Since my polymorph meme has only garnered three downvotes so far I thought I’d offer a bit more controversial take, and see if I can manage to stir the pot a bit with this one.
Unfortunately:
- half of zero is still zero, and
- since one can’t go below 0HP there’s no HP pool to take health from.
As someone who had to DM more than I’d like, no dice, mate.
You’re still dealing damage, e.g. it could kill you from the massive damage rule if you dealt enough. Vampiric touch counts how much damage you deal, not how much hp the target loses.
Not to mention I’d allow on creativity and rule of cool. I want players like that in my table.
- You take damage that reduces you to 0 Hit Points and fall unconscious
- Contingency triggers and Vampiric Touch takes effect
- Vampiric Touch is lost beacuse you lose concentration on a spell if you are incapacitated
You trigger after you take damage but before you fall unconscious, like numerous other triggers in the game. I just used the Strength Before Death example because it shows even without magic there’s enough time to squeeze a whole ass turn in between those two events.
You trigger after you take damage but before you fall unconscious, like numerous other triggers in the game.
I fail to see how that’s supported by RAW. If damage reduces you to 0 hit points and fails to kill you, you fall unconscious.
The fact that a Fighter subclass gives you an ability to act otherwise doesn’t affect this, any more than you could say you stay conscious at 0 because Zealot Barbarians can do it. You don’t have that ability. You’re unconscious or dead when Vampiric Touch triggers. Vampiric Touch fails.