Post/Author/DateTime	Post
kadeity 02-20-07, 09:00 AM	One of my players wants to play a Dread Necromancer and take the Tomb tainted soul feat so that they can heal themselves with charnel touch. thats fine. Ive seen this tactic before. However, the character also wants to be a Warforged. I know warforged can become undead and all that... My question is, if a warforged takes the tomb tainted soul feat, and heals from negative energy rather than positive.... do they still take half healing? or does this tactic bypass that, since it says in their racial traits that they take half healing from spells from the "healing subschool" ?
runestar 02-20-07, 09:13 AM	Well, charnel touch and cause wound spells do not possess the healing "subschool" descriptor... I would think it is perfectly legit.:)
Epicweaver 02-20-07, 09:17 AM	Tomb Tainted Soul on a Warforged creates an interesting possibly. "As living constructs, warforged can be affected by spells that target living creatures as well as by those that target constructs. Damage dealt to a warforged can be healed by a cure light wounds spell or a repair light damage spell, for example, and a warforged is vulnerable to disable construct and harm. However, spells from the healing subschool and supernatural abilities that cure hit point damage or ability damage provide only half their normal effect to a warforged." I'd say Charnel Touch counts as a (Su) ability so it would only restore half hit points per use (but it's still a great option to recover to full between fights). Personally, I'd ad hoc a full flip, and treat inflict spells the same way as healing spells are.
Millennium 02-20-07, 09:26 AM	Unfortunately, it looks like the player has you on this one, at least by RAW. That's a clever use of mechanical loopholes. This wouldn't have worked in 2e. Cause light wounds (which we now know as inflict light wounds) was just the reverse of cure light wounds, and so they belonged to the same school (Necromancy) and probably would have had the same subschools and descriptors if those things had existed in 2e. 3e removed the spell-reversal mechanic, however. Now cure and inflict are distinct spells, and furthermore, "Conjuration [healing]" has been contrived as a lame attempt to get the cure spells out of Necromancy. Because the warforged's reduced benefit from cure spells depends on this contrivance, Tomb-Tainted Soul gets around this by allowing a similar mechanic that doesn't use the [healing] subschool. It's up to you to houserule this, if you want to. Honestly, though, I'm not sure whether or not I would. This could be a fascinating plot hook: what if the warforged were to take up this bit of munchkinry as a more efficient power source than positive energy? How would the living races react? Could this perhaps lead to the corruption of House Cannith, as it reacts to this by starting to experiment with necromantic energy to power its own devices? The Blood of Vol would certainly take an interest in this development as well.
kadeity 02-20-07, 08:31 PM	"As living constructs, warforged can be affected by spells that target living creatures as well as by those that target constructs. Damage dealt to a warforged can be healed by a cure light wounds spell or a repair light damage spell, for example, and a warforged is vulnerable to disable construct and harm. However, spells from the healing subschool and supernatural abilities that cure hit point damage or ability damage provide only half their normal effect to a warforged." I'd say Charnel Touch counts as a (Su) ability so it would only restore half hit points per use (but it's still a great option to recover to full between fights). Personally, I'd ad hoc a full flip, and treat inflict spells the same way as healing spells are. Charnel touch is a supernatural ability.Normally he could use charnel touch to injure himself if he wanted. THE FEAT is what takes the injury and changes it to healing.... the real question is does an Inflict spell do half damage against a warforged?
runestar 02-20-07, 10:11 PM	the real question is does an Inflict spell do half damage against a warforged? Full damage, going by a literal reading, since they are not from the healing subschool.
ciryx2k 02-20-07, 11:00 PM	Tomb Tainted Soul on a Warforged creates an interesting possibly. "As living constructs, warforged can be affected by spells that target living creatures as well as by those that target constructs. Damage dealt to a warforged can be healed by a cure light wounds spell or a repair light damage spell, for example, and a warforged is vulnerable to disable construct and harm. However, spells from the healing subschool and supernatural abilities that cure hit point damage or ability damage provide only half their normal effect to a warforged." I'd say Charnel Touch counts as a (Su) ability so it would only restore half hit points per use (but it's still a great option to recover to full between fights). Personally, I'd ad hoc a full flip, and treat inflict spells the same way as healing spells are. Actually, this *MIGHT* not be so "ad-hoc" if you break down a literal translation of the three different abilites/racial features. Tomb-Tainted Soul You are healed by negative energy and harmed by positive energy as if you were an undead creature. Living Constructs and Healing ...spells from the healing subschool and supernatural abilities that heals hit point damage or ability damage provide only half their normal effect to warforged. Charnel Touch Negative energy flows through a dread necromacer's body, concentrating in her hands. At will, but no more than once per round, she can make a melee touch attack against a living foe that deals 1d8 points of damage, +1 per four class levels. This touch heals undead creatures, restoring 1 hit point per touch, +1 per four class levels. So we have: Living Constructs are only healed for half by supernatural abilites that heal them. Charnel Touch is a supernatural ability that channels negative energy that specifically heals undead. Tomb-Tainted Soul states that you are healed by negative energy as if you were undead. Combine that together, and it tells me that a Warforged Dread Necromancer with Tomb-Tainted Soul will only be healed for half of the amount. I'd throw them a bone for level one and put a minimum one hit-point addendum on that, but that would not be covered by RAW.
runestar 02-20-07, 11:22 PM	yes, but warforged is still not an undead creature even with the tomb tainted soul feat, he is merely treated as one for purposes of interaction with negative energy. if you want to interpret it literally, then charnel touch only heals when explicitly used on undead. Warforged is not undead, so technically, it is not being healed by charnel touch. It might be regaining hp, but I can argue that it is not treated as being "healed" in the dnd mechanical sense. Its moot anyways. This combo would mostly be used outside of combat, and who cares how much you can heal with charnel touch(even if it is just 1 hp per touch), since it is assumed that you will have enough downtime to heal yourself back to full life, regardless of how much damage you have taken?:)
ciryx2k 02-20-07, 11:48 PM	yes, but warforged is still not an undead creature even with the tomb tainted soul feat, he is merely treated as one for purposes of interaction with negative energy. if you want to interpret it literally, then charnel touch only heals when explicitly used on undead. Warforged is not undead, so technically, it is not being healed by charnel touch. It might be regaining hp, but I can argue that it is not treated as being "healed" in the dnd mechanical sense. Okay, let me see if I can clarify this a little more: Charnel touch deals negative energy that heals undead. TTS says you are treated as undead for purposes of spells and abilites that heal or harm using positive or negative energy Living Constructs are only healed for half by (Su) abilites that heal them TTS says you are undead in regards to the effects of positive and negative energy. Charnel touch heals undead with negative energy as a (Su) ability. Living Constructs are only healed by half by (Su) abilites. Its moot anyways. This combo would mostly be used outside of combat, and who cares how much you can heal with charnel touch(even if it is just 1 hp per touch), since it is assumed that you will have enough downtime to heal yourself back to full life, regardless of how much damage you have taken?:) Purely subjective opinion. A level 12 DN could have anywhere between 12 and 120 HP, assuming Con scores from 3 to 18. These are the extremes and average will be around 66. If you allow full healing, that would be 4 HP per turn, thus fulling healing themselves from 0 in 17 round. That is almost 2 minutes. At half that, it would take the 34 round, 3 and a half minutes. That might seem like a short period of time, but it could be the difference between fully healing yourself before the patrol finds you, or only being half healed. And that is a purely average HD role with a Con of 10. Higher Con and better HD roles would make the process take even longer, heck, maybe even upwards of 5 minutes.
runestar 02-20-07, 11:52 PM	Possible, I admit that interpretation just happened to sail past me for some reason...:embarrass
ciryx2k 02-21-07, 12:27 AM	Possible, I admit that interpretation just happened to sail past me for some reason...:embarrass Nothing to be embarrassed about, I misinterpret stuff ALL the time. I think to date, my best one was interpreting that Samurai start the game with their daishyo for free. WHERE I got that one, I'll never know. After someone called me on it and I went to show them where it says it in the class.... well guess what... it's not there. Talk about looking like a moron. The GM thought I was trying to get away with starting w/ a MW Bastersword and MW Shortsword for free.
runestar 02-21-07, 12:31 AM	I think to date, my best one was interpreting that Samurai start the game with their daishyo for free. Don't they? I seemed to recall reading something like that in OA or somewhere...:confused: And for some reason, I just kept thinking 'warforged is not undead, damnit!', completely ignoring the later half of the tomb tainted soul feat... So charnel touch has been resolved. What about cause wound spells? Do they still do/heal full damage?
ciryx2k 02-21-07, 01:07 AM	Well, since TTS says you're treated as undead in referense to positive energy, a cure spells gonna hurt you. Living Construct gives no protection against inflict spells (that I am aware of), therefore, cure X wounds is gonna hurt you for the full amount as near as I can tell. This one I'll be the first to stand up and say I'm only 95% sure that this is the case, if someone can find something that says otherwise, I'll accept it.
kadeity 02-21-07, 02:33 AM	Ill go Devils Advocate. TTS says you are undead in regards to the effects of positive and negative energy. Charnel touch heals undead with negative energy as a (Su) ability. Living Constructs are only healed by half by (Su) abilites. ah. but the (Su) isnt healing him at all...its inflicting. The feat is changing the effect retroactively. A (Su) ability that inflicts wounds would effect him fully. And this (Su) ability is inflicting wounds. The feat is making those wounds into healing. And Charnel touch specifies that its "healing undead" ability is different from its Inflicting ability. Your not healing undead when you use it...your inflicting wounds on yourself. Luckily the feat is making those wounds into HP. Additionally by this logic... Cure spells heal you at half their usual effect. The the feat changes this healing into wounds. So you would likely also take half Damage from cure spells, since the spells from the healing subschool effect you less.
Lord342 02-21-07, 03:04 AM	Actually seems like it would work as Kadeity stated, the best possible case for the Warforged. If this is going to reem your campaign, of course, you probably want to tell him he can't do it. But there's no reason, games-mechanics why, that it shouldn't come out so positively. Tomb-tainted soul is still an issue for him, because what if he's doing whatever it is he's doing in combat and gets injured, his only options are to heal himself at 1d8+1/4level/round, or have someone be casting inflicts on him. Consider that only evil clerics get to spontaneously convert to inflicts, and that they're not popular for that reason. For instance in a group I play in I play the priest and I've got a whole whopping 1 (one) inflict spell in my list to cast on people, the rest is general purpose stuff, as being NG I can convert anything to healing when it's needed (and it is, a lot). Nobody can zap him with a wand or feed him a potion. It's a big trade-off for the ability to heal to full between encounters, especially since I'm guessing he's not a front-liner and isn't going to be soaking damage up a lot. I'd let him do it in my game and see how the party deals with him.
Cyanide300 02-21-07, 03:33 AM	I look at it this way. A warforged is basicly half-construct. It is a living creature, but part of it is still a machine. This is why it gets only half healing from positive energy. Full constructs can not be healed by cure spells, nor are they subject to necromancy effects such as inflict spells. The warforged is essentially a half-construct, so it makes sense that he is only partially subject to positive and negative energy. The positive energy heals the living parts of the warforged, but has no effect on the machine parts. On the flip side of that, negative energy, such as that from an inflict spell should also affect only the living parts, and not the machine parts. If he has a feat like tomb-tainted soul, he is still part machine, and IMO should still only be partially affected by positive and negative energy. Also, literal interpretation of a subjec that is inherently vague does not make any sense at all. The D&D books and their content are inherently vague because there is no way to cover every possible circumstance, consider the content of every other book, or predict the content that will be released in future books. Any time somebody is using a literal interpretation of D&D rules, it's probably because they can't find a reason that favors them and actually makes sense in the given context.
Epicweaver 02-21-07, 08:43 AM	Consider that only evil clerics get to spontaneously convert to inflicts, and that they're not popular for that reason.Well, the Dread Necromancer gets all the inflict spells on his spell list... plus a tasty Negative Energy Burst (which I believe effects him too). The crux of the TTS/Charnel Touch/Warforged debate is the order of effect... and that's not something that's going to be spelled out to any particular persons satisfaction... If you're of the view that TTS converts negative energy to healing in the last step of the process then it would completely bypass the "supernatural abilities that heal" bit in the Living Construct description. If you think that the feat takes effect prior to the charnel touch, then it's the opposite and the warforged only receives half. TTS+Dread Necromancer is borderline broken anyways, I don't see any particular reason (as a DM) to rule that the feat takes effect prior... but on the same merit, it doesn't really matter more then increasing out of combat recovery time. Regarding the comments about charnel touch and it's healing undead subparagraph, I really just find it odd that it isn't just a flat 1d8+ instead of the level/X formula... Since you're dealing negative energy damage with the normal attack, why would they overcomplicate it by limiting it in such a nonsensical type of way.. Anywho, I'd say it's ultimately up to the individual DM to make their own decision.. I don't feel it's a clear, "this way is right" type of situation.
Archangel62 02-21-07, 09:16 AM	Hrm, well he could even have a compelling backstory reason for it. Karrnath used a large number of undead soldiers, so cleric handlers might have had warforged with some internal modifications (Read: Tomb Tainted Soul) To make them more effective bodyguards. Just a thought.
ciryx2k 02-21-07, 12:20 PM	Ill go Devils Advocate. ah. but the (Su) isnt healing him at all...its inflicting. The feat is changing the effect retroactively. A (Su) ability that inflicts wounds would effect him fully. And this (Su) ability is inflicting wounds. The feat is making those wounds into healing. And Charnel touch specifies that its "healing undead" ability is different from its Inflicting ability. Your not healing undead when you use it...your inflicting wounds on yourself. Luckily the feat is making those wounds into HP. Additionally by this logic... Cure spells heal you at half their usual effect. The the feat changes this healing into wounds. So you would likely also take half Damage from cure spells, since the spells from the healing subschool effect you less. The reason that Charnel Touch heals the DM if he has TTS is because TTS states that you are treated as undead in regards to negative and possitive energy. Therefor since Charnel Touch states that it heals undead, and TTS states you are treated as undead when negative energy comes into play, there is no actual "conversion" from damage to healing, it heals you walking out the door. Thus it falls under the statment about living constructs only taking half healing from (Su) abilities. You never had damage coming at you, you have healing coming at you, so it gets cut in half. TTS never says you take negative energy damage and convert it to healing, it says you're treated as undead in terms of negative energy healing.
ciryx2k 02-21-07, 12:25 PM	I look at it this way. A warforged is basicly half-construct. It is a living creature, but part of it is still a machine. This is why it gets only half healing from positive energy. Full constructs can not be healed by cure spells, nor are they subject to necromancy effects such as inflict spells. The warforged is essentially a half-construct, so it makes sense that he is only partially subject to positive and negative energy. The positive energy heals the living parts of the warforged, but has no effect on the machine parts. On the flip side of that, negative energy, such as that from an inflict spell should also affect only the living parts, and not the machine parts. If he has a feat like tomb-tainted soul, he is still part machine, and IMO should still only be partially affected by positive and negative energy. I can actually see this making sense, and would agree with it. I probably wouldn't use it as a house rule for my campaigns, but if a DM decided to do so, I can completely agree with the logic behind it. Also, literal interpretation of a subjec that is inherently vague does not make any sense at all. The D&D books and their content are inherently vague because there is no way to cover every possible circumstance, consider the content of every other book, or predict the content that will be released in future books. Any time somebody is using a literal interpretation of D&D rules, it's probably because they can't find a reason that favors them and actually makes sense in the given context. In D&D, we DMs have a big job. That job is to translate and interpret what WotC meant when they wrote anything. The easiest way to do that in my opinion, is to look at all components in a given situation and try to deduce how the rules work individually, then you can more easily figure out how they work together. In doing so, a literal translation is the most secure and logical way to do this. In my opinion, the seperate effects coming into play here are not vague at all. Living constructs take half healing from (healing) spells and (Su) abilites that heal. TTS states you are treated as undead for purposes of negative energy healing you. Charnel Touch heals undead. This is cut and dry, black and white. I haven't changed any wording in any of the effects, I have merely boiled them down to the main concepts present in the statements as written by RAW.
kadeity 02-21-07, 06:17 PM	i can see that interpretation as well. and its simpler. Occam's razor and BAM your right.
ciryx2k 02-21-07, 06:54 PM	Well, I was looking into this a bit more and came up with some interesting theory. Mind you, what I am about to posit is not strictly RAW, it is just some sleuthing. Constructs are immune to necromantic effects. My understanding of the way magic works is that any effect channeling negative energy is a necromantic effect. If we go with the fact that Living Constructs are treated as half constructs, that would mean the the construct half of them is immune to the negative energy. This is backed up by the fact that they only receive half healing from the healing subschool (the construct half is immune to curing). This has drastic ramifications in the way they are treated. They would only take half damage from an inflict X wounds spell. This would actually lend some backup to the suggestion made by Cyanide300 that a TTS warforged takes half damage from heal spells and half healing from inflict spells. A regular warforged would only take half damage from inflict spells and only gain half healing from heal spells. What is everyone else's thoughts on this? I state again. This is not technically covered by RAW, but it is something to think about. Kudos to Cyanaide300 on pointing that out.
kadeity 02-22-07, 04:05 AM	Constructs are immune to necromantic effects. My understanding of the way magic works is that any effect channeling negative energy is a necromantic effect. If we go with the fact that Living Constructs are treated as half constructs, that would mean the the construct half of them is immune to the negative energy. This is backed up by the fact that they only receive half healing from the healing subschool (the construct half is immune to curing). Well, Warforged and other living constructs are explicity stated to NOT be immune to necromantic effects. AND they CAN become undead. so yeah your theory is inaccurate.
Cifer 02-22-07, 10:36 AM	To reiterate what I said about a warforged taking TTS in an Eberron thread: Halfway correct. RAW, you get full HP from Inflict, but the cure damage stays. Why? Well, the ability talks about spells that restore hp and ability damage - which they don't do at the moment they are going to deal damage. In the same way, improved fortification does nothing because it just removes your ability to be healed by the healing subschool - healing =/= being dealt damage. Sorry, either you're literal in all of your interpretations of RAW or in none of them... It's funny, though, that I always thought WF could be healed by supernatural abilities without problems... probably got that one mixed up with the Mournland healing limitations where a Paladin's Lay On Hands is one of the best things available...