I was just doing a conversion of the Revenant template for our game, and it seemed pretty obviouse that it would be easier to give them regeneration 3/fire.....over fast healing 3, a long list of immunities, and specific mention that fire can destroy them.
Then I ran into the quote about having a con score in order to have regeneration.....what I don't get is why ?
Note that there's no real parallel between "a long list of immunities" and regeneration, anymore. Everything does full normal damage, you just don't die from negative hit points in excess of your Constitution score unless regeneration is shut off by a particular weakness.
I'm guessing, due to the fact that the death rules for creatures without a Constitution score are different in the first place, that someone at Paizo thought of a potential cheese tangle which is avoided by not permitting the new regeneration to such creatures. On the helpful front: you might want to check the "bloody" skeleton variant for an undead equivalent.
Creative Director
|
Since you're dead when you hit negative hit points equal to your Constitution score, if you don't have a Constitution score, you can't have negative hit points. That's why undead and constructs are destroyed as soon as they're reduced to 0 hit points.
A creature without a Con score can still have fast healing or other rapid healing effects, but regeneration just doesn't make sense or really work at all.
Then I ran into the quote about having a con score in order to have regeneration.....what I don't get is why ?
Well I'm not sure exactly why this would effect a conversion from a 3.5 creature template, as 3.5 also required a creature to have a Con score for regeneration.
Regeneration
Creatures with this extraordinary ability recover from wounds quickly and can even regrow or reattach severed body parts. Damage dealt to the creature is treated as nonlethal damage, and the creature automatically cures itself of nonlethal damage at a fixed rate per round, as given in the creature’s entry.
Certain attack forms, typically fire and acid, deal damage to the creature normally; that sort of damage doesn’t convert to nonlethal damage and so doesn’t go away. The creature’s description includes the details. A regenerating creature that has been rendered unconscious through nonlethal damage can be killed with a coup de grace. The attack cannot be of a type that automatically converts to nonlethal damage.
Creatures with regeneration can regrow lost portions of their bodies and can reattach severed limbs or body parts. Severed parts die if they are not reattached.
Regeneration does not restore hit points lost from starvation, thirst, or suffocation.
Attack forms that don’t deal hit point damage ignore regeneration.
An attack that can cause instant death only threatens the creature with death if it is delivered by weapons that deal it lethal damage.
A creature must have a Constitution score to have the regeneration ability.
3.5 also required a creature to have a Con score for regeneration.
In that case, probably because creatures without a Constitution score are immune to nonlethal damage. So yeah. :)
Well I'm not sure exactly why this would effect a conversion from a 3.5 creature template, as 3.5 also required a creature to have a Con score for regeneration.
I know it was also required in 3.5, I was questioning it in both systems ;)
Although I had missed that the Pathfinder version no longer converts the damage to non-lethal (not sure at the moment how I feel about that)......and can't help but wonder if that doesn't in fact strengthen the argument for allowing undead to take regeneration instead of fast healing, at least in the case of undead that basically cannot be killed except under specific circumstances (Revenant, Lich, etc...)
For example, a Lich would retain it's regeneration, eventually recovering from any wound, unless it's phylactery was destroyed.
Many creatures without a Con score are immune to nonlethal damage.
Regeneration turns all damage that does not negate the regeneration effect as nonlethal damage.
Therefore, an undead or construct with Regeneration is immune to damage that does not negate their regeneration.
For creatures without a Con score, just use Fast Healing instead.
Actually V it is still lethal damage, but they cannot die due to damage on a round their regeneration is active. It was a change they instituted so you didn't have to track lethal/nonlethal, just one total.
I'm kind of fuzzy on the discription in the bestiary....
So say Ted the Troll get's hit with a fireball, that turns his regeneration off the next round......
So on the next round, he get's hit with a good old fashioned sword....
Is his regeneration still turned off ??? if so, at what point does it come back on line ?
The way I'm reading it, you could do one point of damage at the begining of an encounter to a troll with fire or acid, then spend the rest of the encounter whacking away with a tree branch to kill it?
Or does regeneration simply not apply in regards to the specific type of attack that bypass it ???
|
Regeneration rules come into effect at the start of the creatures turn.
First question. Was the creature hit by damage that turns off its regeneration in the previous round?
Yes: No hitpoints are regenerated.
No: Hitpoints are gained equal to the number stated.
Second question. Is the creature beyond negative Con score?
Yes: If regeneration is off, creature dies. If regeneration is on, creature does not die.
No: If regen is off, no points are gained. If regen is on, hit points are gained.
Do not track damage separately between bypassing and non-bypassing. Only track if the creature received bypassing damage in the previous round.
Maybe this will help.
Ignore everything about 3.5 regeneration.
A troll can heal from ANYTHING, fire, acid, any type of damage. The problem is, that some types of damage are so traumatic that it sends their system into shock, shutting their regeneration down for a few seconds. During this tiny window, if they are damaged enough, they just die, because their system is too overwhelmed to function and save their lives.
So basically, when a troll is hit by fire or acid, it shocks his sytem and shuts his regneration down for 6 seconds (1 round). Continued application of the traumatic energy keeps his regeneration suppressed. If he ever takes enough damage to kill him while his body is in shock (regen is suppressed) then he dies.
Regeneration rules come into effect at the start of the creatures turn.
First question. Was the creature hit by damage that turns off its regeneration in the previous round?
Yes: No hitpoints are regenerated.
No: Hitpoints are gained equal to the number stated.
OK, so we are looking at does the creature regenerate from damage taken the previouse round, not is his regeneration in effect against damge on this round.....got ya.
Second question. Is the creature beyond negative Con score?
Yes: If regeneration is off, creature dies. If regeneration is on, creature does not die.
No: If regen is off, no points are gained. If regen is on, hit points are gained.
Do not track damage separately between bypassing and non-bypassing. Only track if the creature received bypassing damage in the previous round.
Thanks, I think I got it ;)
I think it is the use of the term "turn off" as opposed to bypass that was throwing me off.
Now I'm back to my original question.....and no, I'm not trying to be argumentitive ;)
I guess I don't really see the difference between dying at - constitution, or being destroyed at 0 hp if your allready dead ?
Both regeneration and fast healing allow you to go beyond the normal point of your death (or destruction), and the only real difference is that regeneration takes a vulnerability to a specific form of attack into accout.
I mean, I can certainly wright up the revenant as having fast healing, that is turned off by fire attacks....., and allows him to re-attatch, or re-grow severed members, but is seems kind of needless.
Yeah, I'm honestly not sure what the difference is either. But "not sure" doesn't mean "there isn't one," and it's very possible that we've just missed some good reason.
In any case: I'll link it this time - the bloody skeleton has a direct undead equivalent of regeneration.
Deathless (Su): A bloody skeleton is destroyed when reduced to 0 hit points, but it returns to unlife 1 hour later at 1 hit point, allowing its fast healing thereafter to resume healing it. A bloody skeleton can be permanently destroyed if it is destroyed by positive energy, if it is reduced to 0 hit points in the area of a bless or hallow spell, or if its remains are sprinkled with a vial of holy water.
|
Creative Director
|
Now I'm back to my original question.....and no, I'm not trying to be argumentitive ;)
I guess I don't really see the difference between dying at - constitution, or being destroyed at 0 hp if your allready dead ?
Both regeneration and fast healing allow you to go beyond the normal point of your death (or destruction), and the only real difference is that regeneration takes a vulnerability to a specific form of attack into accout.
I mean, I can certainly wright up the revenant as having fast healing, that is turned off by fire attacks....., and allows him to re-attatch, or re-grow severed members, but is seems kind of needless.
Actually, fast healing does NOT let you go beyond the normal point of death. A creature with fast healing that's reduced to low enough hit points to kill or destroy it (not merely low enough to render it unconscious) dies just the same as a creature without fast healing.
ONLY regeneration allows the fast recovery of hit points when you're at or below your death threshold of negative Constitution score.
Something else occured to me while I was thinking about this at work, with the new regeneration rules, I'm betting there won't be many creatures with regeneration/-
That would be a technically unkillable creature correct ?
|
Creative Director
|
Something else occured to me while I was thinking about this at work, with the new regeneration rules, I'm betting there won't be many creatures with regeneration/-
That would be a technically unkillable creature correct ?
There's one in the book already—the tarrasque. Normally, a creature with regeneration/— would still be able to be killed by death effects, of course, that simply bypass damage and just kill outright (there's a lot fewer of these in PRPG though)... but the tarrasque is immune to these effects.
Actually, the Paizo Tarrasque is unkillable. Period. End of story. Wish need not apply.
Actually, the Paizo Tarrasque is unkillable. Period. End of story. Wish need not apply.
Well, the Bestiary actually says "...the method to truly kill it has yet to be discovered." This, to me, just means the GM gets to determine exactly how to kill it, most likely sending the PCs on an epic quest to research the secret or find a powerful artifact.
Now, the best way to deal with the tarrasque is to use trap the soul with a trigger object. That does require the players to know the tarrasque's real name, which is undoubtedly a secret hidden even to most of the gods. Still, it's got to be easier than trying to kill the tarrasque — almost anything is!
|
Creative Director
|
It's not hard. It even targets its weak save.
Anything that requires touching the tarrasque is, by definition, hard. :-P
|
Creative Director
|
I thought the discussion was how to permanently take it out, not just foist it on some other poor bastards. :)Foist it on the Far Realm/Elemental Plane of things that suck/demon plane/whatever.
I seriously do not know the Golarion cosmology but there's got to be a place that is full of things nobody likes or a place that really sucks to be in. Possibly both.
That might work... until the tarrasque comes back with the half-fiend template and a gun...
It's not hard. It even targets its weak save.
I just imagined the tarreasque appearing in Asmodeus palace...
o_Ô
|
Anything that requires touching the tarrasque is, by definition, hard. :-PConsidering its natural form of attack is to swallow whatever annoys it whole? Cast the spell. Hold the charge. Walk up to it. Get eaten. Make a touch attack against AC 10. Take a bath.
It's still a puzzle monster. It's just a really obscure puzzle now. Heck, I assume that's how Golarion/generiPFsetting ended up stuck with it.
Golarion got stuck with it, because the god that is destined to destroy all of creation made it.
That's right, the Terrasque is a god spawned monstrosity.
|
|
That's right, the Terrasque is a god spawned monstrosity.Like your mom ;)
Sorry dissinger, I don't know why but I got the random urge to throw that immature insult out lol
It's cool man, the way we one liner each other, its almost like we're married...
But no homo man ;)
(Not meant as a slur against the gay community, just a little bro talk is all...)
In 3.5, creatures without CON scores couldn't have regeneration because undead and constructs were immune to nonlethal damage. Being immune to nonlethal meant that, unless you had the type of damage necessary to overcome its regeneration with every single attack, you'd never be able to even slow it down, let alone kill it. And that made it broken.
Now, though? I'm not really sure I see the reason. I'd just say that they'll continue to heal below zero unless the regen's been shut down. After all, it works the same. Assume that - = 0 for CON. At -0 HP, they'd die if their regeneration was shut down. Otherwise, they continue to heal. Makes perfect sense to me. Not that I ever had much trouble tracking nonlethal damage alongside lethal damage in 3.5, but I'll see how long it takes to get used to the new regen.
|
|
That might work... until the tarrasque comes back with the half-fiend template and a gun...
Awaiting stats for this.
Oh, and can the gun be Megatron ?
In 3.5, creatures without CON scores couldn't have regeneration because undead and constructs were immune to nonlethal damage. Being immune to nonlethal meant that, unless you had the type of damage necessary to overcome its regeneration with every single attack, you'd never be able to even slow it down, let alone kill it. And that made it broken.
Now, though? I'm not really sure I see the reason. I'd just say that they'll continue to heal below zero unless the regen's been shut down. After all, it works the same. Assume that - = 0 for CON. At -0 HP, they'd die if their regeneration was shut down. Otherwise, they continue to heal. Makes perfect sense to me. Not that I ever had much trouble tracking nonlethal damage alongside lethal damage in 3.5, but I'll see how long it takes to get used to the new regen.
Exactly what I'm saying.
I thinking at this point that's how I'm going to run it in my games, it's just smoother and easier....and makes more sense to my autistic brain ;)
That might work... until the tarrasque comes back with the half-fiend template and a gun...Awaiting stats for this.
Oh, and can the gun be Megatron ?
Lets drop Half Dragon, Gaint and Advance on it too just for S&G's.
|
Creative Director
|
Anything that requires touching the tarrasque is, by definition, hard. :-PConsidering its natural form of attack is to swallow whatever annoys it whole? Cast the spell. Hold the charge. Walk up to it. Get eaten. Make a touch attack against AC 10. Take a bath.
It's still a puzzle monster. It's just a really obscure puzzle now. Heck, I assume that's how Golarion/generiPFsetting ended up stuck with it.
We got "stuck" with it because it's one of my favorite monsters and an icon of the game, actually.
Just to put things in perspective, I looked up the M1A2 Abrams tank in D20 Modern, and its main gun does 10d12 (average 65) damage. The tank also has 64 hit points and hardness 20.
If the tarrasque takes two hits from a tank's main gun every round, it would only effectively suffer 60 points of damage due to its damage reduction and regeneration. It would take 9 rounds of this to bring the tarrasque to negative HP. So, it would take 18 direct hits from M1A2 Abrams tanks to bring down the tarrasque temporarily — and that's assuming two shots hit it every round without fail.
Meanwhile, the tarrasque will be fighting back. Naturally, it will be using Power Attack, taking a -8 penalty on attack rolls in exchange for +16 damage (+8 on its tail slap.) The tank has an AC of 6, so the tarrasque can only miss it on a natural 1. It has a hardness of 20, but that won't really help it here, because...
The average damage done by the tarrasque in 1 round to the tank is thus: 29 bite, 35 claws, 33 gores, 8 tail slap = 105. In fact, it could bring a tank to 1 hp using its bite and claws alone and save its gores and tail slap for a second tank.
It's one thing to say the tarrasque is awesome — but to mathematically prove it is priceless.
Of course, the tarrasque would probably just knock the tanks over with Awesome Blow. I mean, it could devour a tank, but it wouldn't like the taste.
So if a troll had Die Hard, would he be conscious and active no matter how low into the negatives his hit points go, as long as his regeneration doesn't get turned off?
So if a troll had Die Hard, would he be conscious and active no matter how low into the negatives his hit points go, as long as his regeneration doesn't get turned off?
Yep, although he would still be staggered.
Also depends on how long they plan on milking the franchise. :)Yep, although he would still be staggered.So if a troll had Die Hard, would he be conscious and active no matter how low into the negatives his hit points go, as long as his regeneration doesn't get turned off?
We're talking about milking trolls now? Eww.
(Just kidding, I realize it was a reference to the movie.)
I can tell by reading this thread that I'm going to have a lot to study when my Bestiary gets here.
Since you're dead when you hit negative hit points equal to your Constitution score, if you don't have a Constitution score, you can't have negative hit points. That's why undead and constructs are destroyed as soon as they're reduced to 0 hit points.
A creature without a Con score can still have fast healing or other rapid healing effects, but regeneration just doesn't make sense or really work at all.
But isn't it a common trope for undead to come back together after being downed though? Like a broken skeleton to reassemble itself, or some ghost coalescing back into being. That can't be construed as fast healing. From a conceptual point of view, seems a loss that undead and construct aren't allowed to regenerate. Not that it can't be sidestepped with a special ability that makes an exception, but it seems like an unecessary detour.
|
I thought the discussion was how to permanently take it out, not just foist it on some other poor bastards. :)Foist it on the Far Realm/Elemental Plane of things that suck/demon plane/whatever.
I seriously do not know the Golarion cosmology but there's got to be a place that is full of things nobody likes or a place that really sucks to be in. Possibly both.
The little written about: Elemental Plane of Suck.
Planar Traits Include:- All rolls are treated as natural 1s.
- Plane is somewhat stinky.
- Home plane of the Flumph.
|
|
Actually, the Paizo Tarrasque is unkillable. Period. End of story. Wish need not apply.
You know technically wish is needed to kill a tarrasque. I'm sure that anyone meeting this vile creature will likely use a wish spell to "discover how to kill it" :)
The wish may not hand the result on a silver platter to you but its gotta be the quickest way to put you on the right track :)
|
|
Back to the OP question as to why creatures without a con score cannot regenerate...
For me the definition of a con score is your bodies resiliency to damage. A creature with a con of 1 or more when dropped to 0 HPs still has a body so regeneration still has something to affect.
Creatures with a 0 con score (mainly undead) are destroyed when they reach 0 hps, there body disintegrates beyond repair or as some like to dramatize "is consumed by the clerics holy fire" regeration has nothing left to work on.
So if a creature has a regerative effect but has no con score use fast healing, if it has a con score use fast healing or regeration, whichever you feel best fits the creature.
Back to the OP question as to why creatures without a con score cannot regenerate...
For me the definition of a con score is your bodies resiliency to damage. A creature with a con of 1 or more when dropped to 0 HPs still has a body so regeneration still has something to affect.
Creatures with a 0 con score (mainly undead) are destroyed when they reach 0 hps, there body disintegrates beyond repair or as some like to dramatize "is consumed by the clerics holy fire" regeration has nothing left to work on.
So if a creature has a regerative effect but has no con score use fast healing, if it has a con score use fast healing or regeration, whichever you feel best fits the creature.
I think to some degree we attatch meanings to words that may have no real relevance to the ability, for example...
To my mind, an undead cannot "heal".....it's dead.
But some undead (Lich for example) regenerate even after complete physical destruction (unless you have taken out their little box as well).
So although I would agree that Regeneration "can be" used as an expression of a bodies resiliency to damage, just as DR can be used as an expression of an extremely hard skin, or an extremely fast regenerative process.....it is equally logical to use it to express the rapid rejuvination of some undead creatures.
I actually have a harder time wrapping my brain around a creature with no constitution score (in other words, not alive) "healing"....than I do with the idea of it regenerating.