Dragon Shaman Healing Aura + Regeneration.

[Yogibear41]

How would a dragon shaman's fast healing aura interact with someone who had taken non-lethal damage from regeneration. Say a character has 100 hp, and has taken 60 points of non-lethal damage due to his regeneration ability, but still had full hp in regards to lethal damage, would the fast healing aura "turn on" for his non-lethal damage allowing him to fast heal up until he only had 50 points of non-lethal damage, or would it not activate at all since he had full normal Hit points.

[Fizban]

It would work the way they don't want it to: they have more than half normal hit points, they get no fast healing. Doesn't matter whether or not they have regeneration or how they got the nonlethal "damage," it hasn't actually reduced their hit points. Regeneration has some holes and weaknesses like that- including the fact that if they also gain some sort of fast healing, that fast healing applies to their nonlethal damage first, even if it is fast healing that could restore damage which their regeneration could not.

[Harrow]

Regeneration has some holes and weaknesses like that- including the fact that if they also gain some sort of fast healing, that fast healing applies to their nonlethal damage first, even if it is fast healing that could restore damage which their regeneration could not.

I think that's debatable. "When a spell or a magical power cures hit point damage, it also removes an equal amount of nonlethal damage." If you have regeneration naturally and fast healing from a magical source, I would read it as the fast healing doubling up, so to speak. It would both bring back regular hit points and reduce your nonlethal damage total. I could see it argued the other way, that healing from fast healing doesn't count as "curing" damage or that it always works like natural healing even when added by a magical source, but that's not how I would rule it. AFAIK, those aren't super well defined game terms.

[Darg]

It would work the way they don't want it to: they have more than half normal hit points, they get no fast healing. Doesn't matter whether or not they have regeneration or how they got the nonlethal "damage," it hasn't actually reduced their hit points. Regeneration has some holes and weaknesses like that- including the fact that if they also gain some sort of fast healing, that fast healing applies to their nonlethal damage first, even if it is fast healing that could restore damage which their regeneration could not.

If it's magical regeneration or fast healing, it heals nonlethal and lethal at the same rate and time. So draconic aura has that going for it because it is supernatural.

But other than that, it won't activate unless your actual HP has been lowered.

[Fizban]

Fast healing is fast healing. Fast healing granted by a spell is fast healing. If the fast healing has the Su tag, it's still fast healing. Fast healing explicitly says that it heals nonlethal damage first. Things that refer to magical healing are not referring to fast healing. There is no definition for what "magical healing" means, aside from all examples of it being given in the form of Cure spell interactions, because there were no "spells that grant fast healing" when the term originated. There are a few spells which magically heal every round for multiple rounds, which are not fast healing.

The whole point of spells that grant fast healing is that they grant fast healing, rather than curing hit points (actually because it's easier to say fast healing than "heal 1 hit point per round," as the original versions found in Masters of the Wild did, but this also neatly avoids the Augment Healing problem and comes with a set of special benefits and rules because they grant fast healing.).

If fast healing granted by a spell is "magical healing," then Warforged get 1/2 the effect, and Augment Healing applies every round.

"Magical" regeneration never heals lethal damage because it's regeneration, which only heals nonlethal damage.

[Darg]

Fast healing is fast healing. Fast healing granted by a spell is fast healing. If the fast healing has the Su tag, it's still fast healing. Fast healing explicitly says that it heals nonlethal damage first. Things that refer to magical healing are not referring to fast healing. There is no definition for what "magical healing" means, aside from all examples of it being given in the form of Cure spell interactions, because there were no "spells that grant fast healing" when the term originated. There are a few spells which magically heal every round for multiple rounds, which are not fast healing.

The whole point of spells that grant fast healing is that they grant fast healing, rather than curing hit points (actually because it's easier to say fast healing than "heal 1 hit point per round," as the original versions found in Masters of the Wild did, but this also neatly avoids the Augment Healing problem and comes with a set of special benefits and rules because they grant fast healing.).

If fast healing granted by a spell is "magical healing," then Warforged get 1/2 the effect, and Augment Healing applies every round.

"Magical" regeneration never heals lethal damage because it's regeneration, which only heals nonlethal damage.

I was wrong about regeneration because it doesn't heal hit points, but the rule is:


When a spell or a magical power cures hit point damage, it also
removes an equal amount of nonlethal damage.

It doesn't have to be a spell, it just has to be magical in nature.


Magical Healing: Various abilities and spells, such as a cleric’s cure spells or a paladin’s lay on hands ability, can restore hit points.

Magical healing is just a magical source restoring hit points.

Arguing that augment healing becomes broken when applied to vigor is only evidence of poor editing. Warforged don't even benefit from natural healing and fast healing functions like natural healing which means fast healing does nothing for warforged.

We can argue about whether vigor's fast healing is not the spell providing healing, but at the end of the day the rules do not discriminate how a spell arrives at the result of the target being healed.

[Fizban]

The SpC (and Complete Divine) text for Vigor doesn't cure or heal hit points at all.


The subject gains fast healing 1, enabling it to heal 1 hit point per round until the spell ends. . .

That's. . . not complicated.

It doesn't heal. It grants fast healing, which enables the target to heal. It is a [healing] descriptor spell, but that doesn't mean anything on its own, since I could write [healing] on a fireball and the spell would still only do whatever it says in the text. Saying this is magical healing is like saying the claws given by Alter Self deal magical damage.

I'll admit, I've never looked into details on whether Vigor actually works on Warforged since I would allow it and people have presented it as a raw hack around their magical healing penalty- but if you're saying that it doesn't work on Warforged because it's natural healing, you've just contradicted your own reading that says Vigor is actually magical healing. You say the rules do discriminate in one sentence, and then don't the next.

Augment Healing has an editing problem? Sure, it was clearly written without regard to the idea of spells which heal multiple times (as was Warmage Edge). Though since Vigor was changed to fast healing in the same book it may have been for that specific reason and in order to allow such simple text for the feat, making the Augment Healing problem one avoided by its own book and only created by future writers not accounting for the feat. Doesn't change the fact an un-natural reading (ha) of Vigor immediately breaks it with Augment Healing, in the feat's own book, in addition to giving it the (weird and probably more minor) benefit of doubling the benefit for regenerators.

[Darg]

The SpC (and Complete Divine) text for Vigor doesn't cure or heal hit points at all.



That's. . . not complicated.

It doesn't heal. It grants fast healing, which enables the target to heal. It is a [healing] descriptor spell, but that doesn't mean anything on its own, since I could write [healing] on a fireball and the spell would still only do whatever it says in the text. Saying this is magical healing is like saying the claws given by Alter Self deal magical damage.

I'll admit, I've never looked into details on whether Vigor actually works on Warforged since I would allow it and people have presented it as a raw hack around their magical healing penalty- but if you're saying that it doesn't work on Warforged because it's natural healing, you've just contradicted your own reading that says Vigor is actually magical healing. You say the rules do discriminate in one sentence, and then don't the next.

Augment Healing has an editing problem? Sure, it was clearly written without regard to the idea of spells which heal multiple times (as was Warmage Edge). Though since Vigor was changed to fast healing in the same book it may have been for that specific reason and in order to allow such simple text for the feat, making the Augment Healing problem one avoided by its own book and only created by future writers not accounting for the feat. Doesn't change the fact an un-natural reading (ha) of Vigor immediately breaks it with Augment Healing, in the feat's own book, in addition to giving it the (weird and probably more minor) benefit of doubling the benefit for regenerators.

Except that vigor is a spell/SU that is providing healing... Just because it is doing it in the form of fast healing doesn't make it any less so. I only presented the natural healing of fast healing as a counter point to you being contradictory, intentional or not, that warforged would benefit from vigor when you are saying that it isn't magical healing. It's one or the other. If warforged benefit it's magical (though even then it still might not work because nothing says that natural healing can't be induced magically). If not it's nonmagical. Though, if it were nonmagical it wouldn't go away in an AMF as the magic isn't powering the ability and you would technically keep the ability if you stayed in the field until after the duration of vigor ran out as it's trigger to dissipate is the duration running out.

Arguing that augment healing would be broken because of a particular reading of the feat in combination with the classification of being magical healing is a strawman. The actual problem with the feat is the feat itself and lack of clarification on how it works. It's a totally accurate and valid reading to only apply the bonus healing when the spell is cast. Warmage edge is a specific rule for a specific ability. It has no bearing on other abilities.