Fast Healing and Regeneration

[the Jester]

If a monster had, say, regeneration 5 and fast healing 5 (to heal the real damage), would you think it deserved a higher CR than something with just fast healing or regeneration 10?

It'd be tricky to figure out the thing's vulnerabilities- it would take divination, dumb luck or prior knowledge...

('m planning on making one for an upcoming monster book, y'know.)

 

[LokiDR]

First, this belongs in House Rules, unless this book is already published

Next, I would call regen 10 better than fast heal 10 and that is better than fast heal 5-regen 5. The two abilites together would just get to be a pain to adjudicate. If you want that effect, give them regen and a spell-like of a curing spell.

 

[the Jester]

Err... why should this be in house rules? I'm just wondering about application of the current rules.

The advantage to a creature with FH 5 and regen 5 over regen 10 is that they continue healing the damage that gets past their regeneration. The advantage over a creature with just fast healing 10 is that some (probably most) damage is converted to subdual, making it very difficult to kill the thing.

Let's take a big ol' nasty troll, and instead of regen 5 let's give him regen 3 and FH 2...

Troll (63 hp) gets whacked by a greatsword (15 hp) and nailed by a fireball (30 hp), then flees to recover (or eliminates the enemy). Now said troll has 33 hp and has taken 15 points of subdual.

Standard troll, 3 rounds later: 33 hp, no subdual damage taken.

Our troll, 3 rounds later: same (fast healing eliminates subdual first).

Standard troll, 10 rounds after the fight instead of 3: 33 hp, no subdual damage taken. He has to heal that fire damage slowly, over the course of a couple of days.

Our troll, 10 rounds after the fight: 47 hp, no subdual damage; and he'll be fine shortly.

Modify the fast healing so it ONLY affects real damage, and after 3 rounds our troll is instead at 39 hp, with 6 points of subdual damage. In ten rounds, he's at 53 hp, with no subdual.

The problems with just giving spell-like abilities that heal is that it takes an action to use, and once you're unconscious, you're out of luck.

 

[Hypersmurf]

If you allow them to stack, then Regeneration 1 / Fast Healing X is significantly more powerful than Regneration (1 + X).

I'd be inclined to treat them like Protection from Elements/Elemental Resistance - for the purpose of healing subdual damage, they overlap.

If a creature with R5/FH5 has 12 points of subdual damage and 6 points of hit point damage, then in round 1, Regen and Fast Healing both cure 5 points of subdual damage... but they both cure the same 5 points.



So:

Round 0: 12/6
Round 1: 7/6 (Both cure 5 points of subdual)
Round 2: 2/6 (Both cure 5 points of subdual)
Round 3: 0/3 (Regen cures 2 points of subdual; FH cures 2 points of subdual and 3 hit points)
Round 4: 0/0 (No Regen, FH cures 3 hit points.)

Obviously, in this case, 4 points of Regeneration are wasted. All you need is 1 point of Regeneration to convert all damage (except for certain types) to subdual damage. But if you had Regeneration 5/Fast Healing 2, then both would contribute under different circumstances. When you took lots of subdual damage, the regeneration would be more important. But when you took hit point damage, the Fast Healing would kick in (albeit more slowly).

-Hyp.

 

[AuraSeer]

The latest Dragon explains how the abilities interact. In short, they both work normally, and the effects do stack.

 

[the Jester]

The latest Dragon explains how the abilities interact. In short, they both work normally, and the effects do stack.

Well! Timely, innit??