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And there in lies the equipoise.
You have the negative healing ability, which means you are harmed by positive damage [1] and healed by negative effects as if you were undead [2].[1]
It is damaged by positive damage and is not healed by positive healing effects.[2]
It does not take negative damage, and it is healed by negative effects that heal undead.
That sentence in the description of a dhampir versatile heritage references the two effects of Negative Healing, [1] and [2] above. In Negative Healing, those two effects are separated into two full sentences separated by a period.
[1] includes "damaged by positive damage" and [2] includes "healed by negative effects that heal undead."
You are reading the dhampir description as though it is inserting a new rule on top of Negative Healing, that they are treated "as if they are undead" for the purposes of targeting (or even just taking damage from a Heal spell as if they are undead).
EDIT: It really is just the Heal spell that we're debating here. Other positive damage spells explicitly do positive damage and don't only target undead. Positive damage just doesn't do anything to the living, unless you're living with Negative Healing.
I am reading it as if those two clauses in the dhampire description are summarizing the Negative Healing ability, squishing Negative Healing rule [1] and [2] into one brief sentence, but the effect on the character is what is described in the Negative Healing ability.
Without knowing the designer's intent when they wrote the Dhampir versatile heritage, I don't know which of us is correct. We each may believe that we are, but that does not make us so.
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EDIT: It really is just the Heal spell that we're debating here. Other positive damage spells explicitly do positive damage and don't only target undead. Positive damage just doesn't do anything to the living, unless you're living with Negative Healing.
And that is the reason why at my tables Dhampir will be harmed by Heal. The spell's wording is an odd outlier for no explicable reason.
To be clear, I acknowledge the word and grammar argument. It is sound reasoning. However, it seems to go against what I perceive as the intent. And, as it can be read in such a way that Heal harms Dhampir, I will use that loophole to make it so.
Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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EDIT: It really is just the Heal spell that we're debating here. Other positive damage spells explicitly do positive damage and don't only target undead. Positive damage just doesn't do anything to the living, unless you're living with Negative Healing.And that is the reason why at my tables Dhampir will be harmed by Heal. The spell's wording is an odd outlier for no explicable reason.
To be clear, I acknowledge the word and grammar argument. It is sound reasoning. However, it seems to go against what I perceive as the intent. And, as it can be read in such a way that Heal harms Dhampir, I will use that loophole to make it so.
If you make statements like that, you might as well make them under your actual account name, rather than on characters, so people know what they are signing up for.
Not that there is not a somewhat larger amount of table variation here, I mainly don not understand the reason for posting under a secondary alias.|
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OK. I'm not going to try to change Leo's mind. I accept that his rulings are based on what he believes is the designer's intent with dhampir and negative healing.
That the Heal spell makes this a rule, though, I'm not convinced.
Targets 1 willing living creature or 1 undead
Dhampir are not undead, so they cannot be targeted as undead. They could be a willing living creature, but they probably really wouldn't be willing. However, both of these apply to the 1-action or 2-action Heal anyhow.
If the target is a willing living creature, you restore 1d8 Hit Points. If the target is undead, you deal that amount of positive damage to it, and it gets a basic Fortitude save.
Is the dhampir living or undead? The conditional effect of the Heal spell is based upon the state of the target. The dhampir does not apply the Undead trait, Negative Healing does not apply the Undead trait, and Negative Healing does not state that you take damage from positive healing effects (it says you don't heal from them).
Is the Sceaduinar or the Sumbreiva harmed by a Heal spell?
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Welp, so much for trying to stop the off-topic train from rolling off the bridge.
I mainly don not understand the reason for posting under a secondary alias.
While I can't speak for Saashaa, I do this a lot to create threads or post comments when the topic concerns a character of mine. So, for example:
• Does the topic concern the unanswered question of how to treat the Alien Archive Player Reward Boon? Then I'm posting with my Ryphorian alias.
• Does the topic concern the 3+ years we've been waiting for a replacement spell for Reincarnation in SFS? Then I'm posting with my Xenodruid alias.
• Does the topic concern table variation on using Disguise? Then I'm posting with my Spy alias.
Then If I'm playing that character and the topic in question comes up at a table, I can simply read through that alias's comments and dredge up the current state of table variation, rather than trying to dig through my 29,174 posts.
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Venture-Agent, France—Paris
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Welp, so much for trying to stop the off-topic train from rolling off the bridge.I was pretty sure the discussion on anathema had run its natural course, and the OP had gotten his desired answer. That's why I didn't feel so bad jumping on the derail. :)
I got many answers to my questions, so I'm fine with the derail.
In my opinion, the problem is neither in negative healing or dhampir but in Heal and Harm. For whatever reason they speak of Undead instead of speaking of Negative Healing.
In my opinion, it's just a remnant of Channeling ending up with badly written spells. If I remind correctly, in PF1 Dhampir where harmed by positive channeling. So, as there's an hesitation, I lean toward conservation of in world concepts.
