Harm as Heal

[Yogibear41]

If I am Not Undead, but have either the tomb tainted soul feat or a similar ability such as a Binder bound to Acererak and someone casts Harm on me, would I gain the benefits of a heal spell? I know I would heal the HP, but I am curious about the other parts such as curing ability damage and status conditions.

[Arael666]

You can argue either way IMHO.

Tomb taited soul says that you are healed by negative energy "as if you were an undead creature.". Harm affects undead like a heal, so you should be affected by harm as if you were an undead. On the other hand, the feat specifically mentions negative and positive energy, it doens't state that you are affected by spells as if you were an undead, thus, you would only benefit from the healing from negative energy part.

[Silly Name]

You can argue either way IMHO.

Tomb taited soul says that you are healed by negative energy "as if you were an undead creature.". Harm affects undead like a heal, so you should be affected by harm as if you were an undead. On the other hand, the feat specifically mentions negative and positive energy, it doens't state that you are affected by spells as if you were an undead, thus, you would only benefit from the healing from negative energy part.

The text of the spell clearly says "Harm charges a subject with negative energy", so I would say harm does heal you if you have Tomb-tainted soul.

[noob]

If I am Not Undead, but have either the tomb tainted soul feat or a similar ability such as a Binder bound to Acererak and someone casts Harm on me, would I gain the benefits of a heal spell? I know I would heal the HP, but I am curious about the other parts such as curing ability damage and status conditions.

any spell of the cure line or of the wound line as well as harm and heal simply makes an infinite loop when cast on an undead.

[Vaern]

If I am Not Undead, but have either the tomb tainted soul feat or a similar ability such as a Binder bound to Acererak and someone casts Harm on me, would I gain the benefits of a heal spell? I know I would heal the HP, but I am curious about the other parts such as curing ability damage and status conditions.

If I was running the game, I'd say that Harm grants the full benefit of Heal if you heal from negative energy for the sake of simplicity.

Otherwise, the alternative is that Harm would only heal HP because of the wording of the ability, but is not fully converted into a proper Heal spell because you are not truly undead and thus would not grant the additional benefits. In this case, Heal would likewise deal damage without being converted fully into Harm and as such would retain all of its additional benefits.
Heal would hit you so hard that on a successful saving throw you will still have to save against massive damage, but at the same time would cure all of your status effects. That's kind of nonsensical, but then again whether or not it makes sense doesn't have any real bearing on how the game actually works.

[noob]

If I was running the game, I'd say that Harm grants the full benefit of Heal if you heal from negative energy for the sake of simplicity.

Otherwise, the alternative is that Harm would only heal HP because of the wording of the ability, but is not fully converted into a proper Heal spell because you are not truly undead and thus would not grant the additional benefits. In this case, Heal would likewise deal damage without being converted fully into Harm and as such would retain all of its additional benefits.
Heal would hit you so hard that on a successful saving throw you will still have to save against massive damage, but at the same time would cure all of your status effects. That's kind of nonsensical, but then again whether or not it makes sense doesn't have any real bearing on how the game actually works.

That is false.
When you cast heal on an undead it have the effect of harm on that undead which have the effect of heal on that undead and so there is only an infinite loop because heal says to refer to harm and harm says to refer to heal in the case of undead.
It just makes the game freeze when you cast a spell on an undead.
Tomb tainted soul have no effect on heal that since it works on positive energy and that heals does not heals hit points through energy: it heals hit points in addition of curing wounds with positive energy.
On the other hand harm now heals you because the damage is done by the negative energy.




Heal enables you to channel positive energy into a creature to wipe away injury and afflictions. It immediately ends any and all of the following adverse conditions affecting the Target: ability damage, blinded, confused, dazed, dazzled, deafened, diseased, exhausted, fatigued, feebleminded, insanity, nauseated, sickened, stunned, and poisoned. It also cures 10 hit points of damage per level of the caster, to a maximum of 150 points at 15th level.
The hp healing and the condition removal are additional effect on top of positive energy curing injury and afflictions.

[Silly Name]

That is false.
When you cast heal on an undead it have the effect of harm on that undead which have the effect of heal on that undead and so there is only an infinite loop because heal says to refer to harm and harm says to refer to heal in the case of undead.
It just makes the game freeze when you cast a spell on an undead.

Luckily we aren't playing a computer game where this would be an actual issue, so I don't see why you insist bringing up the most asinine way to read the spell.

[PrismCat21]

Luckily we aren't playing a computer game where this would be an actual issue, so I don't see why you insist bringing up the most asinine way to read the spell.

Because that's how he gets his jollies. Many people just try to ignore him. I suggest you do as well.

[Kish]

Yes, that's bizarre. I don't know why anyone would think saying that "infinite loop" stuff once was either funny or clever, much less twice.

[noob]

Luckily we aren't playing a computer game where this would be an actual issue, so I don't see why you insist bringing up the most asinine way to read the spell.

The fact the rule about how the spell works on undead is dysfunctional just means that all the sane modifications for having the spell work will simply make the spell not be the spell described in the rules and so that you will have to post your sane variant of the spell before people can discuss on what tomb tainted soul does on the spell.
Basically the discussion here is pointless if the creator of the thread does not says the rules of the fixed version of heal he uses.

[Vaern]

The hp healing and the condition removal are additional effect on top of positive energy curing injury and afflictions.

Healing HP is the curing of injuries, and condition removal is the curing of afflictions.

Harm does not become Heal when cast on an undead creature. It acts like Heal.
Heal specifically says that Heal acts like Harm when used against an undead creature. This replacement effect is completely irrelevant, because the spell you're not casting Heal. The name the spell you're casting is still Harm.


... the rule about how the spell works on undead is dysfunctional...
You're literally the only one who thinks the rule is broken and you're not going to convince anyone otherwise. You're overthinking the wording of what literally everyone else agrees is a simple replacement effect to an obnoxious degree, just to be annoying and derail the discussion from the original topic.

[noob]

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=17289134&postcount=156
Here is another individual who thinks the rule is broken.
Since Vaern was not using rai (since he started making stuff more complicated than "the spell works as if you were undead since it is a positive energy healing spell" and that definitively looked weird: being cured of afflictions but being wounded massively by the same effect which would probably make its place in the dysfunctional rules thread if it was true) then the fact the spell is broken is of concern to the discussion.
Also Positive energy heals undead unless it is on an effect that specifically does not do so (such as cure or heal with fixed rules) and negative energy does not heals undead unless it specifically does so(such as the harm and wound line of spells)
Basically if an effect does not specifies special interactions with undead it works on undead the same as on living creatures thus if an effect makes positive energy effects and negative energy effects work on you as on undead it is necessarily thought a clause specific to undead.