Taking Damage at 0 - is it "dealt" to you?

[ProsecutorGodot]

Slight tangent off another thread about damage and healing has me questioning a few rules interactions.

I believe that the rules suggest that damage is always tracked when you are attacked, but not something that actually reduces your hit points below 0. The scenario that came to my mind after this is: If a creature that is dying is attacked in melee, and dealt a rather damaging critical hit, is the damage "dealt" to them for the purposes of features that look to alter or use that number?

Does HAM apply? Can it be reflected as a critical strike for big damage using Rebuke the Violent? Can it be reduced in any way to prevent a creature from dying to massive damage?

I think it does count as fully dealt damage, but the fact that I'd never had this thought prior to now makes me think I might be overlooking something trivial, or perhaps it was the opposite and something that should have been plainly obvious to me beforehand.

[MaxWilson]

Slight tangent off another thread about some has me questioning a few rules interactions.

I believe that the rules suggest that damage is always tracked when you are attacked, but not something that actually reduces your hit points below 0. The scenario that came to my mind after this is: If a creature that is dying is attacked in melee, and dealt a rather damaging critical hit, is the damage "dealt" to them for the purposes of features that look to alter or use that number?

Does HAM apply? Can it be reflected as a critical strike for big damage using Rebuke the Violent? Can it be reduced in any way to prevent a creature from dying to massive damage?

I think it does count as fully dealt damage, but the fact that I'd never had this thought prior to now makes me think I might be overlooking something trivial, or perhaps it was the opposite and something that should have been plainly obvious to me beforehand.

Honestly it's never been clear to me (e.g. for Vampiric Touch). I tend to just run it as "no more damage can be dealt than what is required to insta-kill the target". (I use negative HP so that means at most you could deal 10 HP of damage to a 5 HP target.) After that point it's no longer damage to a creature, it's just damage to a hunk of meat.

[ProsecutorGodot]

Honestly it's never been clear to me (e.g. for Vampiric Touch). I tend to just run it as "no more damage can be dealt than what is required to insta-kill the target". (I use negative HP so that means at most you could deal 10 HP of damage to a 5 HP target.) After that point it's no longer damage to a creature, it's just damage to a hunk of meat.

That seems reasonable to me.

[Segev]

In short: yes.

The damage is Dealt. You just don't go below 0 hp. You do suffer a failed death save or begin dying, and you might die. The number of hp of damage dealt is important to know and is manipulated by various things and used to calculate various things.

[Theodoxus]

Reducing damage while dying is an interesting question.

Take HAM. The fluff text is "you can use your armor to deflect strikes..." but the actual bullet point is "while wearing heavy armor..." The fluff is active, so not usable while dying (since when you hit 0 hit points you immediately fall unconscious or die - page 197 PHB). However, the bullet point is passive, unless you deem "wearing" requires an awake state (I don't but ymmv). The question then to ask is how often will 3 HPs be the difference between Instant Death and just a failed death save? Outside level 1? No likely. So I'm ok with HAM reducing incoming damage.

Rebuke the Violent? No way, that's definitely against the rules. You're unconscious. Incapacitated is a condition under unconscious. Incapacitated states you can't take actions or reactions. RtV is a reaction.

Other things that I do think would work are Warding Bond, a projected Arcane Ward, Intercept from a ally... I'm sure there's more...

[Lunali]

In short: yes.

The damage is Dealt. You just don't go below 0 hp. You do suffer a failed death save or begin dying, and you might die. The number of hp of damage dealt is important to know and is manipulated by various things and used to calculate various things.

Also important to know in case a hit does more than the downed character's max hp, which will kill them outright.

[Unoriginal]

Slight tangent off another thread about damage and healing has me questioning a few rules interactions.

I believe that the rules suggest that damage is always tracked when you are attacked, but not something that actually reduces your hit points below 0. The scenario that came to my mind after this is: If a creature that is dying is attacked in melee, and dealt a rather damaging critical hit, is the damage "dealt" to them for the purposes of features that look to alter or use that number?

Does HAM apply? Can it be reflected as a critical strike for big damage using Rebuke the Violent? Can it be reduced in any way to prevent a creature from dying to massive damage?

I think it does count as fully dealt damage, but the fact that I'd never had this thought prior to now makes me think I might be overlooking something trivial, or perhaps it was the opposite and something that should have been plainly obvious to me beforehand.

The rules on death saving throws are pretty explicit:



Damage at 0 Hit Points. If you take any damage while you have 0 hit points, you suffer a death saving throw failure. If the damage is from a critical hit, you suffer two failures instead. If the damage equals or exceeds your hit point maximum, you suffer instant death.


So yes, you can take damage/have damage dealt to you while you're a 0 HP.

However, as noted by others, only abilities the person being struck can use while unconscious (or used by someone else) can help the person being struck. HAM would apply, and so would Immunity and Resistance, for example.

[KorvinStarmast]

example of what killed a PC in a game a good while back. (Some time in 2015).
A character at 0 HP; a fireball hits our party. The whole party.
PC had (normally) 32 HP. Fireball did 34 damage.
DM (fairly, IMO) ruled that no, they don't get a Dex save while Unconscious. A couple of players did protest and then one of the group (not me, I was still trying to figure out the rules at that point) pointed this out in Appendix A.

Unconscious.
• The creature automatically fails Strength and Dexterity
saving throws. This informed the party, somewhat, as a new PC was being rolled up, that taking advantage of short rests more often would be helpful. We had been draining far too many of the cleric's spell slots with healing. (And no, there wasn't a town where we could buy healing potions; this DM made them 'found treasure only' at that point in the campaign.

[ProsecutorGodot]

Rebuke the Violent? No way, that's definitely against the rules. You're unconscious. Incapacitated is a condition under unconscious. Incapacitated states you can't take actions or reactions. RtV is a reaction.

Just to clear up any miscommunication on this, the Redemption Paladin can't use Rebuke the Violent on self damage to begin with. The interaction happens when there's a very conscious Paladin near the dying ally with a reaction available.

I wanted to be clear whether the damage was actually happening, not necessarily just because of RtV but also Aura of the Guardian, if I use my reaction to take the damage for them, that means that the dying creature took no damage and fails no death saves, right? Or does the line "doesn't transfer any other effects that might accompany the damage" extend also to failing death saves?

[Unoriginal]

I wanted to be clear whether the damage was actually happening, not necessarily just because of RtV but also Aura of the Guardian, if I use my reaction to take the damage for them, that means that the dying creature took no damage and fails no death saves, right?

Indeed.


Or does the line "doesn't transfer any other effects that might accompany the damage" extend also to failing death saves?

Failing death saves isn't an effect that accompany the damage, it is a consequence for taking damage while you're at 0 HPs.

Same way as automatic death from massive damage isn't an effect accompanying damage.

[Theodoxus]

Indeed.



Failing death saves isn't an effect that accompany the damage, it is a consequence for taking damage while you're at 0 HPs.

Same way as automatic death from massive damage isn't an effect accompanying damage.

Exactly.

And I apologize Godot, I just skimmed RtV and saw it was a reaction without reading further. I've yet to play or DM a Redemption Pally... so haven't needed to do a deep dive on their abilities.

[MaxWilson]

Just to clear up any miscommunication on this, the Redemption Paladin can't use Rebuke the Violent on self damage to begin with. The interaction happens when there's a very conscious Paladin near the dying ally with a reaction available.

I wanted to be clear whether the damage was actually happening, not necessarily just because of RtV but also Aura of the Guardian, if I use my reaction to take the damage for them, that means that the dying creature took no damage and fails no death saves, right? Or does the line "doesn't transfer any other effects that might accompany the damage" extend also to failing death saves?

Would you rule that a net attack (zero damage) on an unconscious creature within 5' is an autocrit which fails two death saves? If so then go ahead and make other zero-damage attacks also fail death saves. AFB but it's probably RAW.

If the net thing would bug you enough to overrule RAW, then you should probably overrule it in other cases as well.

[Unoriginal]

Would you rule that a net attack (zero damage) on an unconscious creature within 5' is an autocrit which fails two death saves? If so then go ahead and make other zero-damage attacks also fail death saves. AFB but it's probably RAW.

The book was smarter than that for once, you need to deal damage to make the "fail saving throws" happen. The text is even quite explicit that it needs to be "damage from a critical hit", not just a crit.

[MaxWilson]

The book was smarter than that for once, you need to deal damage to make the "fail saving throws" happen. The text is even quite explicit that it needs to be "damage from a critical hit", not just a crit.

Nice! So for once the sensible ruling is also RAW. Thanks for checking.

[Unoriginal]

If a character are at 0 hp and then takes a hit for 0 damage (e.g. the Bard uses Cutting Words to reduce damage), does that count as a failed death save?

It wouldn't count as a failed death save, as the death save failure only happens when the character takes damage, not when they take a hit.



From a technical viewpoint, a hit with with a damage value of 0 is different from a hit without damage ("damage == null").

But the result in the end is still "character has not taken damage".

[Witty Username]

Can it be reflected as a critical strike for big damage using Rebuke the Violent?

By RAW, I do not know.
But, this feels like enough of a flavor win that I would allow it. It is the perfect moment for a redemption paladin, someone rendered helpless and then further attacked out of malicious bloodlust only to have all their hated reflected back on them. I just feels right.

I think taking damage is assumed, since it would have to check if instant death is triggered. At least that is how I would run it.