Augment Healing + Mass Lesser Vigor

[Nifft]

Fast Healing is not like those things. It's not something you can point at. It's not a person, place, or thing. It's an effect of causing healing to happen over many rounds, much like cure light wounds causes an effect (instant healing).

Fast Healing is a thing, specifically a thing called a "Special Ability", and I can point to its entry right here --> http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#fastHealing

Cheers, -- N

 

[Mistwell]

I frankly don't care if you continue to discuss this or not. If you want to understand the possible arguments that can be advanced surrounding these rules better, that's fine; if not, that's fine too. I neither profit nor suffer either way.

I am confused by you going out of your way to make the statement above. Are you or are you not asserting that there is no such thing? It sure seemed like you were earlier. Then you clarified that you didn't mean to assert that, and I took that clarification at face value. Now you want me to prove something you yourself discarded. Are you just trying to argue as much as possible?

See above edit. I think you just misinterpreted my original posts on this topic (though I do not think anyone else read it the way you did). I've always said there can be an indirect healing, but this isn't that. I just gave two examples.

 

[Mistwell]

Fast Healing is a thing, specifically a thing called a "Special Ability", and I can point to its entry right here --> http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#fastHealing

Cheers, -- N

Haha very funny.

It's not a thing in the game. It's a page in a book or a set of text on a URL, but for purposes of the game it's not a person place or thing. Abilities are not things. I have the ability to write fast, but that is not a thing (writing is a verb, not a noun). My fingers are things, and the ink I use to write is a thing and the paper I write on is a thing, but the act of writing itself is not a thing. It's an action.

 

[moritheil]

Fast Healing is not like those things. It's not something you can point at. It's not a person, place, or thing. It's an effect of causing healing to happen over many rounds, much like cure light wounds causes an effect (instant healing).

See my Mineralize example. Mineralize does not grant damage reduction directly, but it does give you a template, and that template includes damage reduction.

There is a spell that grants Scent. Scent allows you to detect enemies that you can't see. And yet I would not say that the spell that grants Scent directly allows you to detect enemies - it only grants you the special ability, and the ability in turn allows you to detect those enemies.

Fast healing is a property (a Special Ability), just as Scent is. It is different from Cure X Wounds. Shall I point out one of the many ways in which it differs?

Fast Healing

A creature with fast healing has the extraordinary ability to regain hit points at an exceptional rate. Except for what is noted here, fast healing is like natural healing.

At the beginning of each of the creature’s turns, it heals a certain number of hit points (defined in its description).

Unlike regeneration, fast healing does not allow a creature to regrow or reattach lost body parts. Unless otherwise stated, it does not allow lost body parts to be reattached.

A creature that has taken both nonlethal and lethal damage heals the nonlethal damage first.

Fast healing does not restore hit points lost from starvation, thirst, or suffocation.

Fast healing does not increase the number of hit points regained when a creature polymorphs.

Let's suppose you have 1 point of nonlethal damage and 10 points of lethal damage.

If fast healing 1 works on you for two rounds, you have been healed of 1 point of nonlethal damage and 1 point of lethal damage.

If a cure spell heals you for 2 hit points, you will have been healed of all nonlethal damage and 2 points of lethal damage.

 

[moritheil]

It's not a thing in the game. It's a page in a book or a set of text on a URL, but for purposes of the game it's not a person place or thing. Abilities are not things. I have the ability to write fast, but that is not a thing (writing is a verb, not a noun). My fingers are things, and the ink I use to write is a thing and the paper I write on is a thing, but the act of writing itself is not a thing. It's an action.

Why does it have to be a thing in order to remove direct action? It seems to me that's a pretty big assumption you're making. I don't see why it should have to be "a person, place, or thing" to heal you. A spell isn't a person, place or thing either; it's a bundle of abstract metaphysical energy that does not necessarily have any physical being.

Fast healing isn't a thing either, under your criteria, but it typically signifies some sort of superior physiology or connection to the positive energy plane (negative energy, for vampires) - and it can heal you.

If fast healing can't heal you because it has no physical being, then how can a spell (which has no physical being either, being just disembodied magical energy) heal you? The implication I draw from this is that it is not necessarily for something to have physical being to be responsible for healing you.

 

[jaelis]

Mistwell, I'm not following your logic very well either. Lesser vigor says "The subject gains fast healing 1, enabling it to heal 1 hit point per round until the spell ends..."

"Fast healing 1" is a defined special ability, like damage reduction or incorporeality. The spell says it gives the target that ability. It then specifically states that the fast healing ability enables the healing, thus by implication not the spell itself.

Can you explain why you think this is different from, say, a "hydraform" spell that turned you into a hydra and granted you its Ex special qualities?

 

[MithrasRahl]

I'd just like to point out as the OP that I'm not arguing this whole "Fast healing counts as a direct heal" - I agree with the opposing view.

However, I don't think that argument is relevant here. Regardless of how it heals, I think the wording also implies that total non-healing spells also heal damage if they are Conjuration [Healing] spells.

If you want to look at it "logically", one could argue that when you're removing a disease, you're so good at being a healer that you repair some of the damage that the disease caused while curing the disease.

I think the point is that if it's a magic spell that is healing some aspect of you (which is why they are called Conjuration [Healing]), then augment healing allows the Caster to augment the healing power of the spell to also cure damage.

 

[moritheil]

I'd just like to point out as the OP that I'm not arguing this whole "Fast healing counts as a direct heal" - I agree with the opposing view.

However, I don't think that argument is relevant here. Regardless of how it heals, I think the wording also implies that total non-healing spells also heal damage if they are Conjuration [Healing] spells.

If you want to look at it "logically", one could argue that when you're removing a disease, you're so good at being a healer that you repair some of the damage that the disease caused while curing the disease.

I think the point is that if it's a magic spell that is healing some aspect of you (which is why they are called Conjuration [Healing]), then augment healing allows the Caster to augment the healing power of the spell to also cure damage.

Rather than that, I would say you are able to pull some residual energy over from the spell you are casting and use it to heal the target a bit. After all, you could be curing paralysis or something that didn't actually deal any damage - but under that ruling you could still heal the target.

 

[Mistwell]

Mistwell, I'm not following your logic very well either. Lesser vigor says "The subject gains fast healing 1, enabling it to heal 1 hit point per round until the spell ends..."

"Fast healing 1" is a defined special ability, like damage reduction or incorporeality. The spell says it gives the target that ability. It then specifically states that the fast healing ability enables the healing, thus by implication not the spell itself.

Can you explain why you think this is different from, say, a "hydraform" spell that turned you into a hydra and granted you its Ex special qualities?

People give lots of analogies about other spells and abilities which demonstrate in their minds something which is indirect in nature.

If you argue by analogy you have to show that those analogies are actually similar in nature to the thing you are comparing it to.

In this case, none of the analogies actually resemble the thing you are comparing it to. All the analogies are actual independent nouns in themselves, independent things outside the spell itself. A creature, a place, an object. If all the analogies are fundamentally different than the issue you are comparing it to (Fast Healing) it's good evidence that your analogy is a bad one. And I didn't like arguing by analogy when we have rules text available, but lots of other folks seemed to want to so I engaged in demonstrating why they were bad analogies.

Damage reduction or incorporeality spells are in fact similar to a spell that has a fast healing effect. They are not indirect independent things from the spell that grants them.

If you turned yourself into a creature that also happened to have damage reduction, that would be an example of an indirect damage reduction effect. Much like if you summoned a creature that can cast Vigor, that would be an indirect healing effect.

But if you cast a spell that gives you Damage Reduction, that is a direct Damage Reduction spell. If there were a feat that said "If you cast a spell that increases your damage reduction, add +1 to the damage reduction you receive", then that feat would apply to the Damage Reduction spell. It's quite similar to a spell that gives you Fast Healing. Damage Reduction, Incorporeality, and Fast Healing are all part and parcel of something else. They are not themselves independent intervening things.

 

[jaelis]

If you turned yourself into a creature that also happened to have damage reduction, that would be an example of an indirect damage reduction effect. Much like if you summoned a creature that can cast Vigor, that would be an indirect healing effect.

But if you cast a spell that gives you Damage Reduction, that is a direct Damage Reduction spell. If there were a feat that said "If you cast a spell that increases your damage reduction, add +1 to the damage reduction you receive", then that feat would apply to the Damage Reduction spell. It's quite similar to a spell that gives you Fast Healing. Damage Reduction, Incorporeality, and Fast Healing are all part and parcel of something else. They are not themselves independent intervening things.

The thing is, I think I 90% agree with everything you wrote here. And I would conclude that if there were a feat that said "If you cast a spell that increases your fast healing, add +1 to the fast healing you receive," then it surely would work with the vigor spells.

But that's not what augment healing says.

Edit - OK, I don't know if I agree with "They are not themselves independent intervening things." That really depends on what you mean by "things" and on your ontological leanings. I would definitely say that they are game-defined terms and when I say that a creature has fast healing 1 or that a creature is incorporeal, I'm referencing a specific, well-defined rule.