Undead have no con score. Coupled with their immunity to taking ability damage, they basically have a double whammy immunity to taking con hits.
The exalted feat Stigmata (p46 BoED) specifically states:
When you activate this ability, as a free action, you immediately take at least 2 points of temporary Constitution damage. You can take as many points of Constitution damage as you wish, as long as you remain alive and conscious.
However, a strict DM might a) not really care for an Exalted necropolitan PC, and b) take the exact wording "as long as you remain alive and conscious" at face value. Undead aren't really "alive", are they?
since you don't have a con score though, the damage won't affect you (you're immune to it). but that won't stop you from activating the ability in the first place. My curiosity is with the fact that you are taking damage that you are immune to, the question it begs is; if immune to damage, did I really take any then? And is taking the damage and declaring the damage to be taken a single event, or two separate events.
if single, then you declare damage, but are immune, so the ability won't go off (though you can activate it if you want to burn a free action). If they are seperate instances, and the healing of the feat is based off how much damage you decided to take (even though you ended up taking none), then the healing factor is a go.
If this does work with a Necopolitain, then as soon as you hit level 3, you've become better at healing damage than pretty much any one who heals damage. And you end up doing it faster than I think any other build has for max healing people.
In a mere day you'd heal 86,400 lucky souls back to full health. assuming you can touch that many people in 24hrs.
However, a strict DM might a) not really care for an Exalted necropolitan PC, and b) take the exact wording "as long as you remain alive and conscious" at face value. Undead aren't really "alive", are they?
a)whiole true, it's always up to the purview of the DM as to what a player can do (especially with non core material). Isn't the spirit of this board in the idea that the DM "accidently" slipped up and let us do these things?
b)touche! in my hard on love for all things undead... it slipped my mind that they not really "alive". bollocks. MM specifically states on pg317 "are once-living creatures animated..."
I wonder if the deathless type could then apply. Seems fair game since BoED material is already used. on deathless: "the deathless merely stave off the inevitability of death for a short time in order to accomplish a righteous purpose." "They are similar in many ways to both living creatures and undead."
EDIT: I think the order of operatioins for the ability goes like this:
1. activate ability
2. immediately use free action to decide how much con damage I take (damage value = X, min. 2 damage)
3. take con damage
4. get benefits based on how much con damage I decided to take in step 2.
normally the order wouldn't matter since most people have the con score or would take the damage.
but in the break down, a character with con damage immunity (by either being immune to ability damage or not having a con score) will basically ignore step 3 and move on to step 4.
That's kind of how I see it.
If it worked like this however:
1. immediately use free action to decide how much con damage I take (damage value = X, min. 2 damage)
2. take con damage as payment for step 3
3. activate ability
etc
then it wouldn't work because I don't take the damage to pay for step 3. so step 3 never goes off. Though I can use free actions to declare N damage to my hearts content, I'll never get to step 3 specifically because I have to go through step 2.
Note that taking the damage isn't required in order to activate the ability, but rather, the damage is an effect you take as a result of activating the ability
Same thing.
I just read Stigmata, the damage happens before the healing. Since you can't take the damage, you can't gain the healing.
An example of the gain X, then take Y look at Hellfire Blast (FC p90.) This specific example has a line to prevent you from gaining the benefit tho "if you do not have a Constitution score or are somehow immune to Constitution damage, you cannot use this ability." Without that last sentence you would gain the benefit without paying the cost by RAW.
Imagine a spell that causes 3d6 fire damage to the caster, but the caster is immune to fire. Would that creature take the damage? Nope. He's immune. He can still cast the spell, though.
Now, if that spell required that the caster used his burnt flesh as a component, well, he can't burn his flesh, so he can't use the spell.
Same same but different.
Undead cannot at any time take ability damage. Thus, any spell, ability, or effect that would cause ability damage just does nothing to them. If they must sacrifice it as part of an effect, they cannot. If the effect is reliant on it, then the effect fails.
basically Stigmata is reliant on you taking the damage, but not as a means to actually activate the ability, you can activate it all you want, but the rest of the ability's effects rely on you taking the damage. So it won't work through this means. damn.
And I was momentarily thinking about combining this with shapechanging or some other way of con buffing yourself enough to survive the activation (read: some how do an insanely sick con buff, temporary is ok). And then use restoration to heal the con damage. Even better would be to get restoration as a SLA so that you can buff, take damage, heal self, heal every one, repeat hourly.
And I was momentarily thinking about combining this with shapechanging or some other way of con buffing yourself enough to survive the activation (read: some how do an insanely sick con buff, temporary is ok). And then use restoration to heal the con damage. Even better would be to get restoration as a SLA so that you can buff, take damage, heal self, heal every one, repeat hourly.
Shambling mound + electricity, possibly an electricity-substituted wall of fire. Done.
Wikipedia defines undead as:
"Undead is a collective name for fictional, mythological, or legendary beings that are deceased yet behave as if alive."
As if alive. QED (Please take your wikipedia hating souls away from me, I love the wikipedia)
Reading the ability, by raw, you have to 'take' points of damage. This is ambiguous, because on the one hand, you could take the damage and be immune to it, and on the other, you have to have actually 'taken' as in 'suffered' the damage as damage.
Strictly as written, I don't think it works, but with the ambiguous wording of the ability, from a pure RAW interpretation, it's a schroedinger's feat. It exists simultaneously in 'you totally can' and 'no, it really doesn't work like that' states at once. RAW supports neither case and both cases.
A much easier means of doing this is either delay death, or some sort of deathless rage (though dropping your CON to zero would naturally end your rage. Hrm.
"Undead are once living creatures"
AND
"If it's dead and still kicking, it's undead"
*note the if it's dead part; I can't find in the core books where it says if something is dead then it's not alive but I hope we can assume for the sake of argument that this is true.
Page 296 monsters manual
It doesn't work RAW because undead are not alive!
Strictly as written, I don't think it works, but with the ambiguous wording of the ability, from a pure RAW interpretation, it's a schroedinger's feat. It exists simultaneously in 'you totally can' and 'no, it really doesn't work like that' states at once. RAW supports neither case and both cases.
That's kid of how I saw it. it works and doesn't.. at the same time. The result I would say is that the worst of the situations prevails, meaning it doesn't work.
and the undead thing was adressed a little earlier in the thread. I actually quoted part of the MM and what not. and then speculated on the deathless type, and considered a "living" construct, but then remebered they have a con score, and normal constructs aren't living.
the shambling mound thing might be an interesting work around.
Not having a CON score does not mean CON = Zero. It means that on your character sheet there's not even a box that says CON. It's empty.
By raw, there's nothing that says something without a score can't inrease that score. By common sense, and precident, no, you can't increase a score that doesn't exist.
but really, if you have access to shambling mound, then you don't even need to be a deathless type.
They aren't really dead either, nor are the "living" but they are "alive". if you stretch out the semantics a bit, one could say that an undead is alive in that it can die (when it is destroyed by being reduced to 0 HP), but that the creature itself isn't a living creature.
so in a sense, if the necropolitain example would take the con damage, and would ignore the damage. the damage wasn't reduced or in some other was deflected or didn't hit them.
It'd be like the way RAW describes hitting a creature with DR. The creature does get "hit" but the damage doesn't take from hit points. One could say that a creature with no con score would in a similar sense get hit by the con damage, but disregard the con damage as something that affects it. ie: it didn't do anything, but they still get hit by it.
there are some effects like that in magic the gathering, a card may have an effect in game that is in some way nullified, but it activates the ability of another card (even though it's effects were nullified).
dunno if that makes sense. but if you wanted to bend RAW a bit...
As per my previous thread(thank you Google!), Seakin recover Constitution one per hour of soaking. Not really "broken", but you can heal pretty much non-stop. *insert jokes about swimming in crimson tides here*
What about the Binder thing where you get back one point per ROUND.
you mean Binder 1st (Naberius).
that could work. Now we just have to bump the con score up to a reasonable level and you'd be set to get some decent max heals on the party. but yea.
Human Binder1 = really really good lay on hands like ability.
They aren't really dead either, nor are the "living" but they are "alive". if you stretch out the semantics a bit, one could say that an undead is alive in that it can die
so in a sense, if the necropolitain example would take the con damage, and would ignore the damage.
No way man.
They are not alive, period. Undead are dead. Animated Dead people. Animated with Negative Energy, and are in no way alive.
They are not subject to Con damage, so they don't Ignore damage as much as being immune to it. They can never pay a sacrifice cost that includes ability damage.
Undead are, in a sense, anti-alive.
Living creatures are alive. they are powered by positive energy.
Dead creatures(aka corpses) are dead. they are not powered.
Undead creatures are even more dead than dead, since they are powered by the opposite of positive energy, namely negative energy.