Temp CON damage. How many HP should this character lose?

[Demon Knight]

Like dcollins said, you have to keep track of your max hp and damage taken. When you take con damage, you arent taking damage. Only your max hp is lowered. After calculating your new max hp, if your damage taken is equal or greater than your max hp, then youre in trouble.

Example:
A human fighter 8 with an 18 Con(+4) has 79 hp (this is his max hp). During a fight, he takes 40 damage (dropping his current hp to 39. Note his max hp is still 79). Later, he comes across some yellow mold, and unluckily fails his save, taking 14 con damage. His Con drops to 4(-3). His max hp drops by 56, bringing it to 23. When you apply the damage taken to this new max hp, the fighers current hp becomes -17, and becomes a withered corpse.

 

[Darklone]

Actually, we do track the rolled hitpoints per level (because of level losses).

Darn players tend to roll max anyway.

 

[iwatt]

However, it wouldn't do you any good in this situation (unless there's more information you left out). Max hp of 117, with -7 Con modifier per level, makes your max hp 117 - 7*11 = 117 - 77 = 40 -- and that's way above the minimum of 1*11 = 11. Properly ruled, your max hp drop to 40 and all other damage is then taken off that to find your current hp score.

I wasn't completely explicit. I'd already been dmaged taking down a succubus and a charmed nymph (melee clerics loaded out on buff spells rock ) so I was down to 90 hp's.

What we ruled in my game was: The sting hit me for 16 hp, reducing my current hps to 74. That's when i rolled dismally on my Fort save, for an incredible loss of 77 hp due to con damage (i.e. reduced to -3 hps). Since the attack was the result of a move AoO during my action, we allowed my character to enetr a rage (free action on your own turn i believe) gaining those extra 22 hps, raising my cureent hp total to +19. Of course my Rage could only last one round (3+ -2 (7 Con)=1), enough to drink a potion and get out of the way.
Now if I'd rememebered the above ruling, my hp's would have dropped to 11, not -3.
As youspoonybard said, fear Con damage.

 

[coyote6]

No, you would have dropped to -3. Your max hp would have gone from 117 to 40; you'd taken 27 pts of damage already, then took 16 more, for a total of 43 pts of damage. 40 hp (due to Con loss) - 43 damage taken = -3 hp.

 

[dcollins]

I wasn't completely explicit. I'd already been dmaged taking down a succubus and a charmed nymph (melee clerics loaded out on buff spells rock ) so I was down to 90 hp's.

As the previous poster said, this makes no difference. Like I said above, you must note the important difference between "full hit point score" and "current hit point score" in this rule.

When this event started you had 90 hit points: that is, 117 max hit points minus 27 damage.

Then you suffered Con damage which reduced your 117 max hit points down to 40 (not yet hitting the 11 minimum to max hit points). And at the same time it tacked on another 16 points of damage.

So you had an ending result of 40 max hit points minus 43 damage, for a total of -3 current hit points.

Summary: Due to your character's unusually high hp (almost the maximum possible) your character as described can never benefit from the minimum max hit points rule. Even if he loses all his Con, (-8 modifier, max hit points drop by 88) that still leaves him with more max hit points (29) than the minimum (11).

 

[iwatt]

Thanks. Now I understand.

By the way, how do you guys feel about the "on the spot" ruling of initiating the rage?

 

[youspoonybard]

It's your turn, but at that point you were unconscious...

Hmm.

 

[dcollins]

By the way, how do you guys feel about the "on the spot" ruling of initiating the rage?

That's really against the rules. Per the 3.0 PHB, p. 25:

Entering a rage takes no time itself, but the barbarian can only do it during his action... not in response to somebody else's action. A barbarian, can't for example, fly into a rage when struck down by an arrow in order to get the extra hit points from the increased Constitution...

 

[youspoonybard]

I'd say it's against the rules, but for another reason.

It was your turn, and you can. However, as soon as the poison damage was rolled, you were knocked into dying.

3.5 PHB 145: When your character's current HP drop to between -1 and -9 inclusive, he's dying. A dying character immediately falls unconscious and can take no actions.

If I was DMing, if you said "I Rage!!!" before the dice that knocked you unconscious were rolled, I'd let you rage. Otherwise, I'd say you were unconscious and dying.

 

[iwatt]

So that's why Instantenous Rage is a feat!

Yeah well, this was at about 1:00 A.M., and neither the DM or me were in our best condition. Besides there were so many distractions around us (a giant diamond blazing away, our invisible Rogue unconcious somewere), our Con 18 wizard (no toads by the way) who had his Con dropped by 8 points (demon curse, part of the current plot hook) so now he stays way back of combat, as well as trying to understand why a nymph was using a mask that made her look like a mind-flayer.

This is what happens when you teleport into an abandoned and half destroyed tower.