Inferlock Curse loop?

[Genowhirl]

How resilient are Inferlocks when they curse themselves?
First of all, the relevant passages from the PHB:

When a power’s target entry specifies that it affects you and one or more of your allies, then you can take advantage of the power’s effect along with your teammates. Otherwise, “ally” or “allies” does not include you, and both terms assume willing targets. “Enemy” or “enemies” means a creature or creatures that aren’t your allies (whether those creatures are hostile toward you or not). “Creature” or “creatures” means allies and enemies both, as well as you.

So by definition, you are your own enemy. That part is clear. Also I think it's reasonably clear that no one is closer to you than you are (although one could make a good case that anyone who is physically touching you in some on-going Stirge kind of way is "just as close"). Which brings us to the Warlock's Curse:

Once per turn as a minor action, you can place a Warlock’s Curse on the enemy nearest to you that you can see. A cursed enemy is more vulnerable to your attacks. If you damage a cursed enemy, you deal extra damage. You decide whether to apply the extra damage after making the damage roll. You can deal this extra damage once per round.
A Warlock’s Curse remains in effect until the end of the encounter or until the cursed enemy drops to 0 hit points or fewer.
You can place a Warlock’s Curse on multiple targets over the course of an encounter; each curse requires the use of a minor action. You can’t place a Warlock’s Curse on a creature that is already affected by your or another character’s Warlock’s Curse.

And the Inferlock's pact ability:

When an enemy under your Warlock’s Curse is reduced to 0 hit points or fewer, you immediately gain temporary hit points equal to your level.

And then we get back to healing and the dying:

Regain Hit Points: When you are dying and receive healing, you go to 0 hit points and then regain hit points from the healing effect.

if your current hit points are 0, you still have 0 when you receive temporary hit points

So when our 5th level Warlock gets into battle, the first thing she has to do is Curse herself. This would allow her to do more damage to herself, but she's not going to do that. Later on in the fight, she gets smacked into negative hit points, triggering her Pact ability and giving her temporary hit points. Her real hit point reserve is set to 0 and then she gets 5 temporary hit points, so she's still conscious. But since her Curse triggered off of her, she is no longer cursed.

Now it's her turn, which brings us to the question: Can she curse herself again? Can she do anything else?

Here are the different opinions we have, and we can't seem to agree:
She Must Curse Herself, And It Will Work. Here's the deal: since she's not affected by the Curse anymore, she is not "already affected" so she is a viable target. Since she's the closest viable target, she has to target herself again. Since she's currently running on only 5 hit points, she'll drop as soon as a bugbear breathes on her, but she'll spring up again. To drop her in any real way requires that the enemies hit her twice: once to knock off the curse and once to knock her out so she can't curse herself again.

She Must Curse Herself, And It WON'T Work. Here's the idea: as above she isn't affected by the curse so she's the closest and therefore only valid target. Unfortunately, her "real" hit points are still zero, which causes the Pact to trigger and the Curse to end immediately. Since Temporary hit points don't stack, she's left with five temporary hit points no matter how many times she curses herself. In essence, she cannot use her curse power again on anything until she heals her base hit points to a positive number.

She Can't Curse Herself. And the final guy at our table says: Since she has been cursed this encounter she counts as someone who was "already cursed" even though she isn't cursed now, so she can't target herself. This means that she can curse a real opponent because she's not a viable target and therefore not the closest viable target.

Obviously the player in question wants the first option, but I think it might be too powerful, especially in Solo fights. What experience have other people had with the Infernal Pact Warlock? Is it balanced to allow and make them recurse themselves every time they get knocked out and spring back to life with infernal power?

 

[James McMurray]

If the warlock is their own enemy, they are always the closest enemy to themselves, and will never be able to curse another creature. Let them have their 5 temp hp, then laugh as their striker starts doing damage comparable to a controller.

 

[fba827]

leaving aside the fact that I don't believe this is anywhere near the intention of the definition ...

Since "you" is used as part of the definition for "enemy" does that imply (if not mean explicitly) that you can not be a subset of enemy - not using a word to define itself and all that.

It's creatures as the superset
The allies, you, and enemies, as the three subsets -- at least the way I read it (even with your highlighted references, I can see where you went with it, but I still don't see it as a legitimate extrapolation).

 

[Dracorat]

Otherwise, “ally” or “allies” does not include you, and both terms assume willing targets.

Also, this is posted immediately after the section that includes "you" as a specific target, and the "ally" part is when "you" isn't specified.

So, in short, all your logic breaks down. An ally target must be willing, but it doesn't specify that "willing" is the definition of "ally".

All Harleys are bikes, but not all bikes are Harleys.

 

[DracoSuave]

Besides all that-

If you're at 0 hps you have the dying condition. If you have 0 hps and x temporary hps you still have the dying condition. Temporary hps never in any way alter your condition, be it dying, bloodied, or what have you.

So, no, you can't use temporary hps to save yourself from dying, which means this trick never works.

 

[Obryn]

And for my next trick... infinite oregano!


Seriously, there's several problems with this, not the least of which is how insane your DM would have to be to treat you as your own enemy. What you call "clear" I call "a generous reading."

Implications of this interpretation include...
(1) Rangers and Warlocks can't ever curse anyone, since they're limited to the "nearest enemy."
(2) Burst spells that target "only enemies" will also target you - meaning you could get blasted by your Force Orb, while your allies get off scot free. (Also, for that matter, Swordmages using Greenflame Blade always damage themselves, too.)

I would find it hard to argue that either of these interpretations are intended.

Even if you make this incredible argument, temporary HPs are not healing. They are just temporary HPs. If you check the rules on temporary HPs, you'll see that an unconscious or dying creature with temporary HPs is still unconscious or dying - they just have some temporary HPs along with it.

-O

 

[Voss]

OK, so its been established that the healing doesn't work, but there is still the problem that the rules as written clearly define every creature as it own enemy.

ally or allies does not include you (willing is referring to the terms ally and allies, btw, since by not including you, it doesn't matter if you are willing or not)
and
enemy or enemies means a creature or creatures that aren't your allies.

So, by definition, you are an enemy since there are a grand total of 3 classifications-
1- creature
which includes both
2- ally
and
3- enemy.

You are 1, and specifically not 2. So you have to be 3.

Rocks fall, everyone dies, game explodes.
Unless someone can point to where errata fixes this by adding an additional category?

Interestingly, it also has bad effects for powers that effect both your allies and enemies. If you allies are no longer willing targets, they suddenly fall into the 'enemies' category and get hit with the negative effects. Fun times.

 

[Roger]

So by definition, you are your own enemy.

You, sir, are made of awesome and win.

Welcome to ENWorld.



Cheers,
Roger

 

[DracoSuave]

Actually, there's an additional factor. You are not a threat to you, and therefore you do not qualify as an enemy for the purposes of your powers. You could not use your powers on you to derive benefits. (The bag-of-rats rule)

Also, if you're an enemy, you can only curse yourself.

Because you cannot curse only yourself, it is implied that you are not an enemy.

a -> b therefore ~b -> ~a.

 

[Voss]

In D&D land, people can't kill themselves? A creature is a level appropriate threat, it should be perfectly capable of killing itself (or a mirror-clone). I'd call that a meaningful threat.

And actually, by the ally/enemy rules as written, we haven't established that you can curse other people. Common sense suggests it, but that isn't proof.