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The Confused condition says yes. You can automatically hit but not crit.
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I say no. Just because you "missed" on the die, doesn't mean your weapon didn't strike your target. It means that you failed to deal damage.
Any time you would be trying to throw a "Strike" at yourself feels like a pretty important event that probably has stakes. Stakes that the CRB call out likely require a check of some kind to randomize. Now it is the GM's final decision on whether a check is needed in basically any situation, but the rule of thumb is; if there are stakes, there should be a check.
I could see an argument that a character is capable of inflicting harm on themselves automatically otherwise, by say impaling themselves on their weapon or taking their slow deliberate time to do so... but then those kinds of situations are not ones that I tend to include in my games. Really there are few reasons I can think of that even require you to decide to strike yourself. And none I can think of that are mechanically required by the game.
You succeed your save vs. possession but do not critically succeed and want to harm the possessing creature.
Regardless of the initial question, Negative damage does not heal undead or those with negative energy, so that wouldn't even work.
That is a contentious position. A simple reading of the Undead trait says otherwise. It is a thoroughly messed up section of the rules.
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It's only contentious if you don't understand the rules. Damage never heals, period. Any effect that causes damage and heals at the same time, such as the Heal and Harm spells, have a separate entry for how much they heal. The thought that Negative Damage heals Undead is a relic of 1e, and nowhere in the 2e rules does it even suggest that damage can heal in any way.
An exception that proves the rule is Golem Antimagic. For the Healed By entry is says:
Any magic of this type that targets the golem makes the golem lose the slowed condition and gain HP equal to half the damage the spell would have dealt. If the golem starts its turn in an area of this type of magic, it gains the HP listed in the parenthetical.
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Yes, undead doesn't say negative damage heals but negative energy: Then you look at negative healing an it says "It does not take negative damage, and it is healed by negative effects that heal undead" and the distinction is pretty clear: the negative energy effect has to say it heals.
It's only contentious if you don't understand the rules. Damage never heals, period. Any effect that causes damage and heals at the same time, such as the Heal and Harm spells, have a separate entry for how much they heal. The thought that Negative Damage heals Undead is a relic of 1e, and nowhere in the 2e rules does it even suggest that damage can heal in any way.
An exception that proves the rule is Golem Antimagic. For the Healed By entry is says:
Any magic of this type that targets the golem makes the golem lose the slowed condition and gain HP equal to half the damage the spell would have dealt. If the golem starts its turn in an area of this type of magic, it gains the HP listed in the parenthetical.
Damage never heals is not a rule, its just common sense that you need a rule to say otherwise. However
Undead creatures are damaged by positive energy, are healed by negative energy, and don't benefit from healing effects
is a rule.
I get that you have an interpretation that makes sense. Which is fine. But its a rationalisation. Cleary some interpretation is needed.
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There's a sidebar in one of the bestiaries about regarding places where you might want to voluntarily fail a saving throw, and the guideline there is that you can "worsen" the degree of success one-step relative to the roll. Ie in the saving throw case, you can roll a success, and downgrade it to a fail -- but you still have to roll, and risk the chance of a crit fail, etc.
I'd say, outside of specific spells effects like Confusion, I'd probably follow a similar ruling -- you can increase the degree of success one step against yourself on a strike, but you still have to roll. I'd need to find the sidebar, but my searching is failing right now, to know if you need to declare the "one step" before you know the result or after of the roll.
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While I agree that this edition has a distinction between negative damage and negative healing as well as positive damage and positive healing, it does lead to some interesting cases. Such as that a Dhampir cannot be healed by either the Heal spell or the Harm spell (Dhampir is still a living creature, so Harm deals negative damage to them).
I don't think that a necrotic bomb needs to have any special exceptions for it though. Bombs deal damage. Not healing. (unless you make a healing elixir into a bomb).
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There's a sidebar in one of the bestiaries about regarding places where you might want to voluntarily fail a saving throw, and the guideline there is that you can "worsen" the degree of success one-step relative to the roll. Ie in the saving throw case, you can roll a success, and downgrade it to a fail -- but you still have to roll, and risk the chance of a crit fail, etc.
I'd say, outside of specific spells effects like Confusion, I'd probably follow a similar ruling -- you can increase the degree of success one step against yourself on a strike, but you still have to roll. I'd need to find the sidebar, but my searching is failing right now, to know if you need to declare the "one step" before you know the result or after of the roll.
Yes, along side the Gliminal, which can explode you with too much positive healing, so damaging yourself could be the only way to survive one.
Damage never heals is not a rule, its just common sense that you need a rule to say that. However
Undead creatures are damaged by positive energy, are healed by negative energy, and don't benefit from healing effects
is a rule.
I get that you have an interpretation that makes sense. Which is fine. But its a rationalisation. Cleary some interpretation is needed.
The rule for positive and negative energy in the Damage Types entry:
Two special types of energy damage specifically target the living and the undead. Positive damage harms only undead creatures, withering undead bodies and disrupting incorporeal undead. Negative damage saps life, damaging only living creatures.
In the damage section is states:
Damage decreases a creature’s Hit Points on a 1-to-1 basis (so a creature that takes 6 damage loses 6 Hit Points).
Only on specific ability/creature entries does it state that a creature can regain HP instead of lowering it when taking damage, and since no where does it state that Undead creatures are healed by Negative Damage, they are not. Being healed by Negative Energy does not inherently include Negative Damage.
Yes, undead doesn't say negative damage heals but negative energy: Then you look at negative healing an it says "It does not take negative damage, and it is healed by negative effects that heal undead" and the distinction is pretty clear: the negative energy effect has to say it heals.
That is the Negative Healing property (not a trait). Which is a different section of the rules. It modifies, explains or contradicts the Undead trait depending on how you look at it.
Superficially the damage rules are adding nothing to the discussion.
The damage types are general rules, that have to be superceded by negative healing.
If you play them how they are written you will get yourself into a knot.
The difficulty is Undead Eidolons are living and Undead, Dhampirs are living and not Undead. Both have negative healing.
They only reasonable way to go is play the negative healing rules and ignore the other rules - including the targeting restrictions. Then it becomes reasonable and starts to work how you would expect.
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Yes, undead doesn't say negative damage heals but negative energy: Then you look at negative healing an it says "It does not take negative damage, and it is healed by negative effects that heal undead" and the distinction is pretty clear: the negative energy effect has to say it heals.That is the Negative Healing property (not a trait). Which is a different section of the rules. It modifies, explains or contradicts the Undead trait depending on how you look at it.
Looking at undead, I grab a random Undead Mummy Pharaoh, Skeletal Horse and Vampire Mastermind on Nethys: by HP is says Negative Healing and links to "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." Bestiary 2 pg. 305
"it is healed by negative effects that heal undead." There is NO reason to note this is the default was negative damage healed undead. It's not like positive damage heals living creatures either. DO we have any undead without negative healing?
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Look it doesn't matter what you quote to say otherwise. There is a section in the rules under the undead trait that says it does. You said it doesn't exist - it does.
A specific example does not contradict a general rule, just modifes in specific places. Its unclear which general rule overrides the other. They do superficially contradict. So you have to choose.
In practice most of the individual spells and abilities go on to say explicitly what happens in each case, so a lot of the general rules are more guidelines and are not often applied anyway. eg Heal and Harm
My understanding is there are no undead monsters without negative healing, but there might be. However and more importantly, there are player options that are Undead. Some of these are living, at least Dhampire are not undead.
The real doozy is that most of the specific rules refer to living or undead creatures. What they really should refer to to get them to work is Negative Healing.
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Look it doesn't matter what you quote to say otherwise.
The thing is though, that quote doesn't contradict negative healing at all: both work 100% and don't override each other, even superficially.
undead vs negative
damaged by positive energy vs damaged by positive damage = same
healed by negative energy vs healed by negative effects that heal undead = same but one is more specific.
don't benefit from healing effects vs not healed by positive healing effects = same.
None contradict just one has clarifying text that adds a proviso. Saying in one place there is a speed limit and in another saying there is a speed limit of 55 isn't a contradiction, for instance, as both statements can be correct. The same applies with those abilities/traits.
What they really should refer to to get them to work is Negative Healing.
Dhampir work fine because of : "You have the negative healing ability, which means you are harmed by positive damage and healed by negative effects as if you were undead." So for negative healing effects they act as undead.
What they really should refer to to get them to work is Negative Healing.Dhampir work fine because of : "You have the negative healing ability, which means you are harmed by positive damage and healed by negative effects as if you were undead." So for negative healing effects they act as undead.
Pity it doesn't work in practice as they still aren't undead and therefore aren't valid targets. Spell and Effects of spells are different things. No don't look at me like that, Paizo made this distinction not me.
Is this another place where they say healed by negative effects
not negative healing effects? You have to go to the actual property to sort that out.
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Right, if Undead were healed by Negative Damage, it would say something like "You regain HP equal to the amount of Negative Damage you would have taken". There is no explicit rule for how much HP you would heal if you take damage. The example of Golem Anti-Magic is explicit: Half the damage as healing if it is targeted, and a specific amount if you are in an AoE.
Here is another example, which is more relevant to this discussion. There is the Corrupted Relic, which has a targeted negative damage attack dealing 4d6 negative damage with a DC20 Fort save. If it targets a creature with negative healing, it instead regains 4d6 HP (no save) and then becomes immune for 10 minutes.
So Gortle, why, if negative damage was meant to heal Undead, would it have to specify what happens to those with the ability? Why not just say "If healed by this ability that creature becomes immune for 10 minutes"?
Has wandered so far off the original topic…
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The original topic is answered by the sidebar that came along side the Gliminal, in that you can increase your degree of success by one when Striking yourself (if the GM allows).
The OP then updated the question saying they wanted to Strike themselves with a Necrotic Bomb to heal themselves, and I pointed out that it wouldn't work that way. That's when Gortle wanted to argue the Negative Damage stuff, and here we are.
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Has wandered so far off the original topic…
Well, the OP made the traditional mistake of asking a general question without (initially) mentioning the specific application, and of course the intended application had an entirely different issue to discuss...
So, we are technically 'on' the 'topic as intended' but not the 'topic as written'...
Yes I'm not really a thread purist, but its not an unreasonable request so I guess that we should move back to one of the other threads where we were arguing these points. Thanks BTW for the points raised here.
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Still no clear answer, huh? Using Eric N.'s sidebar for gliminal reference, here's how I'm planning to propose it to GMs at whose Society table I'm playing. Bombing myself would need an attack roll; if it missed, I could allow it to hit. If it critically missed it wouldn't heal. If I hit, I could make it crit. Would critically hitting double the heal? It sure seems like it. Please click FAQ. This seems to exploitable.
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I think you missed the fact that Negative Damage does not heal you so regardless of if the Society GM wants to let you strike yourself it still will never heal.
Dhampir
"You have the negative healing ability, which means you are harmed by positive damage and healed by negative effects as if you were undead."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."
Undead (trait)
Undead creatures are damaged by positive energy, are healed by negative energy, and don't benefit from healing effects.
Necrotic bomb:
A necrotic bomb deals the listed negative damage
The Negative trait, which is on necrotic bomb, says this: Negative
Effects with this trait heal undead creatures with negative energy, deal negative damage to living creatures, or manipulate negative energy.
RAW, clear to me that necrotic bombs heal dhampirs.
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Necrotic bomb:
A necrotic bomb deals the listed negative damageThe Negative trait, which is on necrotic bomb, says this: Negative
Effects with this trait heal undead creatures with negative energy, deal negative damage to living creatures, or manipulate negative energy.
RAW says
Negative trait does one of the following three things:
* heal undead creatures
* deal negative damage to living creatures
* manipulate negative energy
That is what the word 'or' means.
Some items and spells will do more than one of those things - such as the Harm spell. But in those cases it will list out under what conditions it does different ones.
Guess which one a Necrotic Bomb does. I'll give you a hint: nowhere in there does it say it does any amount of healing to anyone or anything.
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See some of the previous threads on the topic, it doesn't work that way, otherwise, Dhampir would have endless free healing for zero resource cost.
If you try this at a PFS table, esp if you're at a convention as I suspect may be the case, and you're relying on that for your build you're going to have a bad time of it, this definitively does not work.
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Did anyone posting in this thread bother to read what the negative trait is?
Because the necrotic bombs' negative trait "heals undead creatures with negative energy" and dhampirs receive
negative healing: "dhampir is healed by negative effects that heal undead."
The Negative trait on the bomb heals.
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No, please, you're not listening, please review the discussion above, the thread I linked, and the threads linked there as well. I'm doing my very best to try to encourage you to learn instead of having to find out the hard way from a GM that it doesn't work the way you want it to and save you untold aggravation and likely embarrassment.
There are Positive and Negative Traits.
There is also Positive Damage, Positive Healing, Negative Damage, and Negative Healing effects, all of which interact with things differently and do not overlap with one another.
If you try to pull this at a PFS Table you're going to be met with a far more blunt answer and most likely a refusal to elaborate since doing so will take time away from the game and other players to walk you through things and it WILL spoil your day and game if your concept hinges on this idea.
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Did anyone posting in this thread bother to read what the negative trait is?
Because the necrotic bombs' negative trait "heals undead creatures with negative energy" and dhampirs receive
negative healing: "dhampir is healed by negative effects that heal undead."
The Negative trait on the bomb heals.
Other people read it. You have just misread it. Healing undead is one of the things that some abilities with the Negative trait do. Other things with the Negative trait do other things, which are also listed in that trait.
Necrotic bomb is not one of the Negative things that Heal Undead.
This is why things that can both heal undead or inflict negative damage list the effects separately, because one does not translate into the other.
It's just like breithauptclan pointed. If you read negative trait closely you will se in the first line "Effects with this trait heal undead creatures with negative energy, deal negative damage to living creatures, or manipulate negative energy". The coma has meaning of "or" in the line and not the meaning of "and".
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The best example of this is the Harm Spell which DOES provide healing to Undead and other undead adjacent creatures with something akin to the Negative Healing feature, but it ONLY does so because the Spell says that it does.
I know it feels a bit odd for it to work this way, especially if you have a history of playing any AD&D 2e through 3.X (including PF1) as it didn't work in this manner before but this is an intentional design change for this system.
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For some Spell Examples, there's Harm, Necromancer's Generosity or Malignant Sustenance. For an item example, you could look at Oil of Unlife.
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If negative damage healed undead, it'd be REALLLY bad to meet a group of them: a group of ghosts could use their 3rd action to attack any of them that where damage to heal...
It's just like breithauptclan pointed. If you read negative trait closely you will se in the first line "Effects with this trait heal undead creatures with negative energy, deal negative damage to living creatures, or manipulate negative energy". The coma has meaning of "or" in the line and not the meaning of "and".
There is no or in the Undead trait. There is no or in the Negative Healing ability.
Just because there is an or in the Negative Trait, it does not overwrite the others. The domains are slightly different.
The fact that you raise this gramatical point, just emphasises that there is no option with the other traits.
What you are really arguing is that there is one option here that says or and maybe that is the real intended outcome. That's not unreasonable, but it's not what the rules acutally say.
The whole undead healing rules are a mess and contradictory. The designers really need to step in and clean up with some errata. They could start with separating the effects of Negative Healing out of the Undead trait and just leave them in Negative Healing. Then getting rid of many of the targets living or targets undead out of spells when we have perfectly good rules for what happens in either case.
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What I am saying by pointing out the 'or' is that the general traits are - general. They apply to a lot of different things and not everything that is written in them is applicable to everything that has the trait.
For another example, look at the Earth trait. Yes, those ones have the different sections separated into entire sentences. But the idea is the same. The trait is generic and widely used for things. The entirety of the text in there isn't always mechanically impactful to everything that has the trait.
For some Spell Examples, there's Harm, Necromancer's Generosity or Malignant Sustenance. For an item example, you could look at Oil of Unlife.
Oil of Unlife is one of the better written rules. When you dash oil of unlife onto an undead creature, or a living creature with negative healing really starts to get at the problem. It also doesn't have the problematic Healing Trait.
For the worst look at Soothe which has Healing Trait, targets a Living Creature, but the rules call it out as being able to heal undead
What I am saying by pointing out the 'or' is that the general traits are - general. They apply to a lot of different things and not everything that is written in them is applicable to everything that has the trait.
For another example, look at the Earth trait. Yes, those ones have the different sections separated into entire sentences. But the idea is the same. The trait is generic and widely used for things. The entirety of the text in there isn't always mechanically impactful to everything that has the trait.
Some of the traits are worded in an open manner like that as we are just discussing. They are OK. But tell me what parts of the game fall apart if you look on traits as optional rules? The game just crashes like a house of cards.
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Not really.
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For some Spell Examples, there's Harm, Necromancer's Generosity or Malignant Sustenance. For an item example, you could look at Oil of Unlife.Oil of Unlife is one of the better written rules. When you dash oil of unlife onto an undead creature, or a living creature with negative healing really starts to get at the problem. It also doesn't have the problematic Healing Trait.
For the worst look at Soothe which has Healing Trait, targets a Living Creature, but the rules call it out as being able to heal undead
Able to heal undead PCs, who have relaxed limits on what cannot heal them (positive healing only).
Other creatures with the undead trait do not benefit from this specific rule and thus follow the general rule of the undead trait, thereby being unable to be healed with Soothe.
Not really.
Attack
For some Spell Examples, there's Harm, Necromancer's Generosity or Malignant Sustenance. For an item example, you could look at Oil of Unlife.Oil of Unlife is one of the better written rules. When you dash oil of unlife onto an undead creature, or a living creature with negative healing really starts to get at the problem. It also doesn't have the problematic Healing Trait.
For the worst look at Soothe which has Healing Trait, targets a Living Creature, but the rules call it out as being able to heal undead
Able to heal undead PCs, who have relaxed limits on what cannot heal them (positive healing only).
Other creatures with the undead trait do not benefit from this specific rule and thus follow the general rule of the undead trait, thereby being unable to be healed with Soothe.
Read it. Its not a rule specific to PC Undead. It is a rule general to all undead. It is separated out in a box. It is there because it is relevant. It is explaining the existing rules, relating them to the topic of healing undead. Regardless none of the playable PC options listed in this section are living, so Soothe cannot work on them.
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For some Spell Examples, there's Harm, Necromancer's Generosity or Malignant Sustenance. For an item example, you could look at Oil of Unlife.Oil of Unlife is one of the better written rules. When you dash oil of unlife onto an undead creature, or a living creature with negative healing really starts to get at the problem. It also doesn't have the problematic Healing Trait.
For the worst look at Soothe which has Healing Trait, targets a Living Creature, but the rules call it out as being able to heal undead
Able to heal undead PCs, who have relaxed limits on what cannot heal them (positive healing only).
Other creatures with the undead trait do not benefit from this specific rule and thus follow the general rule of the undead trait, thereby being unable to be healed with Soothe.
Read it. Its not a rule specific to PC Undead. It is a rule general to all undead. It is separated out in a box. It is there because it is relevant. It is explaining the existing rules, relating them to the topic of healing undead. Regardless none of the playable PC options listed in this section are living, so Soothe cannot work on them.
Specific trumps General though.
That said, good point about the living target of Soothe.
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I don't put much stock in the rules call out for soothe working as there are MULTIPLE reasons it can't work: even if we ignore the living creature target, we also have the Undead trait stating they "don't benefit from healing effects". So Soothe needs rewritten completely to have it work on undead and I don't really see how that can happen and it lose the healing trait while still healing living creatures without it getting a separate section like heal and harm do for living and undead creatures.
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Some of the traits are worded in an open manner like that as we are just discussing. They are OK. But tell me what parts of the game fall apart if you look on traits as optional rules? The game just crashes like a house of cards.
I'm not saying that the general traits are optional. I'm saying that they are descriptive and informative and apply broadly to many things.
Other traits - such as Agile or Sweep - absolutely do define game mechanics. But many times traits don't define any mechanics - they just inform and describe.
Such as the Negative trait.