Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dave Turner" data-source="post: 3881414" data-attributes="member: 12329">Look, if you're willing to believe that men can summon magical energy from mythical divine beings to perform miracles, you've got to loosen your grip on the narrative a bit more than that.  If you're that intent on standing in the way of your own fun, I'm not sure what will help you.  Still, I'll try to solve your problems with a few minutes of simple thought.We're dealing with a cleric, an agent of a divine being.  The cleric uses favors from his god to work magic.  Unless you're a fan of explicit meta-gaming, you probably don't believe that your cleric understands how many spell slots he has.  What I mean is, your cleric doesn't know, in character, that he has three Cure Light Wounds left memorized, one Cure Serious, a Heal, and two Neutralize Poisons.  That's what you as a player knows.  As far as your cleric is concerned, he prays to his god for wounds to heal.  He doesn't ask the god for 1-8+level hit points.  The cleric doesn't think to himself: "I have three units of low-level healing, one medium-level heal, and one high-level heal.  I need to conserve my units of healing and use them efficiently.  Which unit should I deliver to my injured friend?"  If your cleric does go through that calculation, then you're already kicking the crap out of the narrative, so your other complaints about the sanctity of the narrative seem misguided.So let's assume that your cleric's narrative isn't irredeemably riddled with meta-game conceits.  Your cleric, Joe Cleric, always wants to heal his friends to the best of his ability.  Who wouldn't?  Who would say to themselves: "Gee, I'd just like my friend to get a little bit better, maybe enought to walk.  Sure, I've completely healed his wounds in the past, but I just don't feel like it right now."  Unlikely to say the least.  It's safe to assume that every time Joe Cleric prays for healing, he's praying for complete healing.But Joe Cleric has been healing people with miracles for a while.  He knows from experience that sometimes he doesn't get the help he needs from his god.  Sometimes, his god completely answers his prayers and his friend is fully healed from a grievous injury.  For those scoring at home, that's your rogue example.  Other times, though, Joe Cleric prays as hard as he can and his god just doesn't deliver.  It's hardly a stretch.  The gods are inscrutable and have their own motives.  If Joe's god doesn't want to offer much help to his 20th level fighter friend, then what's Joe Cleric going to do?  He'll be grateful for what little aid his god did deliver (8 hit points) and do the best he can in the situation.  See what's going on here?  I'm fitting the meta-game realities of D&D 4E's rule system (clerics only have a limited number of healing spells of varying power) into the narrative of a cleric's healing miracles.  From the meta-game perspective of the player, Joe Cleric's options might be restricted.  The player might know that Joe Cleric only has one Cure Light spell left.  From the character's perspective, i.e. the narrative perspetive, Joe only knows that he's called on his god a lot during the day and he's not sure how much slack he has left with his divine patron.  He feels tired and senses that his god doesn't have much attention left for him that day.  Still, when he puts his hands on his friend and asks for healing, he's going for broke every time.But what if Joe Cleric's player decides to cast the Heal?  Remember, from the character's perspective, from the perspetive of the narrative, Joe Cleric always asks his god for a complete and total healing.  Well, let's assume that Joe Cleric is 15th level.  He's hanging around with a 20th level fighter, so that's not much of a stretch.  20th level fighter goes from 10 hp to 160 hp.  He's ready to fight, with his scrapes and bruises miraculously gone.Where's the problem?  Oh, you're referring to the whale-gut-restoring power of Heal?  I already told you: Joe Cleric prays for full and complete healing every time he bends his knee.   In the metagame, we know he's casting a Heal to repair the whale.  In the narrative, we see if the whale recovers enough hit points.  If so, the gods fully answered Joe's prayers.  If not, well, the gods move in mysterious ways.  You did your best, Joe, just as you do every time you try to heal someone.And so what if it's not actual healing, as in the knitting of wounds?  There's no great narrative leap required to assume that a "heal" can consist of an infusion of divine vigor, some divine morale, if you will.  I don't deny that the labels D&D has used for 30 years have shaped expectations.  For 30 years, the spell has been called "Cure Light WOUNDS".  The spell removes wounds so, if it works on a character, there must have been some wounds there, right?  A gash or broken bone?The bad news for you, Andor, is that 4E is keeping the name "Cure Light Wounds" (I assume it's being kept; it's a bit of a sacred cow) but they're asking you to look past the name a bit.  What if they called it something like "Minor Recovery of Reserve Points"?  Hardly evocative, is it?  But that's really what it is.  You can make peace with it.  Keep calling the spell "Cure Light Wounds" (for the sake of nostalgia), but don't get hung up on the "wounds" part.  You're getting bent out of shape over some arbitrary nomenclature.  Grasp the rules and work with them rather than getting hung up on the silly names of the rules.  If you're willing to buy into men calling down divine power to perform miracles on a daily basis, then surely you can look past the name given to a spell?There you go, Andor.  I've just solved your narrative problem with ten minutes of thought.  Did I miss anything?(As an aside, I don't understand why you patently and unfairly avoid trying to use the narrative in your example above.  In your example, Joe Cleric delivers a Heal, but the cuts and bruises don't go away?  If you're trying to be fair about this, there's no narrative problem in asserting that 150 hp of healing will get rid of scrapes and bruises.  Moreover, your example makes it sound like the Heal doesn't work!  You write: "Puzzled Joe casts Heal. A spell powerful enough to fully restore a gutted whale. Nope. Still covered in scrapes although he probably managed to catch his breath at least."  What do you mean?  Are you suggesting that 20th level fighter wouldn't be reinvigorated?  Your example looks desperate.)</blockquote>

Verification