We know positive energy cannot heal undead.
But it also says under the undead trait that nothing with the healing trait can heal undead unless something else modifies it like Stitch Flesh.
We know negative energy healing effects like Harm can heal undead.
What else can heal undead? A couple of my players plan to play undead archetypes. I would like to know what kind of pain is to heal them?
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Soothe and touch of corruption are the two big ones aside from harm.
A couple of my players plan to play undead archetypes. I would like to know what kind of pain is to heal them?
Ultimately it is for you and your players to negotiate that out. The rules are a bit ambiguous about that at the moment.
The Undead trait prevents being affected by things with the Healing trait - such as Battle Medicine.
But the Basic Undead Benefits specifically says:
These are somewhat different from the normal undead creature abilities to better fit player characters.
but doesn't go on to quite define how much of the Undead trait is actually overridden.
So that leaves some things - such as Battle Medicine - a bit unclear.
Personally I think it is too imbalanced to not let Battle Medicine work at all ever. It may be reasonable to require the Stitch Flesh feat for it to work - even though Stitch Flesh actually says nothing about Battle Medicine and doesn't interact with it. I also think it is reasonable to let Battle Medicine simply work, and only require Stitch Flesh for Treat Wounds.
Things that I know unquestionably will work:
Harm (Only questionable on living creatures with negative healing. Actual undead will be healed).
Treat Wounds with Stitch Flesh.
Oil of Unlife.
Necromancer's Generosity (though that only works on a PCs minion, not another PC).
The Thaumaturge Chalice.
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Soothe and touch of corruption are the two big ones aside from harm.
Soothe does still have the Healing trait. So even with it being called out in some places as working, it is not entirely clear how it works.
If nothing else, if Soothe works, then so should Battle Medicine.
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The Healing Traits is pretty clear a lot of places. Given they added the Stitch Flesh feat to the game, it seems that Paizo thinks the healing trait stops undead from receiving help with abilities like Treat Wounds without the Stitch Flesh feat. So not sure why Soothe would work since it to has the healing trait.
It could be that the Paizo designers did not think about this when creating undead PCs. It would easy to remove the trait and simply have Sooth not work on mindless undead due to the mental trait, but still work on undead that can be affected by mental or emotion effects.
Given they added the Stitch Flesh feat to the game, it seems that Paizo thinks the healing trait stops undead from receiving help with abilities like Treat Wounds without the Stitch Flesh feat.
Well not exactly, Stitch Flesh is important because Treat Wounds is used specifically on living creatures, which would be a problem regardless.
So not sure why Soothe would work since it to has the healing trait.
Errata and multiple sources have specifically called out Soothe working on undead is why.
Given they added the Stitch Flesh feat to the game, it seems that Paizo thinks the healing trait stops undead from receiving help with abilities like Treat Wounds without the Stitch Flesh feat.Well not exactly, Stitch Flesh is important because Treat Wounds is used specifically on living creatures, which would be a problem regardless.
So not sure why Soothe would work since it to has the healing trait.Errata and multiple sources have specifically called out Soothe working on undead is why.
Yeah, the errata entry for the CRB states explicitly that soothe effectiveness is determined based on ability to be affected by mental effects of all things.
Page 370: The soothe spell can now target “1 willing creature” instead of “1 willing living creature”. It can be used to heal undead, constructs, and so on. (This change matches the rules noted in Book of the Dead and Blood Lords Player’s Guide.) Note that it has the mental trait, so it still doesn’t heal or otherwise benefit mindless creatures like zombies or animated objects.
Even with the healing tag in place, soothe just has specific extra rules/dev commentary for it that bypasses it.
Errata and multiple sources have specifically called out Soothe working on undead is why.
Yes, the ONLY reason soothe now works is the new 4th errata stating it does: the multiple sources didn't though as they weren't written as rules alterations but like it was obvious it should [which was confusing to say the least]. The sources didn't alter the targeting or undead trait issues.
To quote the errata:
Page 370: The soothe spell can now target “1 willing creature” instead of “1 willing living creature”. It can be used to heal undead, constructs, and so on. (This change matches the rules noted in Book of the Dead and Blood Lords Player’s Guide.) Note that it has the mental trait, so it still doesn’t heal or otherwise benefit mindless creatures like zombies or animated objects.
But it doesn't remove the Healing trait from Soothe or change the Undead trait to allow Healing effects to work.
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To quote the errata:
Page 370: The soothe spell can now target “1 willing creature” instead of “1 willing living creature”. It can be used to heal undead, constructs, and so on. (This change matches the rules noted in Book of the Dead and Blood Lords Player’s Guide.) Note that it has the mental trait, so it still doesn’t heal or otherwise benefit mindless creatures like zombies or animated objects.But it doesn't remove the Healing trait from Soothe or change the Undead trait to allow Healing effects to work.
It can be used to heal undead, constructs, and so on.
Specific overrides general. Not much more to it.
The Healing Traits is pretty clear a lot of places. Given they added the Stitch Flesh feat to the game, it seems that Paizo thinks the healing trait stops undead from receiving help with abilities like Treat Wounds without the Stitch Flesh feat. So not sure why Soothe would work since it to has the healing trait.
It could be that the Paizo designers did not think about this when creating undead PCs. It would easy to remove the trait and simply have Sooth not work on mindless undead due to the mental trait, but still work on undead that can be affected by mental or emotion effects.
And actually, I think the better houserule/proposed errata is to remove the restriction in the Undead trait that prevents using any and all Healing effects. Just rely on the prohibition of Positive effects to prevent things like Heal from working.
Otherwise status removal becomes a lot more of a problem than HP restoration does. Spells like Neutralize Poison, Raise Dead, Remove Curse, Remove Disease, Remove Paralysis, Restoration, and Restore Senses all have the Healing trait too. But not the Positive trait.
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But it doesn't remove the Healing trait from Soothe or change the Undead trait to allow Healing effects to work.It can be used to heal undead, constructs, and so on.
Specific overrides general. Not much more to it.
Yes, I would allow Soothe to work. For that very reason.
That still leaves Battle Medicine in a strange place though. Along with a bunch of other spells that have the Healing trait, but not the Positive trait - just like Soothe does.
The wording of the errata makes it seem like all that they needed to change was the target line of Soothe. Allowing it to target Undead and Constructs was all that they needed to specify. From there it is obvious and clear that it can be used to heal Undead.
Which is not accurate.
The wording of the errata makes it seem like all that they needed to change was the target line of Soothe. Allowing it to target Undead and Constructs was all that they needed to specify. From there it is obvious and clear that it can be used to heal Undead.
Which is not accurate.
Yes, it's the same thing as the other references to soothe healing undead: I have to wonder what they see that I'm missing.
The wording of the errata makes it seem like all that they needed to change was the target line of Soothe. Allowing it to target Undead and Constructs was all that they needed to specify. From there it is obvious and clear that it can be used to heal Undead.
Which is not accurate.
I didn't get that sort of feeling from it at all. All I saw was a necessary update to targeting specifications to go with the buff the spell got. Similarly, stitch flesh modifies targeting specifications on treat wounds to accomodate the rest of what it does. Like other things that modify treat wounds, it has no effect on battle medicine.
Ok. That is what I was looking for: the errata.
I may make that positive trait modification since undead PCs can be affected by poison and disease, but often undead creatures cannot. I will modify some rules to make things playable.
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I didn't get that sort of feeling from it at all. All I saw was a necessary update to targeting specifications to go with the buff the spell got.
Exactly. All it was was a change to the targeting specifications.
If it was intended to be an override of the Undead trait, it should have given at least a little bit of a nod to the fact that this is an exception to the general rule that Undead "don't benefit from healing effects."
But it really feels like whoever was writing about Soothe in all of those various places (including the 4th printing CRB errata) had simply forgotten that the Healing trait and every effect that has it doesn't work on anything with the Undead trait.
