Undead and Healing

I understand that RAW, undead are immune to healing effects. However, it is probably a poor choice to have them be immune to heal actions entirely.

For example, (note: spoilers for Shadows at Sundown!!) the strigoi in Shadows at Sundown are suppose to heal themselves when they drink essence. However, because they are undead, clicking on the healing automation does not actually heal them, and you have to manually adjust their hit points.

Since healing effects have to be targeted and applied manually in basically all cases, it seems like it would be more logical to rely on the GM to adjudicate the immunity rather than just making a basic function not work on them.

This is also relevant since the latest errata made Soothe work on undead creatures.

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Originally Posted by MaxAstro

However, because they are undead, clicking on the healing automation does not actually heal them, and you have to manually adjust their hit points.

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Healing works fine for me on undead creatures. How are you applying the healing? Are you running any extensions?

I was, but even with them disabled I am still having the issue. However, further testing seems to indicate that something else is going on here, and I'm having trouble figuring out what. I cannot get the Strigoi Servant's self-healing from Drink Essence to actually apply any healing to them, even if I remove the undead trait.

However, I did just try applying healing from another source, and it works fine, you are right.

So I'm not sure what is going on there. I assumed it was the undead trait, in the heat of the moment, but now I have no idea what is going on.

EDIT: OMG, I've been banging my head against this for the last 20 minutes, trying to figure out why nothing works, and eventually I realized it's yet another typo with the Strigoi Servant, making this the third or fourth I've found in that one creature. XD Drink Essence is automated with "HEAL" instead of "Heal" and apparently the capitalization matters. Oddly enough the program still recognizes it as a healing ability, but with HEAL it heals for 0 points no matter what number you put. Changed the capitalization to "Heal" and now it works.

Thanks for finding that, sorry for the issues. I've passed on the developer to fix. I'll also change the code to accept NPC ability automation "heal" in any format of upper/lower case.

I appreciate that, and sorry for my confusion. I assumed it was some kind of immunity because instead of failing entirely, it was "healing" for 0 points.

I want to piggyback off this topic to ask, is positive-traited healing coded to wound undead in the ruleset? If so, is it coded to the dhampir ancestry from Book of the Dead?

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Originally Posted by MaxAstro

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EDIT: OMG, I've been banging my head against this for the last 20 minutes, trying to figure out why nothing works, and eventually I realized it's yet another typo with the Strigoi Servant, making this the third or fourth I've found in that one creature. XD Drink Essence is automated with "HEAL" instead of "Heal" and apparently the capitalization matters. Oddly enough the program still recognizes it as a healing ability, but with HEAL it heals for 0 points no matter what number you put. Changed the capitalization to "Heal" and now it works.

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Sorry about that. I too was unaware of the capitalization issue. Funny enough, this issue has been in the system from the beginning and as far back as the Extinction Curse APs.

I did fix all the modules that had the capitalization issue and they should all be fixed in the LIVE server on Tuesday.

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Originally Posted by Muagen

I want to piggyback off this topic to ask, is positive-traited healing coded to wound undead in the ruleset? If so, is it coded to the dhampir ancestry from Book of the Dead?

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This is not actually how 2e works, but is a common confusion because it did work that way in 1e.

In 2e, there is positive healing, and positive damage, which are separate things. A creature with the negative healing trait takes damage from positive damage, and is unaffected by positive healing, but does not take damage from it. This is why, for example, the Heal spell specifies that it does positive damage to undead.

In no case does positive damage heal a creature, and in no case does positive healing damage a creature. Same with negative energy.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MaxAstro

This is not actually how 2e works, but is a common confusion because it did work that way in 1e.

In 2e, there is positive healing, and positive damage, which are separate things. A creature with the negative healing trait takes damage from positive damage, and is unaffected by positive healing, but does not take damage from it. This is why, for example, the Heal spell specifies that it does positive damage to undead.

In no case does positive damage heal a creature, and in no case does positive healing damage a creature. Same with negative energy.

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Well, today I learned!
Thanks!