I hope that all went as well as possible my friend.
Pray for Me, Sinners 😂😬
I think that many things like Greater Restoration is there for gamest reasons and not as an aspect of considered world building. A lot of D&D spells are in there because they are legacy spells. They have been pretty much around for ever. I also believe that these spells are there more to facilitate game play than as an aspect of considered world building.
All that said, you are not wrong. I just believe that there is more than one right answer here. How many ninth level casters are out there?
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
Yeah. Considered worldbuilding is my highest priority, so powerful healing magic is always something to be very careful with for me.
doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
I’m doing better, but still waiting on some stuff.
So in the SRD based game I’m building, a lot of those spells go away or become less powerful, because they become part of a skill as we gut and replace the magic system. Medicine can actually cure disease and remove poison, Religion and Nature, too, respectively,
Also stuff like detect magic and identify, Counterspell and Dispel Magic, are functions of Arcana and Spellcraft (arcana was too big so I split it).
The magic skills are based on the celestial alignments, a sort of astrological theory that “governs” more than just magic, and has 4 Cardinal Courts, and 13 Celestial Houses, with 12 fitting into the courts and one outside of them.
I’m calling Arcana, Religion, Nature, and Spellcraft, the 4 Cardinal Magic Skills. Then, a separate category that I haven’t fully named but am considering disciplines, suits, courts, which are the specific magic skills like pyromancey and beguiling.
Each Cardinal skill is a gate to unlock a set of magic skills, and gain basic Spellcasting beyond rituals. So, a magic initiate would gain proficiency in 1 Cardinal Skill and 2 Disciplines/Suits/whatever, which comes with some cantrips and a couple spell slot, and the ability to learn spells in those categories.
There are still spells, but you don’t need them. They represent standard principle workings that are refined to the point of always working as intended, and they are easier than improvising complex spell effects, encouraging PCs to train and develop their own spells and seek out other spells from other practitioners.
aramis erak
Legend
A little; mostly from WFRP 1E. The article "Is there a Doctor in the House" from WFRP Companion is pretty gory but vaguely realistic.
overgeeked
B/X Known World
Good luck.
Yep. The rich can afford clerics to heal them. The poor just die or live with whatever deformities, scars, injuries, amputations, and maladies they collect over their short lives. Just like the real world.
doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
What I do find interesting about this sort of dynamic (you may know I am very anti-grimdark generally) is that it implies either indifferent gods, or divine casters with a lot of autonomy, and vanishingly little spontaneous appearance of magical talent, at least in a way that allows healing.
One can do a lot with that.
BrokenTwin
Biological Disaster
The knowledge that high-level healing is probably only really available to the well off and powerful made WotC's Tomb of Annihilation unintentionally hilarious. "Oh no, people who have been raised from the dead (predominately the rich and powerful) are dying and staying dead! This matters to us
doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
One of many reasons I am very deliberate about stuff like this. If the gods are good and will poke their servants if they don’t do what they’re supposed to, or if sometimes the healing gift is spontaneous, then it won’t just be the rich who have been rezzed.
If the gods don’t care or they can’t or won’t really yell at clerics who charge 100g for a cure wounds, then yeah, you’ll have even worse healthcare inequality than IRL.
For my money, I’m gonna have hospitals and local healers and alchemists trying to figure out how to heal people better and sharing that info with the guys who do the hospitals. Ya know, the stuff that real life had a thousand years ago, but more effective because like…making a healing potion is very cheap for what it does.
BrokenTwin
Biological Disaster
In a system like D&D where the gods are explicitly real and proactive in almost every setting, it's kind of baffling that the cleric doesn't have similar restrictions/tenants to their actions that the paladins do. I remember they did exist in older editions, but were simplified out of existence.
Honestly, with the relative ease that healing potions can be created, it's shocking that there's never any mention of anybody just industrial farming the ingredients required for them. It would really be interesting if the [healing herb] was a fairly delicate plant that could only easily grow in certain environments, so places it could grow become just as valuable as ore mines. Or, conversely, the ingredients could be easy to grow and acquire, so almost every village has at least a small patch of them growing and a few people who know the recipe. Then you'd also get the entertainment of "why would I study or devote myself to the clergy for years to acquire healing magic when I can just buy a tonic?"
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