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I gather that you're quoting the new rule book. The Undead trait and Soothe were written in the CRB. So as such, no, Sooth isn't written incorrectly.
EDIT: Speculation: the developers were probably so excited to make undead options for players and people take the text in traits for granted so often that they probably didn't realize they were contradicting themselves unless there's a new rule overwriting the Undead trait in that book. They probably just sat around the white board and said, "How do we heal undead? The Harm spell, what else? Oh! Soothe! That doesn't use positive energy," completely neglecting the Healing trait or the text of the Undead trait.
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I say allow it, the BotD has a whole sidebar dedicated to it and explains it very clearly which, to me, feels like a fine tweak that doesn't break anything.
I suspect that if it hasn't already been brought to the dev team's attention then it will be soon and will end up being tweaked in the CRB to make the change to the Target line with errata.
From which source are you quoting from? The Bestiary? Book of the Dead?
When and where something was printed may clue us in about intent, or the possibility of contradiction.
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Separate from Soothe, the Undead trait also prevents the use of the following spells: Remove Curse, Remove Disease, Remove Paralysis, Restore Senses.
Hope no undead PC's pick up cursed items...
Wow I didn't even realize those spells had the Healing trait. Maybe that line should just be removed from the Undead trait? Or remove it for Undead PCs since they aren't immune to any of that like normal Undead are?
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You'll note that the Stitch Flesh feat does at least give a way to address that for Treat Wounds (the most important of these by far). You may still not want to deal with that extra feat being needed, but the option existing is significant.
EDIT: this was responding to a post that must have been deleted while I was typing, about things that can't be used to heal undead, which included Treat Wounds.
You'll note that the Stitch Flesh feat does at least give a way to address that for Treat Wounds (the most important of these by far). You may still not want to deal with that extra feat being needed, but the option existing is significant.
EDIT: this was responding to a post that must have been deleted while I was typing, about things that can't be used to heal undead, which included Treat Wounds.
Yeah, I deleted it when I finally found the sidebar that the OP quoted and saw the Stitch Flesh feat. But, thanks!
(The Side Bar is on page 45 of Book of the Dead, for anyone still looking.)
Book of the Dead is a book to support certain kinds of campaigns. It is going to include tweaks to make those campaigns more enjoyable. Kind of like how the GMG includes the Free Archetype rules.
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Book of the Dead is a book to support certain kinds of campaigns. It is going to include tweaks to make those campaigns more enjoyable. Kind of like how the GMG includes the Free Archetype rules.
Where does Paizo say that the rules in this book are variant rules?
Book of the Dead is a book to support certain kinds of campaigns. It is going to include tweaks to make those campaigns more enjoyable. Kind of like how the GMG includes the Free Archetype rules.Where does Paizo say that the rules in this book are variant rules?
That’s not what he said.
The side bar, however it’s phrased, doesn’t mean PCs in my own campaign can suddenly start casting Soothe on their summoned undead minions.
Book of the Dead is a book to support certain kinds of campaigns. It is going to include tweaks to make those campaigns more enjoyable. Kind of like how the GMG includes the Free Archetype rules.Where does Paizo say that the rules in this book are variant rules?That’s not what he said.
The side bar, however it’s phrased, doesn’t mean PCs in my own campaign can suddenly start casting Soothe on their summoned undead minions.
I mean, there's a way they could do that though. Either they could not give these PC options the undead trait, or they could add a special rule in these dedications to allow the PC to receive healing from non-positive healing effects despite what the undead trait says, which is what it sounds like they wanted based on the example sidebar mentioned above. Personally that's how I'm going to run it anyway, but if that was RAI then they kinda messed up on RAW as far as I can tell.
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That’s not what he said.Book of the Dead is a book to support certain kinds of campaigns. It is going to include tweaks to make those campaigns more enjoyable. Kind of like how the GMG includes the Free Archetype rules.Where does Paizo say that the rules in this book are variant rules?
How do you come to that conclusion? The game has standard rules and variant rules. They compared these rules to a variant set of rules. I don't see how that was meant to indicate that these rules are actually standard rules.
The side bar, however it’s phrased, doesn’t mean PCs in my own campaign can suddenly start casting Soothe on their summoned undead minions.
No one can, or wants to, force you to let characters have 3 actions per round in your own campaign, either. That's beside the point. The Rules Forum isn't here to force people to follow the rules; it's here to help people understand the rules. However you want to run your game, here in the Rules Forum 3 actions per round is a standard rule.
I still need to read the source material, but it's either Soothe should work always on all undead because that's the intent, or never on any. We need to understand which is true.
The side bar, however it’s phrased, doesn’t mean PCs in my own campaign can suddenly start casting Soothe on their summoned undead minions.
That is a false dichotomy. You are operating under the assumption that there is one golden perfect ruleset that everyone plays under. That is manifestly not the case.
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It is not false that it would be good to know whether this sidebar, which contradicts previous rules with no explanation, intended to create an exception (but did not explain well) or offering advice that turned out to be incorrect (because someone focused too much on Negative Healing and forgot about the other issues). It is possible, of course, that if the first case is right, the exception they intended to create could have been for Undead PCs, rather than all Undead.
How do you come to that conclusion?That’s not what he said.Book of the Dead is a book to support certain kinds of campaigns. It is going to include tweaks to make those campaigns more enjoyable. Kind of like how the GMG includes the Free Archetype rules.Where does Paizo say that the rules in this book are variant rules?
I come to that conclusion by reading what he said and not inferring a conclusion outside his stated one: "Book of the Dead is a book to support certain kinds of campaigns."
The side bar, however it’s phrased, doesn’t mean PCs in my own campaign can suddenly start casting Soothe on their summoned undead minions.No one can, or wants to, force you to let characters have 3 actions per round in your own campaign, either. That's beside the point. The Rules Forum isn't here to force people to follow the rules; it's here to help people understand the rules. However you want to run your game, here in the Rules Forum 3 actions per round is a standard rule.
You're not discussing the rule--does Soothe work on Undead--though, you're now arguing whether the conclusion of whether Soothe works on Undead within the bounds of Book of the Dead is a core rule that all players of the core game would have the expectation of their GM following.
The difference would be that if I used a 2- or 4-action economy (or bonus archetype or stamina) in my game, it would be expected of me to state that up front to the players. Where if I do not allow soothe to heal undead in a game that does not use the Book of the Dead, I would not be expected to state that up front to the players.
However, since you made me go look it up...
Where does Paizo say that the rules in this book are variant rules?
The sidebar in question is in a section titled, "Playable Undead Options."
Soothe, as being written at the time the Undead trait and Healing traits were written came before the Book of the Dead, and so is not written "incorrectly." If Soothe is to change for all people playing the core game, it will be in an errata of the Core Rulebook. No?
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BotD is the most recent source. If Paizo says something is supposed to work, I'll believe them and just assume the CRB is in error for now until a future printing can correct it.
If they choose somewhere down the line to change BotD instead to remove the mention of soothe, so be it.
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If it was meant to be a rule change it should have been more explicit about it. I think it's a mistake in the sense that they overlooked the target line of Soothe and the undead trait's interaction with Healing effects.
That said however, if they had been aware of those, it's quite likely that they would have made those explicit changes. There are spells like Remove Curse that have the healing trait, but it makes no sense that undead characters (even bad guys) could never get rid on various minor curses.
As for Soothe: I think the requirement for living targets is overdoing it, and maybe it was meant to be more like a helpful reminder than an extra limitation. Because as a healing effect, it already only worked on living targets. This is a bit like the debate about whether fireball would burn a letter lying on a desk when you bomb the boss because it specifies creatures as targets.
The Divine list has Heal and Harm and actually cares about positive/negative energy. The Arcane list isn't that into undead and prefers constructs. Primal prefers living things only. But Occult is sketchy, positive/negative agnostic, and can create undead. So letting it heal them as well makes sense, especially in the new context of playable undead.
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Soothe always stood out to me as one of the few ways to heal PCs with negative healing. It seemed by design as occult's alternative to Harm so I didn't think twice reading that sidebar. Of course, this was all before we had full undead PCs as opposed to just living PCs w/ negative healing. So today I'm suprised to learn Soothe only targets living creatures.
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In my opinion, Paizo came with a pretty nice rule in 2nd Edition which is the negative/positive healing one. But then, they messed it up getting back to mentioning Undead/Living.
I'm personally ignoring anything that speaks about Undead and Living when it comes to healing and just use the basic dichotomy of Positive/Negative Energy and neither Positive nor Negative (Alchemy and Soothe).
As a side note, the fact that Harm lacks the healing trait is also a problem to me. It means that an Undead affected by, say, a Clay Golem Cursed Wound could get away with it because Harm is not healing... Preposterous, if you want my point of view.
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I think the stipulation about healing in the undead trait really isn't needed. Most of the healing spells that are not supposed to work on them like Heal, don't heal them already.
And Soothe probably should have been made to work.
Overspecification just gets you intro trouble.
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Sounds like Soothe is in need of some errata. Now to wait another year or so for the 3rd printing of the CRB for that errata to show up.
...Or for Paizo to finally bite the bullet and just start regularly updating their FAQ and errata page in-between printings.
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In my opinion, Paizo came with a pretty nice rule in 2nd Edition which is the negative/positive healing one. But then, they messed it up getting back to mentioning Undead/Living.
It really does make the targeting aspect unnecessarily wonky. Technically, Harm should not heal any living negative healers since it specifically deals damage to the living and heals undead, which living negative healers are not. It clearly isn’t intended that work that way, but it’s confused many people even up to this day.
It makes the negative healing entry feel like it should also address targeting undead vs living when it really shouldn’t have to.
I think the stipulation about healing in the undead trait really isn't needed. Most of the healing spells that are not supposed to work on them like Heal, don't heal them already.
I think it's more about consistency in creature trait format and spell format.
Constructs have a similar line making them immune to healing effects. If they're mindless, they're also immune to mental effects. So soothe should not work on constructs, either. However, if they left the target line "1 creature," then if you neglect to read the Traits, as many of us do, one would conclude you can heal constructs with soothe even if you remembered that positive energy healing only affects the living.
Harm heals undead by virtue of the Negative trait. It serves as the undead equivalent of the healing trait.
Effects with this trait heal undead creatures with negative energy, deal negative damage to living creatures, or manipulate negative energy.
Aside: interesting that you can, technically, be a creature that possesses the Negative trait and still be healed by positive energy Healing effects unless you possess a different trait (construct or undead) or feature that specifically denies it.
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I think the stipulation about healing in the undead trait really isn't needed. Most of the healing spells that are not supposed to work on them like Heal, don't heal them already.I think it's more about consistency in creature trait format and spell format.
Constructs have a similar line making them immune to healing effects. If they're mindless, they're also immune to mental effects. So soothe should not work on constructs, either. However, if they left the target line "1 creature," then if you neglect to read the Traits, as many of us do, one would conclude you can heal constructs with soothe even if you remembered that positive energy healing only affects the living.
Interestingly, constructs do tend to list healing immunity specifically in their statblock, while undead don't. Looking at the traits, it says constructs are immune to healing, while undead aren't affected by healing effects. That sounds like a difference but it's not obvious to me what that difference is supposed to be.
I think ideally the undead trait would specify (or put it directly in their statblocks) that they don't benefit from positive healing. That way both Soothe and Remove Curse work.
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I'm not entirely sure about that. Comstructs listing healing immunity, even though it's part of the trait, might also be like both constructs and undead listing bleed immunity, even though it's in the definition of bleed.
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Soothe always stood out to me as one of the few ways to heal PCs with negative healing. It seemed by design as occult's alternative to Harm so I didn't think twice reading that sidebar. Of course, this was all before we had full undead PCs as opposed to just living PCs w/ negative healing. So today I'm suprised to learn Soothe only targets living creatures.
I think its Paizo's belt and bracers approach to holding up their pants/writing the rules. Sometimes the duplication just gets in the way. Or someone misses the memo.
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Found another such problem: Tech-reliant rare background in GnG, "Healing spells, healing magic items, and magical effects with the healing trait have no effect on you." Hello, curses! Does anyone know means to remove them without magic (apart from plot curses which sometimes allow quests or something like it)?
Looks like a cool background for undead! ;)
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I think OP is missing relevant text:
Basic Undead Benefits
(Book of the Dead pg. 44)
Negative Healing: You are damaged by positive damage and aren't healed by positive healing effects. You don't take negative damage and are healed by negative effects that heal undead.
Negative Survival: Unlike normal undead, you aren't destroyed when reduced to 0 Hit Points. Instead, powerful negative energy attempts to keep you from being destroyed even in dire straits. You are knocked out and begin dying when reduced to 0 Hit Points. Because you're undead, many methods of bringing someone back from dying, such as stabilize, don't benefit you. When you would die, you're destroyed rather than dead, just like other undead.
(italics mine)
I think this means that undead PCs and undead NPCs can function differently?
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I think OP is missing relevant text:
Basic Undead Benefits
(Book of the Dead pg. 44)
Negative Healing: You are damaged by positive damage and aren't healed by positive healing effects. You don't take negative damage and are healed by negative effects that heal undead.
Negative Survival: Unlike normal undead, you aren't destroyed when reduced to 0 Hit Points. Instead, powerful negative energy attempts to keep you from being destroyed even in dire straits. You are knocked out and begin dying when reduced to 0 Hit Points. Because you're undead, many methods of bringing someone back from dying, such as stabilize, don't benefit you. When you would die, you're destroyed rather than dead, just like other undead.(italics mine)
I think this means that undead PCs and undead NPCs can function differently?
You can do anything by writing rules to that effect, but then you actually have to do it. The problems are:
- You still get the undead trait which says you are not affected by healing effects. The Negative Healing trait might have been intended to rescope that to only positive healing effects, but the wording could be tighter on that. If it's the case, then that would also solve issues like Remove Curse which aren't explicitly positive.
- Soothe specifies that the target must be a living creature.
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Then you'd need to errata a few of the spells and items like Elixir of Life that otherwise would then heal Undead.I think the stipulation about healing in the undead trait really isn't needed. Most of the healing spells that are not supposed to work on them like Heal, don't heal them already.
And Soothe probably should have been made to work.
Overspecification just gets you intro trouble.
I think it's intended for Elixirs of Life to heal undead (despite their name). They are not positive energy effect so there's no reason for them not to work. I use them with my Dhampir.
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At the moment if it occurs in a home game I intend to rule that, A) Soothe can target any creature that is not DEAD dead, so undead will be fine, and B) that undead are don't benefit from positive healing effects.
It might not be a perfect solution, but until there is an official solution it works to help keep parties with undead moving and having fun in the game, which is really what matters.
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I can totally see a writer thinking "mummy alchemists, up to their elbows in embalming fluid stuff, that could be a cool encounter" and then having to twist themselves into knots to get around this undead healing trait issue. I think we're better off if it's only preventing them from being healed by positive healing, for NPCs also.
Just for the sole fact it would make battle medicine functional on undead PCs, I like this notion that the undead trait only prevents positive healing.
No, I didn't miss that. The only change is that you aren't immediately destroyed when you hit 0, you can make recovery checks.The second change appears to be:
You are damaged by positive damage and aren't healed by positive healing effects.At least, for undead PCs.
That was in the previous PC categories like Dhampir which had the negative healing trait.
Its just been extended.I have a Stuffed Poppet Summoner with the Nothing but Fluff feat with a Construct Eidolon. I also do a bit of healing with Battle Medicine (unsigned healing) and Hymm of Healing (positive healing). Fortunately we have no undead PCs, and Poppets are somehow alive, so it all works fine.
It is however rather silly. Which is the point of this particular character.