Hello rules forum! It's been a while.
I'm currently building a cleric of Zon-Kuthon and was wondering if I was understanding this ability correctly.
Death’s Kiss (Su): You can cause a creature to take on some of the traits of the undead with a melee touch attack. Touched creatures are treated as undead for the purposes of effects that heal or cause damage based on positive and negative energy. This effect lasts for a number of rounds equal to 1/2 your cleric level (minimum 1). It does not apply to the Turn Undead or Command Undead feats. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Wisdom modifier.
Here is my interpretation of the ability:
Since the duration is 1/2 your character level and I assume that as a melee touch attack it requires a standard action to use (regardless if used against friend or foe), that means that for levels 1-3 the duration of the ability is 1 round. Which means that the effect of Death's Kiss are gone before the cleric who used the ability could cast a spell or channel energy. He is not able to use his own spells/channeling to take advantage of the effect until level 4.
So as I understand it, at low levels this ability is mostly worthless. The only times it would be useful is if the party was built around it, or if you were trying to use it proactively against enemies.
I did think of one way this problem may be alleviated. What if you cast an inflict spell, held the charge, and then used Death's Kiss on a living creature? The inflict spell was being held and will discharge automatically upon touching a creature, which the Death's Kiss ability requires. How would the sequence of events unfold? Would this successfully heal the target?
Thanks all!
So far as I can tell your interpretation is correct.
Since the ability is SU and not SP you should be able to spontaneously cast an inflict spell and then touch someone with death's kiss the following round, discharging both effects to heal someone.
It's a very useful ability for negative energy users since it lets you be the party healer even though you use negative energy. The only downside is that unless you're memorizing cure spells, all of your healing has to happen outside of combat since it takes a minimum of 2 rounds to heal someone.
As for using it offensively, I'll point out that it's kind of messed up that there is no save or resistance of any sort against this ability. Meaning you can majorly foul up a creature's ability to heal just by tagging them with Death's kiss. This is particularly bad if/when the creature doesn't realize what you've done to them. That potion of healing now hurts them. :P
So far as I can tell your interpretation is correct.
Since the ability is SU and not SP you should be able to spontaneously cast an inflict spell and then touch someone with death's kiss the following round, discharging both effects to heal someone.
It's a very useful ability for negative energy users since it lets you be the party healer even though you use negative energy. The only downside is that unless you're memorizing cure spells, all of your healing has to happen outside of combat since it takes a minimum of 2 rounds to heal someone.
I think that sounds reasonable. And yes, he will definitely still not be a "combat healer". But being able to fulfill the role of band-aid outside of combat is a necessary evil for the cleric.
As for using it offensively, I'll point out that it's kind of messed up that there is no save or resistance of any sort against this ability. Meaning you can majorly foul up a creature's ability to heal just by tagging them with Death's kiss. This is particularly bad if/when the creature doesn't realize what you've done to them. That potion of healing now hurts them. :P
I hadn't considered that, quite nasty indeed. At later levels you can prepare a heal spell which can be used offensively of defensively depending on your need.
Bump
My GM for Carrion Crown did that with a pair of Undead Inquisitors. Luckily we figured out what was going on before we tried to heal our unconscious party member. Pretty fun.
It takes a particularly sadistic individual to use a melee ability to try to trick the party into killing one of their own instead of simply finishing off the unconscious member themselves. I'm impressed.