A matter of semantics

[RogueDM]

Here is something that has always bothered me. For the record I'm not saying that D&D/Pathfinder are using these words outright incorrectly, but that it would be more intuitive to do it differently. People speak in a certain kind of vernacular and I have seen no evidence that Common has switched anything up in this regard.

My issue is with "Cure" and "Heal" as per the spells. "Cure" exclusively restores lost hit points; "Heal" removes afflictions and also restores hit points. Normally when a person is talking about the ubiquitous "healing potion" it is a potion of a Cure spell. I submit that as evidence that, generally speaking, people acknowledge that function as healing. Conversely, people are more likely to say that they were cured of blindness, or disease, or sickness. You don't try to heal cancer, you cure it.

Additionally, I've never heard somebody say; ever, not in any old book or anything; that they were cured of a sword wound. The act of closing or mending a wound is almost always described as healing. Furthermore, no argument can be made for the "Cure" spells to retain their name that wouldn't strengthen the case for Heal to be called "cure" also, since it heals injuries as well as curing afflictions.

So, I lay it before the playground: Heal and Cure should be swapped in the D&Dictionary. I know they wont be, but its still weird and deserving of at least a small amount of ridicule.

[Averis Vol]

Here is something that has always bothered me. For the record I'm not saying that D&D/Pathfinder are using these words outright incorrectly, but that it would be more intuitive to do it differently. People speak in a certain kind of vernacular and I have seen no evidence that Common has switched anything up in this regard.

My issue is with "Cure" and "Heal" as per the spells. "Cure" exclusively restores lost hit points; "Heal" removes afflictions and also restores hit points. Normally when a person is talking about the ubiquitous "healing potion" it is a potion of a Cure spell. I submit that as evidence that, generally speaking, people acknowledge that function as healing. Conversely, people are more likely to say that they were cured of blindness, or disease, or sickness. You don't try to heal cancer, you cure it.

Additionally, I've never heard somebody say; ever, not in any old book or anything; that they were cured of a sword wound. The act of closing or mending a wound is almost always described as healing. Furthermore, no argument can be made for the "Cure" spells to retain their name that wouldn't strengthen the case for Heal to be called "cure" also, since it heals injuries as well as curing afflictions.

So, I lay it before the playground: Heal and Cure should be swapped in the D&Dictionary. I know they wont be, but its still weird and deserving of at least a small amount of ridicule.

Not that it isn't a little weird, but I present this as a devils advocate argument.

Cure (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/cure)
Heall (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/heal)

Cure only speaks about restoring health, heal speaks of making well again.

EDIT: now, cure also states removal of disease, but I think they were using cure for the pure HP because heal is better specified (or generalised I should say.)

[RogueDM]

Case in point, the first definitions on both of those links support my argument. Heal uses "heal a wound" as an example, and cure uses "recovery from a disease" as part of the definition. Of course they both have numerous definitions beneath these, but I believe my point stands. I mean, I didn't even notice this all at first, but now that I have it kinda bugs me.

[Pan151]

Thing is, there is no generic "Cure" spell. There are "Cure X Wounds" spells, where X specifies severity of wound. As such, that they can only cure wounds (ie HP) is a given.

"Heal", on the other hand, specifies nothing else other than it heals - thus, it heals most things.

[Devils_Advocate]

The "cure" spells do get called "cure spells" though, both by players and within the actual Cleric class description, because that's an obvious way to refer to the spells that have "cure" in their names. But they also get called "healing spells", because, get this, they're spells that heal. If these spells had just been called "Heal X wounds" and "Cure" instead of "Cure X Wounds" and "Heal", then the standard generic healing spells, i.e. the "cure" spells, wouldn't be habitually referred to in two different ways like that.

Anyway, D&D is lousy with this sort of stuff. Look at what it's done with "demigod" and "humanoid". Let's not even get started on "lawful" and chaotic".

There are a host of non-semantic problems as well, to the point that this seems like kind of a silly thing to complain about. As a complaint, it only really seems to make sense in the context of wanting things (e.g. naming) done sensibly, in which case, why are you playing any edition of Dungeons & Dragons? :P Making D&D sensible would take roughly a million "fixes", and since many of its issues are due to its exceptions to exceptions to exceptions to etc., that would probably just introduce a new pile of problems.

That said... yeah, I recall that this is something that immediately struck me as odd and counterintuitive. But rather than complaining -- which seems just silly for reasons discussed above, especially when combined with an acknowledgment that it's not going to change anything -- I simply ask the question "Why weren't these spells named the obvious way, in accordance with common usage?"

Because it's surprising that they were named the way they are, rather than the other way around. It seems like there must be some sort of story behind that.

Also, since we're on the subject of criticizing names, I feel compelled to mention that this is one of those cases where the title of a thread could stand to be significantly more indicative of the thread's contents. (It's still a lot better than "I have a question" or "Help me with a problem", though.)

[Kazudo]

No no no. Cure obviously refers to "removal of bacteria therein" similar to curing meat. You're not just magically whisking damage away, you're throwing salt in their wounds as a drying agent.

[Averis Vol]

Case in point, the first definitions on both of those links support my argument. Heal uses "heal a wound" as an example, and cure uses "recovery from a disease" as part of the definition. Of course they both have numerous definitions beneath these, but I believe my point stands. I mean, I didn't even notice this all at first, but now that I have it kinda bugs me.

Curing of a disease is the secondary after healing a wound, and it only specifies disease when heal fixes so many more ailments. Whereas heal says to make well again in addition to heal a wound. That sounds much closer to the actual heal spell, while cure is much closer to the effects of the cure X line.

[RogueDM]

I simply ask the question "Why weren't these spells named the obvious way, in accordance with common usage?"

Because it's surprising that they were named the way they are, rather than the other way around. It seems like there must be some sort of story behind that.

Exactly. I have no expectation of this being fixed, it just struck me as strange enough that I needed to make a SAN check (aka: "you see this too, right?")



Also, since we're on the subject of criticizing names, I feel compelled to mention that this is one of those cases where the title of a thread could stand to be significantly more indicative of the thread's contents. (It's still a lot better than "I have a question" or "Help me with a problem", though.)

Fair point.

[Snowbluff]

No no no. Cure obviously refers to "removal of bacteria therein" similar to curing meat. You're not just magically whisking damage away, you're throwing salt in their wounds as a drying agent.

Everyone knows the most dangerous part about being stabbed in the neck is the bacteria!

[Socratov]

Well, I have always been partial to the use of heal when I indicate a body restoring itself (wether or not helped along by an outside force) and and the use of cure when an outside force (physician, medicine) is (almost) fully responsible for the restoring of the body to a healthy state.

For instance: "I have healed from my severe wounds, but the cleric cured my ailments.", or: "The cleric cured me from my wounds, once cured my body healed from the fever I contracted."

In this way the spells' names seem in accordance with the definition: 'Cure X wounds' refers to a direct occurrence where a caster cures the victim of his wounds. Heal allows you to channel positive energy into a body to bolster it's healing power from within to get rid of its afflictions by itself. The caster just puts a metric crapton of fuel into it to speed it up dramatically.

It is also why I think the Cure X Wounds line should be transmutation [healing] as opposed to conjuration [healing]. The Cure line of spells transmute the body (locally) to a non (or severely less) wounded state. While heal actually summons positive energy form the plane of positive energy to shove it into the body, thus being a valid conjuration effect as opposed to Cure X Wounds' transmutation effect.

that, ladies and gentlemen, is the real disturbing thing.

[Devils_Advocate]

Socratov, both "cure" spells and the "heal" spell are described as channeling positive energy, which is why they're both Conjuration (Healing), both have the opposite of their normal effect on undead, etc.

Of the two, "cure" spells mimic both natural healing and being on the Positive Energy Plane, while the "heal" spell can undo some conditions that would be unaffected by both. (The Positive Energy Plane only restores hit points, and does nothing to alleviate other afflictions. In fact, it causes blindness!)

So the opposite of what you just said is the thing that makes sense!

[Synar]

Well, at least in french it makes more sense, with Cure X Wound being called Soin X and Heal being called Guérison Suprême. But I've got the same feeling that the connotations are wrong with the warrior and the fighter (the translation of their french names being 'man-at-arm' and 'warrior'). Am I the only one with such an impression?