, obviously, choose to take the 3 temporary hit points, discarding the 1. The only time you wouldn’t choose to take the higher of the two is if the lower source of temporary hit points has a longer duration, such as the spell armor of Agathys, which lasts 1 hour.
- Finally, temporary hit points will not stand you up from unconsciousness. The only benefit to temporary hit points while unconscious is that, if you take a hit while downed, and it doesn’t exceed your temporary hit points (i.e. you don’t take “real” damage), you don’t mark a death saving throw. Let’s say, after your next turn, a foe’s lucky crit hits you for 15 damage, dropping you to 0 hit points. At the start of your turn, heroism grants you another 3 temporary hit points. However, you don’t wake up from this—only real healing, not temporary hit points, will stabilize you. Roll that death save, spell-slinger!
Additionally, temporary hit points, though they can be treated like hit points for the sake of easier math, are still tracked separately. This is most important in the case of power word kill, which instantly kills the target if it has fewer than 100 hit points. Even if the target creature has 99 hit points and 15 temporary hit points, they would be killed by power word kill, as temporary hit points are explicitly not hit points.
