Cleric casts aid on party to start an adventure through an old ruin. (Aid = 3 characters HP maximum and current HP increased by 5 for duration of 8 hours). This stands to reason that when AID wears off, the player would also lose 5 current HP and 5 Max HP.
Party eventually encounters mummy in ruin. On Mummy's final turn before dying, it successfully lands mummy rot onto one of the players while also reducing that player to 1 HP. Mummy rot clearly states player cannot REGAIN hitpoints.
So it's clear when Aid wears off in a few hours, the Player will be at 0 HP and unable to heal by any means. However, my players are making a convincing argument that aid specifically is not regaining hitpoints, but hit points borrowed from a god (else they would not wear off when the spell ends), and therefore casting aid again on the player with mummy rot would set them from 0 to 5 HP and their max would increase by 5, allowing them to be conscious for the duration of the spell (8 hours).
Reading the text for unconscious, Aid, and Mummy Rot over and over, I feel they may be right, but it feels a bit of a RAI vs RAW situation to me.
I'd say its up to you. If that player's death makes the story more interesting, then the player dies. If not, you can allow the character to regain hit points from aid.
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Devious serpent folk devoid of compassion, yuan-ti manipulate other creatures by arousing their doubts, evoking their fears, and elevating and crushing their hopes. From remote temples in jungles, swamps, and deserts, the yuan-ti plot to supplant and dominate all other races and to make themselves gods.
It's really more about the session than the story. Here's where my head is at right now.
The players are in a ruin several days from nearest town, and that town is essentially a 200 person last chance hovel.
So once aid wears off, the party still has to deal with the 2nd half of mummy rot (Losing 10 Max HP per day, reaching 0 max HP turns body to dust). For our player, she has 34 HP so this is a 4 days till death scenario.
Allowing aid set her to 5 HP and increase 5 Max for those 4 days seems fine (to allow the player to participate in the session in which they are trying to find a way to save her). If she takes any damage during the 8 hours aid is active, she'd be at 0 and another aid would not help her till the first wore off (spell effects don't have any effect if already under the effect of that spell scenario). Once worn off, they could cast again and get to to 5 HP for the next 8 hour stint. We do have a cleric with gentle repose as well in the party, so death saves and stabilization shouldn't be too much of an issue.
I think overall the session will be more interesting if I allow it like the above because otherwise the player will basically be sitting there with nothing to do while the rest are trying to figure out how to get her to someone that can case remove curse within 4 days time.
I think overall the session will be more interesting if I allow it like the above because otherwise the player will basically be sitting there with nothing to do while the rest are trying to figure out how to get her to someone that can case remove curse within 4 days time.
I think you found a great answer right there. While I agree with DungeonLord in that GM fiat is always a Deus Ex Machina. I for one try to run very RAW (RAI to keep things from getting dumb because of a comma... but all very up front), a lot of it because I want the world to feel fair. I want my players to have reasonable expectations for the outcomes of their actions...
This path 1) lets the players feel smart, because they have come up with a "patch" to this terrible event. 2) It gives the player who got rotted agency in the quest to heal them. 3) Gives the player clear guidelines about how dangerous this quest is and they might die before the rot gets them.
when AID wears off, the player would also lose 5 current HP and 5 Max HP.
Huh. This puzzled me for a while.
I must admit it makes sense, especially as written. Personally, I never thought of it this way.
In my game, Aid increases your maximum hit points, and then "fills" those new hit points. The reason it doesn't use the term "healing" for those made sense to me - it would be easy to abuse with effects that make healing better. As it stands, I'll agree that preventing "healing" doesn't prevent those hit points from Aid.
However, when Aid's duration lapses, we don't take away 5 hit points from the character's current ones - the maximum is reduced back to normal, and any unused excess obviously goes away as well, but if the current is below the normal maximum, Aid doesn't actually harm the character. As I said earlier, I never thought of it any other way, but the way you stated it made me dwell on it for a while. All in all, I think I'll keep the intention-based representation we currently use. :p
Another way to prevent undesired side effects from Aid lapsing is for someone to cast it again before the previous one lapses - as per Combining Magical Effects (Player's Handbook, pg 204), the second one does nothing while the first one still lasts, but will replace it as soon as the first one lapses - so the character will continue to be under Aid's influence.
Yeah we puzzled over this quite a bit this week. We actually ended the session right on that cliff hanger last week so it gave me all week to figure out the best approach.
We also use fantasy grounds locally at the table (I have a projector set-up, and a client laptop projects onto the table). The fantasy grounds software added an additional nuance to the discussion, as it tracks "Wounds" (count up from 0) instead of "HP Lost" (count down from max). When wounds = Max HP, the character is unconscious. Depending on how you track hit points, even as a player, the effects of spell like aid wearing off have different implications even if you rule that aid doesn't remove 5 HP when it wears off.
Wounds method (Up from 0) - When aid wears off, you lose 5 Max HP. If you have wounds within 5 of your max, you'd go unconscious
Counting down from Max Method - When aid wears off if you have 5 or less HP, you'd still be conscious cause your Max HP goes down, but you don't lose any health.
I actually believe the D&D rules are pretty clear on this (Counting down from max HP instead of up from zero), but it has come up in the past at our table (even before the fantasy grounds) because different players each track it differently on their sheet. Some prefer to track how much damage they've taken, others prefer to track how many HP they have remaining.
A little late for the original discussion, but the Player's Handbook has a section on Temporary Hit Points that is very relevant to this and explains how spells like Aid work.
A little late for the original discussion, but the Player's Handbook has a section on Temporary Hit Points that is very relevant to this and explains how spells like Aid work.
Aid doesn't give you temporary hit points, though. It raises your current and max HP, which is a subtle but non-trivial distinction, given that you can heal back the HPs gained by Aid.
The Aid spell is badly worded, I think. Raising 'current hit points for the duration" is very iffy, leading to "you lose 5 hit points when aid wears off", in one interpretation, or "I can never get to 0 hit points, since my current hit points are increased by 5, always, while Aid is active". =/
I'm not sure where, but I'm pretty sure I read that hit point maximum being reduced does not reduce current hit points, but current hit points cannot be greater than maximum.
If your maximum hit points go up and then they go back down after eight hours, isn't that the definition of temporary? It seems like a trivial distinction to me. Isn't this just a case where specific (Aid) beats general (PHB)?
I'm not sure where, but I'm pretty sure I read that hit point maximum being reduced does not reduce current hit points, but current hit points cannot be greater than maximum.
My read is that dropping your max HP by 5 only lowers your HP down to your new max HP. If you're already under, then no worries unless the text specifies otherwise. I'm thinking of Blood Hunters' Crimson Rite, where it says you suffer damage and your maximum hit points goes down.
Now if you want to get really weird, what happens if you are at max HP, you step on a Caltrops (bag of 20) and then Aid wears off. You're now at max HP, but you cannot regain any hit points so your speed is reduced by 10 forever oh noooooooooooooo! :p
Allowing aid set her to 5 HP and increase 5 Max for those 4 days seems fine (to allow the player to participate in the session in which they are trying to find a way to save her). If she takes any damage during the 8 hours aid is active, she'd be at 0 and another aid would not help her till the first wore off (spell effects don't have any effect if already under the effect of that spell scenario). Once worn off, they could cast again and get to to 5 HP for the next 8 hour stint. We do have a cleric with gentle repose as well in the party, so death saves and stabilization shouldn't be too much of an issue.
It's true that normal 2nd level Aid would have no effect, but remember that you can upcast Aid to provide even more Max and current HP. So if the player went down to 0 while under normal Aid, a 3rd level Aid would bring them back up with 5 more HP. This would really start to drain the party's resources, but I think that could ratchet up the pressure even more, plus keep this rotting player conscious for more of the action.
I'm not sure where, but I'm pretty sure I read that hit point maximum being reduced does not reduce current hit points, but current hit points cannot be greater than maximum.
The reason why your hit points go down when Aid wears off is not because your maximum hit points drop, but because, as worded, with Aid, "Each target's hit point maximum and current hit points increase by 5 for the duration." Specifically, the second part: "current hit points increase by 5 for the duration", which means when the duration is over, your current (as well as your maximum) hit points are no longer increased by 5, and hence drop by 5. The problem with the wording is that a literal and direct interpretation means you're always at maximum hit points, no matter what. For example, let's say that before getting Aid cast on you, your current hit points are 40, and your maximum hit points are 60. You get hit by Aid, and your maximum hit points get increased to 65, and your current hit points get increased to 45. Your current hit points are now 45, and are increased by 5 for the duration of the spell. The spell is still running, so your current hit points get increased, by 5, to 50. The spell is still running, so your current hit points get increased by 5, to 55. And again to 60. And once more to 65. Now, you current hit points can't be higher than your maximum hit points, so it stops. But the spell is still running... so enemy's turn, you get hit for anything less than 65 damage, and you're instantly topped off to 65. In fact, if you get hit by 65 or more damage, you drop to 0 hit points, but your current hit points are increased by 5, since the spell is still running, to 5, and then to 10, etc... since Aid doesn't say it stops working if you get reduced to 0 hit points.
Now, obviously this is not the intended way for the spell to work. The only way to make it work is to separate the maximum and current hit point increase: maximum hit points are increased by 5 for the duration, and current hit points are instantly increased by 5. Which would mean that when Aid wears off, you don't lose any hit points unless you'd be over your maximum.
If your maximum hit points go up and then they go back down after eight hours, isn't that the definition of temporary? It seems like a trivial distinction to me. Isn't this just a case where specific (Aid) beats general (PHB)?
I'm not sure where, but I'm pretty sure I read that hit point maximum being reduced does not reduce current hit points, but current hit points cannot be greater than maximum.
My read is that dropping your max HP by 5 only lowers your HP down to your new max HP. If you're already under, then no worries unless the text specifies otherwise. I'm thinking of Blood Hunters' Crimson Rite, where it says you suffer damage and your maximum hit points goes down.
Now if you want to get really weird, what happens if you are at max HP, you step on a Caltrops (bag of 20) and then Aid wears off. You're now at max HP, but you cannot regain any hit points so your speed is reduced by 10 forever oh noooooooooooooo! :p
"Temporary hit points" aren't "any type of hit points that can be somehow construed to be less than permanent in nature". They're a particular game construct, and are referred to as such. Aid does not grant "temporary hit points", even though it gives you hit points that are temporary. (Similar to "attack" vs "attack action", or "melee attack" vs "attack with a melee weapon", etc.)
I had not considered the caltrops issue! The problem is not just with Aid, it also happens with actual temporary hit points, since you can't heal those back! :D
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Situation came up in our last session.
Cleric casts aid on party to start an adventure through an old ruin. (Aid = 3 characters HP maximum and current HP increased by 5 for duration of 8 hours). This stands to reason that when AID wears off, the player would also lose 5 current HP and 5 Max HP.
Party eventually encounters mummy in ruin. On Mummy's final turn before dying, it successfully lands mummy rot onto one of the players while also reducing that player to 1 HP. Mummy rot clearly states player cannot REGAIN hitpoints.
So it's clear when Aid wears off in a few hours, the Player will be at 0 HP and unable to heal by any means. However, my players are making a convincing argument that aid specifically is not regaining hitpoints, but hit points borrowed from a god (else they would not wear off when the spell ends), and therefore casting aid again on the player with mummy rot would set them from 0 to 5 HP and their max would increase by 5, allowing them to be conscious for the duration of the spell (8 hours).
Reading the text for unconscious, Aid, and Mummy Rot over and over, I feel they may be right, but it feels a bit of a RAI vs RAW situation to me.
Wanted to get some other DM thoughts?
I'd say its up to you. If that player's death makes the story more interesting, then the player dies. If not, you can allow the character to regain hit points from aid.
Devious serpent folk devoid of compassion, yuan-ti manipulate other creatures by arousing their doubts, evoking their fears, and elevating and crushing their hopes. From remote temples in jungles, swamps, and deserts, the yuan-ti plot to supplant and dominate all other races and to make themselves gods.
It's really more about the session than the story. Here's where my head is at right now.
The players are in a ruin several days from nearest town, and that town is essentially a 200 person last chance hovel.
So once aid wears off, the party still has to deal with the 2nd half of mummy rot (Losing 10 Max HP per day, reaching 0 max HP turns body to dust). For our player, she has 34 HP so this is a 4 days till death scenario.
Allowing aid set her to 5 HP and increase 5 Max for those 4 days seems fine (to allow the player to participate in the session in which they are trying to find a way to save her). If she takes any damage during the 8 hours aid is active, she'd be at 0 and another aid would not help her till the first wore off (spell effects don't have any effect if already under the effect of that spell scenario). Once worn off, they could cast again and get to to 5 HP for the next 8 hour stint. We do have a cleric with gentle repose as well in the party, so death saves and stabilization shouldn't be too much of an issue.
I think overall the session will be more interesting if I allow it like the above because otherwise the player will basically be sitting there with nothing to do while the rest are trying to figure out how to get her to someone that can case remove curse within 4 days time.
Huh. This puzzled me for a while.
I must admit it makes sense, especially as written. Personally, I never thought of it this way.
In my game, Aid increases your maximum hit points, and then "fills" those new hit points. The reason it doesn't use the term "healing" for those made sense to me - it would be easy to abuse with effects that make healing better. As it stands, I'll agree that preventing "healing" doesn't prevent those hit points from Aid.
However, when Aid's duration lapses, we don't take away 5 hit points from the character's current ones - the maximum is reduced back to normal, and any unused excess obviously goes away as well, but if the current is below the normal maximum, Aid doesn't actually harm the character. As I said earlier, I never thought of it any other way, but the way you stated it made me dwell on it for a while. All in all, I think I'll keep the intention-based representation we currently use. :p
Another way to prevent undesired side effects from Aid lapsing is for someone to cast it again before the previous one lapses - as per Combining Magical Effects (Player's Handbook, pg 204), the second one does nothing while the first one still lasts, but will replace it as soon as the first one lapses - so the character will continue to be under Aid's influence.
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D&D Beyond FoundersA little late for the original discussion, but the Player's Handbook has a section on Temporary Hit Points that is very relevant to this and explains how spells like Aid work.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/compendium/rules/phb/combat#TemporaryHitPoints
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"We got this, no problem! I'll take the twenty on the left - you guys handle the one on the right!"🔊
Aid doesn't give you temporary hit points, though. It raises your current and max HP, which is a subtle but non-trivial distinction, given that you can heal back the HPs gained by Aid.
The Aid spell is badly worded, I think. Raising 'current hit points for the duration" is very iffy, leading to "you lose 5 hit points when aid wears off", in one interpretation, or "I can never get to 0 hit points, since my current hit points are increased by 5, always, while Aid is active". =/
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D&D Beyond FoundersAh, interesting! I always treated it like temporary hit points since 2nd ed.
As you say, it's not that well worded....
Pun-loving nerd | Faith Elisabeth Lilley | She/Her/Hers | Profile art by Becca Golins
If you need help with homebrew, please post on the homebrew forums, where multiple staff and moderators can read your post and help you!
"We got this, no problem! I'll take the twenty on the left - you guys handle the one on the right!"🔊
I'm not sure where, but I'm pretty sure I read that hit point maximum being reduced does not reduce current hit points, but current hit points cannot be greater than maximum.
If your maximum hit points go up and then they go back down after eight hours, isn't that the definition of temporary? It seems like a trivial distinction to me. Isn't this just a case where specific (Aid) beats general (PHB)?
My read is that dropping your max HP by 5 only lowers your HP down to your new max HP. If you're already under, then no worries unless the text specifies otherwise. I'm thinking of Blood Hunters' Crimson Rite, where it says you suffer damage and your maximum hit points goes down.
Now if you want to get really weird, what happens if you are at max HP, you step on a Caltrops (bag of 20) and then Aid wears off. You're now at max HP, but you cannot regain any hit points so your speed is reduced by 10 forever oh noooooooooooooo! :p
"Not all those who wander are lost"
It's true that normal 2nd level Aid would have no effect, but remember that you can upcast Aid to provide even more Max and current HP. So if the player went down to 0 while under normal Aid, a 3rd level Aid would bring them back up with 5 more HP. This would really start to drain the party's resources, but I think that could ratchet up the pressure even more, plus keep this rotting player conscious for more of the action.
The reason why your hit points go down when Aid wears off is not because your maximum hit points drop, but because, as worded, with Aid, "Each target's hit point maximum and current hit points increase by 5 for the duration." Specifically, the second part: "current hit points increase by 5 for the duration", which means when the duration is over, your current (as well as your maximum) hit points are no longer increased by 5, and hence drop by 5. The problem with the wording is that a literal and direct interpretation means you're always at maximum hit points, no matter what. For example, let's say that before getting Aid cast on you, your current hit points are 40, and your maximum hit points are 60. You get hit by Aid, and your maximum hit points get increased to 65, and your current hit points get increased to 45. Your current hit points are now 45, and are increased by 5 for the duration of the spell. The spell is still running, so your current hit points get increased, by 5, to 50. The spell is still running, so your current hit points get increased by 5, to 55. And again to 60. And once more to 65. Now, you current hit points can't be higher than your maximum hit points, so it stops. But the spell is still running... so enemy's turn, you get hit for anything less than 65 damage, and you're instantly topped off to 65. In fact, if you get hit by 65 or more damage, you drop to 0 hit points, but your current hit points are increased by 5, since the spell is still running, to 5, and then to 10, etc... since Aid doesn't say it stops working if you get reduced to 0 hit points.
Now, obviously this is not the intended way for the spell to work. The only way to make it work is to separate the maximum and current hit point increase: maximum hit points are increased by 5 for the duration, and current hit points are instantly increased by 5. Which would mean that when Aid wears off, you don't lose any hit points unless you'd be over your maximum.
"Temporary hit points" aren't "any type of hit points that can be somehow construed to be less than permanent in nature". They're a particular game construct, and are referred to as such. Aid does not grant "temporary hit points", even though it gives you hit points that are temporary. (Similar to "attack" vs "attack action", or "melee attack" vs "attack with a melee weapon", etc.)
I had not considered the caltrops issue! The problem is not just with Aid, it also happens with actual temporary hit points, since you can't heal those back! :D