Healing dead people

[Noumenon]

If someone's at -8, my old DM said one point of magic healing would bring them up to 0 so they were alive. But 38 points of magic healing would bring them to 30, which seemed inconsistent. Do you let people go from "dead" to "back up and unharmed" with one cure spell? I think I'm going to say one point of magic healing stabilizes you, but you're still at -7.

 

[freyar]

Ok, first off to undo the confusion: you're "dying" at -8 hp, not "dead." Once you're dead (at -10 hp in the core rules or 0 Con or death by massive, etc), healing isn't going to help, magical or not.

Here's the relevant quote from the SRD Injury and Death section:

If any sort of healing cures the dying character of even 1 point of damage, he stops losing hit points and becomes stable.

Healing that raises the dying character’s hit points to 0 makes him conscious and disabled. Healing that raises his hit points to 1 or more makes him fully functional again, just as if he’d never been reduced to 0 or lower. A spellcaster retains the spellcasting capability she had before dropping below 0 hit points.

So one point of healing does indeed stabilize you, but you need to be healed all the way back to 0hp to be back to normal.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Well, that (your view of how it should work) is the RAW. Sounds like your DM had a houserule, and it worked out to be rather awkward.

Ah! Ninja'd!

 

[Noumenon]

Der, I guess I knew I hadn't seen the way we were doing it in the rules, but I didn't know there was already a rule the other way.

I'd rather be stable than at 0 anyway, since if I start moving, something will kill me again.

I think it says somewhere you're still prone if you get healed from dying. That will make healing from -1 to full a little different than healing from 1 to full, but not quite enough. I think I need to describe out healing that goes to dying characters so it feels like "you can breathe again... the dark veil retreats from your vision..." That will differentiate it from your normal wounds knitting together that happens when you get cured without dying.

 

[Shin Okada]

I think it says somewhere you're still prone if you get healed from dying.

Just as a note. Healing does not automatically let you stand up. When dying, you are unconscious. So you usually become "prone". I said "usually" because you will not become prone when, say, grabbed in a monster's mouth or in a non-gravity plane.

But anyway, even if you are healed to your normal full hp (say, by Heal spell), it does not automatically let you stand up. You must still stand up by using a move action. It may provoke AoO and thus may not a good idea depend on situation.