How Does Temporary Hit Points Stack?

[Hypersmurf]

I think this is a typo.

Well, it's definitely not a typo. It may be wrong, but it's not just a case of transposing a couple of words.

Here is the answer again.

He's very clear that, for example, the temporary hit points from a vampiric touch spell and an aid spell do not stack; likewise, the temporary hit points from two aid spells do not stack, as in both cases, these are THP from 'different sources'.

But an undead creature with an energy drain attack, for example, would be able to stack the THP it gains from draining levels, since they all come from the same source.

-Hyp.

 

[brendan candries]

if you take damage, substract it from all available sources of temporary hitpoints. that's the easiest way to handle it.

if you have an aid for 8 hps and a false life of 10 hps, a hit for 6 damage will result in aid having 2 hps left and false life 4 hps left.

should false life be dispelled right now, you'd be left with 2 hps from aid.

 

[Hypersmurf]

if you take damage, substract it from all available sources of temporary hitpoints. that's the easiest way to handle it.

if you have an aid for 8 hps and a false life of 10 hps, a hit for 6 damage will result in aid having 2 hps left and false life 4 hps left.

should false life be dispelled right now, you'd be left with 2 hps from aid.

The way I'd handle overlapping sources would result in both having 4hp left... I overlap them from the bottom, rather than from the top

-Hyp.

 

[KarinsDad]

He's very clear that, for example, the temporary hit points from a vampiric touch spell and an aid spell do not stack; likewise, the temporary hit points from two aid spells do not stack, as in both cases, these are THP from 'different sources'.

But an undead creature with an energy drain attack, for example, would be able to stack the THP it gains from draining levels, since they all come from the same source.

Ah. Thanks for that answer. That solves it for me.

Round 1: 2 PP in Vigor for 10 temporary hits.

Round 2: 3 PP in Vigor for 15 temporary hits.

Round 3: Aid spell for 7 temporary hits.

Round 4: Gets hit for 9 points. The 15 point Vigor gets hit for 9 and is down to 6. The 10 point Vigor takes over.

Round 5: Gets hit for 14 points. The 10 point Vigor stops 10. Takes 4 points of real damage. The 10 point Vigor is gone. The 7 point Aid takes over.

Round 6: Gets hit for 20 points. The 7 point Aid stops 7. Takes 13 more points of real damage. The temporary hit point portion of the Aid spell is gone, the rest of the Aid spell still works. The 6 point Vigor takes over (with regard to temporary hit points).

Round 7: Gets hit for 8 points. The 6 point Vigor stops 6. Takes 2 more points of real damage. All of the temporary points are gone.


Since:

"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."

and:

"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."


The highest power effect is in effect at any given moment. The instant it is no longer the highest power effect, some other effect takes over. All of these spells (powers) are still active, they are not lost or dispelled. They are just "temporarily useless".

They do not stack. They co-exist in parallel with the most powerful one taking precedence.

And since the other temporary hit point spells (powers) are not in effect when the character gets hit, temporary hit points are only subtracted from the spell (power) which IS in effect at that moment.

 

[Nail]

Karinsdad: That's the way I read it too....and then I house rule it. It's needlessly complicated.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Round 4: Gets hit for 9 points. The 15 point Vigor gets hit for 9 and is down to 6. The 10 point Vigor takes over.

Uh... that's exactly how temporary hit points would work if they stacked.

Fifty hit points, plus 10 THP, plus 15 THP, assuming THP stack. How many hit points can you take before being staggered? 75.

Fifty hit points, plus 10 THP, plus 15 THP, assuming THP act as you just described. How many hit points can you take before being staggered? 75.

Fifty hit points, plus 10 THP, plus 15 THP, assuming THP don't stack. How many hit points can you take before being staggered? 65.

-Hyp.

 

[coyote6]

Uh... that's exactly how temporary hit points would work if they stacked.

Fifty hit points, plus 10 THP, plus 15 THP, assuming THP stack. How many hit points can you take before being staggered? 75.

Fifty hit points, plus 10 THP, plus 15 THP, assuming THP act as you just described. How many hit points can you take before being staggered? 75.

I dunno; from what KD wrote, an attack that dealt 75 points would knock you to -10 hp (hey, you're dead), and then the 10 THP would "take over". Which would seem to leave you as a corpse with 10 THP, wouldn't it? Getting temporary hit points doesn't cure death, AFAIK.

 

[KarinsDad]

Uh... that's exactly how temporary hit points would work if they stacked.

Fifty hit points, plus 10 THP, plus 15 THP, assuming THP stack. How many hit points can you take before being staggered? 75.

Fifty hit points, plus 10 THP, plus 15 THP, assuming THP act as you just described. How many hit points can you take before being staggered? 75.

Fifty hit points, plus 10 THP, plus 15 THP, assuming THP don't stack. How many hit points can you take before being staggered? 65.

Although it is true that the overall result CAN be as you describe, the results do not have to be.


If they do not stack, look at the damage taken each round:

Round 1: 2 PP in Vigor for 10 temporary hits.

Round 2: 3 PP in Vigor for 15 temporary hits.

Round 3: Aid spell for 7 temporary hits.

Round 4: Gets hit for 9 points. The 15 point Vigor gets hit for 9 and is down to 6. The 10 point Vigor takes over.

Total damage 0:

Round 5: Gets hit for 14 points. The 10 point Vigor stops 10. Takes 4 points of real damage. The 10 point Vigor is gone. The 7 point Aid takes over.

Total damage 4:

Round 6: Gets hit for 20 points. The 7 point Aid stops 7. Takes 13 more points of real damage. The temporary hit point portion of the Aid spell is gone, the rest of the Aid spell still works. The 6 point Vigor takes over (with regard to temporary hit points).

Total damage 17:

Round 7: Gets hit for 8 points. The 6 point Vigor stops 6. Takes 2 more points of real damage. All of the temporary points are gone.

Total damage 19:


If they do not stack, look at the damage taken each round:

Temporary stacked hit points: 32

Round 4: Gets hit for 9 points. The 32 points gets hit for 9 and is down to 23.

Total damage 0:

Round 5: Gets hit for 14 points. The 23 points gets hit for 14 and is down to 9.

Total damage 0:

Round 6: Gets hit for 20 points. The 9 points gets hit for 20 and is gone.

Total damage 11:

Round 7: Gets hit for 8 points.

Total damage 19:


If the combat extends only to round 5 and they do not stack, you take 4 points of damage as opposed to if they do stack and you take 0 points of damage.

If the combat extends only to round 6 and they do not stack, you take 17 points of damage as opposed to if they do stack and you take 11 points of damage.

So, stacking can often be superior to non-stacking.


The only two cases where they work out exactly the same are:

1) If you never take more damage in a single shot than your current effective temporarily hit point total.

2) You run out of temporary hit points.


The combat above would have been much more different if instead of taking 9 points of damage in round 4, the character took 60 points of damage (say a Maximized Cone of Cold where he failed the save). In that case, the stacked version would result in 28 points of damage and the non-stacked version would result in 45 points of damage.

If the 10 point Vigor was not up in this example, the non-stacked version would result in 55 points of damage and a save for massive damage as well. The stacked version would have resulted in 38 points of damage and no save for massive damage.


There is a difference between stacked and non-stacked, even if the final results can sometimes be the same.


But, illustrate to me how you interpret the sentence:

"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."

with your "only the best EVER works and even when it is no longer the best, it still works" way.

In round 4 above, once the 15 point Vigor gets hit down to 6 points, it is no longer the BEST power and hence should no longer be in effect. In the case of temporarily hit points, the effective strength of the spells (powers) diminish over time, unlike most other spell effects.

Remember, by the rules, these other spells (powers) ARE still active. They are not dispelled by any interpretation of the rules. They are just not in use at the moment.

"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."

 

[Arkhandus]

Well, the friggin' stupid EN World posting-thingamajig just caused me to lose my response when I hit backspace once, even though I was typing in the textfield........stupid piece of digitized dung. I won't bother re-typing it.

I already stated that the rules do not call temporary hit points a bonus nor do they say anything about THP not stacking. The rules do clearly state that you stack things except where otherwise noted in the rules. This means that temporary hit points stack. They do not friggin' overlap. Read the friggin' Magic chapter of the Player's Handbook and stop referring to idiotic FAQs online that were written by other idiots who didn't even look in the friggin' rulebook before making their idiotic 'clarifications' that have no basis in the friggin' rules in any printed version of the Core Rules.

You'll be surprised how many rules situations become clear if you'd simply read the appropriate parts of the rulebooks rather than cludging them together from your faulty memory that keeps confusing different rules. No one has perfect memory.

The Magic chapter clearly states that you cannot stack the same spell effect, even from different castings or different casters. Two Bull's Strengths on the same creature do not stack (even if they gave unnamed bonuses, the rules for spell stacking would not allow them to stack). As per the 3.0 Player's Handbook, if you cast one Bull's Strength that gives +X to Strength, followed by another Bull's Strength on the same creature that gives X+1 to Strength, then the more powerful instance of Bull's Strength takes precedence, and the weaker version, though cast first, is overlapped and ignored until the more powerful version ends, though the meantime still counts towards the overlapped spell's duration.

This is where I took my order of precedence for my examples. Maybe the 3.5 Player's Handbook fails to give any example like the 3.0 book does, or maybe all of you only refer to the online SRDs which leave out such examples. Just read the Magic chapter for pete's sake.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Arkhandus, I can understand that you are annoyed at losing a bunch of text you'd prepared before it got posted (and the backspace issue sounds like a web browser issue rather than an ENworld issue. I've just tried it here and nothing happened)

However, we'd still like you to be careful with your language - synonyms aside your second paragraph sounds like a pretty rude attack on the other posters here. Please don't do that.

Regards,
Plane Sailing (moderator)