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Take a Sorcerer with the celestial bloodline and have him "shoot" a good ally with Heavenly Fire. Now, first off, I would require an attack roll against the ally's Flat-footed AC because, I'm sure he wants to be hit. In addition to it being a touch attack, it's usually against AC10... Unless your ally is out of combat. In that case, I would say it's an automatic hit.
Now, any spell that requires an attack roll has a chance to crit.
How many of you would allow Heavenly Fire to critically heal an ally?
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Take a Sorcerer with the celestial bloodline and have him "shoot" a good ally with Heavenly Fire. Now, first off, I would require an attack roll against the ally's Flat-footed AC because, I'm sure he wants to be hit. In addition to it being a touch attack, it's usually against AC10... Unless your ally is out of combat. In that case, I would say it's an automatic hit.
Now, any spell that requires an attack roll has a chance to crit.
How many of you would allow Heavenly Fire to critically heal an ally?
All spells that have a roll to hit crit on a 20 so it is fair to apply the normal crit rules. Simply use 2x like you normally would with any offensive spell.
Take a Sorcerer with the celestial bloodline and have him "shoot" a good ally with Heavenly Fire. Now, first off, I would require an attack roll against the ally's Flat-footed AC because, I'm sure he wants to be hit. In addition to it being a touch attack, it's usually against AC10... Unless your ally is out of combat. In that case, I would say it's an automatic hit.
Now, any spell that requires an attack roll has a chance to crit.
How many of you would allow Heavenly Fire to critically heal an ally?
It is not really an attack. The reasons attacks work like that is because if you hit something in the right spot it does more damage. If you could use Heavenly Fire like that then cure X wounds would work the same way since. The player would line up a full round action to coup de grace(heal) an ally for out of combat healing. You can even coup de grace(automatic crit) on ranged attacks if you are adjacent to the target so you just wait until combat is over and double the healing if it was legal.
Makes sense, if you "shoot" the wound itself then you should crit. And the coupe de grace heal? I wonder if they'd have to save against the DC minus healing... and it would be funny if they rolled a 1.
I would allow a crit on every heal that would deal damage to undead.
That being said, I wouldn't allow the "coup de graçe" thing. BUT in combat, I would probably allow an "attack roll", for a cure light wounds for example. So on a 1 he heals nothing, on a 20 he heals double, I doubt any sane player would choose that.
Take a Sorcerer with the celestial bloodline and have him "shoot" a good ally with Heavenly Fire. Now, first off, I would require an attack roll against the ally's Flat-footed AC because, I'm sure he wants to be hit. In addition to it being a touch attack, it's usually against AC10... Unless your ally is out of combat. In that case, I would say it's an automatic hit.
Now, any spell that requires an attack roll has a chance to crit.
How many of you would allow Heavenly Fire to critically heal an ally?
I would and Have with wands of Reach Cure Moderate in 3.5 and will in Pathfinder note though, I also rule that on a critical Miss you might hit an enemy with the healing you were sending to a friend. My players do not have a problem with it as it has happened both ways for both hen and the bad guys during games
In no way should the healing be doubled, for the same reason a cleric/rogue should not be able to "sneak attack" the heal to do many dice extra. The cure spell "hits" when contact is made, it doesn't need to hit the right spot. Certainly a cleric using a touch cure would 'aim' for the correct spot if that was required.
Yeah... coup de grace would be rediculous. I can see both arguements for crit healing though. If you try to use CLW on a zombie, it's a touch attack and you can crit... if you try to touch a friend when they are in combat (and I know 99.9% DMs don't require an attack roll for that) and you score a crit, you should heal twice as much.
Game balance probably dictates that you cannot crit with healing. I only thought about it because I just made a Sorcerer with the celestial bloodline and Heavenly fire is a ranged touch attack that hurt evil and heals good. I thought about a crit fumble when shooting into melee and, if I hit my buddy, it's still good because he'll be healed. Then I thought, what if I shot at him in melee and crit?
As a DM, I would still require and "attack" roll to hit an ally engaged in combat because they're dodging and moving around trying not to get hit by the enemy, but they want that healing, so they won't use thier DEX for AC against that attack.
I love reading all your comments.
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In no way should the healing be doubled, for the same reason a cleric/rogue should not be able to "sneak attack" the heal to do many dice extra. The cure spell "hits" when contact is made, it doesn't need to hit the right spot. Certainly a cleric using a touch cure would 'aim' for the correct spot if that was required.
And yet it is perfectly legal to do exactly this with negative energy. Or to do this with positive energy against undead.
Personally, healing being as much of an "out of combat only" thing as it is, I would allow it. Especially considering that only the weakest (single-target) heals in the game qualify for this. Assuming players were willing to accept the possibility of enemies doing it as well, that is.I would much rather cast heal for 150 than Cure Light for 2d8+2+10d6 (with a chance of failure to boot).
tldr: It would break consistency to disallow it, and doesn't break balance to allow it. Thumbs up for critical and sneak attacking heals (if they require attack rolls).
re: Cuop de grace heal
Sounds like what happens on the Positive Energy Plane. Healers, you have been warned... ;)
Every cure spell is a save or die!
Only damage is multiplied in a critical hit.
Edit: Same with sneak attack. Only does extra damage. Also, Sneak Attack only works with spells that make an attack roll and do damage. i.e. Not Ray of Enfeeblement (or CLW, unless you use it to damage undead)
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Only damage is multiplied in a critical hit.
Edit: Same with sneak attack. Only does extra damage.
Problem with that is that healing is a form of positive energy *damage*. People just happen to heal from it. The same way shocking grasp could potentially crit and heal a flesh golem a lot, or a scorching ray could crit someone who's under the effects of Fiery Body and heal them.
All "energy" is both damage and healing, it just depends on the creature (though examples of healing don't necessarily exist for each element, the fact is that they could).I suppose you could argue that it being interpreted as healing causes it to negate criticals, but that seems a little... odd. But at least logical-ish. I would rather interpret critical heals as "putting it where it's needed."
Problem with that is that healing is a form of positive energy *damage*. People just happen to heal from it. The same way shocking grasp could potentially crit and heal a flesh golem a lot, or a scorching ray could crit someone who's under the effects of Fiery Body and heal them.
All "energy" is both damage and healing, it just depends on the creature (though examples of healing don't necessarily exist for each element, the fact is that they could).I suppose you could argue that it being interpreted as healing causes it to negate criticals, but that seems a little... odd. But at least logical-ish. I would rather interpret critical heals as "putting it where it's needed."
The difference between Healing and Damage is pretty plain. Critical hits only multiply damage. Negitive Energy doesn't damage undead, it heals them. If you heal an undead with ILW it's healing not damage. The reverse holds equally true.
Edit: A better way to explain. Fire Damage is damage taken by fire. Positive Energy Damage is damage taken by positive energy. If damage is not taken, then there is no damage. It's circular, yes, but also self-evident.
I suppose you could argue that it being interpreted as healing causes it to negate criticals...The difference between Healing and Damage is pretty plain. Critical hits only multiply damage. Negative Energy doesn't damage undead, it heals them. If you heal an undead with ILW it's healing not damage. The reverse holds equally true.
Interesting, and a very good point StabbittyD - so you shouldn't crit a flesh golem with shocking grasp (a shocking burst weapon would still apply). Ditto Scorching Ray vs. Iron Golem.
Interesting, and a very good point StabbittyD - so you shouldn't crit a flesh golem with shocking grasp (a shocking burst weapon would still apply). Ditto Scorching Ray vs. Iron Golem.
This is a good example of when crits can heal. While Flesh Golems don't actually take damage, damage is still dealt, and thus is still multiplied on a crit.
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Interesting, and a very good point StabbittyD - so you shouldn't crit a flesh golem with shocking grasp (a shocking burst weapon would still apply). Ditto Scorching Ray vs. Iron Golem.This is a good example of when crits can heal. While Flesh Golems don't actually take damage, damage is still dealt, and thus is still multiplied on a crit.
Actually, no, damage is not dealt. They healed. That's exactly my point. It isn't the energy type that determines whether it's healing or damage, it's the target. My point was that you had two choices in interpretation with this in mind: Either creatures that heal from an energy type cannot be critical-hit by it, or heals can crit. There are no other interpretations as the examples already listed prove that the energy that makes it damage. I cannot list a single energy type that ONLY heals, because it doesn't exist.
The curing spells are not primarily an attack.
Spells like...
Lesser Positive Orb: This second level spell is good aligned. It is a ranged touch attack that does 1D6 healing per 2 levels. To undead and other negative creatures it does damage.
...could crit. Maybe a coup de grace would bring a dying character back up to 1hp regardless of damage. You are basically firing it right into the fatal wound.
A magical attack that deals electricity damage breaks any slow effect on the golem and heals 1 point of damage for every 3 points of damage the attack would otherwise deal. I
When laying your hand upon a living creature, you channel positive energy that cures 1d8 points of damage +1 point per caster level (maximum +5). Since undead are powered by negative energy, this spell deals damage to them instead of curing their wounds.
Cannot heal damage on its own if it has no Intelligence score, although it can be healed. Negative energy (such as an inflict spell) can heal undead creatures. The fast healing special quality works regardless of the creature's Intelligence score.
The golem heals based on the damage that would have otherwise been dealt. You still roll for damage normally.
CLW doesn't deal positive energy damage when used against living creatures. It only damages undead creatures. Furthermore, the RAW for how Negative Energy affects undead is nothing like the RAW for how electricity damage affects Flesh Golems. Flesh Golems are healed by electricity damage. The entry for undead doesn't even contain the word damage. They're simply healed by negative energy.
The curing spells are not primarily an attack.
Spells like...
Lesser Positive Orb: This second level spell is good aligned. It is a ranged touch attack that does 1D6 healing per 2 levels. To undead and other negitive creatures it does damage.
...could crit. Maybe a coupe de grace would bring a dying character back up to 1hp regardless of damage. You are basicly firing it right into the fatal wound.
Still, not so much. It has nothing to do with attack. Healing is not simply "negative damage" it's its own, entirely different thing. It has different rules it follows. Just like Bonuses and Penalties are different.
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I think at this point we're both arguing semantics. But to continue...
The effect of these spells isn't "healing" or "damage" it's, hit them with X quantity of Y energy. They describe the general case of what they energy does to targets for the sake of simplicity.
Note how the description says "you channel positive energy that cures" which could have just as easily been phrased "than in turn cures." There's indirection there (with either wording). This continues with the line about undead where it says "since undead are powered by negative energy, this spell deals damage to them instead." Both of these lines are phrased so as to imply that the listed outcome is an indirect result of the spell's effect, but not actually the spell's effect.
Even without looking at the wording, I hardly see how it is fair that something can be crit with a heal simply because their source of healing is *normally* damage. I wouldn't allow a flesh golem to be critically healed by electricity unless I also allowed undead to be critically healed by negative energy and living creatures to be critically healed by positive energy. To do anything else would be inconsistent and unfair. Sure, it may be a corner case, but verisimilitude requires that type of consistency. Arguments of "it's magic" notwithstanding.
YMMV, but this is how it would work in my games.
So it's GM's choice till the official ruling?
I can live with that.
On the other hand I will reread the Flesh Golem text for Card Rules.
Card Rules are from Magic the Gathering. What it says on the card trumps normal rules. If any monster has the text, "heals like damage", then healing crits are possible. So are coupe de grace emergency healings as I described. Note that Golems are not truely alive so bringing them back from massive damage is not relevent.
Wow!
I didn't realize this would be such an issue. I was just curious as to what everyone would think.
I, myself, don't think you should be able to crit with a heal. Otherwise, the various cure spells would almost always heal twice as much. In combat, they can crit heal if the GM requires an attack roll... out of combat, you can coup de grace for an auto-crit.
I can see how it can make sense, but I don't think it should be allowed for game balance.
But, there are enough opinions either way to warrant an official rules clarification.
Here's my take. Define healing and define damage.
Healing: A general improvement in the target's condition, healing removes penalties, increases hit points, or negates conditions. For our discussion, we'll deal only with the hp aspect.
Damage: A worsening of the target's condition. This may mean hp loss or infliction of various negative statuses or penalties (including poison, the broken condition, etc.).
Per the rules, you can do additional damage on a critical. So if you critical someone and you're worsening their condition (here, this refers strictly to hp damage), that's fine. The rules say nothing about permitting you to critical when improving someone's condition.
If my cleric casts cure minor on what he thinks is a wounded human, and it's a vampire, and it's a possible crit, does the GM have to let the cat out of the bag? What if it's a psudo-vampire?
We need a ruling.
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If my cleric casts cure minor on what he thinks is a wounded human, and it's a vampire, and it's a possible crit, does the GM have to let the cat out of the bag? What if it's a psudo-vampire?
We need a ruling.
Yeah, this is the kind of situation that worries me. And they always come up if I decide to just avoid the issue (dang universe...).
For now I'm just going with "if the creature treats it as healing, it can't crit." But I'll let the players go through the rolls just because. If it's unclear which part was the normal damage and which was the crit, I'll just halve it. That's close enough.|
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I would allow a heal to crit not problem. What are the effects of a critical hit?
Per the rules an attack that scores a critical hit inflicts x2 damage if it has no other critical multiplier listed. So continuing with the rules a critical hit with a healing spell would inflict x2 damage. Simple.
How much damage does the healing spell inflict? Well none its healing hit points not inflicting damage. Oh so 2 times 0 (the amount of damage the healing effect is inflicing) is 0. I think my math is right.
Does Ray of Exhaustion have x2 effect on a critical? No becuase it doesnt inflict damage.
A healing effect does not gain a benefit from a critical attack roll. Though I see no problem if someone wants to house rule it.
I see no problem with this interpretation if it's fairly applied. In other words, if you don't let me critical heal, don't let me critical heal a flesh golem.
This does actually affect both monsters and players, thanks to spells like Fiery Body that give a similar property for different elements. Can a bad-guy accidentally critically heal a character using a scorching ray?So you have two fair interpretations:
A) Healing is treated just like damage, with the fact that the target heals as happenstance, thus allowing them to critical (or the use of favored enemy, sneak attack, et al.)
B) Being healed by an energy negates the extra effect from critical (or other damage boosts, such as favored enemy, sneak attack, etc)
I would allow a heal to crit not problem. What are the effects of a critical hit?
Per the rules an attack that scores a critical hit inflicts x2 damage if it has no other critical multiplier listed. So continuing with the rules a critical hit with a healing spell would inflict x2 damage. Simple.
How much damage does the healing spell inflict? Well none its healing hit points not inflicting damage. Oh so 2 times 0 (the amount of damage the healing effect is inflicing) is 0. I think my math is right.
Does Ray of Exhaustion have x2 effect on a critical? No becuase it doesnt inflict damage.
A healing effect does not gain a benefit from a critical attack roll. Though I see no problem if someone wants to house rule it.
Doesn't have to be x2, could just be max on the healing. I wouldn't do it on the cure spells, unless in combat. The heavenly fire being targeted as it is, that's a different sort of bean. Its also a lot less powerful than the cure spells. Critting with magic always makes my head hurt (so many variables) but I always apply the same rule. "If it breaks my game, it doesn't work." Heavenly fire is unlikely to break the game at 1d4+1/2 levels... max it will ever do will be just enough to keep someone alive.
I just flagged this thread as an FAQ. :)
So if a crit on healing "goes right to the wound", then naturally you can coup-de-grace, right?
Automatic crit, max healing, and if you're not at max HP, then you .... make a fort save? DC healing given? and ... if you fail ... you're at max?
Yes, I'm sure this works. Max healing from a wand of CLW as a full-round action!
Coup the grace:
The attacker automatically hits and scores a critical hit. (A rogue also gets his sneak attack damage bonus against a helpless foe when delivering a coup de grace.) If the defender survives, he must make a Fortitude save (DC 10 + damage dealt) or die. Delivering a coup de grace provokes attacks of opportunity.
Yep, sure. Do that. In my group i'd let you spend a full-round action to make a coup the grace heal. Then you can roll your save against a DC of something negative and if you get a 1 on your save, you die.
(AWWW DAMN, i knew i should have tried that triple bypass on a couple more kobolds first)
Seeing how death is the opposite of what you want in healing, would the inverse hold true in your games? If a monster nat 20'd a fort save for coup de grace, would it be healed? To full perhaps, or maybe get some bonus temp HP beyond full?
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I'd probably allow coup-de-grace healing without the "death" save, but I'd require that the coup-de-grace action be a separate action from casting (meaning that doing this would take two turns and provoke two attacks of opportunity).
@MordredofFairy, Negative-energy-powered creatures are not innately immune to criticals in pathfinder. In fact, the only creatures immune to criticals are those made completely of one homogeneous substance (namely, Ghosts, Oozes and Elementals).
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Yes, but I hardly think doubling out-of-combat healing is a problem. It's not like we don't have cheap-as-free wands and other tools for accomplishing much the same task with little resource investment. Keep in mind that every spell spent healing is a spell not spent doing something else (like buffing or, for some classes, killing the enemy).
It *might* be a mild issue if you get coup-de-grace with Heal, but not enough of one to bother me. That's still a 6th level spell slot dedicated to the task (or a spell known, in the case of Oracle).
As a DM, if I wanted to make the party feel more "pressed" for healing, I'd just make something attack them (or at least be threatening) before they can heal up. Or possibly hit someone with an effect that reduces the effectiveness of or blocks healing.
i don't quite see your point? If you natural 20 a reflex save against a fireball, do you gain benefits? While on a 1 you get to make saves for your equipment. Penalty on 1, No extra Benefit on 20 is quite usual for Saves.
Here you are not even further penalized. You just regularily fail the save by rolling a 1.The text is simple, if you get a 1 on your save, you fail it, which means: you die.
Negative-Energy-powered creatures are immune to critical hits, but if you can get around them, i'd have them "destroyed" on a 1.You do a coup-de-grace, the technical equivalent for me would be battlefield-surgery, just in a shorter time and supported by magic.
Many times it goes well, and removing those splinters will do a lot better than just closing the wound. But if you are messing up, things can get messy.
It's the characters own choice if they want to include risky, but rewarding techniques at the possible cost of dying in the process, which does a mighty fine way of counterbalancing coup-d'grace-heals.
I know you want it to be broken, but reading the text for coups RAW,...
My point is that coup-de-graces can't accidentally heal you, so why would a "coup-de-healing" accidentally kill you?
And, as for RAW? We've been in house rule territory the whole time here. Show me the RAW where it specifically states that healing is positive energy damage. And don't give me the old "Show me where it says it doesn't" that never flies. The rules are how things work, not an exhaustive list of how things don't work.
Stuff
All those examples state that positive energy heals the living and damages undead. Since crits only multiply damage, you can only crit undead, the living take no damage and there is nothing to multiply.
What you're describing is that there's some kind of universal "Positve Energy Damage" which damages undead and heals the living. And for other elements, that's more or less true. But there is not a single sentence that say both damage and living creature when talking about positive energy. The only place the RAW mentions damage is when say that positive energy damages undead. What I want you to find is where it says positive energy damages living creatures but they heal instead. Like this
A magical attack that deals electricity damage [to a Flesh Golem]... heals 1 point of damage for every 3 points of damage the attack would otherwise deal.
it's explicitly spelled out for the golem because there is a ratio.
Omitting something like "heals 1 point of damage for every 1 point of positive energy channeled" is not getting entangled in rules lawyering.
As for explicitly stating "for every 3 points of damage the attack would do", spells explicitly STATE that they DEAL elemental damage. So it's clarifying.
I perfectly understand what you mean, the rulebook doesn't explicitly state it. But in EVERY other case(elemental, weapon, adamantine, magic, force, sonic, aligned...) the mechanics work EXACTLY THE SAME WAY, so why should the mechanics be inherently different for positive or negative energy when NO such thing is mentioned?
There is units that can ABSORB something(living things), things that are IMMUNE to it (constructs), creatures can take NORMAL DAMAGE(undead), and possibly there could be VULNERABILITIES.
Maybe it can be used to overcome a Damage Reduction or a Regeneration ability. There's lots of mechanics, and they are all handled the same basic ways, with the same options.If there was any indication that positive energy should be handled differently than, say, acid, sonic or force, then i'd expect an indication about those differences somewhere in the book. As it stands, unless something is defined as being differend, i go with the mechanics as written, especially if they can be applied nicely.
You know what, I'm going to have to recant something I said. Positive Energy isn't handled that differently from any other element. There is no ABSORB trait for ANY element. Flesh golems are a very rare case. Even Elementals only have Immunity they don't gain HP back, not in Pathfinder, (not in 3.5 either for that matter). Flesh Golems spell it out because healing from damage is a very special case that almost NEVER comes up.
Doesn't make sense to me.
If you heal someone out of combat, when you have all the time to optimize the healing spell, you have a maximum of hp healed of X.
Then if you do it in combat and score a crit, you could heal twice as much.
So healing in combat is always better, because you always have the chance to double healing... no way.
I could homerule something like 2x crit damage as suggested, but with a cap (1d8+1 healing would have a cap of 9 hp healed even if you roll 2d8+2) but then every out of combat healing should be an automatically confirmed critical.
yep, regularily, IF something absorbs, it's explicitly stated because it's a rare case.
that does NOT invalidate my points though.
I merely stated that positive or negative energy are NOT the only ones. It's fine to be special.
Adamantium ignores Hardness, which most other things don't. If something else ignores hardness for some reason, it's also explicitly stated.
As for only being able to crit in combat, no, why, you can also roll those touch attacks out of combat. Normal attack roll, on a 20 it's doubled, on a 1 you "miss". MOST players will go with just taking the average of 2-19...doesn't mean you CAN'T do an attack roll.
Same thing as you can make a SAVE against being healed.
Usually you will not want that, but a superstitious raging barbarian HAS to.
Same for characters with spell resistance, you have to penetrate that to affect them with healing.Just because mechanisms are handwaved or not used, doesn't mean they are non-existant. I also don't require a touch attack during combat to heal someone next to you, on the chance of rolling a 1.
IF the players want to play it the proper way, i won't stop them though, and if they can get a fail result if they roll a 1, it just seems fair to reward them for a 20 as well, especially since there is nothing indicating the "critical" result only applies to the negative(damaging) aspect of the spell.If they then want to get gamey and come up with a coup-de-heal, i'll just respond in RAW and require the save vs. die.
If they take Improved Great Fortitude or other Reroll Abilities to make this work in a rather save way, more power to them, by then they should be able to HEAL, instead of cure serious wounds...
Except Undead doesn't "absorb" Negative Energy Damage. It simply heals them.