Yeah, but I'd say 4E did kind of exacerbate one problem that already existed even if it did "fix" healing spells. If by "exacerbate" you mean "bring to one's attention a less-obvious problem with HP/Healing conceptualization, one that everyone made from the very beginning, even you and me."
If healing surges are equated with cure spells, and cure spells are already equated with "wound-closing-you're fine-no-scar" (complete with some BS about why CLW works miracles on anyone but an experienced adventurer) then the only rationalization that doesn't involve retroactive concept shifts (clerical healing is just as abstract as hitpoints, no magic wound fixing for you!) is that healing surges work *exactly* like the previously understood concept of divine healing even outside the mechanics; no surprise that that is a sticking point.
I'd also say that the retroactive concept shift--which comes to the same basic conclusion as the immersion-breaking one in that it conceptualizes clerical healing as identical in scope to healing surges, but flips it around so that healing was always only a metaphor--is the only way to satisfactorily resolve this now-more-obvious problem.
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ninetydegrees
no subject
on 2009-07-21 08:49 pm (UTC)If healing surges are equated with cure spells, and cure spells are already equated with "wound-closing-you're fine-no-scar" (complete with some BS about why CLW works miracles on anyone but an experienced adventurer) then the only rationalization that doesn't involve retroactive concept shifts (clerical healing is just as abstract as hitpoints, no magic wound fixing for you!) is that healing surges work *exactly* like the previously understood concept of divine healing even outside the mechanics; no surprise that that is a sticking point.
I'd also say that the retroactive concept shift--which comes to the same basic conclusion as the immersion-breaking one in that it conceptualizes clerical healing as identical in scope to healing surges, but flips it around so that healing was always only a metaphor--is the only way to satisfactorily resolve this now-more-obvious problem.