simple HP question.

[Lamoni]

I wanted to see if I understood this right.

When your Constitution goes up (temporarily), you gain HP's, but these are always "full HP's", not used ones. Example. If your HP total was 45/80 at level 10, then your con was raised by 4, your new temp HP total would become 65/100.

When your Constitution goes down (temporarily), you lose HP's, but you lose the spent HP's first. Example. The same character in the above example was down to 18/80 HP's. Then their Con was dropped by 4. The new HP total would be 18/60. OR if it was 70/80 it would become 60/60

This seems wrong because you could heal damage just by raising your HP for a round. I was just looking through the SRD and couldn't find where it was explained explicitly.

Do your remaining Hit Points drop proportionately to your total HP's? Or is there simply a rule that you can't get rid of "spent HP's" that you didn't lose while you had the higher Con score?

 

[the Jester]

If your con changes, your current and total hp go up and down as well. If you're a tenth level character and you lose 4 points of con, you hp drop by 20 right now. Hope this helps.

 

[Someone]

Correct. Watch out for Sudden Death barbarians.

 

[Lamoni]

If your con changes, your current and total hp go up and down as well. If you're a tenth level character and you lose 4 points of con, you hp drop by 20 right now. Hope this helps.

So in my above example. If you had 18/80 HP's, then your con dropped. You would be at -2/60, not 18/60. Correct?

Thanks for the quick reply.

 

[Aaron2]

This is the way I handle it. I keep track of total damage taken rather than hit points left. Con changes only affect max hit points, not damage taken. If a character has taken 18 points of damage and has 20 hit point, increasing Con and his hit points to 24 won't change the amount of damage taken. Likewise, if his Con drops causing this max hit point to drop to 16, he now is at -2 since his 18 points of damage is higher than his max hit points.

I don't know if this is correct, but it works for us.


Aaron

 

[melkoriii]

Hmmm we have always applied the HP change to both Total and Curent Hit points.

I believe that is the correct why to do it as then Posions that affect Con would have no effect on hurt ppl till ther Con was 0. No effect meaning they would feel fine as there still at max HPs.

 

[melkoriii]

Hmmm rethinking it Im not sure which one to use.

I see your point on the con change only affects Max HPs.

But then Posions and Spells that affect Con only lower your max and that isnt what they are ment to do from what I understand.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Think of it this way. A person who has 18/80 has a maximum of 80 HP, and has taken 62 damage. If they take a CON drain, their max HP drops by some number (let's say 20), but the damage remains. Damage doesn't just disappear, you have to heal it somehow.
So yes, they'll be at -2/60, fall unconscious, and start bleeding. This is the danger of the high-level Barbarian (or the 3E Endurance spell); when you temporarily raise CON, you can take enough damage to kill once it wears off.

The only thing to note is that no hit die can ever give less than 1 HP, and your CON bonus actually modifies each hit die. So, if you're a Wizard, having a CON of 2 isn't really any worse than a CON of 4, since both guarantee 1 HP at every level. This means that your max HP can't drop below your level.

 

[CRGreathouse]

Think of it this way. A person who has 18/80 has a maximum of 80 HP, and has taken 62 damage. If they take a CON drain, their max HP drops by some number (let's say 20), but the damage remains. Damage doesn't just disappear, you have to heal it somehow.
So yes, they'll be at -2/60, fall unconscious, and start bleeding. This is the danger of the high-level Barbarian (or the 3E Endurance spell); when you temporarily raise CON, you can take enough damage to kill once it wears off.

The only thing to note is that no hit die can ever give less than 1 HP, and your CON bonus actually modifies each hit die. So, if you're a Wizard, having a CON of 2 isn't really any worse than a CON of 4, since both guarantee 1 HP at every level. This means that your max HP can't drop below your level.

This is correct by the PH and well-explained. To go through the original examples:

If your HP total was 45/80 at level 10, then your con was raised by 4, your new temp HP total would become 65/100.

The same character in the above example was down to 18/80 HP's. Then their Con was dropped by 4. The new HP total would be -2/60. OR if it was 70/80 it would become 50/60