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.
- 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.
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.
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.
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.
