The healing trait marks effects that restore or repair a creature, usually by regaining Hit Points, and sometimes by removing diseases or other debilitating effects. A healing effect might come from a spell, item, class feature, feat, environmental phenomenon, or special ability; the trait itself simply tells you that the effect is intended to heal rather than harm, even if its energy type (vitality, void, positive, etc.) interacts with living or undead differently.

Most healing effects restore HP up to a creature’s maximum HP, as described in the general Hit Points, Healing, and Dying rules. Some abilities with the healing trait also remove conditions (such as disease, poison, or certain curses) or provide fast healing / regeneration—ongoing healing that restores HP every round. Healing traits are often layered with vitality or void traits to clarify what kind of creatures they help or harm: vitality healing typically restores living creatures and may damage undead, while void healing normally restores undead or void-attuned creatures and may harm the living, though iconic spells like heal and harm explicitly do both healing and damage based on the target’s type.

Importantly, healing is not damage in reverse. Being immune to a type of damage doesn’t automatically make you immune to healing of that type, and vice versa; each effect’s traits and text specify whether it cures, harms, or does both. Some creatures (such as undead with negative/vitality/void healing rules) are healed by certain energies and harmed by others, which causes the same healing effect to behave differently depending on who it targets.