Since my polymorph meme has only garnered three downvotes so far I thought I’d offer a bit more controversial take, and see if I can manage to stir the pot a bit with this one.
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Unfortunately:
- half of zero is still zero, and
- since one can’t go below 0HP there’s no HP pool to take health from.
As someone who had to DM more than I’d like, no dice, mate.
You’re still dealing damage, e.g. it could kill you from the massive damage rule if you dealt enough. Vampiric touch counts how much damage you deal, not how much hp the target loses.
Okay, if we want to play it like that my ruling as DM is that as all your HP are vampic in nature and you’re feeding on the living, you’re now undead.
Probably a zombie.
Not to mention I’d allow on creativity and rule of cool. I want players like that in my table.
Having DMed too much. Nope.
This is easily a rule as intended type of thing. If you hit someone else. Sure fine, this is actually awesome and very creative and totally in the spirit of the game.
If you’re just trying to break the game. Nope. RPGs aren’t about trying to pull apart the systems in place for a group of friends to have fun. Not at our table anyway.
Even the damage dealt thing is silly. Is argue you cant deal damage to something that is fully damaged.
This is easily a rule as intended type of thing.
Not just that, it’s also rules as written, Vampiric Touch explicitly states:
The touch of your shadow-wreathed hand can siphon life force from others to heal your wounds.
You can’t “hit someone else”* because of the stipulations in contingency. RAI I’m sure they don’t want you sucking the life from your left buttcheek to close up the mortal wound in your gut, but based on what they wrote, I haven’t found a solid contradiction to this plan in the rules-as-written.
Also you can deal damage to something that is fully damaged. There’s even a specific rule for “Damage at 0 Hit Points.” under the Death Saving Throws section.
- You take damage that reduces you to 0 Hit Points and fall unconscious
- Contingency triggers and Vampiric Touch takes effect
- Vampiric Touch is lost beacuse you lose concentration on a spell if you are incapacitated
You trigger after you take damage but before you fall unconscious, like numerous other triggers in the game. I just used the Strength Before Death example because it shows even without magic there’s enough time to squeeze a whole ass turn in between those two events.
You trigger after you take damage but before you fall unconscious, like numerous other triggers in the game.
I fail to see how that’s supported by RAW. If damage reduces you to 0 hit points and fails to kill you, you fall unconscious.
The fact that a Fighter subclass gives you an ability to act otherwise doesn’t affect this, any more than you could say you stay conscious at 0 because Zealot Barbarians can do it. You don’t have that ability. You’re unconscious or dead when Vampiric Touch triggers. Vampiric Touch fails.
As a DM I don’t mind rules-lawyering, but you better be prepared for Consequences later on.
I am a big believer in the rule of cool and as long as everybody is having a good time, I don’t mind looking the other way if a player makes a creative interpretation of the rules.
…But you better believe I’m gonna spend some time thinking about what should happen thematically if your wizard starts draining their own death energy to revive themselves.
I like a number of the suggestions here. I think my “solution” here would be to let once slide. The second time, I hand the player a folded note informing them that the toes on their left foot didn’t come back with them, causing a visible limp, reduced movement speed and -1 to DEX.
…And we can build from there. Possibly start building a Final Destination style plan.
Cheating Death must have Consequences.
