Question about clerics (and temples)

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Remember that healing CAN be done with magic, but you do not HAVE to use it. The Heal Skill can also provide great help, even if it takes longer than using magic.
(The Fortitude Save of a poor commoner will be - on average - +0, the Heal skill will probably vary betwen +2 to +6 for a 1st level cleric)

A Cure Light Wounds is useful in combat, but against diseases, you need better spells, and only well experienced (high level) clerics have access to them, and only a limited number of times per day.

Mustrum Ridcully

 

[Greybar]

I've been thinking about elements close to this recently in my campaign. The town that the PCs are currently in has a urban pop of 8000+, and a nearby rural pop of 30 000 plus. Note to GMs, if you use that infamous table from the DMG to find out how many clerics are around, remember that you've got 4-5 rural folk around for every city-slicker who doesn't grow their own food (and that's being generous!)

In the city/town there are maybe a couple dozen cure lights available per day, with a rapidly decreasing curve as you head to the higher levels. There is one person capable of Raise Dead in the area, and she is very busy running the place thank you very much.

So if every farmer who cuts his arm open in a tragic axe accident comes looking for a cleric, they're going to run out fast. And that would only require a Cure Light, since anything more than that would kill the man.

If a hero strides in and says, "Hey there, can you heal me up" and he's down 40 hit points, we're talking about either him getting fully healed, or five grown men being saved from death.

So my answer would be that the clerics will be glad to either use the Heal skill and a nice stinky (nonmagical) poultice, or even a single curing spell, to get a PC from negative hit points back up into the positive. But if you're looking for 40 points of healing on the spot, without compensation, they are not likely to agree.

(On a related note, this is also why simply having a 5th level cleric with two 1st level acolytes will not keep a town of several hundred free from all traces of disease...)

John