I have a couple of questions on the interation between the Hospitaler Paladin's Aura of Healing ability and the Holy Vindicator's Stigmata.
Stigmata - A vindicator willingly gives his blood in service to his faith, and is marked by scarified wounds appropriate to his deity. At 2nd level, he may stop or start the flow of blood by force of will as a standard action; at 6th level it becomes a move action, and at 10th level it becomes a swift action. Activating stigmata causes bleed damage equal to half the vindicator’s class level, and this bleed damage is not halted by curative magic. While the stigmata are bleeding, the vindicator gains a sacred bonus (if he channels positive energy) or profane bonus (if he channels negative energy) equal to half his class level. Each time he activates his stigmata, the vindicator decides if the bonus applies to attack rolls, weapon damage rolls, Armor Class, caster level checks, or saving throws; to change what the bonus applies to, the vindicator must deactivate and reactivate his stigmata. While his stigmata are bleeding, the vindicator ignores blood drain and bleed damage from any other source and can use bleed or stabilize at will as a standard action.
Aura of Healing - At 11th level, a hospitaler can expend one use of her channel positive energy ability to emit a 30-foot aura of healing for a number of rounds equal to her paladin level. Allies in this aura (including the hospitaler) automatically stabilize if below 0 hit points and are immune to bleed damage. In addition, allies (including the paladin) that spend at least 1 full round inside the aura are healed an amount of damage equal to their total number of Hit Dice and may make a saving throw against any afflictions they are suffering from, such as a curse, disease, or poison. This saving throw only counts toward curing the affliction and does not impose any penalty on a failed save. Allies can only be healed once by a use of this ability and they can only attempt additional saving throws once per day, even if they are exposed to this aura multiple times.
So my questions are:
1) Does this mean a Hospitaler / Holy Vindicator is immune to the damage from Stigmata if his Aura of Healing is active? I noted the "not halted by curative magic" in the Stigmata description, but the Aura isn't curing it it's making the person immune.2) If a Hospitaler takes only a 4 level dip into HV they have to use a standard action to turn off Stigmata, could they instead fire off an Aura of Healing to basically surpress the stigmata damage for 1rd/class level or does the Aura need to be in place before they activate Stigmata so the bleed is never applied? If so they could then just turn it off after combat or when time allows.