Fast Healing

[Light Knight]

"Natural healing" won't autostabilize you and there is nothing in the description of fast healing that states it works differently than natural healing for stabalization purposes. You get to make a 10% check to stabalize or lose an additional hit point.

So no it won't, at least as written in the SRD.

Maybe not, however if you have fast healing 2, you still wont die. If you get knocked to -5 one round, the next round if you dont stabilize you will be -4, and gain 1 hp a round.

 

[irdeggman]

Fast Healing is like Natural Healing except as noted.
Except as noted includes "At the beginning of each of the creature’s turns, it heals a certain number of hit points (defined in its description)."
The Dying condition effects Natural Healing, and to a lesser extent, Fast Healing, but not the "except as noted" points of Fast Healing, and therefore would not interfere with the previous quote. The previous quote would then unarguably still apply and act as normal.

Actually

The text "At the beginning of each of the creature's turns.. ." does not appear in the MM, it does appear in the DMG and it appears in the SRD.

The MM is supposed to be the overall authority document when on Fast Healing (a monster ability) and is the official rules source when conflicts arise (like here).

Now looking at the Rules Compendium pg 74 (which is supposed to be "the rules authority" it does not contain that statement either.

So per a strict reading of the rules that is not part of the "except as noted here"

 

[frankthedm]

I really, really wish the designers would have had a more coherent and less shot-gun blast approach to rules interactions and limitations. One of the reasons I've grown to dislike these rules is the fact that every ruling requires you to check 4 or more (widely separated) parts of the rules.

Yeah, lots of little things.

• Incorporeal & invisible creatures are immune to Favored Enemy bonus damage.
• Closest square to a location is determined randomly.
• Negative levels also give the target -5 HP.
• You could overrun an ally to charge a foe before the errata caught that.
• Flying mounts are limited to light barding in addition to a light load.
• Combat maneuvers that involve "free actions" can't be completed on AoOs & Readies

 

[Pergentile]

I will re-phrase:

Except as noted here, Fast Healing is just like Natural Healing.
Except as noted includes "A creature with the fast healing special quality regains hit points at an exceptionally fast rate, usually 1 or more hit points per round, as given in the creature’s entry"The Dying condition effects Natural Healing, and to a lesser extent, Fast Healing, but not the "except as noted" points of Fast Healing, and therefore would not interfere with the previous quote. The previous quote would then unarguably still apply and act as normal, which would include stabilization.

Better?

 

[irdeggman]

I will re-phrase:

Except as noted here, Fast Healing is just like Natural Healing.
Except as noted includes "A creature with the fast healing special quality regains hit points at an exceptionally fast rate, usually 1 or more hit points per round, as given in the creature’s entry"The Dying condition effects Natural Healing, and to a lesser extent, Fast Healing, but not the "except as noted" points of Fast Healing, and therefore would not interfere with the previous quote. The previous quote would then unarguably still apply and act as normal, which would include stabilization.

Better?

Except that the quote given is not the most recent and threfore official rules.

The text in the Rules Compendium (pg 74) does not include

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


Which is the text that allows it to work for stabalization.

The text under "Recovering without help" also in the Rules Compendium (pg 74)

"A creature that becomes stable on its own (by making the 10% roll while dying) and that has no one to tend toit still loses hit points, just at a slower rate. It has a 10% chance each hour of becoming conscious. Each time it fails this hourly roll to become conscious, it loses 1 hit point and doesn't recover hit points through natural healing.

Once it becomes conscious and disable, an unaided creature still doesn't heal naturally. Instead, each day it has a 10% chance to start healing naturally (starting with the day it becomes consious). Otherwise, it loses 1 hit point. Once an unaided creature starts recovering hit points naturally, it's no longer in danger of losing hit points in this way."

So it mnakes stabalization roll (10%) first day to prevent losing a hit points on an hourly basisis until it makes it.

Then it makes another 10% roll each day - starting with that day to see if it can heal naturally.

So no "auto stablize" here for fast healing, still requires the 2 10% rolls before it "kicks in"..

 

[ValhallaGH]

Sorry irdeggman, I've got to spread the love before I can share more with you. But thanks for nailing it all down.

 

[Pergentile]

Uh... read it again there, Irdeggman, as the Fast Healing description in Rules Compendium DOES have "Creatures that have fast healing have the extraordinary ability to regain hit points at an exceptional rate, usually 1 or more hit points per round."

I dislike how you are making untrue statements that are being believed because no one else is looking into what you are saying.

You said "The MM is supposed to be the overall authority document when on Fast Healing (a monster ability) and is the official rules source when conflicts arise (like here)." so I took my quote right out of the MM.
You then decided that the Rules Compendium trumped it once you had read it incorrectly and thought that it said what you wanted it to, but it does not. This time I took my quote out of the Rules Compendium.
Are you now going to suddenly decide some other source trumps both of these printed books? Because I will point out your incorrectness all day long if you want.

 

[aboyd]

Whoa, hey, hang on. We're all just having fun. True, irdeggman did miss that your post had text to deal with the fact that "at the beginning of the creature's turn" text is missing in some books. So yeah, it's a bit silly that he re-cited it to disprove your point. But readers can see that. No need to be defensive.

The bottom line is that we're arguing over something that is ultimately going to require a judgment call on the DM's behalf, as which text takes precedence is too murky. Some will decide one way, some the other. So we can be cool about each person deciding whatever. What's great about the discussion is that we can make an informed choice, as I really wasn't aware of all the text about this stuff. I don't really care about the Rules Compendium; I don't allow it into my games. But what's printed in the SRD is very enlightening. I appreciate the citations and debate.

EDIT: I found something that is utterly conclusive for me. I had been looking at the errata and FAQ. I wanted to see what the intent was for it, regardless of the text. We've all looked, and found nothing to resolve it. However, I have a copy of the old D&D 3.0 FAQ, which I've never bothered to check. So I did. I found this:

I was wondering about the effects of fast healing once a character has entered negative hit points. Does fast healing still occur?

A creature with the fast healing quality regains the stated number of hit points each round, so long as it remains alive.
Unlike regeneration, fast healing doesn’t keep a creature from dying.

A creature with a hit point total of –1 to –9 is dying, but it’s still alive. Fast healing (and regeneration) restores lost hit points each round at the beginning of the creature’s turn. Whenever a dying creature heals at least 1 point of damage, it becomes stable and eventually regains consciousness, providing it does not suffer any additional damage.

That seals the deal for me. Even if the official text is murky, the intention was that Fast Healing conferred stabilization. As far as I'm concerned, it's in my game now, and I'm off to go delete my house rule that said that a Dragon Shaman couldn't stabilize anyone with the Fast Healing aura.

 

[irdeggman]

Uh... read it again there, Irdeggman, as the Fast Healing description in Rules Compendium DOES have "Creatures that have fast healing have the extraordinary ability to regain hit points at an exceptional rate, usually 1 or more hit points per round."

I dislike how you are making untrue statements that are being believed because no one else is looking into what you are saying.

You said "The MM is supposed to be the overall authority document when on Fast Healing (a monster ability) and is the official rules source when conflicts arise (like here)." so I took my quote right out of the MM.
You then decided that the Rules Compendium trumped it once you had read it incorrectly and thought that it said what you wanted it to, but it does not. This time I took my quote out of the Rules Compendium.
Are you now going to suddenly decide some other source trumps both of these printed books? Because I will point out your incorrectness all day long if you want.

I apologize for misquoting you.

Sorry, but I still hold by logic and text quotes.

The RC (and MM) text has the intro of "Creatures that have fast healing have the extraordinary ability to regain hit points at an exceptional rate, usually 1 or more hit points per round." It then goes on to explain how it works and the list of things that are specified as being different from natural healing follow the statement of "Except as noted here, , ,"

But having said that, Aboyd has the right answer, IMO. I don't know why I didn't go to the FAQ (I usually do just to get multiple sources of answers). It would have helped clarify things real quickly. And for what it's worth I always felt that was how it was "supposed" to work.

 

[frankthedm]

I don't know why I didn't go to the FAQ

Because the FAQ sometimes blatantly ignores the rules?