#3: Walking First-Aid Kit

[RPGnet Columns]

http://www.rpg.net/columns/abracadabra/abracadabra3.phtml

Summary:

On Magical Healing

Go to the column (http://www.rpg.net/columns/abracadabra/abracadabra3.phtml) for more information.

[torbenm]

Many modern RPGs have done away with D&D-style instant healing and instead make healing spells speed up natural healing (by giving extra heal checks or a bonus to regular heal checks) or prevent matters going from bad to worse. Many games also limits how many many times you can repeat heal spells for the same person or wound, so you can't bring a person to full health by casting multiple minor healing spells in quick succesion. This slower healing fits better with the literary genre Fantasy RPGs emulate: You rarely see Fantasy novels where magicians or priests as a matter of fact instantly bring people from near-dead to unhurt. When it happens, it is normally seen as something truly extraordinary, even in worlds where magic is fairly commonplace.

[Sackmandan]

The trouble is the metagame; the players want to get back into action, the GM needs to progress to the next encounter. Any kind of realistic healing process, grinds all that to a shuddering halt.

One goblin with a pointy stick gets lucky, and it's "You return to the village and spend a week while Boris recovers from his leg wound".

The whole hit-point concept is a game conceit. A single arrow or dagger, correctly placed will kill anyone, not just a level 0 commoner. Just ask the flower of French nobility scattered over the field of Agincourt.

Sometimes, you just have to take the hit (so to speak) and accept that it's just a game...

[Asklepios]

Agreed - the presence of a simple hit point system assumes that you are hand-waving the intricacies of trauma to some degree. The presence of character levels as well also necessitates some acceptance that the game world is not going to act in the same way as ours. In real life, even the toughest soldier doesn't have a significantly better chance of surviving a gunshot wound over a peasant Chinese rice farmer - the difference is in speed of recovery, and in access to decent medical care.

So in a way, applying "realistic" healing to a D&D like system is always going to be a waste of time.

OTOH, I agree with the columnist in that I think that there is rp potential and increased immersion to be found in detailing the healing process and adding more flavour to the process. Its not for every game though, certainly.

[Sackmandan]

Absolutely! My favourite option is to bias the healing dieroll according to how devout the recipient is, and if they are a worshipper of a different god to take into account the relationships between the two deities.

Given how pervasive religion is in our world, where the power of prayer is less manifestly obvious, it's funny how unreligious RPG characters are!

What I'd like to do (but would face a mutiny) is to put a cap on how much lower level healing spells can achieve. So, for example, a Cure Light Wounds spells (max 9hp recovered) would be completely ineffective if the recipient was more than 9 points down from max. One day I'll try it, perhaps in a one-off scenario with throwaway characters...