It’s Canon Now: Clarifying the 2-action heal in PF2

Historically, it’s been common knowledge that the PF2 heal spell worked like this:

“You channel vital energy to heal the living or damage the undead. If the target is a willing living creature, you restore 1d8 Hit Points. If the target is undead, you deal that amount of vitality damage to it, and it gets a basic Fortitude save. The number of actions you spend when Casting this Spell determines its targets, range, area, and other parameters.

• 1 action: The spell has a range of touch.
• 2 actions: The spell has a range of 30 feet. If you’re healing a living creature, increase the Hit Points restored by 8.
• 3 Actions: You disperse vital energy in a 30-foot emanation. This targets all living and undead creatures in the burst.

As far as 1 action Heals (touch) and 3 action Heals (burst), but it’s the 2-action Heal that gives us pause. The idea that it is a ray with a range of 30′ is clear – no questions there. As it turns out, we’ve interpreted the second portion in two different ways:

• Old and Busted: instead of rolling 1d8, roll 2d8.
• New Hotness: roll 1d8 and add 8 points.

As you can imagine, this caused a fair amount of consternation. So we went to AI for clarification:

Which means that AI and John V were RIGHT. the 2-action Heal in PF2 does 1d8+8 and is ranged.