Turning Healing Spells Into Energy Damage?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Positive and negative energy seem to be the odd ducks in 3rd Edition. All the other energy types are explicitly Neutral, even though fire and cold are heavily connected to Evil in numerous mythologies. Positive and negative are Neutral too, but for whatever reason, they're often ascribed to Good and Evil for no actual reason. Likewise, other energy and elemental types all seem to have multitudinous ways to swap them in and out, add additional energy and elemental types, and do all sorts of other things with them, while positive and negative seem to be pretty rigid in what they can do.

Is there some way to turn positive energy effects into negative energy effects, and vice versa? Are there any ways to turn healing spells into damaging spells of other elemental or energy types?

Specifically, I'd like to find a way to turn the immediate action spell close wounds into a damaging spell against foes other than undead and characters with the Tomb Tainted Soul feat. Being able to deal damage as an immediate action (especially on the fly) to just about anything would be pretty sweet.

[Luch Ri]

Ok, I am not going to be getting too heavily into the RAW here, but I would like to clear this up a bit as per my reading into the 3.X materials and how I understand it.

The main reasoning behind Positive and Negative energy is simply that they are polar opposites. Far ends of a spectrum. Life is granted and fueled by positive energy, and thus diminished by it's opposite. There is quite a bit of discussion on this in the complete divine, magic of incarnum and any book dealing with the Plains. That is also why, unless I am mistaken, Evil clerics can turn Deathless and Good ones can rebuke them. I will have to dig out the book of exalted deeds to double check that, but I remember letting one player run a good aligned litch and he did alot of deathless summoning instead.

I always think of it in terms of polarity the way one would deal with magnets or energy. So generally there should be assumed opposites for various positive and negative energy spells out there. Death Ward to life ward and so on. That can be up to the DM but the reason I usually have in my mind for why they are not seen much is simply that undead are not exactly common. Plus any cleric who does deal heavily with undead isn't as likely to be a healy-focused do gooder, per say.

Honestly this is probably best house ruled, but the books I mentioned and Liber Mortus are good thins to check out if you really want to delve deep into playing with undead and hitting them with positive energy.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

It's just annoying that one Neutral energy is [Good] and the other is [Evil] despite both being equally [Neutral].

Anyway, I'm sure you could get some damage on a healing spell through Snowcasting + Flash Frost, but that means you have Xd6 or Xd8 healing + 2 damage. How does that Empower, exactly? And unless you're casting against something that is damaged by positive energy, it kind of negates the point of adding the damage except in very rare instances (such as a character with the energy conversion power going, so the damage is absorbed and the character can add the damage to his energy-based rays). Still, that doesn't really help much with what I want to do.

Heck, if we can turn healing spells into general-purpose offensive weapons, we might give the healer class a bit more presence on the battlefield.

[Luch Ri]

Well, yes and no on the evil front.

That is how it is presented in the books, how it is seen, and to a point how it is played out in the mechanics. this is understandable, after all life is seen as good, death as evil. One seeks to grant being, so to speak, and one seeks the opposite. But it does not have to be that way. Let us not forget that this is the leaning both from our own prejudices and to a point from the way reality is shaped based on the 3.X planar makeups and the overall views on reality. But in reality, one could imagine a positive energy entity that is malicious, or vise versa.

I would actually point you to the being known as 'the angelus' in the Witchblade series, if you have a mind to play with such things. The idea that good and evil are not as black and white as one thinks. that or the main line of Shin Megami tensai games. 1-3 especially. D&D and it's offshoots have a very zoroastrial outlook. Hell that's why we have Bahamut and Tiamat kicking around in some pantheons. But nothing says that such mythos and ideology is required in different settings, or that a cleric based on an idea might not carry with them negative energy for some reason or another as a default.

[Âmesang]

Am I the only one picturing a positive-energy fireball? "Let the purifying flames heal yo—uh oh."

[Luch Ri]

Am I the only one picturing a positive-energy fireball? "Let the purifying flames heal yo—uh oh."

Actually as I recall there were at least a couple positive/element mix spells in the BoED, mainly for hitting demons and the like. So... so yeah actually that might be a thing.

[Ruethgar]

I really liked the idea of the Warcraft Discipline Priest Smite Healing so I cam up with the following.

Take Redhead from Ravenloft for a level one or two level 0 druid spells SLAs 1/day each. Pick Elemalific Produce Flame with metamagic applied(Twin Persist). Only Sanctum, Heighten, and War spells modify spell level, so Twin Persist Produce Flame is still only level one and still valid for the feat. Add a healing side effect (Dragon #302 1d4 healing)and pick up Draconic Aura: Fire Resist for your party. It is not optimal by any means, but for your party, you heal 1d4-(1d6-5) every time you hit them and for your enemies you deal 1d6-1d4+1d4 on the second round. Then you just specialize in throwing and you're golden. I realize that this isn't dealing with Positive Energy(the healing is untyped and thus construct/object/undead worthy), but it is in a similar enough vein that I though I'ld mention it here.


Edit: Messed up in the math. Also, although holy fire in your hands sounds cool and thematic, fire is a bad energy to use. Add Energy Substitution Electric to be more in the line of Thor casting lightning bolts instead to avoid more resistances and keep the holy thematic. You could also do one of the half damage metamagics(Born of the Three Thunders, Lord of the Uttercold, Consecrated, or Corrupted) but that makes the healing significantly less(and potentially damaging to allies). Of course Lord of the Uttercold with Substitution Cold would make this wonderful for a necromancer. The skeletal minions are already immune to cold and then get healed for the other half of the damage plus 1d4 more.