Spirit Instinct's positive damage option - how does it work?

[Burntgerb]

It seems unclear in the core rulebook how positive damage would work with living creatures.

With the positive damage option, would an attack against a living creature deal:
- Full normal damage(as per "planes awash with this energy" p635),
- Zero damage (not cited anywhere I know of, but It's been suggested to me)
- Heal them for that damage (Effects with this trait heal living creatures with positive energy, p635)?

If using necrotic damage is the only option to damage living creatures, it certainly seems like it would give spirit instinct a more sinister flavor than intended.

[tivadar27]

It would do zero damage to living creatures. Positive damage is always damage, but it doesn't affect living creatures. If a spell heals, it will say so (as is the case with Heal). Working on citations, will edit...

CRB p.452 wrote:

Two special types of energy damage specifically target

the living and the undead. Positive energy often manifests
as healing energy to living creatures but can create
positive damage that withers undead bodies and disrupts
and injures incorporeal undead. Negative energy often
revivifies the unnatural, unliving power of undead, while
manifesting as negative damage that gnaws at the living.

I'd agree this isn't spelled out perfectly here, but it's basically stated that positive damage hurts undead (and doesn't specify it hurts anything else). And it separately talks about healing effects and damaging effects of positive energy.

[Aratorin]

https://paizo.com/threads/rzs4302s?Ghosts-healing-each-other-with-their-str ikes#41

Mark Seifter wrote:

Yep, the text was missing in Bestiary 1 but we'll make sure to get it back there in errata. I first noticed it wasn't in the book based on how many people were confused by this. I was like "Shouldn't the definition of negative healing cover this?" and then it wasn't there. I would suggest to go with the Bestiary 2 definition. Negative damage is damage that undead and constructs don't take. Positive damage is damage that living creatures and constructs don't take. And healing is healing.

[Claxon]

Yeah, positive damage doesn't heal unless the ability specifies it does so. In this case it deals no damage to living creatures. That's why Spirit Instinct Barbarians get to choose to deal positive or negative damage each time they rage, so they're not hosed by being stuck to one damage type that large swaths of creatures are immune to.