| Whoisjamesdean950 |
Whoisjamesdean950 wrote:Mr. Jacobs. Your answer is a bit unclear and led to a blow up in our game. The situation in our game was that I had set a contingency to go off with a Heal (110 hp) in the out of game language of "If I hit 0 HP" or in game terms "If any sort of damage knocks me unconscious". I had 117 hp total. I was at 87 hp or so and get hit with a Wail of the Banshee Spell for 170 hp (Failed save). My argument was that I set it to clearly go off before death (0 hp, not -13) so the +110 hp and the -170 hp should have been calculated simultaneously leaving me with roughly 20 points. Your response above makes it sound as if this is correct as the 10 hp and standing up part implies you can interrupt further damage. Had I set it to go off at -13 (Death) then yes, it would only be healing a dead body. Could you please be VERY VERY precise about your opinion?They were very precise about it… you misunderstood. Contingency doesn’t interrupt damage. It triggers before damage is calculated or after damage is calculated depending on the triggering condition. Any trigger of “when I fall below X health” will trigger AFTER damage is calculated. As James Jacobs stated, if the damage is enough that it would normally kill you, you are still dead. Contingency will trigger after you died (after damage is calculated) and because you are now a corpse the heal fails. If you want it to trigger before damage then you want a trigger like “If I am hit while below X health”… this also runs the risk of being killed outright too, since if you took enough damage to drop from above your threshold to dead in one hit then you died without ever triggering contingency.
Here was the central reason for quitting. The DM brought up the question. I disagreed but after a while said "If you rule that way I'll follow it". But we had a playere running around with and AC 20 points higher than anyone else in the party who literally could only fail a save on a 1. He was the DM's IRL friend. I have no doubts what so ever that there were probably 50 things wrong with his character but he was obviously who raised the issue. This set up had gone off and been accepted at least six times in the past yet on this date the dude had that Creative Director's quote up and ready. The reason I quit was "Why am I having to argue with another player"? Here are the reasons I believe justify my way of interpreting it: 1. A LOWER level paladin spell does interrupt damage, why not a higher level wizard spell? 2. If you set the contingency for -13 hp (As I originally did) trying to "Get every hp you could from your heal" then yes, -13 (My con score) is dead. The spell can't heal the dead. 3. The spell obviously interrupts or the sentence about not having to stand up would have no relevance at all, how could it save you from falling down if it didn't go off until the damage was done. So that's the issues.