"Physician why am I feeling so ill of late? My belly is bloated and aches...

>"Physician why am I feeling so ill of late? My belly is bloated and aches, I burp and have the runs more often even when not eating, and I feel more tired. The Healer hasn't been able to do anything."
>"Hmmm. Do you have a Dwarf as a party companion?"
>"Uh, yes. Wh-"
>"Do you join him in visiting the Dwarf Holds and Taverns often?"
>"Yes, how did-"
>"Do you always accept drinking challenges from them?"
>"Yes! Tell m-"
>"You have liver failure. You're not a dwarf. You're not suppose to drink life a dwarf. Healing magic only works on acute injuries."
>"I-Is this going to kill me?"
>"Not right away if you take care of yourself and stop drinking, you'll live for some more years. More than enough to fulfill whatever quest your party has."

Is this a fair thing for a GM to do for a character who explicitly is an alcoholic and constantly drinks at every opportunity. It won't affect their stats in game or combat ability.

I'd rather not bring my real life into the game world.

>"Healing magic only works on acute injuries."
"I have the Cleric standing by with a Regenerate spell as I cut my belly open and rip my failing liver out so he can Regenerate me a new one."

>Healing magic only works on acute injuries.

What kind of quack is this?

>Healing magic only works on acute injuries
This is pretty stupid.

>tfw It just regenerates back the same dysfunctional liver
>the doctor didn't even bother to correct you, just wanted to see if you'd learn your lesson.

>Great; in that case time to turn to Fleshwarping/Grafts
Dwarven liver hijacked from a tavern brawl get.

Yes.

Cure Disease, however, will fix cirrhosis of the liver.

Why do doctors even exist when we have holy men?

Yes. Cheap and easy healing magic was a mistake. At least tie it to a roll about anatomy and medicine, ffs.

"Moradin's beard lad!

I just awoke up in a tub full o' ice and a terrible gash on me belly. Must have really 'ad one too many barrels. Ah well nothing some rest and a lotta ale won't fix up."

Someone needs to tell you that eating eggs is bad for you.
And then we need someone else to tell you that eating eggs is good for you.

... what about bread?

Doctor One says it's an energy granting superfood. Doctor Two says it causes indigestion and malaise. Doctor Three says bread is basically beer except solid and non-alcoholic. Doctor Four is saying something about how gluten makes your dick fall off. Evidence inconclusive.

If its a realistic campaign and you've foreshadowed it it sounds really interesting

>someone else to tell you that eating eggs is good for you

This is the problem with healing magic. It either fixes everything or fixes only a little and thanks to DnD conventions poisoning the genre apparently only holymen can use healing magic

>"Healing magic only works on acute injuries."
Can't some spells fix up disease and poison?

I mean, if that's how healing magic works in your setting, fair enough. But if your player didn't know then maybe you didn't communicate it well enough.

A character arc about the PC getting over his alcoholism could be interesting, if your player is on board.

>only holymen can use healing magic

That's not even true in D&D.

You are technically correct. Bards can cast Cure wounds and I suppose every other extra classes beyond the classic starter ones could as well

Holy men that actually have magical power aren't even one tenth as common as good doctors.

Post pictures of cute girls on Veeky Forums, they'll tell you about bread eventually.

...

That's a pretty high level cleric, user. If you're adventuring with such a fellow, you're probably already immune to poisons and wouldn't receive liver failure. Or be able to get drunk at all.

Bards, druids, celestial-pact warlocks, mid level rangers, to say nothing of non-religious paladins and clerics (they exist) and Favored Souls.

Only if you use it as a plot-hook for a journey to the beer god campaign. Upon meeting him he challenges you to the world's greatest drinking contest. If you suceed he will grant you an immortal liver. But it will be a difficult feat, and the party must go take the PC to train with various drinking masters from across time and space in order to stand a chance.

Watch out for the God of Hangovers though as he will try and prevent you from ever taking on this challenge. For he will receive the worst hangover of all time, should you go through with this task. If the party wish to help him though they can go on sidequests to concoct the worlds greatest hangover cure to save him.

Why are you against Clerical or Healing magic having some limits?
If everything is possible, then why would anything be interesting?

Don't forget celestial-blooded sorcerers.

It's more of a question of why healing magic would be limited in that fashion. It's largely nonsensical, and goes against most concepts of magical healing in lore and mythology and even results in distorting the game mechanics to favor using poisons and disease.

Having limits is great when used intelligently and appropriately. Having limits just for the sake of giving a guy liver failure is terrible.

Hell, even if you decided it would be much harder to cure something like liver failure, to the point of requiring some arduous quest to get legendary ingredients or something like that, that still makes a lot more sense than a flat limit.

kek

>It's more of a question of why healing magic would be limited in that fashion. It's largely nonsensical, and goes against most concepts of magical healing in lore and mythology and even results in distorting the game mechanics to favor using poisons and disease.
Alright, I heal myself of being old.

>Having limits is great when used intelligently and appropriately.
Thats a nice view, to bad that you already threw that away when you decided that instead of particular healing spells being only able to heal particular things you threw that right out of the window.

>Hell, even if you decided it would be much harder to cure something like liver failure, to the point of requiring some arduous quest to get legendary ingredients or something like that, that still makes a lot more sense than a flat limit.
Yeah, as said, I heal myself of being old.

You're being dense.
That's why no one like you.
Stop.

Not an argument.

Poisons cause acute injury, as for magical long term diseases those could arguably be considered acute as well or at least more acute than actual long term ailments. There's a difference between being infected with smallpox and having cancer.

>Hell, even if you decided it would be much harder to cure something like liver failure, to the point of requiring some arduous quest to get legendary ingredients or something like that
Pretty sure thats how any sensible person would handle it.

Not that human, but you are being kind of dense. Getting old isn't an injury or illness. It's often accompanied by a variety of complications, but by itself it makes no sense that you could heal yourself of being old, since it isn't an ailment by any definition.

>Not that human, but you are being kind of dense.
Not really, I am showing user that his argumentation literally boils down to I LIKE IT THIS WAY SO IT SHOULD BE LIKE THAT.

>It's often accompanied by a variety of complications
Just like an illness or an injury.

>but by itself it makes no sense that you could heal yourself of being old
Why does it then make sense that you can heal all illnesses?
Wouldn't it make more sense of some illnesses to not be able to be healed?

>since it isn't an ailment by any definition.
The ailments and ills that come with being old are tho.

Furthermore according to you:
>You can heal an illness that causes the gradual deterioration of function for a lifeform
>You somehow cannot heal old age which does the same.

And this is somehow logical and makes sense to you.

Literally just cast "remove illness"
Liver failure counts as an illness

Not an argument

Nobody dies of old age, we die of the frailty caused by age deteriorating our bodies as our bones grind and organs burn.
If you want to "cure" aging you either regenerate the body parts, or you change them.

No, see, now you're not thinking big enough. You're already going down a really sketchy road, so you might as well go all the way here. What you want is a Troll liver! If it goes bad, then it'll just regenerate!

Calm down user, shit. Magic is an inherently illogical tool to create narratives, stop acting like the kid who said he had an invisible bulletproof shield.

>What you want is a Troll liver! If it goes bad, then it'll just regenerate!

I'm pretty sure if you put a Troll liver inside of you it'd regenerate to the point where each individual cell in your body was replaced with a Troll and you wake up one day and you're entirely a Troll and you never noticed because it did it slowly, gradually, over the course of months and from the inside out.

You probably wouldn't even go to the doctor because you'd most likely feel in perfect health albeit terribly hungry.

Nah man, that's why you wrap the thing in Doppelganger skin before you put it in. The Troll liver will try to turn it into Troll skin, but then it'll just change back.

Most priests can't cast spells, and casting a first level spell can get you paid, like, 50 gold. Churches need money most of the time.

Cute disease should still do it. Medicine rolls are for setting bones, cleaning wounds, and stitching large cuts. Not for healing a liver.

This was only a thing in 2e and back, and that's because priest is kind of an amalgam. They wanted healers, but they also wanted undead slaying, and the player who got the first one wanted to play a holy man, so the initial concept of "like van hellsig" kinda got lost at some point. 2e in particular is very strict about this, trying to keep wizards from just remaking cleric spells and vice versa.

I usually go with "they don't", at least for doctors of medicine.

Thats a hell of a strawman, but good news! Spells that reverse aging are often a thing, and you can probably work with your DM of they aren't already.

Also, there is a limitation in what kinds of magic can do what. Cure light wounds won't heal liver failure. Cure disease will.

And anyone who can summon a unicorn.

>stop acting like the kid who said he had an invisible bulletproof shield.
Why are you even getting involved when you clearly didn't follow the discussion?

Why curse disease and not cure poison?
Since this is clearly what alcohol is...

If your campaign is already serious in that way, why not? If it's been fun and lighthearted so far, then no.

Both Age and Liver Failure are contributed by a degradation in cellular structure.

If you can heal one, you should be able to heal the other, otherwise the distinction would be entirely arbitrary.

Sorry not sorry, my fireballs are only kind of warm. You should have hired guards if you didn't want your camp overrun with goblins.

One campaign where i'm one of the players has healing magic with the idea that it will stop the bleeding, but not fix the scar.

This became apperant after the "friendly" sparing match of the party barbarians who had completly smashed eachothers faces in and cure wounds would only stop the bleeding but their broken noses had to be fixed manually by the forge cleric with his smiths tools

I thought you were dead Terry! Welcome back!

Well, has Cure Wounds ever cured insanity or brought a missing limb back?

Limits are for squares.

I mostly play 2e, and that doesn't have cure poison I don't think, just delay poison. That said, cure poison cures the progression, but not the current symptoms. It'd keep neurotoxin from paralyzing you, but wouldn't cure the spasms

No. But restoration has brought back a limb, and there are spells for mental afflictions(though they rarely outright cure madness). You just need the right spell for the job. Can i interest you in a read of the spell research rules?

It's not fair if you're playing DnD. Because magic can fix everything.

Here's my limits on healing magic
>requires a medicine roll to diagnose and figure out plan of healing (might be multiple rolls for complex healing)
>fast healing (the cure spells, potions) have a chance too cause cancer and tumors
>slow healing takes weeks to months, but has less chance of cancer
>cure disease requires patient to be kept constantly cold or the heat of their magically boosted immune system will cook them alive
>slower cure disease doesn't require them to be as cold
>regeneration is a slow spell, because otherwise auto cancer to every vital organ
>slow spells don't take up spell slots, but require more regeants and must be checked daily

>cute disease
Consumption?

If you have medievel type of setting are they going to know what cancer is? It makes sense to imagine you need a good grasp of anatomy to ensure bones, muscles, and sinews are set correctly otherwise they will fuse and grow in strange ways detrimental to the body.

sure, you can use magic to force the broken bones back together but do it wrong and you may as well crippled that person for life

That said, if using such healing abilities is a drag on itself is it better to let the body heal naturally in some cases? A splint may be better for the person then a spell.

I suppose another negative condition would be an addictive aspect to healing. People become addicted to the healing magic and will hurt themselves for the chance to experience it again

>Healers can regenerate entire limbs but not cure liver failure
>Healers can resurrect the dead but not cure liver failure

Nope. To cure insanity you'd need Heart's Ease, and to restore a missing limb you'd need Regenerate.

Remember when Mears lost his shit over Warlords being able to heal people in 4e and refused to put it in 5e?

Player sounds like hes having fun, GM may as well ruin it.

People got angry because the warlords healed people by shouting at them. If they were invoking any kind of verbal magic it would be okay, but they don't, it's just yelling.
Fluff wise it was meant to be restoring their fighting spirit while doing nothing about their wounds, but the meatpoint zeitgeist doesn't wanna leave.

So should healing spells be able to fix a broken bone, just like that?

I kind of like my players getting fucked up to a point that necessitates traveling to a down. Or at least getting a few days of rest.

That's because it's quick, non-magical healing of other people, and that's a little weird.

Maybe not so weird in 4e, but it stresses the suspension of disbelief a little, though in 5e they are trying things like more non-magical healing, though largely as self-healing, which is somewhat a little easier to swallow.

>Healing
>Magic

Shit system detected.

If you don't have explicit rules for surgery and serious injuries you should probably kys.

Song of Swords stop crying and go home.

Talk to the party member beforehand. It could be an interesting plothook. Also, if you're consistent in the acute injuries thing, it's fine. If it's just a new decision that ignores previous things in the campaign, you could turn it into being beyond most healers learning.