Temp HP and Dying: So now what?

[chaoseffect]

So these two related questions just occurred to me, and I realized I'm unsure how either would work.

1. I am -5 HP and unconscious. An ally casts Virtue on me, thus granting me 1 temporary Hit Point. What happens now? Am I still down (in which case would I bleed out my 1 temp HP first if I fail my stabilize check?) or am I now conscious, but once that 1 temp is gone I revert to -5 again?

2. I am now a Synthesist Summoner; if I drop my own HP into the negatives via Fused Link in order to keep my Eidolon suit as 1 temporary HP, do I go unconscious because my real HP is in the negatives or does that 1 temp HP tether me to consciousness?

Anyone have either of these come up?

[seebs]

This seems overcomplicated. Temporary hit points increase your hit point total and get used up first. If you were at -5 hp, and someone gives you a temporary hit point, you're not at -4, one of which is temporary. That doesn't make you "up" or anything, you're still at -4.

If you were at -1, and you got a temporary hit point, I guess you'd be "disabled" or whatever the 0-hit-point condition is called.

[Starglim]

1. Temporary hit points are not healing, but are deducted first when you lose hit points. You are on -5 hp with 1 temporary hp and still dying. The next round, you must roll to stabilise, then if you don't, you lose 1 temporary hp and are on -5 hp and dying. Since virtue is an orison, the caster can keep this up indefinitely as long as he can spend standard actions on it.

[Zahir ibn Mahmoud ibn Jothan]

The caster can keep it up forever, but the temp hitpoints will start disappearing after 1 minute. If you haven't stabilized by then, you'll start losing ground at that point.

[seebs]

Zahir ibn Mahmoud ibn Jothan wrote:

The caster can keep it up forever, but the temp hitpoints will start disappearing after 1 minute. If you haven't stabilized by then, you'll start losing ground at that point.

No you won't. Each of them is disappearing the very next round as the point of damage you take from not-stabilizing hits. You will never lose ground, and eventually you will likely stabilize.

[LazarX]

seebs wrote:

Zahir ibn Mahmoud ibn Jothan wrote:

The caster can keep it up forever, but the temp hitpoints will start disappearing after 1 minute. If you haven't stabilized by then, you'll start losing ground at that point.

No you won't. Each of them is disappearing the very next round as the point of damage you take from not-stabilizing hits. You will never lose ground, and eventually you will likely stabilize.

or die.

[blahpers]

LazarX wrote:

seebs wrote:

Zahir ibn Mahmoud ibn Jothan wrote:

The caster can keep it up forever, but the temp hitpoints will start disappearing after 1 minute. If you haven't stabilized by then, you'll start losing ground at that point.

No you won't. Each of them is disappearing the very next round as the point of damage you take from not-stabilizing hits. You will never lose ground, and eventually you will likely stabilize.

or die.

Only if the caster stops or something else causes additional damage to you.

[seebs]

LazarX wrote:

seebs wrote:

Zahir ibn Mahmoud ibn Jothan wrote:

The caster can keep it up forever, but the temp hitpoints will start disappearing after 1 minute. If you haven't stabilized by then, you'll start losing ground at that point.

No you won't. Each of them is disappearing the very next round as the point of damage you take from not-stabilizing hits. You will never lose ground, and eventually you will likely stabilize.

or die.

I don't think you can ever die while this is going on.

Someone casts virtue on you. You now have negative hit points, and a temporary hit point. Every round that you fail your con check, you take a hit point of damage. Since you have a temporary hit point, that's used up before any actual change to your real hit points.

So you can do this "forever", meaning, until the caster gets too tired to keep casting the spell every round, or someone comes along and makes a heal check for you.

Note that if you have a high enough con, you can be unable to make the DC 10 check, if you are negative enough. With a con of 10, if you're at -9, you're rolling a d20-9, and you succeed on a 19 or 20.

With a con of 12, if you're at -11, you're rolling d20+1-11, and you succeed on a 20.

With a con of 13 or higher, if you are one point short of dead, you cannot ever make a DC10 con check with the penalty from negative hit points. Of course, at that many hit points below zero, if your con were lower, you'd just be dead anyway.