Clay golem's cursed wound ability, supernatural healing, and remove curse

[blargney the second]

We ended our game on Monday night just after an encounter with a nasty spellcasting clay golem. A couple of PCs had taken hefty damage from its slam attacks, and we were trying to figure out how to resolve healing their wounds. Clay golems in Pathfinder have an ability called Cursed Wounds (Ex): The damage a clay golem deals doesn't heal naturally and resists magical healing. A character attempting to use magical healing on a creature damaged by a clay golem must succeed on a DC 26 caster level check, or the healing has no effect on the injured creature. This is changed from 3.5, where it used to specify 'conjuration (healing)' instead of magical healing.

The first problem that we have is that 'magical healing' is not actually a keyword that designates something specific in rule terms. This interacts ambiguously with better defined areas of the ruleset, which I'll get to in a moment. The second problem is identifying what damage effects this ability applies to, and the third problem is determining when the cursed wound power ends.

Low-hanging fruit: Spells and spell-like abilities have to make the caster level check. That's fairly apparent, I think. We're also not worried about extraordinary healing.

Questions:
1) Does supernatural (Su) healing (such as lay on hands or channel energy) automatically work, auto-fail, or does it have to make a caster level check (using what modifier)?
The DC 26 caster level check sounds suspiciously like SR, which Su abilities bypass (makes me think auto-success). On the other hand, Su abilities don't have a caster level in PF unless the given effect specifies one (LoH and CE do not specify one). This is a change from 3.5, where the CL was defined for Su abilities. If Su abilities don't have a caster level, that sounds like auto-fail territory. I guess a related (possibly underlying) question would be: Does Su healing count as magical healing?

2) If afflicted PCs now take damage from anything else (not clay golems) before the curse goes away, does the preexisting cursed wounds effect apply to the new damage?
It can be interpreted to apply only to the damage the golem dealt itself, but it's vague enough to be interpreted as applying to any other damage the character receives.

3) If a spellcasting golem damages us with a spell, would that damage be a cursed wound? What if they do ability damage?

4) Is it possible to remove the cursed wound effect once it's in place?
It doesn't say anything about going away once the wounds are healed. Remove curse requires the curse to have a save DC, and there isn't one. Break enchantment requires the curse to have a caster level, and there isn't one. I don't know of any other spell that could get rid of the curse.

Thanks for the help resolving this! :)
-blarg

[blargney the second]

Any help sorting this out would be appreciated. It's so messy...

[blahpers]

I'll give it my best shot.

1. Supernatural abilities are considered magical. For example, they don't function in an antimagic field. So they'd require a DC 26 caster level check.

The rules for spell-like abilities state that in such situations you use the character's level in the class granting the ability. However, these are supernatural abilities, not spell-like abilities, so there's technically no applicable rule for determining the caster level of a supernatural ability. In that case, I'd go with the same method since it's the closest thing we have to a written rule. If the particular ability does specify a caster level, use that.

2. A character attempting to use magical healing on a creature damaged by a clay golem must succeed on a DC 26 caster level check, or the healing has no effect on the injured creature. Going by that, it doesn't seem to matter whether some or all of the damage is from the golem. So long as the creature has damage from a clay golem, the creature is difficult to heal. That leads to the question of which damage is healed first on a successful check; the answer is "beats me". I'd use the more beneficial method of removing the golem's damage first; when that's gone, the character can heal normally.

3. Technically, I guess so. I can't speak as to the intent, as I don't know of any spellcasting clay golems published in Paizo material.

4. Since the alternative is too horrible to contemplate, I interpret "damaged by a clay golem" as "currently has damage that was inflicted by a clay golem". If all of that damage is healed, the character is no longer "damaged by a clay golem". I can see how it could read as "who as ever been damaged by a clay golem", but there isn't a snowflake's chance in the City of Brass that this was the intended meaning.

[Ipslore the Red]

#1: It doesn't say it's SR, so no, Su doesn't auto-bypass it. Supernatural is still magical, and that's what cursed wound stops. Depending on the GM, either auto-fail due to lack of a CL or use character level as CL.

#2: Yes.

#3: Yes and yes. That's probably why they're not given spellcasting ability.

#4: There's also the fact that Cursed Wound is an extraordinary ability and there's no magic for break enchantment or remove curse to get rid of. Just heal the wound, like blahpers said.