The shield guardian has a creature type of "construct". While the shield guardian is able to regenerate hit points, that may be insufficient to keep one on its feet in combat, so additional healing might be useful. Certain types of healing, for instance, the cure wounds spell, specifically say "has no effect on constructs". It seems logical, then, that any other method of restoring hit points, for instance, the potion of healing, that does not contain such a restriction, would be able to heal a shield guardian. I can find no rule that contradicts this. It seems then, that how to heal a shield guardian is to use any healing that doesn't exclude constructs. Is this the correct interpretation of the rules?
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2I assume you're interested in rapid in-combat healing, or the case for constructs generically, as the shield guardian has Regeneration. – BBeast Dec 26 '21 at 09:17
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Yeah, I'm interested without regard to regeneration. Sure, the SG can go from 1 to 142 HP in 150 seconds, but that's a long long time when the beholder is cutting loose with the disintegration all the time. – Jack Dec 26 '21 at 12:52
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Related: Which healing methods work on Nimblewright player characters? – Red Orca Dec 26 '21 at 19:55
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@RedOrca, about laying on of hands, you are right! I must have missed that last paragraph. – Jack Dec 26 '21 at 20:59
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You may want to add a note for clarity that you are talking about in combat healing only since the Shield Guardian would always be at full health outside of combat. – Thomas Markov Dec 28 '21 at 18:03
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Edited to clarify about in-combat healing. – Jack Dec 29 '21 at 21:49
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You are correct.
If any healing spell, item, effect, or feature does not specifically exclude constructs, and the construct lacks features that prevent healing magic from restoring its HP, then it will heal a shield guardian.
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Let it take a nap.
You are correct that any healing that does not specifically exclude constructs the way cure wounds does. Turn on your aura of vitality, mash some goodberries into its face, or just tell it to take a short rest so it can spend some of its hit dice.
vonBoomslang
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2If you're outside of combat, the Shield Guardian is automatically at full health since it regains 10 hit points every six seconds. There is literally no circumstance where a shield guardian does not have full health at the completion of a short rest. – Thomas Markov Dec 28 '21 at 18:02