Augment Healing + Mass Lesser Vigor
- Thread starter MithrasRahl
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azhrei_fje
First Post
This is an amusing thread. 
I just looked through a bunch of spells that grant special abilities (blindsight, body of the sun, stoneskin, others) and none of them are Conjuration [Healing]. Most are transmutation, or in the case of stoneskin, abjuration.
To me, the wording of the feat is ambiguous enough to denote that all Conjuration [Healing] spells obtain the bonus of 2 hp/level, even if the starting condition was that they healed 0 hp. If nothing else, it certainly simplifies future rulings, which IMO is a good thing.
There has been a lot of discussion back and forth on this but mostly by the same people. I'd be curious to see a poll that asked GMs which way they would rule on it. It would be nice to know "why" they ruled that way, but that's not as important to me as just "how" they would rule. I know how'd I'd vote.
I just looked through a bunch of spells that grant special abilities (blindsight, body of the sun, stoneskin, others) and none of them are Conjuration [Healing]. Most are transmutation, or in the case of stoneskin, abjuration.
To me, the wording of the feat is ambiguous enough to denote that all Conjuration [Healing] spells obtain the bonus of 2 hp/level, even if the starting condition was that they healed 0 hp. If nothing else, it certainly simplifies future rulings, which IMO is a good thing.
There has been a lot of discussion back and forth on this but mostly by the same people. I'd be curious to see a poll that asked GMs which way they would rule on it. It would be nice to know "why" they ruled that way, but that's not as important to me as just "how" they would rule. I know how'd I'd vote.
Twowolves
Explorer
Alter Self: Is it a flying spell? No, it is a shapechanging spell. Can you grow wings with Alter Self? Yes. Can you fly with those wings? Yes (assuming there are winged elves or some other flying humanoid race in your game).
All of which is moot, when the feat quite clearly states that it adds healing to any Conjuration [Healing] spell, even if the spell doesn't normally heal damage. It's what the feat says, it's what the FAQ says (and I'm no fan of the FAQ), it's what the feat does. *shrug*
All of which is moot, when the feat quite clearly states that it adds healing to any Conjuration [Healing] spell, even if the spell doesn't normally heal damage. It's what the feat says, it's what the FAQ says (and I'm no fan of the FAQ), it's what the feat does. *shrug*
Drowbane
First Post
This actually came up tonight at game. I ruled that Augment Healing would add some minor healing to a Conjuration [healing] spell that didn't "directly heal" (such as a Heal over Time... vigor or Remove Blindness).
Its a groovy feat, but hardly borken. Clerics shouldn't be smacked down for wanting to heal more effectively.
edit: and I'm ok with the possibility that the RAW disagrees with me. Thats why we have a DM at the table.
Its a groovy feat, but hardly borken. Clerics shouldn't be smacked down for wanting to heal more effectively.
edit: and I'm ok with the possibility that the RAW disagrees with me. Thats why we have a DM at the table.
Last edited:
akbearfoot
First Post
Hrmm ok. I was under the impression that fast healing shut down when you went into negative hps....but apparently I may be wrong. Our gaming group has always played it that way because thats the way we thought it worked..
Maybe because we understood it that you no longer heal at your 'normal' rate while you are considered to be 'dying', which would preclude fast healing. Even if you heal 1hp per round naturally, you still would default to the rules for ' death and dying' since natural healing says you do. Which only let you heal like 1hp per day.
Am I wrong with that logic?
Maybe because we understood it that you no longer heal at your 'normal' rate while you are considered to be 'dying', which would preclude fast healing. Even if you heal 1hp per round naturally, you still would default to the rules for ' death and dying' since natural healing says you do. Which only let you heal like 1hp per day.
Am I wrong with that logic?
Hypersmurf
Moderatarrrrh...
We know that:
Except where noted here, fast healing is just like natural healing.
We know that:
Recovering without Help: A severely wounded character left alone usually dies. He has a small chance, however, of recovering on his own.
A character who becomes stable on his own (by making the 10% roll while dying) and who has no one to tend to him still loses hit points, just at a slower rate. He has a 10% chance each hour of becoming conscious. Each time he misses his hourly roll to become conscious, he loses 1 hit point. He also does not recover hit points through natural healing.
Even once he becomes conscious and is disabled, an unaided character still does not recover hit points naturally. Instead, each day he has a 10% chance to start recovering hit points naturally (starting with that day); otherwise, he loses 1 hit point.
Once an unaided character starts recovering hit points naturally, he is no longer in danger of naturally losing hit points (even if his current hit point total is negative).
So we know that a character who becomes stable on his own (by making the 10% roll while dying) does not recover hit points through natural healing, and therefore does not recover hit points through fast healing.
However, we also know that a character who stabilises due to gaining a point from fast healing is not "a character who becomes stable on his own (by making the 10% roll while dying)", and is thus not prohibited from recovering hit points through natural (and thus fast) healing.
Since fast healing grants you hit points 'at the beginning of your turn', and the stabilisation roll is made 'on your turn', Fast Healing will stabilise you before you attempt the stabilisation roll, so you should in theory never be "a character who becomes stable on his own (by making the 10% roll while dying)", and thus will not be prevented from Fast Healing working.
On the other hand, if you're unconscious and dying, and you make your stabilisation roll so you're stable at, say, -6, and then the Cleric casts Mass Lesser Vigor, you won't regain any hit point - you're "a character who becomes stable on his own (by making the 10% roll while dying)", and thus cannot heal naturally, and thus cannot benefit from Fast Healing.
-Hyp.
Except where noted here, fast healing is just like natural healing.
We know that:
Recovering without Help: A severely wounded character left alone usually dies. He has a small chance, however, of recovering on his own.
A character who becomes stable on his own (by making the 10% roll while dying) and who has no one to tend to him still loses hit points, just at a slower rate. He has a 10% chance each hour of becoming conscious. Each time he misses his hourly roll to become conscious, he loses 1 hit point. He also does not recover hit points through natural healing.
Even once he becomes conscious and is disabled, an unaided character still does not recover hit points naturally. Instead, each day he has a 10% chance to start recovering hit points naturally (starting with that day); otherwise, he loses 1 hit point.
Once an unaided character starts recovering hit points naturally, he is no longer in danger of naturally losing hit points (even if his current hit point total is negative).
So we know that a character who becomes stable on his own (by making the 10% roll while dying) does not recover hit points through natural healing, and therefore does not recover hit points through fast healing.
However, we also know that a character who stabilises due to gaining a point from fast healing is not "a character who becomes stable on his own (by making the 10% roll while dying)", and is thus not prohibited from recovering hit points through natural (and thus fast) healing.
Since fast healing grants you hit points 'at the beginning of your turn', and the stabilisation roll is made 'on your turn', Fast Healing will stabilise you before you attempt the stabilisation roll, so you should in theory never be "a character who becomes stable on his own (by making the 10% roll while dying)", and thus will not be prevented from Fast Healing working.
On the other hand, if you're unconscious and dying, and you make your stabilisation roll so you're stable at, say, -6, and then the Cleric casts Mass Lesser Vigor, you won't regain any hit point - you're "a character who becomes stable on his own (by making the 10% roll while dying)", and thus cannot heal naturally, and thus cannot benefit from Fast Healing.
-Hyp.
Nifft
Penguin Herder
It often does, but not because of any inherent property of Fast Healing -- rather, because such a condition is often called out in the monster's entry. For example:akbearfoot said:
This is an additional restriction placed on the specific Fast Healing possessed by vampires, and not an inherent limitation of Fast Healing.SRD said:
Cheers, -- N
azhrei_fje
First Post
I'm sorry but I can't abide by this ruling. I do agree, Hyp, that your logic is quite solid. But somehow I don't think that logic should apply in this situation. Its magic, after all.Hypersmurf said:
I prefer to believe that the designers just didn't think through all of the possible combinations of special abilities, natural abilities, spell effects, and just dumb luck so I have no problem overriding the rules with Rule 0 in this case.
eamon
Explorer
In the spirit of "fast healing only works when natural healing would", I simply stop fast healing when you drop below 0. It's never happened in game that someone's natural healing has restarting by itself when below 0, but if that were to occur, I'd restart it.azhrei_fje said:I'm sorry but I can't abide by this ruling. I do agree, Hyp, that your logic is quite solid. But somehow I don't think that logic should apply in this situation. Its magic, after all.
Jhaelen said:
If you look at the various cases in which it is possible to add a modifier where no existing value exists the spell always states that the subject or object is treated as having zero. Refer to Barkskin or Magic Vestments.
Barkskin - "Barkskin toughens a creature’s skin. The effect grants a +2 enhancement bonus to the creature’s existing natural armor bonus. This enhancement bonus increases by 1 for every three caster levels above 3rd, to a maximum of +5 at caster level 12th.
The enhancement bonus provided by barkskin stacks with the target’s natural armor bonus, but not with other enhancement bonuses to natural armor. A creature without natural armor has an effective natural armor bonus of +0."
Magic Vestment - "You imbue a suit of armor or a shield with an enhancement bonus of +1 per four caster levels (maximum +5 at 20th level).
An outfit of regular clothing counts as armor that grants no AC bonus for the purpose of this spell."
Given that these spells set precedence for exclusions being written into the spell, it can be assumed that if a spell does not include an exclusion the value is - instead of 0. With this being the case, the feat would have the same effect on vigor (or similar spell) the same way bear's endurance has on undead.
Remember this is RaW which can always be overruled by the DM.
Rant:
On a separate note, after having to live with the FAQ in the RPGA for years, I have acquired a well develop hatred for the document, and it should never be used in rules discussions. As a document, it has too many errors, contradictions, and added rules (FAQs are suppose to clarify rules not add them) to have any of it taken seriously. It is better to discuss it with a group of people familar with the system and the tenants of logical arguments.
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