[RPG] What happens when you bring a creature down to 0 HP entirely by a “Sword of Wounding”, but choose to deal nonlethal damage

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The Situation:

The Sword of Wounding has the following magic effect:

Hit points lost to this weapon's damage can be regained only through a short or long rest, rather than by regeneration, magic, or any other means.
(DMG, p.207)

If you deal nonlethal damage to a creature it you will knock it out.

When an attacker reduces a creature to 0 hit points with a melee attack, the attacker can knock the creature out. The attacker can make this choice the instant the damage is dealt. The creature falls unconscious and is stable. (PHB, p. 198)

Normally that creature will regain 1 hit point after 1d4 hours (PHB, p. 198), but it cannot regain hit points by anything but a rest.

Question:

Is there a way to bring the creature back on its feet?

My first assumption was that you may be able to take a rest while unconscious, but Miniman pointed out a related Question which may answer that.

Is there anything that allows a unconscious creature to take a (short) rest? Or a spell/item which bypasses the effect of the Sword of Wounding?

Best Answer

If we assume that all spells and items at your disposal restore your health by regaining hit points, and we also assume that all the damage dealt to our hypothetical character was dealt by the Sword of Wounding, it would seem that the character is eternally stuck at 0 HP.

However, let us turn to the "Recuperating" downtime activity listed on page 187 of the PHB (emphasis mine):

You can use downtime between adventures to recover from debilitating injury, disease, or poison.

After three days of downtime spent recuperating, you can make a DC 15 Constitution saving throw. On a successful save, you can choose one of the following results:

  • End one effect on you that prevents you from regaining hit points.
  • For the next 24 hours, gain advantage on saving throws against one disease or poison currently affecting you.

So, after 3 days you can make a DC 15 Con save to try and remove the effect of the Sword of Wounding from your character. If you fail, you can try again in another 3 days, provided that your unconscious body is actually allowed to have downtime to recuperate (i.e. left to rest somewhere in a bed, while the rest of the party does their own downtime activities). Once you have made the save, you are both:

  • stable at 0 HP, and
  • able to regain hit points again, meaning that in 1d4 hours you will be back up with 1 hit point (or sooner with potentially more HP if you receive healing).
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