Restorative Touch vs Slow

Question

The Restoration subdomain of the cleric's Healing domain grants a supernatural ability called Restorative Touch:

You can touch a creature, letting the healing power of your deity flow through you to relieve the creature of a minor condition. Your touch can remove the dazed, fatigued, shaken, sickened, or staggered condition. You choose which condition is removed. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Wisdom modifier.

How does this interact with spells, most notably Slow, which cause Staggered and other effects?

Answer 1

It will remove the condition, but not the whole spell effect

Conditions are a separate mechanic from the spells. Some spells may cause conditions, but they are not tied together. Conditions are usually easier to remove than entire spells, as there are many class abilities and items (alchemical or magical) that can remove certain conditions.

Spells with a duration will not apply their effects again unless the spell's effect says so, such as the entangled condition from Entangled, or the grappled condition from Web. It is possible to walk into the area of the Entangle spell, get the entangled condition, remove it and walk away to safety. But if you remain inside the area, the spell's text will describe when the condition is re-applied (if that's the case).

For most spells, however, the effect is only applied once, like for Instantaneous or Permanent spells. As such, the effect of removing the condition is quite clear: It is gone and the spell won't apply it again. For Instantaneous spells, the magic happens and then dissipates, generating a non-magical effect that is permanent and must be removed by any means. Permanent spells are similar, but the spell lingers on the target, meaning that not only it creates an everlasting condition, but may also be dispelled.

Since Slow affects several creatures, using Restorative Touch on a single creature will remove the staggered condition for that creature only, while they are still affected by the Slow spell and still affected by the penalties and movement reduction:

a -1 penalty on attack rolls, AC, and Reflex saves. A slowed creature moves at half its normal speed

Dispel Magic could remove the entire spell from all targets if you target the spell instead of targeting a creature. And Remove Paralysis could remove the spell from a single creature, as it says:

You can free one or more creatures from the effects of temporary paralysis or related magic, including spells and effects that cause a creature to gain the staggered condition.

Another example of this interaction is the Glitterdust spell (causes blinded) and Remove Blindness/Deafness. You could remove the condition but not the spell's effects.

Answer 2

The mechanics do exactly what they say - they don't cancel the entire spell, or do anything about other effects. Restorative Touch simply removes the Staggered condition. In the case of being under a Slow spell, the recipient would still suffer the modifiers, and the half speed.

Answer 3

It depends on the spell.

Restorative Touch will remove one minor condition of your choice. If this condition was gained as an aftereffect of the spell with an instantaneous duration (like Snowball or Frigid Touch), alchemist's Frost Bomb, Staggering Critical feat or the like, the condition is removed.

However, Slow is an ongoing spell (Duration: 1 round/level). Its magical energies linger for several rounds, slowing the creatures for the duration, therefore the staggered condition will just be immediately reapplied.

Let's start with spell durations as outlined in Magic section of CRB:

Timed Durations
Many durations are measured in rounds, minutes, hours, or other increments. When the time is up, the magic goes away and the spell ends. If a spell’s duration is variable, the duration is rolled secretly so the caster doesn’t know how long the spell will last.

Instantaneous
The spell energy comes and goes the instant the spell is cast, though the consequences might be long-lasting.

Note the emphasis. It strongly implies that the effect is tied to the spell energy being in place; as soon as it's exhausted, the effect goes away.

Let's consider a following scenario. Our 4th level party standing off against evil wizard Wendy. She wins initiative and casts Hypnotism on the party's barbarian Bob, who fails his will save and is now fascinated for, say, 5 rounds (average of 2d4). Party sorcerer Stella counters that by casting Suppress charms and compulsions, breaking Bob's fascination, who is now set on murdering Wendy for the insult and charges the poor girl. However, he does not notice the evil ranger Ralph, who shoots an arrow at Stella the next round, breaking her concentration. With Suppress charms and compulsions now gone, Bob again falls under the ongoing energies of Hypnotism and is fascinated again.

Stella is now furious, so she pulls out a scroll of Dispel Magic and succeeds on UMD check to cast it, and also succeeds a caster level check to dispell Hypnotism. With spell energies now gone, Bob is no longer fascinated and can rip Wendy a new one.

Now, let's suppose that Wendy still not done and casts Frigid Touch and crits on a touch attack, staggering Bob for a full minute. Now, note that unlike Hypnotism, duration of Frigid Touch is instantaneous, so spell's energies are gone and Stella can't dispel the effect. Thankfully, cleric Charlie finally catches up to the rest of the party and uses his Restorative Touch on Bob, ending his stunned condition.

Note that how fascination comes and goes with spell energies being suppressed, restored and finally dismissed. Same effect would happen if, say, instead of Stella casting Suppress Charms and Compulsions, rogue Rob would bring an artifact stone with permanent Antimagic Field next to Bob, and then him being bull rushed out of range by Ralph's ram animal companion.

In short, to remove an effect caused by ongoing magic, you deal with magic itself, not the effect. Removing an aftereffect of magic use, you deal with the effect itself.