Does Heal "remove" ability damage?

[Nail]

No, Len -- not quite. It says it ends ability damage. It does not say it heals them.

Look, I know it's just a silly little parsing problem.

 

[Nail]

Looking up Remove Disease however we see that the spell also kills parasites .....

True!

The adventure (IIRC) said that it was a magical disease; no mention of parasites. "Dragon CHills Fever", or some such. I'm a player, so I didn't read the text myself.....the DM just read us a bit after we cast Heal, etc.

 

[Vysires]

Ability damage is a condition.

Best way to look at it is the fact that ability damage is a condition. Like say blindness. A character might have a condition 'Str damage 4'. Heal removes that condition. Without the condition what is lowering the stat? It's like saying that removing the blindness condition doesnt state that it makes you see. The thing that was causing the negative or penatly is no longer there. So the negative or penalty is also no longer there.

 

[Fieari]

Seems to me, by the way the rules were written, that it -says- that ability damage is, as you put it, like cancer, in that removing the cancer doesn't necessarily remove the bad effects of cancer. Due to the fact that the heal spell doesn't remind you of this, I'd suspect that the author of the heal spell forgot this as well and thought that removing the condition would also heal the damage, but as I see it, the RAW says otherwise.

It's weird, but from what was quoted, that seems to be what it says. Presumably, what heal does is get rid of any persistant effects keeping you at a minus eight penalty to strength or whatever, which then allows you to heal naturally.

 

[green slime]

I'm in the cure-all camp.

 

[Len]

Look, I know it's just a silly little parsing problem.

I agree that it's silly.

 

[Teemu]

Heal enables you to channel positive energy into a creature to wipe away injury and afflictions. It immediately ends any and all of the following adverse conditions affecting the Target: ability damage, blinded, confused, dazed, dazzled, deafened, diseased, exhausted, fatigued, feebleminded, insanity, nauseated, sickened, stunned, and poisoned. It also cures 10 hit points of damage per level of the caster, to a maximum of 150 points at 15th level.

Then:

Ability Damaged

The character has temporarily lost 1 or more ability score points. Lost points return at a rate of 1 per day unless noted otherwise by the condition dealing the damage. A character with Strength 0 falls to the ground and is helpless. A character with Dexterity 0 is paralyzed. A character with Constitution 0 is dead. A character with Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma 0 is unconscious. Ability damage is different from penalties to ability scores, which go away when the conditions causing them go away.

So, the heal spell removes the adverse condition of 'ability damage[d]'. Thus, when the spell is applied, you are no longer ability damaged, i.e. you no longer suffer the damage to your abilities, i.e. you're cured of your ability damage.

The heal spell heals your ability damage.