What stops fast heal?

Greenfield

Adventurer
Our DM has lately discovered a fondness for throwing things at us with a good AC and some form of Fast Heal. Hence our fondness for outrunning such things.

Regeneration is typically stopped by acid or fire. Is there anything that stops Fast Heal, other than death?
 

log in or register to remove this ad

According to SRD, fast healing is just like "natural healing" only faster, so any effect that shuts down natural healing (eg, select curses, diseases or effects like the barbazu's Infernal Wound) should be useful against such creatures. Acquiring such abilities, however, may noy be straightforward!

Also, a few situations aren't susceiptible to fast healing: suffocation, starvation, or thirst. So a good bet might be to drown or choke the beasty. And of course, on can defeat a creature without killing it via imprisonment or some other form of incapacitation.
 


Just re-read the SRD entry. It looks like fast healing applies only to hit point damage. So I assume ability damage attacks would be effective-- including CON damage (eg, from a wounding weapon).

Is that right, rules people?
 
Last edited:

CON or other ability damage would do it as well.

Any hypothetical affects that reduce max hit points (vampiric weapons maybe?) should also work, but I can't think of any off the top of my head.
 

Vile damage is not subject to fast healing.

It's always a rules mess, but polymorphing removes extraordinary qualities of the base creature that are not derived from class levels (so baleful polymorph and then attack).

Tactically, as others have said, there are many alternative combat strategies that don't focus on hit point damage. Ability damage is not subject to fast healing. Also, IME, most creatures with fast healing only have a couple points of it, enough to heal after a battle but not enough to stem the tide during one if you're attacking effectively. Unlike regeneration, fast healing doesn't make your attacks less lethal, it just makes their effects last for less time.
 


In my experience as a DM, most fast healing or regenerating monsters don't really derive too much benefit from those abilities, unless they're played as hit-and-run attackers. Even a Hydra's fast healing won't be able to keep up with a normal party's damage output per round. It's just as if the monsters have some additional HP, with the amount depending on how quickly you can take them down.

Just focus on one at a time, disable or slow the other foes by applying some means of battlefield control, and you should be fine in most cases.

Regeneration can get nasty if you don't have the damage type required to bypass it ready to hand. But even regenerating monsters can often be knocked unconscious quite easily, after which you can stick their heads in a bucket of water or whatever.

So the advice I'd give is just: deal more damage, more quickly, and in a more focused way.


Sure, you can also get fancy and cast Grimwald's Graymantle, or attack ability scores, or something. Do note that ability damage isn't as easy to deal as HP damage, though. For a still incomplete but already quite extensive resource on ability damage, drain, and penalties, see here.
 



Remove ads

Top