Undead immune to drained?

[no good scallywag]

Are undead immune to the drained condition? RAW appears that they are not immune.

Specifically, the rules refer to undead being healed by negative "energy."

Is drained "negative energy?"

[HammerJack]

Drained is more general than that (Think along the lines of "Drained is to CON as Clumsy is to DEX"). Some effects that cause Drained ate negative-energy based. Others have nothing to do with negative energy at all.

Specific undead may be immune to Drained. Specific effects that cause Drained may be ineffective against all undead. There is not a rule saying thY all undead are immune to the Drained condition.

[no good scallywag]

which undead? plus, note that drained has the negative trait

[Cordell Kintner]

I would say they are immune in most cases. For example, they would be immune to Enervation, since it has the Negative trait. Boil Blood on the other hand would still affect undead who still have blood, so Skeletons would be immune to it but not Vampires (it even calls them out specifically in the spell). It's all on a case by case basis really.

[Tender Tendrils]

Undead have negative healing, which does the following things;
- Enables them to be healed by negative energy effects that state that they heal undead
- Causes them to be damaged by positive damage
- Makes positive healing not work for them
- Grants immunity to negative damage

It has no other effects on effects with the negative trait - spells that inflict drained via draining the life force of a creature (like enervation) specify that they only affect living creatures.

Other spells or effects that inflict drained through different mechanisms don't specify and as such affect undead normally.

Generally, for effects other than damage/healing that have the negative trait, if the effect doesn't specify undead being immune, and the undead in question doesn't have immunity to the effect on its statblock, the effect works normally.

This is one of those cases where taking assumptions from PF1 or drawing inferences beyond what the rules explicitly state leads you down the garden path.

Of course, GMs can rule differently, but that goes beyond the scope of forum discussions about what the rules actually say.

[HammerJack]

no good scallywag wrote:

which undead? plus, note that drained has the negative trait

What do you mean by "drained has the negative trait"? Could you give a source for that? The general conditions like drained, enfeebled, and the like don't have traits at all.

[Aw3som3-117]

What HammerJack said

For reference, the drained trait on AoN: Drained

I don't see any traits. Certain abilities that cause the drained condition may have the negative trait, but that's very different from drained itself having a trait.

[Ascalaphus]

I mean, it stands to reason that a vampire wouldn't want its blood drained by a souped up mosquito..

[Gortle]

A simple example is Polar Ray which drains but it's a cold effect not negative.
So an unfortunate Wight would have no special protection from it.

[Deriven Firelion]

I don't think they are immune. I think whatever lifeforce drives them can be drained now that they have a Con.