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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 6701481" data-attributes="member: 996">I can't go with 'majority of cases' as it's a very world/tone/style/DM- dependent sort of thing.  If the world is relatively high-magic, or PC-classed adventurers are less than unique, or if the PCs are known to the enemy, healing would be a known factor. Prior to 3e the only dependable healing resource was the Cleric (or other character with CLW).  You could pace a campaign slowly enough to get by on natural healing (plenty of weeks-long rests between fairly short adventuring forays), or the DM could place so many healing potions and other items that it wasn't an issue.  I've rarely seen either done, and the latter I've never seen last long. In a major city, an equivalent of Rome, say, that's 10,000 level-advancing humans, and PC classes were about the only form of level advancement available.   If a D&D world had the population of even just Europe during the Middle Ages, there might, demographically speaking, be a million humans running around with class levels.  And it's not like the ones who get glowy healing spells from the gods would be exactly low-profile. Sure, but they indicate that familiarity with magic and what it can do isn't necessarily that rare. Casting healing spells in combat is hardly an abuse. That's the only PoV where a sweeping sense of 'most effective' would make any sense.  Of course, no one has to use the theoretically-most-effective tactic.  You can spread damage around instead of focusing fire, or cast Sacred Flame for a few points of damage instead of standing up the Paladin so he can Smite again.   Well, or a tweak to mechanics to make it less of an issue in the first place.Heal-from-negative instead of heal-from-zero, for instance, removes an incentive for the caster to wait until an ally has dropped.  Making prone a more difficult condition to deal with (an AoO or move action or both for standing up, for instance) would add a disincentive to letting your allies drop.</blockquote>

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