The damage done by spells is the amount rolled on the dice, not the total damage it does to all creatures in the area.
The example given in the spell is 100% accurate, regardless of the number of creatures affected.
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I do not believe any GM worth his or her salt would allow this spell to let you heal back 40 hp after throwing a fireball and rolling 40 damage on it.
You can argue the technicalities of "total damage" and "damage rolled" to death, but it's absolutely clear what the RAI were, if not the actual RAW.
Seriously, just think about it for a bit. You can't even heal that much damage with a normal 3rd level cure (3d8+15 maxes out at 39).
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Look at it this way, the spell says that it "channels a portion of the next spell you cast into magic that heals you". It doesn't matter if it actually does any damage to anyone, the magic of the spell says that you roll dice to damage anyone inside and 25% of that damage becomes healing for you. It doesn't matter if you fireball a room full of people, a single person, or an empty chamber. The dice roll is the same and the healing you'd receive is also the same.
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If a fireball hits 3 orcs for 30 damage, how much damage did each orc take? 30. Why do I know? Because that's the structure of the language in Pathfinder. It didn't do 90 damage, it didn't do 45 because orc 2 made his save. It "did" 30 damage. I know of nowhere in Pathfinder that talks about it is any other format or structure.
Here's another explanation: The spell gives an example of how it works. if it was meant to be a sum of all damage dealt in the area, then why wouldn't the already detailed example talk about that? It also doesn't say it "causes 40 damage to the target" it says "would normally deal 40 hit points of damage". The fireball would normally deal 40 damage to each target, that's how fireball is worded, how all spells are worded (see point 1).
It is also a third level spell. Do you expect that you could use a pair of third level spells and a 40 point fireball that hits 5 orcs to heal 50 hitpoints? Two CSW spells together only do, what, 6d8+2xlevel? So between 16 and 58 with an average of 37. Then again, dual CSWs require two rounds and touching the target, this is doable in one turn and still performs the second spell's effect. And what if you fireball 10 orcs, you get 100 hitpoints back?
It is 25% of the damage that the spell would do before saves or resistances are calculated.
Because think about it, if the opposite was true, a fireballing a few targets with improved evasion could result in zero healing back to you.
In the end, you don't have to listen to all of us. You can do whatever your GM says you can do.
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A fireball spell doesn't do "1d6 fire damage per level per target in the area, spread between the targets". It does "1d6 fire damage per level, to each target in the area". Or, to out it another way, a fireball does 1d6 damage per level. It does this amount to each target in the area".
Seriously, if it worked the way you seem to think it might, I'd use fireball every single time, and force the GM to track untended objects in the area, including blades of grass, rocks, the ground, walls, chairs, tables, everything, because I assure you I can trivially rack up infinite healing from that.
It doesn't say the fireball did 40 total damage. It says the fireball would have done 40 damage. It also doesn't address what happens if someone saves against all damage the spell does. It also doesn't address what happens if there is no target for the spell. It doesn't address how the reduced damage is divided up amongst the targets hit. There are a lot of things that it doesn't explicitly get into but we can make some assumptions based on how other qualities of the game work.
I've never calculated, nor heard anyone calculate, nor seen anything in Pathfinder material calculate, the damage done by fireball to be the sum of damage actually caused. You don't roll damage per target, you roll a total and each target of the spell takes that much damage from the spell.
In the vacuum of terminology and familiarity, if someone were to look at the example without any experience of Pathfinder or RPGs in general, it is conceivable that the interpretation could go either way. However, I don't think that's true because it isn't common to speak of spells doing an aggregate damage.
It is not highly subjective. If it were highly subjective, your interpretation would have support. Again, this is a discussion between you and the GM because no one else here seems to think it is confusing.
PS - Yes, it takes two spells for this to work. That's why I quoted the health returned by two CSWs for equivalence.
What's the Source of the Spell i.e. what book is it in?
In all though I agree it is the damaged rolled in the attack. as the Fireball did not do 90 points of damage unless it was empowered and you rolled max.
unless stated in the spell area effect spells do the damage rolled to all target in the area. even their example supports this thought that it is the damage rolled before anything else is applied. Note this does mean that even fireballing a red dragon would net you healing even if the spell has no effect on the dragon.
6
they did not take a total
They each took 6 because they were in the area
the Damage was 6 so you would heal 1.5 hp round up to 2
even if some of them saved you did 6 damage and would heal the above amount.
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Small point here, but fractions pretty much always round down in Pathfinder, so it'd be healing of 1 hp.
"Unless otherwise noted, whenever you are must round a number, always round down." <-- Core Rulebook, Getting Started.
ThatHealer, the spell never references "total damage across all creatures affected". As pointed out, that would include objects too if you think about it. It's extremely clear what the spell intended, as all the responses here indicate. You shoot off a fireball. You roll 40 damage on 10d6. You deal 30 with the fireball, and heal 10. Anyone in the fireball's area then rolls to save for half (15 damage) or takes the full (30 damage) plus and minus all resistances/vulnerabilities/etc.
This is not a difficult thing to understand.
A fireball spell doesn't do "1d6 fire damage per level per target in the area, spread between the targets". It does "1d6 fire damage per level, to each target in the area". Or, to out it another way, a fireball does 1d6 damage per level. It does this amount to each target in the area".
Ok so if a fireball does 6. It does this amount to each target in the area". How much total damage does the fireball do if their are 4 targets in the blast all taking full damage? regarding the latter part of your statement not arguing if this is broken or not.
The spell is from inner sea gods.
It doesn't matter how many targets there were. Completely irrelevant. Fireball affects an area with a 20ft radius and gives not one care at what is inside that radius. You roll one time for damage to that area.
Small point here, but fractions pretty much always round down in Pathfinder, so it'd be healing of 1 hp.
"Unless otherwise noted, whenever you are must round a number, always round down." <-- Core Rulebook, Getting Started.
ThatHealer, the spell never references "total damage across all creatures affected". As pointed out, that would include objects too if you think about it. It's extremely clear what the spell intended, as all the responses here indicate. You shoot off a fireball. You roll 40 damage on 10d6. You deal 30 with the fireball, and heal 10. Anyone in the fireball's area then rolls to save for half (15 damage) or takes the full (30 damage) plus and minus all resistances/vulnerabilities/etc.
This is not a difficult thing to understand.
Opp thanks for reminding me Karui
Point to the place where it says "total damage" in the original spell.
PS - the fireball in your example does 6 damage. Anyone in the radius takes 6 damage from the fireball, ergo, the fireball did 6 damage.
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So if I cast fireball and roll 10d6, which come out to a sum of 40. In the radius are four orcs; one makes a save, one is immune to fire, one is vulnerable to fire, and one is a normal orc that failed the save. Also, there was a swarm hiding in the tree... How much healing do I get from Fractions of Heal?
Another example: I cast fireball into a pitchblack cave, rolling 40 on the 10d6 but the GM won't tell me how many creatures may or may not have been roasted to death because I failed my perception check. How much healing do I get from Fractions of Heal?
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Creature 1,2,3 and 4 took 6 damage the total damage to all 4 creatures was 24 as 6x4 is 24. If the total damage dealt to all creatures was 6 then each creature would have only taken 1.5 damage. how is that confusing?
You cant give out 24 points of damage if you only have 6 points to give out.
Don't forget to count the various insects, bacteria, grass stalks, etc. In an outdoor setting the Fireball does near infinite damage.
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I would totally cast it. It's a swift action. It wastes no extra time and is extra healing. If you really want to go crazy, cast it as a swift action, then throw an empowered fireball out there. realized this isn't possible as it limits to 3rd level. But still, swift action to cast this, then fireball/lightning bolt/whatever.
Not only are you going to hurt a swarm of enemies, but you heal yourself in the same round. If you're critical and the cleric or whoever can't get to you, then this is a god send. Or if maybe you just want to stay healthy while dishing out damage.
It's *definitely* not per target affected. Just think about how ridiculous that could get if swarms were involved. Technically, that's thousands of targets.
Or hell, just throw it at a swarm of 1/4 HD crows.
Didn't see the swift...but still , don't think I would spend a 3rd level spell to heal 10 hp while reducing my damage output by 25%....
Though it remains one of those rare healing spells accessible to sorcerer/wizards if they really want one.
What's also interesting is that a fireball could be shot in empty space and would still heal the caster.
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It must be used in conjunction with an AOE spell and no provisions were given for the presence of multiple targets. That speaks pretty clearly to me that number of targets is irrelevant to the amount of damage healed.
as a player you shouldn't actually know how much damage was dealt...for all you know if you cast fireball and you roll up 40 damage
as a player you don't know how much of that damage was dealt to the target(s)
let's say you cast it at a group of 3 humans
x = human, o = space, k = invisible guy, f = centr of blast
ooxofox
oooxok
again you roll 40 damage for the spell
you do not and should not know the actual damage dealt
the humans had fire resistance 15 and the invisible guy took no damage because of improved evasion....but again you should not know this...and thereby have no clue as to how much damage was actually dealt
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Think of it this way:
A fireball spell is like a pipe that shoots an amount of harmful energy, which we'll give a value of "X." Sometimes the pipe has high "pressure" (you roll high on the damage dice), "sometimes" it has low pressure (you roll low on the damage dice).
So it doesn't matter if that harmful energy hits 0 creatures, 1 creature, 4 creatures, or 100 creatures, it's still X units of harmful energy that shot out of your spell.
Fractions of heal and harm is like a splitter valve on your pipe that diverts 25% of that outgoing harmful energy off to the side and converts it into healing energy for you, and lets the remaining 75% shoot out the end of the pipe and into the spell's area.
Fractions of heal and harm always diverts 25% of the "pressure" of the spell, whether it's high pressure or low pressure. So 25% of X is always 25% of X, whether the energy from the pipe hits 0 creatures, 1 creature, 4 creatures, or 100 creatures. That energy is split off from your spell even before it shoots out of the end of the pipe. So how many creatures it hits doesn't matter, it's already diverted away and converted to healing before the GM determines how many creatures are in that area.
So the normal damage of the fireball is what you roll on the d6s, but only 75% of that comes out of the spell as damage, which (just like an unmodified fireball) you apply to all things in the area; the other 25% of that damage you rolled gets applied to you as healing.