Clerical Healing and Aesthetics

[Gold Roger]

How do you view clerical healing?

I like my magical healing in D&D and how it's mostly a matter of divine magic (outside of the bard, bards totally should be able to use healing magic). For me it's just another of these crazy D&D peculiarities that are simply the way they are. I like the idea of countless sages, priests and wizards over the ages studying, speculating and arguing over the reason why magical healing is almost completely a matter of divine spellcasting (and why those darn bards are an exception). There's a lot we don't know about our world and we used to know much less about it. I don't think my fantasy people need to know everything about how their world works.

How I see the fiction of magical healing actually working in play, that depends greatly on the source. As that source is usually divine, it also hinges on my view on clerical spellcasting in general.

In my games, clerics aren't simply priests and can't be trained. Rather they are those who have "the gift of a god", people who have the rare ability to serve as channel for divine power and have been invested with a small bit of a gods divinity (which, once granted, can't be revoced).

What this means is that many clerics aren't even members of religious institution. While all priesthoods are eager to bring such blessed people into their fold, some might be unwilling to get cloistered away in some temple to act the part of oracle and miracleworker. Others might simply slip through the cracks, keep their blessing secret or are blessed by gods not commonly or openly worshipped in their area.

So if you sent for a healer, no matter wether he's from a temple or secular, you'll often get a non-caster with abilities like that of the healer theme in the playtest (which I'd point out as one instance of potentially secular healing already present in the playtest). You might get a cleric, who might be a member of a local temple or just a local youth hailed as wonderhealer or a generally shunned witch. Or maybe you get a bard, druid or even paladin.

So I don't think healing magic necessarily erases scars. The healing of a cleric of Gruumsh most certainly does leave scars. In fact, in my games, healing by a cleric of gruumsh would propably leave worse scars than natural healing. But the healing granted by a beauty deity would propably clear the mark of a wound.

 

[Tovec]

I would rather see cure spells on the Wiz/Sorc spell list and erase clerics altogether. Of course, I know that's never going to happen in an official D&D product, but it's a thought for a home game.

Mine too. Although I kept clerics as something else relating to Clergy, so anyone can take it as long as they put in the time. God I can't wait for XP to come back.

 

[gyor]

When I read the thread title I was half expecting a cure light wounds spell that also does you hair and nails or ressurection that takes away 20 pounds of weight and your crows feat as it brings you back to life.