How do your cure spells work?

[Ravilah]

I had similar concerns (eh... not the right word...questions, perhaps) with the HP system (especially the idea that someone could have 1 HP left and still be swinging his sword just as dexterously as the guy with 50 HP).

So I started using the Vitality point system from Unearthed Arcana (and the Star Wars RPG). Now there's a difference between just getting beaten up and getting seriously wounded. Healing vitality points could deal with WD40's concept of healing-as-spiritual-pep-talk. Healing wound points is the good old fashioned you-stop-bleeding-and-the-gouge-in-your-forehead-closes-up.

 

[Fifth Element]

What I was responding to was in fact 100% one way, hence my response.

That doesn't follow. You were responding to a 1 hp-left comment, and mentioned taking 12 hp of "dramatic damage", then rolling a save. With 1 hp left, 12 hp of damage kills you. The OP did say at 1 hp "The next effect that deals 1hp of damage or more simply represents the effect the PC wasn't expecting, the end of his luck, or a big orc with a big club cracking open his skull with a single clean shot."

He's saying that any damage that doesn't kill a character could be considered "dramatic damage" so to speak, rather than actual physical damage. Your comment merely provided examples of situations where it makes less sense to call it dramatic damage rather than physical damage.

 

[Arkhandus]

Far as I'm concerned, damage is generally considered a combination of actual wounds, loss of stamina from constant dodging and maneuvering, muscle strain from fighting and lots of sudden, stressful movement, and blood loss. Only when you're reduced to negative HP does all damage become a matter of pure wounding and bleeding. Luck also has a bit to do with it ('specially when you're helpless).

Every hit leaves some kind of wound, even if it's only a scratch (an 8-point hit from a longbow is just a scratch to a 10th-level fighter, though for a 1st-level fighter, with his lesser degree of skill and experience in dodging, it's almost a mortal wound, a direct hit that just missed his vitals but still causes much bleeding, and another hit like that would likely kill him from blood loss).

Cure spells and the like primarily mend wounds (to varying results, depending on the type of spell; I expect clerical/paladin ones to leave no scars, but druidic/ranger ones would scar naturally, and bardic ones would likely scar too), but also repair minor muscle tearing, relieve strain on tendons, restore some vitality to flesh and spirit, regenerate some blood/plasma, and probably re-oxygenate some of the subject's blood, reducing fatigue just a bit as a result. With physical strain and wounding relieved, the character can fight longer, even if they're still kind of winded and/or bruised/scratched up (i.e. low on HP compared to their max HP)

Remember that Cure spells channel positive energy, and that they're not exclusively divine in nature; bards and, perhaps, other classes can Cure X Wounds as well. So they definitely have to be at least partially a result of actual wound-fixing and revitalization.

 

[Darklone]

3 years ago a friend of mine slid out of a curve with 50 km/h on his bike. He broke his left arm, 3 ribs and his collarbone (and his bike). A month ago, I slid with 70 km/h out of a similar curve and hit the curbstone. I broke my bike and had some bruises, no broken bones.

That's hitpoints to me. I was better at falling and caught the impact with muscles.

How I do it gameswise? Houserule: All curing simply turns damage into non-lethal damage. A second curing then cures it's amount of non-lethal damage and converts some damage into non-lethal damage.

I use this houserule cause it keeps players at low levels from going down, getting up, going down all the time during combat.

 

[JustinA]

Every hit leaves some kind of wound, even if it's only a scratch (an 8-point hit from a longbow is just a scratch to a 10th-level fighter, though for a 1st-level fighter, with his lesser degree of skill and experience in dodging, it's almost a mortal wound, a direct hit that just missed his vitals but still causes much bleeding, and another hit like that would likely kill him from blood loss).

Hit points are the difference between the guy who can jerk his body to the side and feel the arrow graze his cheek with a thin trickle of blood oozing from the wound... and the guy who takes the arrow full in the chest and starts coughing up blood.

Hit points are also the difference between the guy who can take a club to the chest and let his massive muscles absorb the impact... he'll have a big, painful bruise tonight, but he's alot better off than the 90-lb. weakling who just had his chest caved in.

It's also the difference between a paladin blessed by his god's fortune; the monk's ability to harden his mind against physical injury; and so forth.

Hit points are the original effecient, elegant system. They get much abused by people who think every time a sword hits somebody it means that their lung has been piereced, but in the right hands they're a powerful and simple tool.

Justin Alexander
http://www.thealexandrian.net

 

[Doug McCrae]

Hit points are a rules artefact, not a simulation of reality.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

3 years ago a friend of mine slid out of a curve with 50 km/h on his bike. He broke his left arm, 3 ribs and his collarbone (and his bike). A month ago, I slid with 70 km/h out of a similar curve and hit the curbstone. I broke my bike and had some bruises, no broken bones.

That's hitpoints to me. I was better at falling and caught the impact with muscles.

that's a sucessful tumble check to me.

(or maybe a reflex save....)

 

[Nuclear Platypus]

When the cleric casts a cure spell, a green aura surrounds the recipient and a bunch of numbers appear over their head like in Final Fantasy. Meanwhile, the recipient has a vision of Burgess Meredith yelling at them "You're gonna eat lightnin'; you're gonna crap thunder."

Ok, not really. I see the Cure spells going after the major injuries first like internal ones and ending with the superficial ones. So yeah, someone might have a crimson mask of blood but its only because he got smacked real good in the forehead so it looks worse than it really is.

 

[TheCrazyMuffinMan]

Concerning curing, I guess magical healing would simply accelerate the body's healing processes to ludicrous speed for an instant, and push out anything that's stuck in there, or allow one to push it out. If it's magical, that idea might make more sense.

 

[Warren Okuma]

So, the cleric wanders up to the wounded fighter, and says some magic words/preys to his god, and *poof* all the fighters wounds vanish.

This seems to be the stereotypical way that Cure spells are seen to work.

But I don't like it.

It seems to uphold the idea that a PC's Hit Points are like the 'Life' bar in a Video game, that every successful roll that beats AC represents a thwack with a weapon that leaves a wound.

The way I like to run my games, if a monster beats one of my players AC, I may say something like: "Your opponent pushes forward with a crazed rush of blows... Loose 5 HP." As opposed to: "The greataxe connects, you take 5 HP damage."

So if HP represent a PC's Skill, Stamina and Luck (LOL Ian Jackson Reference!) as much as if not more than they represent layers of flesh, thickness of bone and sturdiness of vital organs, perhaps Cure spells should be represented in a similar light.

I don't think a Cleric who casts a cure spell should lay his hands on and apply some kind of ethereal styptic & sutures, he should something like: "[Insertgodhere] blesses you and your efforts, may you fight on!" and the PC suddenly feels empowered to continue the battle now with a Divine blessing.

What do you think? How do your cure spells work?

As far as I am concerned hit points is the unkillabilty quotient. DnD characters are not wussies. They can take a spear to the heart and live. They scoop up their intestines and tuck it in, and continue fighting. It's the Gelatinous Cube physics BTW. Dying from grievous wounds is for lesser folks. Brains leaking out? A 20th level character can just tuck it in.

Say a 20th level barbarian has a Con 20 and 236 hit points. He got paralyzed. The bad guys strip him out of his armor.

For entertainment they chop him with battleaxes. An hour later he dies. After the executioner having to make several DC 5 swim checks due to the blood flood.

Or the decide to cut his throat with a dagger. His save is so outrageous he makes the coup the grace rolls each time, having only a 5% chance of dying (remember the DR.) Thus after some twenty tries (he was rolling good) and his throat is hamburger, he dies.

Thus, this twentieth level character is 119 times more durable than a non-elite 2 hit point commoner.

"Poof." The spell is cast and wounds are healed.