Temporary Hit Points

[Ouranou]

Do temporary hit points (as from a force field) keep you conscious and stable if you would otherwise be at 0 hp?

[Ravingdork]

To my knowledge, no.

[mike roper]

Not sure what you are asking. temporary hp should be the 1st to go yes? Or are you asking if you where at 0 and some gave you temporary hit points would it return you to consciousness?

[Ouranou]

Force fields have fast healing, so you could be brought to 0 and then on the next turn your force field would tick back up to 1. Lasers ignore force fields, creating a situation were you could be brought to 0 by laser fire but still have multiple temp hp from the force field.

[mike roper]

Hmm that's a hard question. My gut is no based off this part of hp and sp. "If your Hit Points ever drop to 0, you are dying and must become stable, or you might die for good (see Injury and Death)."
So you could have temporary hit points from force field and still be dying. The good news is if someone shot you with all gun and it didn't pierce the force fields hit points you would not take resolve point damage.

[OtrovaGomas]

the name is misleading, but think of it this way, temporary "hit point" all seem to come from a force field generator of some kind (or magic, no sure if there is a spell for this) so in essence that is what they are, a force field and nothing more. So no this do not help you stay conscious or stable

[Ravingdork]

Is has never been the case in other editions of the game, which is why I said no. I've not seen any new rule yet that changes it, so I assume the status quo remains unchanged.

[Matthew Downie]

Ravingdork wrote:

has never been the case in other editions of the game

This was never really settled in Pathfinder.

A lot of people (including me) think temp HP do work for bringing you back to consciousness, just as they work for protecting you from Power Word: Kill.

[Seisho]

Actual infused in the character I would agree with Matthew
but a force field is a force field and not a healing field so those won't do a dying character any good but to protect him from more bullets

[OtrovaGomas]

Once again, this is not Pathfinder, and if we look at the source of temporary "HIT POINTS" they are all define as a force field, there is the commando serum, but this is a different story I think and there is no magic that gives temporary hit points. But i do think that this buffer should have a different name

[Matthew Downie]

Agreed - if the wording of temporary hit points is ambiguous, we might as well go with common sense and say that getting a force field isn't the same as being healed.

[Seisho]

That's basically what I tried to tell :P

[Haywire build generator]

Why would I use common sense?

[Metaphysician]

I would simply reword it so that instead of a force field granting you temp HP, you just treat the force field HP *as if they were* temp HP. They still belong to the force field, not you.

Upside, stuff that doesn't pierce the force field doesn't inflict extra effects. Downside, it can't heal you from bleeding out.