Using Anatomy Doll to heal a Dhampir

[Belabras]

I can't see any reason why you couldn't heal a Dhampir (or black blooded oracle, or any other negative energy affinity character) by using a linked Anatomy Doll on them. Sure, it is nauseating and has to be done one point at a time, but it never runs out of charges, like a wand, and you don't need to be a caster to use it. It is certainly cheaper than a Pallid Crystal

Anything I'm not seeing?

[cnetarian]

At low levels works fine, once the dhampir gets a decent will save it becomes more a hassle than a heal since there seems to be no way to not save to break the link. Note that it only works with living (not undead) creatures, there are very few living creatures with a negative energy affinity.

[Eridan]

Yes you can heal a negative energy affine creature with the Anatomy Doll by RAW. The 'healed' creature is sickened as long as it is linked to the doll but that is the only disadvantage.

On my table (and RAI in my opinion) the doll should hurt a creature regardles of its type as long as it has blood. I would change the negative energy damage of the doll to 'damage'. Abuse stopped :)

[cnetarian]

an anatomy doll is a 1,000GP and a wand of CLW is 750GP. The wand heals much faster, but the doll doesn't have charges. By the time a PC goes through their first CLW wand the anatomy doll user is taking so long to get healed that the rest of the party is beginning to complain - healing 30 points of damage with a +8 WILL save (70% chance of breaking the connection when used) takes about 10 minutes.

[Timebomb]

I brought out the doll for a Black-blooded Oracle of Life. While the rest of the party was looting the bodies after a fight I would be in the corner stabbing the doll. We also had a house rule where a character could voluntarily fail a save if they wanted (not just for the doll though).

[Kalridian]

Since when is being able to voluntarily fail saves a houserule? If I don't jump to the side, when the big boulder falls, i get hit and if i don't resist the mind control, it succeds. It can get a little hard to explain with Fort saves, but as far as I know you can voluntarily fail a save, at least as long as you know you have to make it, the same way that you can voluntarily miss on an attack...

[dragonhunterq]

Just to confirm what Kalridian says

CRB on casting spells - saving throws wrote:

Voluntarily Giving up a Saving Throw: A creature can voluntarily forego a saving throw and willingly accept a spell's result. Even a character with a special resistance to magic can suppress this quality

[Dispari Scuro]

Hmm, this sounds like it could come in handy for the bones shaman I'm working on.

[lemeres]

Hmmmm....I can think of ways to make this work depending on party composition.

Imagine a party with a witch (who uses hexes to tank your saves and force rerolls) and a rogue/vivisectionist/slayer/whatever you can get with sneak attack.

Sneak attack seems to be the important thing for making this viable, since it doubles healing even at level 1. At level 19 with full SNA progression, you are better off with the doll than a wand of CLW in terms of speed (if you can tank your will save. Still seems faster most of the time since a failure only needs another standard action to fix)

But if you can't swing all this, boots of the earthgives fast healing 1 as long as you stand in place (after using a standard action) at the cost of 5,000. So there are options.

[Timebomb]

dragonhunterq, is that a general rule for all saving throws, or only for spells? I don't believe magic items count as spells.

CRB on casting spells - saving throws wrote: wrote:

Voluntarily Giving up a Saving Throw: A creature can voluntarily forego a saving throw and willingly accept a spell's result. Even a character with a special resistance to magic can suppress this quality

It would be a good basis for the reasoning, but I can't find anywhere it is explicitly stated that a character may choose to fail a saving throw if he/she chooses. Hence Houserule.

Also my oracle had the Fast Healer feat, and because it came from a magic item it counted. Though having a character with sneak attack is clearly superior in the long run.

[dragonhunterq]

I can't think of a single reason to treat magic items differently to spells in this regard. The same principle must surely apply.

I mean most magic items duplicate spell effects anyway, and having a different rule for the few that don't might get a little ridiculous.

[AbsolutGrndZer0]

I agree, if you choose not to jump out of the way of a dragon's breath weapon... well, you're an idiot but I don't see why the GM should say "What? NO you MUST make a save vs. this breath weapon, no suicides allowed!" So, it would be the same for a magic item as it is for a spell as it is for a breath weapon.

[Narquelion]

I allow to forgo saving throws in almost all circumstance: the only exception I might make would be if somebody asked me to forgo his Fortitude saving throw against a mundane poison (or possibly disease) because it would be way too silly having people deactivating their livers by sheer suicidal force of will or willing themselves to get hammered after only one cheap mug of ale...

[AbsolutGrndZer0]

Narquelion wrote:

I allow to forgo saving throws in almost all circumstance: the only exception I might make would be if somebody asked me to forgo his Fortitude saving throw against a mundane poison (or possibly disease) because it would be way too silly having people deactivating their livers by sheer suicidal force of will or willing themselves to get hammered after only one cheap mug of ale...

Ah, ya i agree with that, still need a BIT of common sense. As I said, if you want to fail your Reflex save and take the full brunt of a dragon's breath weapon, be my guest. You will be crispy and taste good with ketchup. But I do agree, failing a fortitude save vs. poison just cause you want to would be a stretch. Also Lycanthropy, in fact in Broken Moon

Spoiler:

(Carrion Crown AP book 3) it talks about the possibility of players being bitten by werewolves, and says NOT to allow them to fail by choice. You still roll the save for them.