Vampire spawn necrotic dmg and instant death

[Nelio2]

Two questions:

#1 So the vampire spawns deal necrotic damage when they bite and reduce the maximum hp.
If they hit me with regular piercing dmg and necrotic damage and I have temporary HP can I choose which source deals damage to the tHP? Because if I can than my max HP is not reduced if I take the necrotic dmg before the regular one.

#2 If my maxHP is reduced in such a way that it falls to say 5HP and I am dealt more than 10 regular damage as well, is this instant death even though my regular maxHP is 40?
I would have ruled yes. That makes necrotic dmg that reduces your maxHP extremely dangerous because if you are reduced to 0HP through this kind of dmg it is always instant death.

 

[Harzel]

#1: The vampire spawn description just says "HP max is reduced by an amount equal to the necrotic damage taken". There is no explicit mention or implication about this being affected by what is soaking the damage, so it seems to me whether you have tHP is irrelevant.

#2: So, first, whether your max HP being reduced to 0 results in instant death is not a matter of a ruling. The last sentence of the stat block says exactly that that is what happens. The more general case - having your max HP reduced and then taking 2x that much damage - seems a little more questionable, but I'd say the intent probably is that that also results in instant death. I'm not sure whether I'd run it that way or not.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

#1 I'd say that, yes, your max hp are still reduced.

#2 I wouldn't change the instant death calculations from max hp reductions. There are several monsters that reduce max hp, it is already a powerful and deadly feature and don't believe the intent is to make it even deadlier by making your chance of instant death increase significantly.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

RAW, the attack should reduce max hp. However, working it this way can throw up anomalies - if the character survives, you could find yourself in a situation where current hp is higher than maximum hp, and I don't think there is a rule that says "If current hp > max hp reduce current hp to maximum hp", and I believe the rule for dying/death (not involving undead) refer current hp, and make no mention of maximum hp, apart from with respect to being "killed outright".