Healing

[Blue1005]

I have heard that some people think healing is a fix all (broken bones, shattered skulls) all that stuff can be solved with a simple CLW, unfortunately my PC's think this. Is that how you play? Should injuries be more permanent? IF you lose an arm can you CLW it to the stub and have it reattach? Just wanting a Playground consensus on this.

[Parra]

It depends on how Hit Points are represented in your game. Ignoring the fact you operate a 100% ability even a 1/200hp, Hit Points are usually seen as either:

Are they an actual representation of your characters life and hit point loss reflects actual injuries taken. (i.e. more 'real')

OR

Are they an abstract concept that reflects the characters Luck, awesomeness or 'Hero Aura' and doesn't actually mean anything more than a bit of sweat and small cuts (i.e. most any Hollywood action movie hero)

The first example (and the more common imo) then yes a CLW would indeed heal broken bones or similar. Though maybe not as much as regenerating limbs.

In the second example the CLW wouldnt heal broken bones, but then they wouldnt be getting broken bones anyway, outside of DM/RP fiat

[hewhosaysfish]

Regeneration explicitly restores severed limbs, imlying that lower level and less specialised healing magics can't.

Beyond that we have to ask ourselves: What does it mean when a character has lost "hit points"?
Obviously it means that the character is closer to unconsciousness and death but what would a fly on the dungeon wall actually observe? What would the DM describe to the players?

He could just say: "The orc hits you with his axe, take 12 damage."
He could be bizarrely literal: "The orc's battleaxe cuts into your Life Meter and 12 hit points leak out before you can stop them."
Or he could try to be a little descriptive, add a little flavour: "The orc makes an overhanded swing over the top of your shield. You're to slow to stop it and the blade crashes into the top of your helmet. You stagger back with your head rings and blood streaming down your face from the gash in your scalp. Take 12 damage."

I'm of the opinion that the last one should not be harder to heal than the first two. The exact same attack should not become more damaging just because it was described in more detail (unless you're houseruling Exalted's stuning mechanic into DnD...).

I suppose I should ask how you're PCs are getting broken bones, shattered skulls and etc?
Is it a houseruled critical hits table? An explicit called shot mechanic? Or are you just saying "That blow breaks your leg"?

[Blue1005]

Sometimes i use critical tables, i know people think i am a POS cause i do, but most people i play with enjoy them.

[Vaern]

What kind of penalties do they suffer from broken bones and whatnot, based on your tables? If it does something more than simple HP damage, then I would say that it should take at least take a restoration-type spell to repair.
At the very least, it will diversify the types of healing necessary to recover from a serious fight and make them take injuries a bit more seriously, while at the same time not making it impossible for them to recover from certain things.

[Azoth]

I tend to be the fairly descriptive DM and have tables for my home games for various injuries, and a called shot house rule. For more grievous injuries (broken bones, hamstring shots, frostbite, sever burns and similar) I have them mark the damage separately. It requires a separate casting of a healing spell to repair this damage from normal wounds. If the healing spell doesn't cure the entire damage then the wound only partially heals, and must heal the rest of the way regularly as magic has aided it as far as it can.

For severed limbs, punctured eyeballs, and things like disemboweling they need regeneration or similar.

The only workarounds I have given them is they have a spell or effect that gives fast healing/regeneration it can continue beyond what a normal healing spell has. Fast Healing only works on normal and grievous injuries. Regeneration works on all.

Gotta say it makes for some gritty and frightening games. When in one sneak attack from an enemy rogue the BSF has his hamstring cut and the cleric isn't sure he can repair the damage mid fight, or an archer puts an arrow through the wizard's hand as he reaches for a spell component and he can't use it for somatic components to his spells for atleast a round.

[Rubik]

I tend to be the fairly descriptive DM and have tables for my home games for various injuries, and a called shot house rule. For more grievous injuries (broken bones, hamstring shots, frostbite, sever burns and similar) I have them mark the damage separately. It requires a separate casting of a healing spell to repair this damage from normal wounds. If the healing spell doesn't cure the entire damage then the wound only partially heals, and must heal the rest of the way regularly as magic has aided it as far as it can.

For severed limbs, punctured eyeballs, and things like disemboweling they need regeneration or similar.

The only workarounds I have given them is they have a spell or effect that gives fast healing/regeneration it can continue beyond what a normal healing spell has. Fast Healing only works on normal and grievous injuries. Regeneration works on all.

Gotta say it makes for some gritty and frightening games. When in one sneak attack from an enemy rogue the BSF has his hamstring cut and the cleric isn't sure he can repair the damage mid fight, or an archer puts an arrow through the wizard's hand as he reaches for a spell component and he can't use it for somatic components to his spells for atleast a round.I'm totally playing an evolved undead necropolitan psion in your game, then.

Otherwise, a warforged shaper with an item of Lesser Vigor or three.

[KillianHawkeye]

There aren't any rules for breaking bones or severing limbs. There is, however, a rule for regrowing them: the regeneration spell.

Make of that what you will.

Curing hp damage should solve any problem simple hp damage is capable of causing. IMO it should take something more to create a significant disability.

[Blue1005]

I agree, but then you run into people that think it is a final fantasy like cure and whine is it is not.

[Vicerious]

I agree, but then you run into people that think it is a final fantasy like cure and whine is it is not.

D&D cure wounds spells heal HP damage.
FF cure spells heal HP damage.

I'm not following you.

[hoverfrog]

I think it is easiest to rule that no injury is actually sustained until the character reaches 0 hit points, at which point they can sustain real, life threatening injuries like broken limbs. That fits both the rules as read and the simplicity of the hit point system and has a degree of logic about it.

In the past I've used an injury table like this:

{table]Roll (1d8)||Light|Medium|Heavy|Penalty
1|Head||||-2 to INT & WIS\level
2-3|Torso||||-2 to CON\level
4|Abdomen||||-2 to CON\level
5|Left arm||||-2 to DEX\-2 to AC\level
6|Right arm||||-2 to DEX-2 to hit\level
7|Left leg||||-2 to DEX\-5 ft Movement rate\level
8|Right leg||||-2 to DEX\-5 ft Movement rate\level
[/table]

A wound is taken by rolling a d8 and assigning a wound to the area. If they get injured there again the wound increases in severity. If the wound they take does a lot of damage it is more severe by one level per 5 hit points. After heavy wound is death\loss of body part.

i.e. Boric the first level cleric is hit by a goblin for 6 damage. This takes him down to -3 or a light wound. A roll shows that this is a wound to the right leg. Next round he is hit again for 6 damage, again to the right leg. He now has a heavy wound there and can only limp away if he survives.

A Cure Light Wounds reduces one wound by one level. Higher level healing can restore more levels or more wounds. i.e. It would take three CLW spells to remove the heavy wound from Boric in the example above. More mundane healing rules can be used with a heavy wound taking a month to reduce to a medium wound and a medium taking a week to reduce to a light. Light wounds recover after one day of rest. This can obviously be adjusted for realism. While someone has any wounds they are on 0 hit points.

Of course I don't use this much any more as it is a pain to track wounds and takes ages to kill people. However when facing undead it is certainly fun to use these as they keep coming until they've taken a mortal head wound.

[Jerthanis]

I have heard that some people think healing is a fix all (broken bones, shattered skulls) all that stuff can be solved with a simple CLW, unfortunately my PC's think this. Is that how you play? Should injuries be more permanent? IF you lose an arm can you CLW it to the stub and have it reattach? Just wanting a Playground consensus on this.

What is the aim of making it so cure spells don't do what they say they do?

First and foremost... Regenerate is a 7th level spell. If you're allowing a guy with a scimitar to have a 5% chance of cutting off a limb, you have successfully made any jerk with a curved piece of sharp metal into something scarier than Medusa. Break Enchantment is 5th level and Stone to Flesh is 6th. It is easier to recover from half your party being turned to stone than it is to recover from a bandit with some luck.

Basically, the relative annoyance of the negative effects that are inflicted lies in the difficulty of recovering from them. So basically if you hit level 3 people in the face with a mace and say, "You take 15 damage from a shattered Zygomatic bone" and they say, "Ouch, I cure it with a spell that heals 12 damage" and you respond "Cure spells don't knit bones, you can't heal it", they're going to wonder what the Cure spell DOES do.

In addition, you're going to get the question, "How do I go about healing it?" and you give a realistic description of the surgeries and convalescence involved, with the alternative being casting a spell cordoned off until they reach 13th level, then they're going to grumble because they have to take off six months of adventuring when they wouldn't be so inconvenienced if their very soul were half blown off by the cold grasp of a Wight as some jerk with a mace.

Having Gritty injuries isn't a bad thing, but the fact that D&D doesn't directly address it very often means that if you add it in, it becomes sort of the ultimate status effect. If you make a lesser regeneration spell at 3rd level or expand on the description of the Heal skill to make these elements of the game something that can be interacted with and planned for, then the inconvenience could match the risk of encountering that type of injury.

[TuggyNE]

I have heard that some people think healing is a fix all (broken bones, shattered skulls) all that stuff can be solved with a simple CLW, unfortunately my PC's think this. Is that how you play? Should injuries be more permanent? IF you lose an arm can you CLW it to the stub and have it reattach? Just wanting a Playground consensus on this.

Basically, as has already been said: Yes, cure spells can solve any problem caused by ordinary HP damage. And as has also already been said, there are no rules by default for more lasting injuries, for various fairly good reasons. So it's easiest, and probably most functional, to just let the Cure line do what it's designed to do and not worry about it.

The alternative involves creating a new subsystem of special injuries, special remedies at lower levels, and so on and so forth, which requires considerable thought to avoid really unpleasant and subtle side effects. Don't do it unless you're sure you can pull it off.