Does Heal "remove" ability damage?

[Nail]

Hello!

Last session, we encountered a sick dragon that had taken ability damage. My Clr cast Heal on it. My DM questioned whether or not the spell removed the ability damage.

Check out the description:

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, ......(snip)...

The highlighted text: Couldn't this mean the ability damage stops....but is not removed? IOW, the source can no longer cause ability damage, but the ability damage itself stays.....

Weird.

(Even weirder: the published adventure write-up said "only Remove Disease has any effect on the dragon's sickness....." ??? ???? This is a 3.5e adventure, made for 18th level PCs........and the writers think the PCs won't have access to more powerful magics?)

 

[Nail]

For the record.......I convinced our DM that the ability damage is removed.

 

[seans23]

You snipped a little early. Included among the adverse conditions removed is "diseased"

So heal removes disease.

 

[darthkilmor]

SRD:

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.

Its not entirely clear if the damage is healed or if the condition dealing the damage is healed.
But since heal explicitily lists the things it Doesn't fix, and ability dmg isnt listed there, you could Infer that ability dmg is healed.

 

[Nail]

@ seans23: But....be a bit careful.

It "ends" the condition called "diseased". Does that mean the effects of the disease are "removed"?

I *could* (if pressed), see how a disease could be removed, but the effects it had previously staying. Take, for example, breast cancer in RL.

 

[FEADIN]

Hello!

Last session, we encountered a sick dragon that had taken ability damage. My Clr cast Heal on it. My DM questioned whether or not the spell removed the ability damage.

Check out the description:

The highlighted text: Couldn't this mean the ability damage stops....but is not removed? IOW, the source can no longer cause ability damage, but the ability damage itself stays.....

Weird.

(Even weirder: the published adventure write-up said "only Remove Disease has any effect on the dragon's sickness....." ??? ???? This is a 3.5e adventure, made for 18th level PCs........and the writers think the PCs won't have access to more powerful magics?)

Yes it works, the important word is"affecting", if you lost ability points you are "affected".

 

[Infiniti2000]

I *could* (if pressed), see how a disease could be removed, but the effects it had previously staying.

But it also ends the "ability damage" adverse condition. If the ability damage (all of it, from all stats) is not 'cured' what else could it possibly mean?

 

[Liquidsabre]

The DMG lists Ability Damage as a condition. Heal removes the Ability Damage condition. The dragon gets it's ability score restored. No ways around that one that I can see.

Just realize there are other conditions that the Heal spell do not fix such as Ability Drain and penalities to an ability score due to a spell not on the list under Heal for example. There is an important distinction there. It just sounds like the adventure made a bit of a goof there really.

Looking up Remove Disease however we see that the spell also kills parasites and such as well which the Heal spell does not. Maybe the dragon literally just had a bug instead and didn't have Ability Damage but an Ability Penalty due to the condition (parasite-infested disease) which isn't removed by the Heal spell but IS removed by the Remove Disease spell.

 

[darthkilmor]

The DMG lists Ability Damage as a condition. Heal removes the Ability Damage condition. The dragon gets it's ability score restored. No ways around that one that I can see.

I dont see how its clear at all:

SRD: Ability damage is different from penalties to ability scores, which go away when the conditions causing them go away.

It DOESN'T say that ability damage goes away when what causes it goes away. In fact, it specifically says you heal 1 point a day. If a disease caused 12 points of str dmg, and you cure the disease, you STILL have 12 points of str dmg to cure over 12 days or by some other means. Whether Heal does that is up for debate.

 

[Len]

It DOESN'T say that ability damage goes away when what causes it goes away.

I don't know what it is you're reading, but here's what Heal does:

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 DOES say very clearly that it heals both the disease and the ability damage. Once they're gone, what's left?