Ever since the last post where Emil have specifically said people of the D&D world" had it easy because of the "healing" magic there - I've this terrible itch that probably can easily be cured by bashing Emil's head in.
Because the whole perception, and the hypothetical little game-play description - can only be out of a CRPG "realization" of D&D, a computer game that only uses the basic rules and some setting convention and voila - it's called a "D&D" game!
Let's consider some of the things that happened back there, from my perspective.
So, the player character is a cleric. And let’s consider his level – a Heal spell requires at least level 11 to cast. The cleric and his friend, assuming another level 11 character, were attacked by a group of dwarves. Cleric buffs the Fighter with level 1 and 2 spells, a realistic suggestion, and sets about cursing the opponents. The fighter, at level 11 quite the powerhouse of martial abilities, immediately sets about mowing through the dwarves, who begin to realize the predicament, and begins to flee. The fighter’s hands are just a blur, swinging the bastard sword effortlessly in so many parries, slashes and thursts in every 6 seconds – it’s hardly believable.
But in the fierce melee, the fighter is somehow struck by a thrown axe, and is incapacitated from the combat scene. The cleric has to step in, realizing the mortal danger his friend is in – and grimly sets his mind to perform divine marvels that are nothing short of miracles. He had already performed one, called in a flame strike.
Lo and behold, from the sky above a torrent of pure flame poured down, engulfing a wretched dwarf in agony, burning him to ash.
But now is the time for something equally impressive. Cleric murmurs the prayer to Lathander, entreating that this is the time to borrow his godly might, draw in to himself some divine essence that shall make him into a giant among men. The cleric’s judgment call of performing a miracle against a single dwarf was deemed a sound one by the deity, and he literally became a giant, glowing with Lathander’s light, smiting the dwarf promptly.
Having done that, cleric returns to his friend’s side. He assesses the wound quickly, and pulls out the axe that is still sticking out of the fighter’s side – and quickly casts a cure light wound spell to staunch the blood flow. Why he did that he wonders, since he proceeds to cast yet another one of his god’s miracle now, a Heal spell. At his cleric’s plea, Lathander himself intervened, lifts the fighter out of the death’s steady pull, and restoring every ailment, every cut, every bruise to health. The fighter was saved from the fatal wound dealt by a single hit.
With the vastly lower level enemies vanquished (the dwarves didn’t pose the threat a Mammoth or a War-elephant could represent, really. More on this a bit later.), the heroes are happy with several points of experience they’ve gained, and resumes their adventure.
Now, back to “behind-the-scenes” of what happened.
The cleric was level 11. At that high a level clerics either reach a respectable position in the church hierarchy and oversees the operations in a region, or - for the adventure story’s sake, is on a mission that is critical to his/her patron god/goddess who grants her prayers to perform miracles (thus, the divine spells) to overcome the obstacles she may come across.
Level 11 is not a “mid-level” character in a D&D world. Since it’s not about a particular computer game, or an adventure Emil’s planning; but a D&D world like Faerun or GrayHawk, you have to note this. Let’s consider two Level 11 monsters in the 4e. 1) A single War-elephant, 2) A single Mammoth. Even someone who doesn’t play D&D would know the scale of threat now.
Unlike your favorite hack & slash CRPG or a MMO where you “aggro” the living daylight out of “spawning” monsters, every character is not bound to reach Level 20. Level 20, heck, even level 17 or 18 is the sublime icing of the most powerful individuals of the realm, with the power and resources to topple nations, over time. What about the epics then, you say? They’re so out of your normal D&D world, that they have separate books and adventure sets that points out that these transcendent beings move over to other planes of existences for their great machinations. In our world they’d be stopping a galactic invasion or preventing Sun from freezing over, without us mortals even knowing about it.
The fighter gets struck down by an axe, thrown by a dwarf. When you’re criticizing D&D’s video-gamey healing, you should at least consider that the fighter can’t be struck down till he runs out of HP. But no problem, it’s the world we’re considering, and accidents do happen. So, I’m pointing out, a realistic accident just happened in the D&D world, out of the normal game rules. I’ll be using that just in a bit.
The cleric casually flicks a flame strike on a single low level dwarf. Flame strikes are easy to come by, a level 5 spell – can be cast by a level 9 cleric. You rest almost every day for 8 hours, so what’s the point of not casting it, eh? Lathander’s a good god, a close buddy of our cleric, granting every single prayer every day, since he can easily see that all of them are put to most efficient and appropriate use. It’s like when you’re a really high-class mercenary or a spy in this world. Getting a frag-grenade is so easy to you. Yes, you have the resources and contacts to acquire them – everyday if you wanted. That’s why whenever a mugger comes up in front of you, you throw a frag-grenade in his face. The cleric has to be aware that every divine miracle he/she performs, the deity is always looking over his/her shoulder. As realistic as it is in the real world, when you’re considering the D&D world in general, the cleric must debate if throwing a flame strike on the mugger is really not overkill.
But I’m deviating from what I’m on about – the healing. So, the cleric casts a Heal spell upon his fallen comrade, pulling him back from the brink of death by the intervention of Lathander himself. Lathander considered the cause and reason to be worthy and allowed the casting – the way divine spells, especially higher level ones such as this, work in the so called D&D world. The spell sorted out every problem in the fighter’s body and restored him. But in the D&D world, Lathander, out of the sake of realism, would deny the use of heal, since the fighter dude is alive and breathing, only needs some administration – at best some low level cure spells to put his HP back up out of the pit the Vorpal Thrown Axe of Uber Deadliness sank it to.
Which happens quite often, in a D&D world. Perhaps not in your game, but again – you’re criticizing the world. Many NPC adventurers you meet are without eyes, have horrible scars across their faces, missing limbs – and many more are dead, no raising and second-coming there. Why did these happen? Two reasons. Here’s one: every bald man you meet on Earth don’t have the money to do a hair transplant or aren’t in time to do it, and those people in the D&D world were in the same fix. And reason number two: Divine magic spells are acts of miracle, and higher level spells require the god’s direct attention, and no matter how he/she loves ya’ – casting Cure Critical Wounds to restore the eye of your friend that you accidentally poked out – is a bit tough.
In the actual D&D world average middle class families can’t afford to buy healing potions. Healing potions are not available wholesale, or found in every crate you bust open while you’re running amok. The same goes for services of clerics. Otherwise the dwarf party that attacked you would have had a cleric of their own, and each planned battle would be one of attrition, waiting for the other cleric’s spell to run out first.
You can lament that when you do have all the resources in the world, you can at least want the treatment to leave no scar, and no complications. And yes, D&D divine miracle seems to achieve that some times. But then you, my king, must be aware that the castle you live in might be demolished by a swarm of meteors brought down from heavens by wizards of the enemy nation – and Bruce Willis and NASA can’t blow these meteors out of the sky. Or that a shadow dancer can step out of that shadow in the corner and critical hit you to some place where the scarring won’t matter.
Go ahead if you’re going to poke fun at Diablo, Dungeon Siege or CRPG out there. I’m not even talking about Max Payne’s painkillers or Bioshock’s eves. Heck, even go ahead and have fun poking at 4th Ed D&D’s “Healing Surges”. I’ll join in. But there are reasons enough the old grand daddies of the fantasy game world spawned so many books, stories and endured generations of event progressions. It’s their realism and balance.
- Jitu
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