[CONAN] Fighting Madness Question

[Supplement Four]

You've got a 2nd level Barbarian with 17 hit points, and you go into Fighting Madness. FM gives you +4 HP, for a total of 21 HP for the duration.

You get into a fight and take 19 HP damage, leaving you 2 HP. But, you win the combat. Then, your Fighting Madness runs its course.

Do you know take 4 HP of damage? The Feat seems to read like you do.

If so, why weren't those bonus HP the first HP to go?

 

[Pascalahad]

Because they're not bonus HP, they are there because the CON increazes temporarily because of the Fighting Madness. The guy's dying but his body doesn't know it yet!

 

[Spectator]

They should be freebie HPs, since HPs are so very unconnected with health.

 

[Mach5RR]

You've got a 2nd level Barbarian with 17 hit points, and you go into Fighting Madness. FM gives you +4 HP, for a total of 21 HP for the duration.

You get into a fight and take 19 HP damage, leaving you 2 HP. But, you win the combat. Then, your Fighting Madness runs its course.

Do you know take 4 HP of damage? The Feat seems to read like you do.

If so, why weren't those bonus HP the first HP to go?

P. 192 tries to explain it a bit more (Temporary Hit Points vs Increases in Constitution)

Think of it this way.

You have a 2nd level character 21 hp reduced to 2 hp during a fight. He takes 4 pts of CON damage from a poison. Do you take the 4hp reduction from the top (ones he's already lost) or from the bottom (ones he hasn't).

The point is CON loss is CON loss, whether because of poison, the use of a feat (rending grasp), or the end use of a feat, and thats supposed to be a bad thing.

Now, your barbarian has some options (though it is fun to watch them keel over after a fight):

Spend a fate chip - Left For Dead can be used when CON loss pushes your hit points below -9 (Heck LFD actually works when CON loss reaches 0 and would kill you)

First Aid - Kinda fuzzy on this one as it's meant for stabilizing hit point loss. Which works out fine for your 2nd level barbarian (as someone can easily stabilize him at -2. But what happens when an 8th level barbarian gets reduced to 2 hp and is about to come out of fighting madness? He's going to lose 16hp, which will drop him to -14, and killing him. You could allow a first aid stabilization check, to either keep them at their current hit points or to stabilize him at -9 (or you could play it hardball and just let him die - the rules back you if you want to go the tough route)

Golden Wine of Xuthal

 

[Jeraa]

With Conan being based on the d20 system, something from the 3.5 Dungeons and Dragons FAQ can still apply:

When a character takes Constitution damage (such as from a wyvern’s poison) and his Con modifier changes, what happens to his hit points? Does it simply lower his maximum hp, or does it reduce his current hit points too?
A character whose Constitution modifier changes adjusts both his current and full normal (maximum) hit point totals accordingly. Remember that your full normal hit point total can’t be less than 1 per level (since even a Con penalty can’t reduce your Hit Die roll to less than 1). An injured character who takes Constitution damage can be reduced to 0 or fewer hit points.

It was specifically for Constitution damage, but any change to constitution would work the same. Your Constitution dropping while you are already injured can kill you if you hit points are low enough, and the drop significant enough.

Or like Mach5RR said, page 192 of the 2nd edition book, where it mentions increasing constitution score and hitpoints. The hit points gained from Fighting Madness are not considered temporary hit points, they come from the increased constitution.

 

[Cheomesh]

I always figured that after the rage goes away, you'll go down to your normal HP but the total damage will remain. If you have 21, lose 15, fly into a rage, gain 4 then lose 9, when you come down you're at -3, not 1. (21-15 = 6, 6+4 = 10, 10-9 = 1, 1-4 = -3).

You hew at the beast, driving your broad-bladed Akbitanian sword deep into it's skull. Reeling from the force of such a rending blow, it collapses to the floor in a heap, blood and brains spilling out upon the floor. Exhausted and bleeding freely from many of the wounds he gave you, you slowly feel your strength begin to ebb - the world goes dark about you as your legs give out and you fall to the ground unconscious.

M.