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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Genowhirl" data-source="post: 4600263" data-attributes="member: 81421">How resilient are Inferlocks when they curse themselves?First of all, the relevant passages from the PHB: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:And the Inferlock's pact ability:And then we get back to healing and the dying: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?</blockquote>

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