Fun Fact: Diehard doesn't do anything

[Dean]

So I just noticed that the feat Diehard doesn't do what people think it does. It's supposed to let you stay conscious between -1 and -9hp by letting you count yourself as "disabled" rather than "dying" for that part of the hp track.

But hey, lets go look at nonlethal damage....

when your nonlethal damage equals your current hit points, you’re staggered, and when it exceeds your current hit points, you fall unconscious

So when your number of nonlethal damage is greater than your hit point total you go unconscious. Do not become disabled do not pass Go do not collect 200$, just go unconscious. So when your character with Diehard takes a hit and goes to -1 hp he goes unconscious because he has taken 0 nonlethal damage and 0 is a larger number than -1.

And to think, you only had to take Endurance to get it.

[hogarth]

If you're going to rule that general rules outrank specific rules on the same subject at all times, then you're going to see a lot of "contradictions".

[Dean]

I'm not saying general outranks specific. Specific outranks general when they are contradictory. The problem is there is no contradiction here.

Diehard lets you count as "disabled" rather than "dying" when you go into the negatives. But the nonlethal rules don't interact with those titles at all in any way. They just tell you that when you have less hp than nonlethal damage you become unconscious. Essentially they are parallel systems that were made to work entirely different and independent of each other for no reason so ignoring the effects of one of those systems does nothing because the other can still fuck you in a slightly different but entirely separate manner.

[ModelCitizen]

If I had some kind of attachment to the idea that 3e rules make sense, I'd argue that it's impossible to have Nonlethal Damage : 0. Either you have Nonlethal Damage >= 1, or you don't have a Nonlethal Damage stat at all.

[Koumei]

You don't bleed out, at least?

[Ted the Flayer]

Lol, that's awesome!

[Dean]

You don't bleed out, at least?

That's true. The technical title of this thread should be "Fun Fact: What Diehard does is make you take the weakest feat in the game to then take another feat which, together, makes you not have to roll to stabilize"

Which honestly brings it to the power level where it might as well just say

Diehard: Your character gets cancer. It is his birthday.

[violence in the media]

That's so sad. A feat named Die Hard should be awesome.

[hogarth]

I'm not saying general outranks specific. Specific outranks general when they are contradictory. The problem is there is no contradiction here.

I take it back; assuming that Diehard means "you can't go unconscious when you're under 0 hit points, full stop" leads to its own set of inconsistencies.

[Slade]

I'm not saying general outranks specific. Specific outranks general when they are contradictory. The problem is there is no contradiction here.

I take it back; assuming that Diehard means "you can't go unconscious when you're under 0 hit points, full stop" leads to its own set of inconsistencies.

No, that makes it awesome. When enemy spellcasters are casting sleep, if you go below 0 hp, you become immune.

This will be how I rule Die Hard does.

[MGuy]

So if an effect has you unconscious then you may be beaten awake.

[PoliteNewb]

Don't the rules make it fairly clear (for instance, with spells per day and bonus spells) that there is a fairly significant difference between "0" and "none"?

You don't have "0" nonlethal damage any more than a 3rd level paladin has "0" 1st level spells per day. The correct answer in both cases is "none", which is not greater than -1.

[Ravengm]

Null and zero are two distinct things, so I suppose it depends on the interpretation. I personally would say that "not having nonlethal damage" counts as null nonlethal damage rather than zero, but it's not like people were going to take diehard anyway, right?

For a somewhat related example, there's a very big difference between a Con score of 0 and a Con score of -.

[Dean]

While what's being said is not an unreasonable solution, and I believe it likely would be the patch-fix that Sage would have declared was "always true" or something were it ever brought up, it is also putting language in the game I don't think there is any justification to believe is there.

You totally do add and subtract nonlethal damage as situations permit. There is never any language indicating anything like "You enter into a state called 'nonlethally damaged" upon receiving nonlethal damage and exit that state upon having less than 1 point of nonlethal damage"

If you have 3 nonlethal damage and you get cured for 1 you have 2 and if you're then cured for 2 you have 0. You don't exit a state of being affected by the nonlethal rules. When the game uses strange rules like that it points them out. If you have a Con - for instance you just can't add or subtract con. No amount of Con addition or subtraction will get you to any number because you simply aren't allowed to interact with those mechanics. I can't Bears Endurance an Undead to raise it's Con by 4 but I totally can bring a persons nonlethal damage up by 4 with a whelm spell or bring it down by 4 with a cure spell.

I'm not saying this should be the case or that it's sensible or good that the rules are written in such a way as to make this true. I'm just saying that as written it IS true.

I consider it one of many lessons as to why you probably shouldn't include negative numbers in your systems if you can help it. It goes badly, consistently.

[Emerald]

The zero vs. null distinction doesn't fix anything anyway, since you can just slap yourself in the face for 1 nonlethal damage and avoid the issue.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

In the, what? eleven years since 3.0 came out I've only seen people use nonlethal damage a handful of times. Does this do anything when you take lethal damage?

[K]

Non-lethal damage is useless unless you are a Cold-based Evoker and your DM uses the Hypothermia rules in Frostburn.

[Endovior]

Diehard, on it's own, isn't all that awesome, true (doubly so if you impose some kind of nerf based on a strange interpretation of the rules, be w/e). That said, it can actually be a fairly awesome feat, in the right circumstances.

Delay Death.

3rd-level Cleric spell, touch range, 1 round/level. Makes the target immune to dying when below -9 HP. Normally a craptastic spell, since it lasts no time and doesn't even stop its target from bleeding out. With Diehard, it becomes kind of decent, since you could be active and fighting for a few rounds after you would otherwise have died, kind of like Tryndamere.

On the other hand, if you have Diehard and Persistent Delay Death, then you're totally immune to death from HP damage. Of course, this isn't quite an ultimate defense, since there's a number of things that can kill you anyways... Disintegrate (which would ordinarily kill you through Diehard), ability score depletion, level drain, and death effects. Also, being a buff, Delay Death can be dispelled as normal. Even so, Death Ward is enough to protect against most of the other things that could kill you, and by the time you get into the levels where you need to seriously worry about them, Death Ward is already on the standard list of pre-combat buffs.

Now, Diehard doesn't really fit into the build of a DMM Cleric, who has MUCH better things he could be doing with two feats. But if you ARE a DMM Cleric, and happen to have a meatshield that likes Diehard, then you're in business... after all, in this situation, Diehard is far superior to just about any other feat the poor DMF could be taking.

[Dean]

Diehard, on it's own, isn't all that awesome, true (doubly so if you impose some kind of nerf based on a strange interpretation of the rules, be w/e). That said, it can actually be a fairly awesome feat, in the right circumstances.

I'm not nerfing it I'm telling you how it works. I don't -want- it to work this way it just -does-. If you would like to houserule Diehard into working the way everyone assumes it works and like the designers thought it worked then I vote that as a -good idea- but it's not how the hp rules tell you it works.

[Dean]

Although interestingly Endovior you have found almost exactly the reason I found this out. I was building a character I wanted to be immune to death and damage in as many forms as possible and ended up with a persist cleric that layered on spells that made that so. It was while I was looking at combining Diehard and either a Monstrous Regeneration spell or Delay Death that I realized Diehard didn't work. Which makes me very sad, because now I have to figure out an alternate trick or figure out how my group will house rule Diehard into working.

Any suggestions are welcome

[Username17]

What Die Hard should do is to make it so that don't go unconscious when nonlethal damage exceeds your hit points - full stop. Because it is the fact that nonlethal exceeds your hit points that makes you unconscious when you are at negatives, and that's the thing Die Hard is supposedly for. and then Die Hard would make Trolls and shit really scary. Possibly put a cap based on your level or constitution or something.

Edit: You can't Persist Delay Death, it's a touch spell.

-Username17

[Dean]

What Die Hard should do is to make it so that don't go unconscious when nonlethal damage exceeds your hit points - full stop. Because it is the fact that nonlethal exceeds your hit points that makes you unconscious when you are at negatives, and that's the thing Die Hard is supposedly for. and then Die Hard would make Trolls and shit really scary. Possibly put a cap based on your level or constitution or something.

Edit: You can't Persist Delay Death, it's a touch spell.

-Username17

I'm sorry, what would you put a cap on?

And there's a workaround to persist touch spells supposedly. You use the Reach metamagic to make a touch spell a 30 foot ray and then you shoot yourself in the face with it.

[schpeelah]

I'm sorry, what would you put a cap on?

Instead of "you do not go unconscious when nonlethal damage exceeds your hit points", "you go unconscious when nonlethal damage exceeds your hit points by X". Otherwise regenerating creatures do not go down at all unless you kill them.