Rule question: Casting a Healing Spell to save yourself

[cynthialee]

My house rule on the matter:
If reduced to 0 HP the character must burn their next action to use a healing potion or spell to save thier life.
If they do not have a potion or spell the Hero is clinicaly dead.
Each time the Heros' turn comes around he looses Another HP.
Once the character has reached -5 HP they are medically dead and there is no helping the Hero.
If Another hero can get to an adjucent square to the dead guy before the hero reaches -5 HP the hero may perhaps be saved via heal spells or potions... if you can heal them past their negatives and get them to at least +1 HP.

[Ethica]

Personally, and for the sake of simplicity I'm with Goblin King on this rule. But we are used to the UK system where 0 means dead and there ain't no coming back (except for perhaps an elixir of life that I would allow and my own ressurection spell). This makes the UK game tougher because your hero becomes at risk of death as soon as you face a monster with enough attack dice to wipe out the rest of your body points. They must have felt that was too harsh and changed it for the USA system where effectively you have no limit to the number of body points your character could draw from for any one turn.

[Daedalus]

@Blackthorn-

As you can see by the responses of this thread, there are a lot of ways this issue can be handled, so the choice is yours. As for me, I'd say you are on the right track when you said that a Hero was most likely to die during Zargon's turn unless a trap or wandering monster did him in. However, I figure the rule of a spellcaster healing himself is generally reserved for just one of those cases, a trap. I think the killing event and casting of the Healing Spell must happen on the dying Hero's turn, and since he couldn't have taken both the Search For Treasure action and Cast A Spell action in the same turn, a wandering monster causing the zero BP condition is out (unless a wandering monster trap was involved in the BQP). As to why I think casting a Healing Spell is limited to just the dying spellcaster's turn, I gotta go grammarian on ya --sorry. I hope it makes sense to you. For clarity, here's the quoted rule again:

2) If you are a spellcaster with a Healing
Spell, and you have not already performed
an action on your turn, you can be
healed by casting the spell on yourself.

Notice the verb tense, which is present perfect (have not already performed). That tense is used for a past event that has happened somewhere at a nospecific time in the past, right up to the present. Used in the clause "...and you have not already performed an action on your turn," that nonspecific time for not performing the event/action is limited to somewhere within the spellcaster's turn. Movement is still possible and probably occured, triggering a trap. The spellcaster's turn is still underway and understood as currently the present. There are no other Hero turns in consideration, as specified by these grammatical limitations.

Thus understood, the later part about potions and spells makes sense:

Important! After your Body Points have
reached zero, you can never be saved by
a fellow Hero's spell or potion. It will be
too late. You will have died by the time
it is your fellow Hero's turn--the only
time when he can cast a spell or give
you a potion.

To have other Hero turns be allowed in this rule, the simple past tense would need to be used. If the clause was changed to "...and you didn't perform an action on your turn," then the past time would specify a previous, known event/turn that is now finished. That would allow the Healing Spell to be cast on later turns in the understood present, which indeed does complicate things and generally make things more ambiguous. The second, Important! note again won't make sense [except that it limits casting a Healing Spell out of turn to the spellcaster only--edit]. Lots of members prefer this flexibility, however. There's a good reason for this, as a game is thought more fun by many groups if death can be avoided more often by a Healing Spell [or a Healing Potion. I may houserule out-of-turn casting myself one day.--edit].

However, how this rule stands by the book more closely resembles the original EU standard of spells not being allowed to be cast on other Hero's turns or Zargon's/Morcar's turn. An after-the-fact Healing Spell will save a spellcaster if he first moves and triggers a trap that would otherwise kill him with 1 or 2 BP of damage. That's all I can see it doing.

There is a further rules exception. I think employing the Wand of Magic artifact should overide the restriction of this rule, as card rules generally trump core rules. A spellcaster could cast a spell, then move and trigger a trap, and finally cast a second Healing Spell with the wand to save his own life.

My pendantic

[Blackthorn]

Thank you for the detailed post, Daedalus. I think your explantion clarifies the original rule very well: a healing spell will only save a hero whose BP reaches zero as a result of a trap, otherwise he would have already perfomed an action on his turn.

[bastianbux]

My take on this confusing rule is that if the Hero has a healing potion, that will save them from death. If the hero is a Wizard and has a healing spell, that can be used to save them, but it will use up their Action. Sounds like most of us play this way?

[chaoticprime]

This has always been crystal to me. If the Spellcaster does not Attack, Cast A Spell or Search on his turn, he can use a Healing Spell to bail himself out if he is critically wounded on Zargon's turn. It does exactly as written. I just do not see any gray area of interpretation. Do I have to make my "Can Vs. Cannot" in Game Theory speech again? A rule that governs all objects of a class by specifying what they can or cannot do, is always in effect, unless there is another ruling clause.

Here is the breakdown of the logic involved with following a measure:

Object - A thing.
Expression and Conditional Expression- The Object's behavior.
Class- All Objects that behave the same.
Exception Class - The reason an Object will behave differently from its Class

"If" - If Conditional Expression is true, evaluate the Expression beginning with "Then."
"Unless" - If Conditional Expression is false, evaluates Expression beginning with "Then."
"While" - Evaluates Expression beginning with "Then" as long as the Conditional Expression remains true.


IF"Hero did not take an action on his turn" AND "It is not the Hero's turn" AND "Hero has been reduced to 0 Body Points" AND "Hero has Healing Spell" is TRUE
THEN "A Hero may only cast a spell on his turn." is FALSE
ELSE"A Hero may only cast a spell on his turn." is TRUE

[bastianbux]

The issue I have with that reasoning, chaoticprime, is that there is almost never a situation (at least in my groups I've played in) where a Wizard has NOT taken some sort of action. What, then, would be the point of tacking on this clarification? It seems to want to say "well, you CAN use a spell to bring you back from death, but that's gonna use up your Action". I mean, if we interpret it the other way, they might as well say: "If you somehow psychically knew that you were about to die and so didn't use an Action (or if you accidentally forgot to use an Action) then you get this bonus ability to suddenly cast a healing spell on yourself" seems a bit weird to me. The other way seems more in spirit with the rules, and more useful.

[chaoticprime]

The issue I have with that reasoning, chaoticprime, is that there is almost never a situation (at least in my groups I've played in) where a Wizard has NOT taken some sort of action. What, then, would be the point of tacking on this clarification? It seems to want to say "well, you CAN use a spell to bring you back from death, but that's gonna use up your Action". I mean, if we interpret it the other way, they might as well say: "If you somehow psychically knew that you were about to die and so didn't use an Action (or if you accidentally forgot to use an Action) then you get this bonus ability to suddenly cast a healing spell on yourself" seems a bit weird to me. The other way seems more in spirit with the rules, and more useful.

Play the game however you want. If you want the "spirit" of the rules to ignore the rules-as-written, that's your call. From what you just wrote here, I can tell I won't be able to explain to you the point, nor why its not a bonus ability manifested through spontaneous precognition, anyway.

[drathe]

The issue I have with that reasoning, chaoticprime, is that there is almost never a situation (at least in my groups I've played in) where a Wizard has NOT taken some sort of action. What, then, would be the point of tacking on this clarification? It seems to want to say "well, you CAN use a spell to bring you back from death, but that's gonna use up your Action".

It's in the rules as such. Page 23 of the American booklet as Daedalus has already quoted above.

2) If you are a spellcaster with a Healing
Spell, and you have not already performed
an action on your turn, you can be
healed by casting the spell on yourself.

I do agree that it's rare the Wizard has not already performed an action. I allow a spellcaster to cast the heal spell regardless. Strange things happen in the face of death. Adrenaline pumps and the body and mind performs miracles. But Zargon your own games as you see fit.

[bastianbux]

My issue with the wording is the "have" rather than "did". "Have" means there's still the possibility in the future to do so. If they meant to say that should your Wizard not have used any actions, THEN he can go ahead and use one now out of turn-- during Zargon's turn--to cast the healing spell... then I would have expected them to word it something like: "If you are a spellcaster with a Healing Spell, and you did not perform an action on your turn, you can be healed by casting the spell on yourself." That not being the case, and the fact that they added in an "already" in there really makes it seem to me like either what Daedalus is asserting is the case (that this is only meant to save spellcasters from dying during traps) or that the wording is just funky and they mean to allow spellcasters to use the healing spell on themselves, which then uses up their next action.

Mostly: Potions of Healing can be used upon death to bring a Hero back to 4BP, so why would they restrict the spell to the Hero's PREVIOUS turn (which has already past) on the happenstance that said Hero did not--for whatever reason--use up an Action during that last turn. Really, it should affect the future turn any way you slice it.

Play the game however you want. If you want the "spirit" of the rules to ignore the rules-as-written, that's your call.

That's obviously not the case. I prefer to adhere to the rules-as-written as much as possible. Which is why I'm hung up on "have" and "already" since both seem to confuse the matter.

From what you just wrote here, I can tell I won't be able to explain to you the point, nor why its not a bonus ability manifested through spontaneous precognition, anyway.

No need to be condescending.