Malignant Sustenance (Undeath) and / or Dhampir / Bones Mystery

[Abyssalwyrm]

Both Dhampirs and Oracles with Bones mystery are healed by negative energy, rather than positive. However neither of those specifically considered to be undead.
So, question is, can they be a target for a Malignant Sustenance spell?

[Abyssalwyrm]

Similar question about "Touch of Undeath".
If they are not considered undeads, can they be a target for Touch of Undeath spell? And if yes, how would it work? can you willingly critically fail save for double "heal"?

[TheFinish]

Neither Dhampirs nor Bone Mystery Oracles gain the Undead trait, therefore they are not Undead and thus, Malignant Sustenance can't target them, but Touch of Undeath Certainly can.

As for whether or not you can intentionally fail, you can't AFAIK. Unlike PF1, PF2 doesn't have any sidebar or paragraph related to willingly failing saving throws that I could find.

[MikeMoreau]

TheFinish wrote:

Neither Dhampirs nor Bone Mystery Oracles gain the Undead trait, therefore they are not Undead and thus, Malignant Sustenance can't target them, but Touch of Undeath Certainly can.

As for whether or not you can intentionally fail, you can't AFAIK. Unlike PF1, PF2 doesn't have any sidebar or paragraph related to willingly failing saving throws that I could find.

So there are some serious problems with the wording of negative healing. I think we can all agree that harm spell will heal someone who has the negative healing trait. Thats great, but it has the conditions and targeting that you are using to say Malignant Sustenance does not work. You will find no sources of negative energy healing that does not explicitly have a condition that targets undead.

The same goes for the positive energy portion. If you consider 'targets: 1 undead creature' to make a dhampir or bones oracle not a valid target, there are 0 spells which can target them that deal positive energy damage.

Using this logic, a creature who is not undead but has the negative energy healing trait will find 0 sources of negative healing, and will never be affected by positive energy.

I think the intent is the following: a creature with the negative healing trait can be targetted and affected by negative energy healing effects that can only target undead.
They also can be targetted and are affected by positive energy damage effects that can only target undead.

And about touch of undeath, it specifically states it does damage not healing. A dhampir or bones oracle would be immune to the damage, but would not heal from it. This is a change from 1e, negative energy DAMAGE does not heal undead.

[Castilliano]

Yes, the wording of Negative Healing is asymmetric.

It seems most positive/negative spells check to see if you're undead or living before determining the effect, so Dhampir trigger as living to no consequence because of their immunities. Except for negative healing.
It's weird.

Here's the breakdown of the phrasing:

-Damaged by positive damage: In play, these abilities/spells/effects seem to require being undead so won't trigger because a Dhampir's not.
-Not healed by positive healing: Zero effect, ever
-Does not take negative damage: Zero effect, ever
-Healed by negative effect that heal undead: Note the added clause. So it doesn't matter as much if the spell checks for whether the target's living or undead first. Whatever negative effects heal an undead will heal a Dhampir, while positive effects that harm an undead won't (typically) harm a Dhampir.
So a Harm spell will heal a Dhampir, and a Heal spell won't hurt them.
A party based on this loophole could be powerful, especially taking down evil/Harm Clerics.

[Mike Moreau]

Abyssalwyrm wrote:

Both Dhampirs and Oracles with Bones mystery are healed by negative energy, rather than positive. However neither of those specifically considered to be undead.

So, question is, can they be a target for a Malignant Sustenance spell?

We got a little off track, but it seems the intent is yes Malignant Sustenance does work with dhampirs and bones oracles

[T'Challa]

Castilliano wrote:

Yes, the wording of Negative Healing is asymmetric.

It seems most positive/negative spells check to see if you're undead or living before determining the effect, so Dhampir trigger as living to no consequence because of their immunities. Except for negative healing.
It's weird.

Here's the breakdown of the phrasing:

-Damaged by positive damage: In play, these abilities/spells/effects seem to require being undead so won't trigger because a Dhampir's not.

Spirit Barbarian will have full effect with positive damage vs a Dhampir. Likewise creatures that deal negative damage like ghosts will do nothing to Dhampirs.

I don't know why they couldn't have just said "Dhampirs are treated as undead for targeting of positive/negative damage."

[Castilliano]

T'Challa wrote:

Castilliano wrote:

Yes, the wording of Negative Healing is asymmetric.

It seems most positive/negative spells check to see if you're undead or living before determining the effect, so Dhampir trigger as living to no consequence because of their immunities. Except for negative healing.
It's weird.

Here's the breakdown of the phrasing:

-Damaged by positive damage: In play, these abilities/spells/effects seem to require being undead so won't trigger because a Dhampir's not.

Spirit Barbarian will have full effect with positive damage vs a Dhampir. Likewise creatures that deal negative damage like ghosts will do nothing to Dhampirs.

I don't know why they couldn't have just said "Dhampirs are treated as undead for targeting of positive/negative damage."

Because they wanted some heroes to go out and kill Umbral Dragons?

Naturally they'd want to disguise themselves.

Seriously, it's so intentional that I wish I could deduce the intent.
As is, it's pretty hard to heal a Dhampir with standard spells, so the player had better look up the exceptions.