Another Negative Healing Thread ft. Dhampirs and potions

[Zakapouik]

I've a few questions about how Negative Healing works since the Bestiary 2 come out and the Dhampir Heritage preview is here

Negative Healing:
Source Bestiary 2 pg. 305
A creature with negative healing draws health from negative energy rather than positive energy. It is damaged by positive damage and is not healed by positive healing effects. It does not take negative damage, and it is healed by negative effects that heal undead.

Dhampir (Uncommon Heritage):
You are the scion of a vampire, half living and half undead, gifted with uncanny charm and grace, a bloodless pallor, and elongated incisors. You gain the Dhampir trait, in addition to the traits from your ancestry. You have the negative healing ability, which means you are harmed by positive damage and healed by negative effects as if you were undead. You also gain low-light vision, or you gain darkvision if your ancestry already has low-light vision. You can choose from dhampir feats and feats from your ancestry whenever you gain an ancestry feat

1) If i have a Dhampir in my PC group and a cleric cast the 3 actions heal spell, does it damage the Dhampir since Heal spell is an healing effect and not a pure positive damage. Negative Healing say that you are heal by negative effects that heal undead but not that you are damage by positive effects that damage undead, right ?

2) The Dhampir is not really an undead, so does spell who need to target Undead creature (like Disrupt Undead) can target Dhampirs ?

3) Does spells with Healing trait works on creature with negative healing traits like Vital Beacon, or more important Stabilize + Breath of life for a Dhampir ?

Bonus Questions:
I've read this in the Rulebook
"Some effects require a target to be willing. Only you can decide whether your PC is willing, and the GM decides whether an NPC is willing.
Even if you or your character don’t know what the effect is, such as if your character is unconscious, you still decide if you’re willing"
So it's mean that you can't use for example Shrink spell on an unconscious Npc, right ?
But can you use the Shrinking Potion ? Since it's only say
"This fungus-flavored potion conveys the effects of the shrink spell to make you and all your gear smaller. After the onset, you remain small for 10 minutes."
So does items who say "effects of the X spell" include the target condition or not ?

P.S: Thank you for all the reading and once more, sorry if i've made some mistakes in my way of writing, i'm not English.

[thenobledrake]

1) Dhampir are harmed by positive damage as if they were undead, so a heal spell affects them as it would an undead creature - no matter how many actions were spent casting it.

2) If a spell specifies the target must be undead - but isn't one that brings the negative healing trait into the mix - it would not target Dhampir.

3) The spells you mention are positive healing effects (because they have those traits) and negative healing clearly says "is not healed by positive healing effects"

There is some room to consider it ambiguous whether that means just that no hit points are restored, or if stabilize also can't remove the dying condition.

[glass]

thenobledrake wrote:

1) Dhampir are harmed by positive damage as if they were undead, so a heal spell affects them as it would an undead creature - no matter how many actions were spent casting it.

That is how I would have expected it to work. I do not have B2 yet (I ordred it, but Amazon are slow), but if the OP's quote is accurate then that is not actually what it says. They can be damaged by positive energy effects, but not specifically "as undead". Therefore a Heal spell would fail to heal them, but would not actually hurt them. The opposite case does specify "that heal undead", so a Harm would heal them.

Not sure if this assymetry is an oversight on the part of the designers, or a deliberate decision to assist Dhampirs in fitting into living groups.

EDIT: Regarding the bonus question, you can use shrink on an unconcious NPC if the GM decides they are willing, just like you can use shrink on an unconcious PC if that PC's player decides they are willing.

I am not aware of any general rule that canges how willingness works for potions, but I could have missed somethine. Absent a rule that specifically says that potions ignore the willingness of the target, it works just like the spells does (ie based on the GM's assessment of their willingness).

_
glass.

[Castilliano]

Negative Healing:
"A creature with negative healing draws health from negative energy rather than positive energy. It is damaged by positive damage and is not healed by positive healing effects. It does not take negative damage, and it is healed by negative effects that heal undead."

Note that the positive damage portion does not say as if they were undead, while the negative healing portion does. So, for example, if a Shining Child blasts a Dhampir with a Fire Ray: "Damage 3d10+3 fire, plus 2d10 positive damage if the target is undead", that extra damage does not trigger on the Dhampir.
There is no mention of them being treated as undead re: positive damage, only that they can take positive damage. The Dhampir is still living.

So Glass is correct in that a Heal spell will target a Dhampir as living and do positive healing which has zero effect on those with Negative Healing (unless vulnerable as undead specifically are).
And if targeted by Harm, there's a conundrum depending on when one decides the effect is decided. Does it target them, adjust for them living so try to damage, and not work? Or does it target them, try to effect them either way, and then the energy treats them as undead as per Negative Healing so heals them?
I'd say the the specificity of the undead clause would have the Harm heal the Dhampir, though in either case Harm will never harm a Dhampir.

I think the asymmetry helps the Cleric do AoE Heal w/o killing PCs.

I'd like to see an all Dhampir party taking out evil cults. "Why thank you, Reverend McEvil, for your channeling." Of course, they should bring along their own batch of Harm spells to spam.
----

Healing Potions don't mention positive energy, so should work on all creatures (at least if they can drink), even undead.

[glass]

Castilliano wrote:

Healing Potions don't mention positive energy, so should work on all creatures (at least if they can drink), even undead.

That's an excellent point. I had missed that, so thank you!

_
glass.

[Zakapouik]

For the potion, i know it's not positive ;)

But i see that we think in the same way for the negative healing trait and how Dhampir will work

I hope that Paizo's staff will be more explicite in the release