Cure: One step closer to understanding?

I've always been troubled by the use of the word "cure" in magic spells. Whenever I've cast a "cure" spell, a small part of me wants my target to become saltier or smokier.

Part of my confusion comes from the D&D usage: "cure wounds." Wounds typically "heal," or are "treated," so curing them sounds odd. The OG VRPG is less confusing: Final Fantasy just shortened the spell name to "cure." While both of these incarnations of the spell refer to returning hit points, Final Fantasy drops the "wounds" portion, probably because all of the spells had four-character names, but also raising an interesting question: do cure spells heal something other than wounds?

At this point I'd like to summon [MENTION=2067]Kamikaze Midget[/MENTION], our local FF scholar.

In Final Fantasy, you lost hit points when being hit by a weapon or spell. But D&D doesn't go as far as saying that hit points simulate only bodily damage. If that's the case, shouldn't "cure wounds" apply only to losses of hit points that resulted directly from the "wounds?"

I propose that Final Fantasy did us a favor by dropping "wounds" from the spell name. FF said, "whatever the reason you lost hit points, 'cure' will bring them back." FF said that "cure" is for whatever ails you, not just wounds. Except poison. And status conditions.

A "cure" without "wounds" allows you to recover from whatever might deplete your hit points: injury, exhaustion, weak morale, waning luck, or what-have-you. Cure, it seems, is short for "cure ailment."

Now if that helps me understand the term "cure" better, it also creates a problem: how does a character who needs this spell know it, if he doesn't have any visible wounds? How can an unscratched warrior walk up to a priest and say "I need cure magic," without metagaming?

Yeah, in FF, hit points are more demonstrably a game resource, not something that represents anything "real" actually happening to the characters. Run out of HP, and you fall unconscious, but you're not at real risk of actually dying (you'll still appear during cut-scenes!), you're just too out of it to fight. Actual death is reserved for cut-scenes.

As far as verisimilitude goes, if you embrace the plot armor idea, the ultimate question is what does HP loss look like to the character? Are they just tired and bruised? Are they hopeless and depressed? Do they feel the gods have forsaken them? All of the above? That's what going to the temple would replenish.

You could also look at it from another angle - if you want going to the temple to heal hit points to be a thing, what do the priests do there? Do they heal wounds, pray for your soul, offer sacrifices to the gods on your behalf, cheer you up, or something else? That might be what someone is losing when they lose HP.

DMMike said:

Now if that helps me understand the term "cure" better, it also creates a problem: how does a character who needs this spell know it, if he doesn't have any visible wounds? How can an unscratched warrior walk up to a priest and say "I need cure magic," without metagaming?

Click to expand...

This is one of the major incentives toward treating all HP loss as physical. If the character isn't aware of it, then the character can't take steps to fix it.

If you go with the proportional wounds model, then the luck and morale (or whatever) goes toward explaining why 8 damage to a level 10 character is so much less critical than the same 8 damage on a level 1 character - the character's superior skill causes that 8 damage to be a minor wound, rather than a life-threatening one. Either way, it's still a physical wound that the character can see and address.

Of course, that model did run into issues on why a Cure Light Wounds spell would heal a major injury from a level 1 character, but only heal a minor injury from a level 10 character, but 5E has (partially) solved that problem by removing the severity code from the name of the spell.

Cure:

1250-1300; (v.) Middle English curen < Middle French curer < Latin cūrāre to take care of, derivative of cūra care; (noun) Middle English < Old French cure < Latin cūra

I suspect that this is one of those times where American regional (mis)use of an English word has caused a problem with understanding that word.

Kamikaze Midget said:

Actual death is reserved for cut-scenes. . .
what do the priests do there? Do they heal wounds, pray for your soul, offer sacrifices to the gods on your behalf, cheer you up, or something else? That might be what someone is losing when they lose HP.

Click to expand...

Exactly! Why is character death an option? Is it a video game convenience, or serving player wishes to prevent character death until it fits with the story?

And why can't hit points simply be "godly favor?" Obviously, that's why priests are the best at restoring them...

Scrivener of Doom said:

Cure: to take care of, < Latin cūra

I suspect that this is one of those times where American regional (mis)use of an English word has caused a problem with understanding that word.

Click to expand...

Very likely so. But then we still need a spell called "Cure Light Hit Points" or "Cure Non-Poison-nor-Curse Problems."

How does a character, who just received a Cure spell for 2 HP, say in-game, "I'm sorry, but I'm still short on hit points" or "my damage level is too high for comfort?"

DMMike said:

(snip) How does a character, who just received a Cure spell for 2 HP, say in-game, "I'm sorry, but I'm still short on hit points" or "my damage level is too high for comfort?"

Click to expand...

(An aside: Ahhh, 4E: how I love thee....)

One of the many legacies I struggled with outside of 4E was the whole cure minor/light/major/serious/critical wounds progression where the words don't really mean anything. If you have have 6 hit points, chances are that even a cure light wounds is going to heal all your damage. If you have 60 hit points, none of these makes much of a dent.

I never worked out an answer to that legacy problem but now I run 4E so it's not an issue. I remember playing around with the idea of percentage-based healing for a while, essentially an inelegant version of 4E.

Hey I know! Let's create an issue where there isn't one! My wife loves it when I do that!

[MENTION=87576]Scrivener of Doom[/MENTION], care to explain the 4E solution/circumvention? Or is it just 4E's treatment of hit points as candy that can come from anywhere, even a healing surge, that makes recovering HP (or losing HP) a non-issue?

One solution to the meta-health problem: a cure spell can heal wounds or prevent future wounds. This gives unscathed characters a reason to seek curing. I think it works in-game as well, since if your previous damage didn't look like a wound, then your next orc-greataxe-clobbering doesn't have to look like a wound, either.

DMMike said:

(snip) Or is it just 4E's treatment of hit points as candy that can come from anywhere, even a healing surge, that makes recovering HP (or losing HP) a non-issue? (snip)

Click to expand...

I reject the underlying premise of your question so I can't imagine any answer I provide being of any use.

DMMike said:

I've always been troubled by the use of the word "cure" in magic spells. Whenever I've cast a "cure" spell, a small part of me wants my target to become saltier or smokier.

Click to expand...

That's so odd. When we cast a cure spell one of the guys starts to sing "Boys Don't Cry" and another guy looks to the door expecting Robert Smith to walk in.