The skeleton PC bleed thread got me rereading the Undead Eidolon entry and made me realize Construct and Undead Eidolons are both classified as living creatures through their initial abilities despite their traits. These eidolons are the two I'm considering for a Summoner I'm making, so I'm invested. Does this have any significant interaction consequences I should be aware of?
For construct eidolons, I think it's mostly a non-issue. I don't think there are many things that specifically target constructs that would muddle anything that targets it as a living creature. It just gives it another avenue to be targeted, for better or worse. However, undead eidolons are simultaneously undead through its trait and living through its initial ability, and there are many things that have different effects based on the target being undead vs living.
The eidolon having negative healing solves spells like Harm and Heal that only deals damage and cause healing. How does a spell like Chill Touch work though? It wouldn't deal damage because of negative healing, but would it cause the undead eidolon to make both fortitude saves, one for being a living creature and the other for being undead?
Not entirely sure about Construct. I'll have to look into that a bit more.
For Undead that are still classified as Living (Dhampir Heritage and Revenant Background too), there are some strange targeting problems with various spells when you follow the rules in an overly strict manner.
Harm and Heal both don't work to heal with.
Heal sees that the creature is living, so "If the target is a willing living creature, you restore 1d8 Hit Points." But since Negative Essense causes it to be "damaged by positive energy effects that damage undead" it gets damaged instead.
Harm, however, sees that the creature is living, so "If the target is a living creature, you deal 1d8 negative damage to it" - which Negative Healing causes it to ignore: "It does not take negative damage"
So use a more reasonable interpretation of the rules.
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Not entirely sure about Construct. I'll have to look into that a bit more.
For Undead that are still classified as Living (Dhampir Heritage and Revenant Background too), there are some strange targeting problems with various spells when you follow the rules in an overly strict manner.
Harm and Heal both don't work to heal with.
Heal sees that the creature is living, so "If the target is a willing living creature, you restore 1d8 Hit Points." But since Negative Essense causes it to be "damaged by positive energy effects that damage undead" it gets damaged instead.
Harm, however, sees that the creature is living, so "If the target is a living creature, you deal 1d8 negative damage to it" - which Negative Healing causes it to ignore: "It does not take negative damage"So use a more reasonable interpretation of the rules.
Harm most emphatically does heal the Undead Eidolon.
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.Harm
You channel negative energy to harm the living or heal the undead. If the target is a living creature, you deal 1d8 negative damage to it, and it gets a basic Fortitude save. If the target is a willing undead creature, you restore that amount of Hit Points. The number of actions you spend when Casting this Spell determines its targets, range, area, and other parameters.
The Undead Eidolon is undead, so affects that target undead only (like disrupt undead) or affect undead differently (chill touch or searing light) affect them as if they were undead. (Although for searing light it may not make a difference since the extra damage is good, and the eidolon doesn't have to be evil).
For affects or spells that say "heals undead" they heal the eidolon. Harm, necromancer's generosity, touch of corruption, malignant sustenance are all spells that heal undead, so they work on your Eidolon.
So it is undead, but then the rules say, you don't have the normal undead immunities, meaning it is still susceptible to death affects, paralysis, poison, disease, bleed, and sleep or unconscious.
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Regarding Dhampir (I know the thread is about Eidolons but Dhampirs will get mentioned), it's important to note that the Dhampir description of Negative Healing is different than the Bestiary description:
You have the negative healing ability, which means you are harmed by positive damage and healed by negative effects as if you were undead.
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.
Archivesofnethys links the Dhampir entry to Bestiary entry, so the Dhampir entry is likely the one in error, but until it's clarified you'll encounter plenty of variation on the matter.
Your undead eidolon has a link directly to your life force, which grants it a twilight state between living and undead. This renders it a living creature and therefore susceptible to many ailments that bother only the living, though it does possess some resistances to these effects.
This with the Undead Eidolon having the Undead trait, AFAIK, makes it the only instance we've gained access to this unique combination of a living creature with the Undead trait. This is unlike Dhampirs which are just living. Both have negative healing though.
Harm most emphatically does heal the Undead Eidolon.
Interestingly, negative healing allows this to work out neatly no matter if you rule the Undead Eidolon as living, undead or both; same for Heal but the other way around (Heal ends up net damaging it like undead). Just looking at Harm's targets, the Undead Eidolon qualifies for both; it is living and a willing undead.
Let's say Harm does treat the Undead Eidolon as living and undead so both healing and damage apply:
- It heals because it's undead, but negative healing will make it heal either way
- It is dealt negative damage because it's living, but negative healing makes take no negative damage
- It net heals from Harm similar to undead
That said, I think the sheer fact it has negative healing means it should absolutely be treated as undead as far as healing and positive/negative damage goes, completely ignoring the thought exercise above.
However, what about effects that negative healing wouldn't address AKA not healing or positive/negative damage related? Should it be treated as both undead and living at the same time, instead of one or the other? Should that even be possible? It's a rather new and unique occurrence if so.
Honestly if nothing else, I'm just curious about this now: How would you all make a spell like Chill Touch interact with an Undead Eidolon?
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Your undead eidolon has a link directly to your life force, which grants it a twilight state between living and undead. This renders it a living creature and therefore susceptible to many ailments that bother only the living, though it does possess some resistances to these effects.This with the Undead Eidolon having the Undead trait, AFAIK, makes it the only instance we've gained access to this unique combination of a living creature with the Undead trait. This is unlike Dhampirs which are just living. Both have negative healing though.
Harm most emphatically does heal the Undead Eidolon.Interestingly, negative healing allows this to work out neatly no matter if you rule the Undead Eidolon as living, undead or both; same for Heal but the other way around (Heal ends up net damaging it like undead). Just looking at Harm's targets, the Undead Eidolon qualifies for both; it is living and a willing undead.
Let's say Harm does treat the Undead Eidolon as living and undead so both healing and damage apply:
- It heals because it's undead, but negative healing will make it heal either way
- It is dealt negative damage because it's living, but negative healing makes take no negative damage
- It net heals from Harm similar to undeadThat said, I think the sheer fact it has negative healing means it should absolutely be treated as undead as far as healing and positive/negative damage goes, completely ignoring the thought exercise above.
However, what about effects that negative healing wouldn't address AKA not healing or positive/negative damage related? Should it be treated as both undead and living at the same time, instead of one or the other? Should that even be possible? It's a rather new and unique occurrence if so.
Honestly if nothing else, I'm just curious about this now: How would you all make a spell like Chill Touch interact with...
Chill Touch would do both effects, per RAW. But really, this "it's undead but not really" statement is just jank and doesn't work out correctly.
Chill Touch would do both effects, per RAW. But really, this "it's undead but not really" statement is just jank and doesn't work out correctly.
It's just the lazy solution. In order to would the things fair Paizo would need to do many negative alternatives to most undead immunities or add many more weakpoints as compensation. This would create redundancy and risk to create a big advantage in most scenarios for the undead PCs so is understandable that they just did a "OK, it's a lot of work let's ignore the logic and verisimilitude again and just say they are like living creatures that heals with harm spell to avoid more work and don't risk add imbalances.
Harm most emphatically does heal the Undead Eidolon.
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.HarmYou channel negative energy to harm the living or heal the undead. If the target is a living creature, you deal 1d8 negative damage to it, and it gets a basic Fortitude save. If the target is a willing undead creature, you restore that amount of Hit Points. The number of actions you spend when Casting this Spell determines its targets, range, area, and other parameters.
But when used on a living creature, Harm is not creating an effect that is trying to heal undead.
I know what RAI is for this case. Of course Harm should heal the Undead Eidolon. But the RAW on it is a bit strange.
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Maybe it is the programmer in me. This looks like if ... else if ... statement, or a switch statement logic.
If the creature is living { do this effect } else if the creature is undead { do this effect }.
There is no state where both effects can happen.
Now, if the logic was a stack of if statements with no else, then it would work the way that you described. And it could be read that way (and probably should be), though doing so is a bit more rare in English. Usually when there is a list of 'if' sentences, you are supposed to pick only one of them (more like the switch programming logic).
This is why I often say that the rules would be a lot more unambiguous if they were written in C++.
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Chill Touch would do both effects, per RAW. But really, this "it's undead but not really" statement is just jank and doesn't work out correctly.
It actually took me quite a while to fully get how the Dhampir worked (living with negative healing). I think it took a video that literally had to say the intent of the devs to settle it in my head.
I was truly expecting the undead book to clear things up, but in a cruel twist, it gave me another even more confusing combination.
I think I'm just going to scrap the undead eidolon for now and lock-in construct. Thanks everyone.