Does Hide Life Stack?

[JNAProductions]

Let's say I cast Hide Life, cut off my pinky, Regenerate it, repeat. Does an enemy have to destroy EVERY SINGLE severed digit, or only the last one?

[Venger]

yeah, it does. they'd need to destroy every part.

[Fizban]

The spell is clearly phrased as hiding "your life force" (not a piece), inside a single piece of your body, not multiple. Casting the spell a second time should either be impossible or require the presence of the last receptacle, and would still result in only a single hidden life.

Note that the spell contradicts itself and requires interpretation: first it says that if you would be dead, you are instead staggered, but once it starts describing the exact mechanics it says that "If you would otherwise be dead, you cannot benefit from healing and simply fall down dead if the spell is ended." So you can't die from hp damage, but if your hp falls to -10 or below you can't benefit from healing and are staggered forever.

[Venger]

The spell is clearly phrased as hiding "your life force" (not a piece), inside a single piece of your body, not multiple. Casting the spell a second time should either be impossible or require the presence of the last receptacle, and would still result in only a single hidden life.

Note that the spell contradicts itself and requires interpretation: first it says that if you would be dead, you are instead staggered, but once it starts describing the exact mechanics it says that "If you would otherwise be dead, you cannot benefit from healing and simply fall down dead if the spell is ended." So you can't die from hp damage, but if your hp falls to -10 or below you can't benefit from healing and are staggered forever.

The first sentence is fluff and doesn't have any mechanics in it. "Life force" is not a real game term, so that part doesn't have any effect on how the spell works. It doesn't preclude casting the spell more than once.

The spell doesn't contradict itself, but it is worded confusingly because the important information is laid out in the wrong order.

What "If you would otherwise be dead, you cannot benefit from healing and simply fall down dead if the spell is ended." means isn't "if your HP is reduced to -11 or lower, you just die anyway." what it means is if you're zapped by slay living or something which kills by means other than depleting your hit points then that is not considered to just set your HP to -10, you just ignore the effect entirely, but you make a note in case someone destroys your body part and if they do so, then you die.

If you're just put to -11 or lower hp, then you can be healed normally but you just add the hp back on, like when you're under the effects of delay death. once you're up to at least 1hp (and not dying or disabled) then you aren't staggered anymore.

[Zombimode]

The first sentence is fluff and doesn't have any mechanics in it. "Life force" is not a real game term, so that part doesn't have any effect on how the spell works. It doesn't preclude casting the spell more than once.

I don't think the distinction of "fluff" and "crunch" is not as strong as you believe. D&D is not MTG. The spell description tells you what the spell does. In many cases some parts of the effect need to be translated into a formal game language. But a spells effect is not limited to the formal language. If a spell description tells you that the spell hides your life force in one piece of your Body, it will do that. Ignoring that because it was not written in a formal game language is just being ignorant.

[Venger]

I don't think the distinction of "fluff" and "crunch" is not as strong as you believe. D&D is not MTG. The spell description tells you what the spell does. In many cases some parts of the effect need to be translated into a formal game language. But a spells effect is not limited to the formal language. If a spell description tells you that the spell hides your life force in one piece of your Body, it will do that. Ignoring that because it was not written in a formal game language is just being ignorant.

Life force is not an actual game term like hit points, HD, etc.

[JNAProductions]

In addition, I can see an argument being made that your life force is then simply split amongst the various fingers, or that when one finger is destroyed, it goes to another (or your main body, if no fingers remain).

[Venger]

In addition, I can see an argument being made that your life force is then simply split amongst the various fingers, or that when one finger is destroyed, it goes to another (or your main body, if no fingers remain).

Sure, that makes sense.

Assuming you're not obviating the xp cost somehow, if you want to cast this spell a bunch of times, 5k seems like a pretty good balancing factor to keep a player from getting too nuts with it.